Biggest Yankee Error

[Philip Leigh]

. . . The reality is very simple: in 1861 there were a large number of breech loading designs out there. Almost all suffered from the same limiting issue. They leaked gas badly. The Sharps had been in the eye of the US Army since the early 1850's the Hall since 1819. Why do you think the US Army had not adopted the Hall as the primary arm? Wait a minute... you don't know what the Hall is or that it was a breech loader. You certainly haven't read Jefferson Davis on the subject. . . .

Another false accusation. You apparently don't realize that all of the above is discussed in Lincoln and the Tools of War, which I have cited as a source.

. . . When it comes to breech loading systems across the world it was the US who led the pack with names like Sharps, Remington, Spencer, Henry etc. . .

As consequence, in no small part, of the exigencies of the American Civil War.

. . . You have had the benefit of several people far more knowledgeable than I on this thread. . .

Yes, I realize that.

. . . yet you have ignored or belittled them as is your won't. . .

I have not ignored them. Neither have I allowed myself to be abused with repeated unanswered insults for simply suggesting that Ripley could have adopted breechloading shoulder arms more quickly.

. . . You might have learned something if you had asked why instead of starting out with the predisposition you have exhibited. . .

I am satisfied to let any reader search this thread and discover where the belittling began. . . and also where the false accusations began.

. . . A winning army doesn't fight a war with the weapons they wished they had but they use the weapons they have in the armory. . .

And neither does it refuse to innovate.

It's amazing that the US soldier somehow managed to win with such substandard weapons... such substandard weapons that had been in the premier armies of Europe and still were at the time.

A British War Office committee recommended in 1864 that the British infantry be entirely equipped with breechloaders. The decision was based primarily upon the experiences of the American Civil War. (Bruce p. 288)

 

[unionblue]

Another false accusation. You apparently don't realize that all of the above is discussed in Lincoln and the Tools of War, which I have cited as a source.

As consequence, in no small part, of the exigencies of the American Civil War.

Yes, I realize that.

I have not ignored them. Neither have I allowed myself to be abused with repeated unanswered insults for simply suggesting that Ripley could have adopted breechloading shoulder arms more quickly.

I am satisfied to let any reader search this thread and discover where the belittling began. . . and also where the false accusations began.

And neither does it refuse to innovate.

A British War Office committee recommended in 1864 that the British infantry be entirely equipped with breechloaders. The decision was based primarily upon the experiences of the American Civil War. (Bruce p. 288)[/the Yankees ]

@Harvey Johnson ,

Your title of this thread says it all.

You wish to paint the "biggest Yankee error" as some sort of slight or belittling an army that won the war in spite of all the logistical and supply problems of rearming in the middle of a massive civil war.

So be it.

But there is enough evidence to support the idea of just how difficult your premise is and your continuing ability to ignore the large body of evidence in opposition to your premise.

Until something of interest is posted...

Sincerely yours,
Unionblue

 

[thomas aagaard]

But it also discloses how Ripley's criticisms of intrinsic breechloader characteristics retarded their deployment. He thought they were too heavy and too costly and that the soldiers would waste ammunition and that they were not sufficiently rugged.

So did the British army, the danish army, and the Prussian army.
(and if one looking into the decision making in other armies Iam sure you will find the same opinion)

The prussians just decided to buy them anyway and trust that they could train their soldiers to limit the issues.

Not an option the US army had. Trueout the war it was throwing men into combat with no proper training... so was the CSA.


Also the numbers from gettysburg you posted are wrong...

A British War Office committee recommended in 1864 that the British infantry be entirely equipped with breechloaders. The decision was based primarily upon the experiences of the American Civil War. (Bruce p. 288)

That is in 1864, not 61.
And the British army where not in a desperate need of more guns. It had the production capability to start a modification program. Something that was a lot faster and cheaper than producing new guns.

Two completely different situation. That is simply not comparable.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

For those with the interest, I have found Lincoln and the Tools of War at Internet archive. Here are the pages that are at the center of one of the disputes concerning the statement made by A.A. Harwood.

https://archive.org/details/lincolntoolsofwa00bruc/page/106

Personally, I would like to be able to view Harwood's "official" views in full, but the chapter notes leave much to be desired and my own search for full context has been in vain.

