"Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics."
Attributed to General of the Armies Omar N. Bradley
Some have asserted that the Federal government, given the industrial power of the north, should have concentrated on the production of breech loading arms, and met the initial need for arms through imports of muzzleloading weapons from Europe. This view is incredibly naïve. It would have required that early in 1861 Federal officials have the prescience to understand that the war was going to be something other than a brief spat. It would have required that ordnance officials understand and admit the clear superiority of breech loading weapons over muzzleloading arms. It would have required that there be agreement on which breech loading arm(s) to manufacture. In order to produce the necessary volume of arms, it would have required that the patent holders of breech loading arms agree to permit other manufacturers to manufacture their arms. It would have required that the Federal government have the will to pay the cost, since breech loading arms were appreciably more expensive than muzzleloading arms. And, it would have required that the north actually have the capacity to rapidly expand its arms and ammunition manufacturing capabilities. That Federal contractors were only able to deliver over the entire course of the war 42 percent of the much simpler Springfield rifle muskets for which they had contracted illustrates the fallacy of the concept, as do other examples:
* The first Smith and Wesson Model Two Army revolvers reached the market in June 1861, which was almost perfect timing for Smith and Wesson. The Model Two was a relatively small six shot revolver which fired a .32 caliber, self-contained, rimfire cartridge. Although it did not approach the power of .36 caliber "Navy" or .44 caliber "Army" revolvers, the Model Two had the distinct advantage of self-contained cartridges. The revolver was such a success that in 1862 Smith and Wesson was forced to close its order books because it had more orders for the pistol than it had the capacity to manufacture in the next three years. (Curtis, "The Smith and Wesson Model Number Two Army," 18)
* Between 1850 and 1860 the U.S. Army had tested a variety of breech loading/repeating weapon designs: Samuel Colt's Model 1855 revolving rifle and carbine, James Durell Greene's breech loading carbine, Benjamin Joslyn's Model 1855 breech loading rifle, Edward Maynard's breech loading carbine, James H. Merrill's breech loading carbine, two breech loading designs from Alonzo Perry, Samuel Porter's breech loading rifle, Herman Schroeder's needle carbine, Gilbert Smith's breech loading carbine, William Mont Storm's breech loading carbine, George W. Morse's breech loading musket, and Lieutenant John C. Symmes' breech loading rifle. Some of the arms leaked gas at the breech, while others were difficult to manufacture given the technology available at the time. And, how would you manufacture any selected arm in quantity if the patent holder and their manufacturing company refused to permit other manufacturers to produce the selected arm? Under the pressure of obtaining arms during the war, the Federal army purchased only the Smith carbine and the Maynard rifle and carbine in significant quantities. (Hull, Lindner Carbines, 1-2)
* When a board of U.S. Army officers tested breech loading rifles at West Point in 1857, it reported that Ambrose E. Burnside's breech loading rifle was the best adapted to military purposes, although the Sharps rifle was also one of those tested. While the Burnside carbine was one of the better cavalry carbines produced during the war, and the Federal government purchased more than 55,000 of them, it was overcome by events technologically. The Burnside Rifle Company finished the war producing 34,496 of the vastly superior Spencer repeating carbines. (Wilcox, Rifles and Rifle Practice, 217; Edwards, Civil War Guns, 114-9)
* Spencer rifle production was also troubled early in the war. On 22 November 1861 the Spencer Repeating Rifle Company proposed to deliver 10,000 Spencer rifles with triangular bayonets to the Ordnance Office for $40 each. Deliveries were to start with 500 rifles in March 1862, with 1,000 rifles to be delivered each month thereafter. With no deliveries having been made in March, April, or May 1862, the Ordnance Office's order was reduced to 7,500 rifles. Even with this reduction in the order, no rifles were delivered until December 1862, and the order was not completed until June 1863. (McAulay, Civil War Breech Loading Rifles, 95-7)
