{"id":2956,"date":"2025-01-30T10:07:01","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T10:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=2956"},"modified":"2025-01-30T10:07:01","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T10:07:01","slug":"confederate-guns-arming-the-rebellion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=2956","title":{"rendered":"Confederate Guns: Arming the Rebellion"},"content":{"rendered":"


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With its agrarian economy and a Union blockade, the Confederacy faced an uphill battle from the start to arm its insurrection.<\/p>\n

The North enjoyed the United States industrial might capable of ramping up production to arm the Union military while the South struggled. Churches donated bells for brass. Limited numbers of guns slipped through the blockade. Entrepreneurs did their best to manufacture weapons as they could, but the cold truth was that fewer than 10,000 Confederate revolvers were made during the Civil War. Colt produced more than 120,000 Model 1860 Army revolvers for the Union.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the Confederate guns that Johnny Reb carried during the Civil War that will be available in Rock Island Auction Company\u2019s Feb. 21-23 Sporting & Collector Auction.<\/p>\n

Confederate Revolver: Griswold & Gunnison<\/h3>\n

Samuel Griswold arrived in Georgia from Connecticut in 1822. A shrewd businessman he manufactured cotton gins while operating a sawmill and grist mill. He purchased about 4,000 acres of land about 9 miles outside of Macon where he founded Griswoldville. The village had a foundry to go with the factory and mills, a post office, a soap tallow and candle factory, a laundry and cottages for slaves, white employees and houses for Griswold and his wife and their families.<\/p>\n

When the Georgia governor put out the call for \u201cpikes on a 6-foot staff,\u201d in January 1862, Griswold folded production of the cotton gins and got into the weapon-making business. The state paid $5 per pike and Griswold\u2019s factory produced more than 200 by late April 1862.<\/p>\n

By August, Griswold\u2019s factory had changed course and produced revolvers that were copies of Colt\u2019s Model 1851 Navy with the goal to make five per day. The Confederate revolver was described in an article in the Macon, Ga., Telegraph newspaper: \u201cThe pistol, to our inexperienced eyes, was as well finished as those made by the patentee himself and we have no doubt equally as efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

An officer of the Confederate Ordnance Department described Griswold\u2019s manufacturing process, explaining that the barrels were forged from ordinary 1-inch square bar iron and the cylinder were from ordinary round bar. Heating the bars and twisting them strengthened the metal. The twist lines can still be seen on the cylinders. \u201cI cannot approve of this process, but the proprietors feel confident that they will stand the required test.\u201d Production from October 1862 to November 1864 averaged about 100 revolvers per month with the Confederacy paying $40 per gun. By comparison, Colt was paid $20 per revolver. Griswold tried to get the government to rent or lease the factory but didn\u2019t get approval. Griswoldville and its factory were one of the first destroyed on Sherman\u2019s \u201cMarch to the Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Confederate Revolver: London Armoury Co. Kerr\u2019s Patent<\/h3>\n

Both the Union and Confederacy sent representatives to Europe in search of arms and Confederate ordnance officers set up shop at the London Armoury Company to the dismay of the North\u2019s representatives. Union Col. George Schuyler reported in August 1861, \u201cNo Enfield rifles can be procured in England. All private plants in London and Birmingham are working for Ohio, Connecticut and Mass. except the London Armoury Co. whose product is supposed to be for the South.\u201d<\/p>\n

London Armoury Company, set up to manufacture Enfield rifles, had to complete a contract for the British government before it could devote production to the Confederacy. The company made both single action and double action revolvers that were well liked by the Confederate soldiers. Among the revolvers made were the Beaumont-Adams revolver like the one carried by Jefferson Davis when he was captured in the war\u2019s last days.<\/p>\n

The LAC guns were imported in large numbers, were well made and well finished. The company shipped 70,000 rifles and 7,000 revolvers to the Confederacy before going out of business in the spring of 1866, a year after losing its biggest customer.<\/p>\n

Confederate Revolvers: Civil War Colts<\/h3>\n

Before the Civil War, Samuel Colt sold guns to everybody and did good business selling in the South, including the Texas Rangers, so it was natural that some Colts would find their way to the front lines for the Confederates. The first shots of the Civil War didn\u2019t stop Colt from shipping guns to the South. Union forces at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor surrendered to Confederate forces on April 14, 1861. A shipment of 500 Colt Model 1860 Army revolvers were shipped to Richmond, Va., what would be the Confederate capital, two days later, and 1,100 were shipped on April 19 to New Orleans.<\/p>\n

After public outcry and claims of southern sympathies weighed on the Connecticut company\u2019s reputation, the shipments south stopped. Along with Colts already purchased by Southerners, revolvers were also captured by the Confederacy. Historic photographs show soldiers armed with Colt Confederate revolvers. Generals like Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest were known to carry Colts.<\/p>\n