Notes: chapter 7, pgs. 99-116

https://archive.org/details/lincolntoolsofwa00bruc/page/314

I can not find a source for Letters to the Sect'y and Bureaux. Perhaps someone with more expertise in this area could help a feller out.

 

[Don Dixon]

Harwood's proposal was in May 1861. Presumably the Belgium weapons makers were in it for the money. If the applicable contract were profitable enough, it could have displaced other production while simultaneously giving the chosen supplier an advantage as the leading producer of "the weapon of the future."

Prior to the 1st Battle of Bull Run on 21 July 1861, the perception on both sides was that the war would be over in one gallant rush, and that they [pick a side] would win. So, in May 1861 one is going to begin contracting with the Belgians for a long term solution to what both sides firmly believed would be a short term spat. [Uproarious laughter in the background]

Every manufacturer, in every line of business, is in it to make money. So, you would have expected the Belgians in June 1861 to have blown off existing long term contracts, which fully occupied their industrial capacity, making weapons which they and their artisans knew how to make. They would do this to take on a contract(s) that might be cancelled at any moment, from a government that might be defeated at any moment, to manufacture weapons which they and their artisans had no experience in making or tooling to make, and which largely represented unproven technology. Which of the multitude of breechloading designs would you have contracted with them to make? Which designer was going to agree to let the Belgians copy their designs/use their patents? There were already problems with the Belgians pirating American weapons designs. And, where was the money from the Federal Navy/Federal Army/Federal Government to come from, since all European suppliers required payment in gold, particularly for a speculation like this? Yes, the Belgians were in business to make money, and the required level of risk here is not how one makes money. Even if they had agreed, deliveries on any significant amount of arms would have been at least nine to 12 months in the future. [Further uproarious laughter in the background]

I have no doubt that your response will put us back in the parallel universe of wish fulfilment.

Regards,
Don Dixon

 

[thomas aagaard]

For those with the interest, I have found Lincoln and the Tools of War at Internet archive. Here are the pages that are at the center of one of the disputes concerning the statement made by A.A. Harwood.

Thanks for the pages.

A writer that have no understanding of how arms manufacturing was done.

And do he think that ordinary paper cartridges can be used in breech loaded rifles?
The sharp use a cartridge that is designed for it. (not the usual 58 cal used by the springfield)

He is suggesting that the union could have been armed with breech loaders using brass cartridges.
And who do he think would have been able to produce the millions of needed brass cartridges?
At the very first page we are told that the paper/cloth cartridge for the sharps was not obtainable. The USSS had issues getting sufficient numbers. And that is not a brass cartridge so something a random woman or child could make... unlike something of brass.

He also claim that the union could have ordered huge numbers of breechloaded rifles from Europe in 1863... Who in Europe do he think have the skills and production capacity for this?

As others have mentioned the two facilities in Britain that had the ability was not interested.

The other British manufactures was already selling (handmade) enfields to both sides.

The Prussians had the manufacturing for large scale production of breech loaded rifles.... By 1861 the entire line and guard infantry had been armed with Dreyser rifles... but the cavalry was not, so their capacity was tied up in making carbines for the cavalry and after than other none infantry units.

 

[Don Dixon]

The Prussians had the manufacturing for large scale production of breech loaded rifles.... By 1861 the entire line and guard infantry had been armed with Dreyser rifles... but the cavalry was not, so their capacity was tied up in making carbines for the cavalry and after than other none infantry units.

The Prussian Army had begun a dual rearmament program in the early 1840s. Line infantry and other first line troops were to be armed with the Dresye needle gun [Zündnadelbüchsen], while rear echelon troops were to be armed with rifled muskets altered from flintlock to percussion. By the Seven Weeks War with Austria in 1866 the rearmament program was still incomplete. Some Landwehr units had not even been equipped with rifled muskets, and all of the army's pioneer units except for the Guards pioneer battalion were still equipped with percussion rifle muskets. The Prussian victory in the Seven Weeks War then brought the military forces of Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, and the Duchy of Nassau into the Prussian Army, creating a further shortage of modern arms. Looking at possible solutions to this shortage, Prussian Army leadership seized upon the large stocks of arms captured from the k.k. Army and Austria's allies. (Wirtgen et al, Das Zündnadelgewehr, 195)