* Although they were transitional arms between muzzle loaders and breech loading self-contained cartridge rifles, the Sharps rifles and carbines, which used a linen or paper cased cartridge and a separate percussion cap for ignition, were clearly one of the major armament success stories of the war. In February 1862 Colonel Hiram Berdan, commander of the 1st and 2nd U.S. Sharpshooter regiments, persuaded the War Department to purchase 2,000 modified Model 1859 Sharps infantry rifles to arm his regiments. At the time, the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company was manufacturing Sharps cavalry carbines for the War Department, with a capacity of 500 carbines per week. To fill the order for Berdan's regiments, the company had to shut down carbine production and set up its machinery to manufacture rifles. This proved more difficult than expected, and it took Sharps from 21 February until 31 May 1862 to fill the rifle order for the Sharpshooters and readjust its equipment to go back into carbine production. In the process, the Federal army lost the production of more than 6,000 badly needed cavalry carbines. The Sharpshooters did not receive their first issue of Sharps rifles, which were issued without ammunition, until 7 May 1862, by which time they had left their camp of instruction in Washington and were in contact with the enemy at Yorktown, Virginia. Thus, the Sharpshooters lost their opportunity to train effectively with their Sharps rifles before they went to the field. This pattern of rearming units while they were literally on the march or in contact with the enemy is seen with a number of other Federal and Confederate units during the war. Given the Confederate casualties inflicted by the Sharpshooters, one might argue that the impact of issuing them their Sharps rifles was well worth the loss of the 6,000 carbines. (Davis, Arming the Union, 83-4; Earley, 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters, 47 and 50)
* On 18 June 1861 Oliver Winchester wrote to Secretary Cameron that his factory would be producing 200 Henry repeating rifles per month by September 1861, and that, if necessary, the New Haven Arms Company could double that number. In fact, Winchester did not begin significant production of Henry rifles until 1862, and only produced 1,500 rifles during that year. The first Ordnance Office order for Henry rifles did not come until 16 June 1863, when it ordered 240 Henry rifles at $36 per weapon. (McAulay, Civil War Breech Loading Rifles, 42)
* Federal contractors agreed to produce Springfield rifle muskets for $18 to $20 each. It cost the Federal Army an average of $11.70 to produce a Model 1855-64 rifle musket at Springfield Armory. In contrast, the army paid Sharps $42.50 each for the Sharpshooters' rifles in April 1862, and paid $40.00 each for the initial order of Spencer rifles in December 1862. At the time, there were no clear indications that the breech loaders were worth the extra cost, that the average soldier had the skills to effectively use or maintain them, or that the Federal logistical system could adequately supply them with ammunition in the field given their rates of fire. The British Army made a similar decision in 1857 when it tested the Whitworth rifle again the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle musket. The Whitworth significantly outperformed the Enfield in range and accuracy, but fouled readily and was four times more expensive. (EXDOC 99, 946, 963; Barry and Burt, Suppliers to the Confederacy, II, 273)
By World War II, the U.S. Army had resolved the problem of how to handle a company's proprietary designs: effective seizure. In 1940 the American Bantum Car Company had proposed to build a ¼ ton truck with four-wheel drive and excellent cross country mobility for the Army. Bantum, Willys Overland, and Ford then entered prototypes into a design competition. Although the Bantum design was superior, the Army was concerned about the company's ability to build the resulting GP truck ["Jeep"] in quantity. After a small order to Bantum, the Army gave Bantum's designs and the first major manufacturing contract to Willys. When Willy's could not keep up with the demands of production, a second contract was issued to Ford. Bantum finished the war manufacturing trailers for Jeeps, and by 1956 it was out of business. Given the legal concept of property rights existing in 1861, whose breech loading firearm design would the Federal Army have seized to manufacture, would the courts have supported such a seizure of property rights, where would the facilities and machine tools necessary to manufacture it have come from, and how could the required quantities of ammunition have been manufactured?
Regards,
Don Dixon
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