You could have thrown all the money in the world at the problem early in the war and it would have changed virtually nothing.
While the Northern states had a much, much larger industrial base than the Southern states, even the Northern arms manufacturers were not prepared or equipped to instantaneously manufacture interchangeable parts military weapons, particularly in the quantities required. Violating Federal procurement regulations, Secretary Cameron and General Ripley began issuing letter order contracts after the 1st Battle of Bull Run to almost anyone who claimed that they could manufacture or supply rifle muskets. Some of the companies were reputable arms manufacturers such as Colt's Patent Firearms Company and E. Remington and Sons. Other letter orders went to legitimate manufacturers of other goods who would have to build or convert factories to manufacture arms. Yet other orders went to individuals and companies who had no clear capability to manufacture or procure anything beyond their claims that they could. The various breechloading arms companies largely fit in this last category.
Even if a contractor intended to perform, there were immediate problems. The contracts required that rifle muskets be machine made and the parts be interchangeable with the Model 1855 Springfield rifle musket. The last contract awarded to a contractor to manufacture regulation model shoulder arms for the U.S. Army had been issued on 2 March 1853, and the last delivery made on 21 November 1855. No private contractor consequently had any experience manufacturing the Model 1855 rifle musket, or any of the tooling, jigs, and gauges necessary to do so. There was a limited capacity, even in the North, to manufacture the tooling necessary to build large numbers of military weapons with interchangeable parts. Competition for tooling raised costs for the manufacturers significantly and delayed their ability to obtain machinery and start manufacture. The contractors also competed directly with each other for the raw materials and skilled labor necessary to manufacture arms. Gun iron for the wrought iron barrels used in Springfield rifle muskets was a particular problem. Despite the Ordnance Office having held out "every inducement" to American iron mongers, they had never been capable of supplying enough gun iron of sufficient quality and uniformity to meet the demands of Springfield and Harpers Ferry Armories. At the beginning of the Civil War, Springfield Armory imported all its files, most of its steel, and all its gun iron from England. With the Northern iron mongers unable to meet Springfield's needs, much less the needs of the new contractors, and because most gun iron for all users was imported from Great Britain, Queen Victoria's embargo of arms and strategic materiel during the Trent Affair had a seriously negative impact on the supply of this critical raw material. Contractor manufactured Springfield rifle muskets consequently did not begin to arrive in the field in significant numbers until late 1862. Between 1861 and 1865, the War Department contracted for a total of 1,525,000 Springfield rifle muskets, and after the war told Congress that its contractors had only delivered 643,439 of the weapons during the entire war. When one adds up the individual contractors' numbers in the report one finds that 644,439 Springfields were delivered, however. This is unfortunately typical of the Ordnance Office's record keeping and mathematics during the War. In any case, this was only 42 percent of the Springfields contracted for by the Federal Army. In contrast to Springfield Armory's average cost per weapon during the war of $11.70 and Ripley's expectation that the contractors should be able to manufacture a Springfield rifle musket for $12.00, the contractor manufactured arms cost an average of $21.00, including $1.00 each for government inspection.
Some have asserted that the Federal Army, given the assumed industrial power of the North, should have concentrated on the production of breechloading arms, and meet its 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 had the prescience to understand that the war was going to be something other than a brief spat. It would have required that the ordnance establishment understand and admit the clear superiority of breechloading over muzzleloading arms. It would have required that there be agreement on the part of both Army officials and the manufacturers on which breechloading arm(s) to manufacture, since the selected arm(s) would have to be both reliable and of interchangeable parts manufacture. The Federal ordnance establishment was justifiably cautious about using new weapons designs until it was certain they were reliable and could be manufactured to the Ordnance Office's standards of uniformity. To produce the necessary volume of arms, it would have required that the patent holders of the selected breechloading arm(s) agree to permit other manufacturers to manufacture their arms, or that the Federal government seize the patents, violating the owners' property rights. It would have required that the Federal government have the will and means to pay the cost, since breechloading arms were appreciably more expensive than the Springfield rifle musket. It would have required that the North have the capacity to rapidly expand its arms and ammunition manufacturing capabilities. And in the case of the Spencer it would have required enough experience with copper cartridges containing both gunpowder and fulminate of mercury priming to be sure that it was safe to transport them in quantity by wagon over rough roads. That Federal contractors were only able to deliver 42 percent of the much simpler Springfield rifle muskets for which they had contracted illustrates the fallacy of the concept.
There is no logistics magic wand.
Regards,
Don Dixon
Bringing the