The barrels of captured weapons were bored out to 15.43 mm and re-rifled, and, then re-breeched with needle gun receivers similar to those used on the M/57 carbine. The lock mortise on the stock was filled with wood, and the original fittings and sights were retained. The weapons were chambered for the carbine cartridge, rather than the longer cartridge used in line infantry needle guns. While the converted weapons -- Defensions-Zündnadelbüchsen - were less powerful than the line infantry's weapons, this was not considered critical since they were issued to fortress and rear echelon support troops and reservists. Captured Muster 1854 and 1862 System Lorenz weapons – 35,599 infantry rifles and 1,958 Jägerstutzen - were converted in 1868-9 as Defensions-Zündnadelbüchsen O/M by Christoph Grüber and Companie in Suhl, Crause in Herzberg, and Simson and Luck in Suhl. The converted rifles used the k.k. Army's standard Muster 1854 quadrangular bayonet. (Wirtgen et al, Das Zündnadelgewehr, 195-6; Šmíd and Moudrý, Bodáky Habsburké Monarchie, 10)

So, even the Prussians, who were already manufacturing breechloading weapons in large quantities didn't have the capacity to fully equip their army by 1866, and had to cobble breechloaders together to prepare for the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Please Mr. Johnson, SHOW ME THE INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY TO MANUFACTURE LARGE QUANTITIES OF BREECHLOADERS QUICKLY ANYWHERE IN 1861 and EARLY 1862. Wishing won't do it.

Regards,
Don Dixon

 

[contestedground]

Some study about how things might have been different would broaden your appreciation of the realities that the Union leaders faced.

It's evident to me that the people who have taken issue with your point of view have done such study. They can't be blamed for your inability to accept their findings.

Your attitude is kind-of like the driver who causes a deadly accident by driving on the wrong side of a highway during a snowstorm and never considers that he could have done anything different regardless of the harm he caused others.

I guess when you can't win on the merits of the argument that you just attack your ever-growing number of critics.

 

[cash]

I'm told they compare notes at least once a day.

Each morning while one of them is shaving.

 

[cash]

For those with the interest, I have found Lincoln and the Tools of War at Internet archive. Here are the pages that are at the center of one of the disputes concerning the statement made by A.A. Harwood.
View attachment 214060
View attachment 214061

https://archive.org/details/lincolntoolsofwa00bruc/page/106

Personally, I would like to be able to view Harwood's "official" views in full, but the chapter notes leave much to be desired and my own search for full context has been in vain.

Notes: chapter 7, pgs. 99-116
View attachment 214062
https://archive.org/details/lincolntoolsofwa00bruc/page/314

I can not find a source for Letters to the Sect'y and Bureaux. Perhaps someone with more expertise in this area could help a feller out.

Best part of the thread. Good find.

 

[Package4]

Unfortunately, Bruce's Lincoln and the Tools of War is a very flawed source.

I have been fact checking some of the various claims and have come up wanting, for example, the Coffee Mill gun order of 50 that Bruce is emphatic was placed. Using Bruce's own timeline, he says that approval for the 50 gun order took place in December of '61, this would put the contract into 1862. There is no record of the order or contract in "Civil War Arms Makers and their contracts, a facsimile reprint of the Report by the Commission on Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, 1862". What is known, is that there is a record of 10 guns being ordered by the US government and additional private purchases by others, amounting to 6-8.

Ordnance records are not available other than the afore mentioned tome, but a member of my "living history" group is the Chief Naval Archivist down at the Washington Navy Yard (how ironic, since many of the trials were conducted there) and have asked him to see if the order does in fact exist.

Just read the two pages posted by @O' Be Joyful and you can see the supposition that pervades the book, when he speaks about the Marsh gun. He is constantly writing "this must have been" or "this was probably" and his source material and footnoting is highly suspect and difficult to follow. As I have stated earlier, it reads like a novel, not historical literature.

It may be found here, (https://archive.org/details/lincolntoolsofwa00bruc) I read it this weekend and found it very lacking, particularly the Coffee Mill guns where he can't even say definitely where their first use was, but calls out "The battle of Middleburg" as the site where the 28th PA must have used them. His evidence was not from the regiment or the press (Washington Star Correspondent) that covered the event, since they did not write about it, but an unknown officer (Captain Bartlett) 4 weeks later at the Cooper Institute who made a comment in passing. There is no record of a Captain Bartlett in the 28th PA. No records of the skirmish on either side describe the guns being used, not to mention that this was hardly a battle, but a relatively benign skirmish. The real battle of Middleburg would take place over a year later during the Gettysburg campaign.

