Something happened to the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
Between the start of Rosecrans' Tullahoma campaign and the conclusion of the shooting match at Chickamauga, something happened to that army. It was probably the very heavy casualty rates they experienced as the Cumberland Army became more familiar with hard hitting Springfield rifles and it deployed more Colt, Spencer and Henry repeating rifles.
By the time the Confederates got to Chattanooga, they did not seem to have much desire to fight.
Dave Powell at page 180 of his book The Impulse of Victory lists Confederate casualties at 361 KIA, 2,160 WIA and 4,446 missing. But he also asserts that General Thomas" provost reported that for the entire 6 week period there were 573 deserters, and 5,569 prisoners.
Those are extraordinary numbers. They are evidence that the rifles and the repeating rifles were having an effect on morale. The impact of the repeating weapons is impossible to separate from the impact of US occupation of Tennessee and US control of the Mississippi River. The inability of the Confederate commissary and quartermaster departments to deliver adequate sustenance to the soldiers also has to be considered. There was not a controlled experiment.
I will leave to others to compare the conduct of Bragg's unlucky army to that of Lee's Virginia army after the US had better equipped its cavalry forces.
A couple of points about the timeline below are significant.
First, it took a year for the Spencer Company to begin deliveries after it received its first Army order in December 1861. However, if the Army had ordered the guns as early as the did Navy (June 1861)
ceteris paribus the year's delay would have put the first deliveries in June 1862, not December.
Second, the Spencer Company faced possible bankruptcy after Edwin Stanton replaced Simon Cameron as War Secretary. Since Cameron had a venal reputation, Stanton initiated a systematic review of Cameron's contracts. The Spencer Company was among the suppliers covered by the review that spanned about three months in Spring 1862. The owners, therefore, may have slowed down the rate at which they scaled their factory until they knew they would retain the Army contract.
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The Spencer Repeating Rifle was patented in
March 1860.
The Civil War began in
April 1861.
With the help of Richard Lawrence of the Sharps company, Christopher Spencer made a demonstration model of his rifle in
May 1861.
In
June 1861 John Dahlgren tested the Spencer for the Navy. As a result, the Navy ordered 700 rifles.
In
August 1861 Alexander Dyer of the Army Ordnance Corps tested and reported favorably upon the Spencer.
In
October 1861 a Spencer lobbyist proposed that General James Ripley's Army Ordnance Bureau order 5,000.
In
November 1861 a McClellan panel tested and reported favorably upon the Spencer.
On
December 11, 1861 James Ripley explained his objections to both the Henry and the Spencer to War Secretary Simon Cameron. Among them was that the rapid firing rate might cause soldiers to waste ammunition. A week later, Warren Fisher—a Spencer business associate—proposed directly to Secretary Cameron that the War Department order 10,000 rifles. After Cameron received Fisher's proposal, Assistant War Secretary Tom Scott directed James Ripley to order them, which Ripley did the day after Christmas.
On
January 20, 1862 Edwin Stanton replaced Simon Cameron as War Secretary.
On January 23, 1862 the Spencer Repeating Arms company was incorporated with Warren Fisher as Treasurer. Christopher Spencer was not a shareholder but would receive a royalty on each gun sold. Due to Cameron's venal reputation, Stanton insisted upon a review of many Cameron contracts including the one with Fisher for Spencer. That same month the Spencer Company began equipping a production factory that would eventually surpass all other private companies in size except for Hartford's Colt factory.
In
March 1862 the Special Commission on Ordnance and Ordnance Stores started reviewing Secretary Cameron's contracts.
On
April 23, 1862 the Spencer Company sent a production model to James Ripley for approval. Ripley falsely claimed the hardware components were made from a malleable metal instead of wrought iron, a point he found to be "generally objectionable."
On
June 9, 1862 Ripley conceded that the model submitted on April 23rd did indeed use wrought iron hardware and was therefore acceptable. That same month the Commission gave the green light to the Spencer contract but reduced the total units from 10,000 to 7,500. It did, however, specify that deliveries should begin that very month. When Fisher asked for more time, Ripley initially replied that the Commission's decision was "final," but he later caved to political pressure.
Production deliveries began in
December 1862. They were intended for a regiment commanded by a political Michigan general, who was replaced by Custer on the eve of Gettysburg.
During
June and July of 1863 Spencer rifles were used to good effect at the battles of Hoovers Gap and the Gettysburg cavalry fight.
After 24,000 loaded muzzleloaders were scavenged from the Gettysburg Battlefield and three-fourths were fouled with multiple loads rendering them useless in combat, Ripley ordered 11,000 Spencer carbines on
July 17, 1863. Although Spencers could become jammed, they were less likely to be as difficultly and dangerously jammed as a muzzleloader with multiple loads. One third of the muzzleloaders with multiple loads had three or more.
In
August 1863 Lincoln satisfactorily tested the Spencer on the White House Lawn in the presence of the inventor.
In
September 1863 Ripley is replaced.
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Although it was the last of the major carbine models to be ordered (July 1863) it was more widely deployed than any carbine except the Sharps, which had been invented twelve years earlier and the first to be ordered.
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