Can someone honestly say that if the Coffee guns were used in battle (Middleburg) that there would be no record of their use by anyone on either side?

His research continues along these same lines with so much supposition, it drips with home team favoritism, he wants to show the genius of Lincoln. Lincoln loved contraptions, no doubt and in my opinion was the greatest president in US history, but he loved the inventors and wanted to see so many of their trials, that those around him started to call them Lincoln's Champaign trials or experiments........

 

[Robin Lesjovitch]

I might say that repeaters and breech loaders could have been premature for general use in the civil war.
There were two main reasons the Ferguson rifle saw little use in the American Revolution.
Cost was one reason, but the second reason might have been more critical. It was generally accepted that a new weapon needed to be kept quiet until it was used in quantity, as, as soon as it were deployed, the other side would plan to have it, too. At least in the East, Confederates were arming themselves to an extent with Federal weapons, captured. If advanced rifles went into Federal service in dribs and drabs, the Rebs would get some. And, as those weapons went into general use with the Federal forces, the Confederates would capture ammunition for them.
The most effective and dramatic use of such weapons by the Federals would have been to stockplie them, and issue them in large numbers during a period of relatively quiet operations (such as Jan-March 1863 for the Army of the Potomac). Given the military mindset and political situation, it is unlikely that would ever have happened.
And, it was a sufficient job to arm the Federal infantry with the conventional rifle musket. Just keeping .58 caliber cartridges coming was job enough, not to mention the rest of the required ordnance.

 

[Package4]

I finally decided to go to the source, Military Memoirs of a Confederate by Edward Porter Alexander, where in chapter 3 he discusses breech loaders. (I do not list the page as I have it on Kindle/IPad and the digital version varies from the print) I admire Alexander and for the most part agree with his observations, but have to take exception with his Monday morning quarter back approach to some of his observations. The quote that Bruce attributes, to an un named Confederate general and is identified by Leigh: "There is reason to believe that had the Federal Infantry been armed from the first with even the breech-loaders available in 1861 the war would have been terminated within a year." Alexander cites two examples: October 7, 1864, on the Darbytown road, where Field's division was repulsed by two brigades armed with Spencers. He then cites Nov. 30 of the same year, stating that the battle of Franklin was decided with these same arms of Casement's brigade.

When reading the after action reports of both battles, it is obvious that artillery, firing both case and canister, most likely had a greater effect, in wining both. Alexander, in fact was incorrect, the repeaters at Franklin were mainly Henry's, not Spencers, in two regiments of Casement's brigade.

There is no doubt that repeaters had a hand in both, but the after action reports show that in the Franklin affair, the Union artillery had little counter battery fire, had open fields and enfilading fire. One account tells of a constant barrage of canister from multiple batteries, firing at least 3 rounds of canister, then double canister per minute.

 

[Robin Lesjovitch]

One might look to WW2 for some comparisons. The US Army adopted the M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle in late 1937. But, there was still tweeking on the M1 ongoing for several years. It took the 4 years before the US entered WW2 for the Army to equip its line units with the M1. WW2 had begun 2 years after the adoption, and production continued to increase; still the Army needed drastically increased production when the US became involved with the war.
The USMC was not as convinced of the M1 as the Army. The Marine Corps adopted the M1 in the first half of 1941, and began replacing the 06 Springfield bolt action rifle with the M1, first in security units. By the beginning of 1942, the need for general use of the M1s was clear to the senior officers in the USMC. It took a year for Marine rifle companies to be uniformly armed with the M1 as the main battle rifle.
Even with war looming, and, raging , some things take time.

 

[GwilymT]

The biggest Yankee error was failing to win the peace by not only allowing "Lost Cause" rhetoric to thrive, but more importantly, allowing the former CSA states to continue to keep African Americans legally relegated to second class status well into the twentieth century.

 

[Jobe Holiday]

IMHO, the "Lost Cause & African American" issues are way off topic for this discussion about the adoption of repeating cartridge arms.
J.

 

[GwilymT]

My apologies. I thought this thread was about the "biggest Yankee error." I didn't realize it was limited to the discussion of firearms.

 

[Jobe Holiday]

Most respectfully, this forum is titled "Weapons and Ammunition", sometimes you just have to start reading at the beginning.
J.