The Colt 1851 Navy was popular with Confederate troops because of its availability and reliability. Nathan Bedford Forrest, likely with the assistance of Confederate sympathizers, purchased 500 Colt Model 1851 Navy revolvers in October 1861 and had them shipped to Louisville, Ky. where they were put in potato sacks and smuggled south. Forrest liked the Navy revolvers and recommended his men carry two each while setting aside their sabers.<\/p>\n

The Navy revolvers were also used after being captured but were not as prevalent as the 1860 Army. J.E.B. Stuart, known for carrying a Le Mat revolver, captured a wagonload of 1860 Army revolvers during the Seven Days battle in the summer of 1862.<\/p>\n

Confederate Guns: Massachusetts Arms Co. Maynard First Model Carbine<\/h3>\n

Edward Maynard was a dentist and inventor who studied at the Military Academy at West Point only to resign because of poor health. As a dentist he would serve the Washington, D.C. elite and hold high positions in respected dental institutions. As a firearms designer, he would receive an impressive 23 gun-related patents. The U.S. Army adopted them in 1856 and several southern states, including Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina bought them prior to the start of the Civil War. The carbine was also seized from captured Union armories in southern states.<\/p>\n

The first model was originally made with a tape primer system but it was abandoned because of poor performance on the battlefield and weather-related issues. The gun had a simple and unique drop barrel that the shooter had to lower a lever to tilt the gun downward and expose the chamber. The carbine weighed a mere 6 lbs.<\/p>\n

Confederate Guns: S.C. Robinson Carbine<\/h3>\n

The Sharps carbine was well-liked by Union soldiers because they didn\u2019t have to stand to load it like a musket and could fire it five times faster. More than 80,000 Sharps carbines were manufactured for the Northern cause.<\/p>\n

Samuel C. Robinson (has anyone studied why all gunmakers are named Samuel?) owned the S.C. Robinson Arms Manufactory that made a copy of the Sharps breech-loading carbine. The Confederate government bought the manufactory from Robinson in March 1863. Production is estimated at 3,000-5,000 carbinesbetween 1863 and 1864.<\/p>\n

Confederate Rifle: Fayetteville Armory Two-Band Rifle<\/h3>\n

The state of North Carolina seized the Fayetteville Armory on April 22, 1861 and offered the arms there to the Confederate government that readily accepted the 32,678 muskets and 3,685 rifles. Machinery captured at Harper\u2019s Ferry was moved to Fayetteville in June 1861 where gun parts were made and flintlocks were converted to percussion arms before going into full production in the spring of 1862 to manufacture Springfield Model 1855 rifles with captured parts.<\/p>\n

The machinery was moved in the last months of the Civil War to avoid capture but couldn\u2019t prevent that from happening as the equipment was seized around the time of the Confederate surrender. The Fayetteville Armory produced over 10,000 rifles.<\/p>\n

Confederate Revolver: Colt 1861 Navy with \u201cLeech & Rigdon C.S.A.\u201d Barrel<\/h3>\n

Thomas Leech was a Memphis cotton broker and Thomas Rigdon worked as a scale manufacturer in Cincinnati. Together they made another Confederate copy of the Colt 1851 Navy. \u00a0Leech opened a business to make bladed weapons and purchasing materials like copper and brass. After taking on Rigdon as a partner and a number of moves, the company of Leech & Rigdon, now located near Greensboro, Ga., started making revolvers in 1863. The company made 1,500 revolvers as well as repairing weapons. The two men dissolved their partnership at the end of 1863 and Rigdon took on new partners J.A. Ansley, A.J. Smith and Charles R. Kern to continue making revolvers.<\/p>\n

Confederate Revolver: LeMat First Model<\/h3>\n

Jean Alexandre Fran\u00e7ois Le Mat was a French \u00e9migr\u00e9 and doctor in New Orleans who received a patent in 1856 for a revolver with a single shotgun barrel in the middle. The cylinder held 9 shots of .42 caliber around a 16 gauge shotgun barrel. A selector on the hammer switched between the two barrels.<\/p>\n

The New Orleans\u2019 \u201cDaily Delta\u201d in 1861 described the revolver as \u201cone of the most formidable weapons of the pistol kind ever invented.\u201d The revolver went through two informal trials and after one was recommended for a field trial but no record of it being done is known.<\/p>\n

Le Mat split his time between New Orleans and Paris. About 2,900 revolvers were produced in Belgium, Paris and England after Le Mat was unable to secure a domestic factory. Despite its limited production numbers and the Union blockade, the revolver still found its way to the battlefield and was carried by generals Braxton Bragg, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. Stuart was firing his Le Mat revolver at Union troops when he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Yellow Tavern in 1864.<\/p>\n

Confederate Guns for Sale<\/h3>\n

Despite its lack of industrial heft and inability to manufacture large numbers of firearms, the Confederacy used determination and guile to arm its military and keep the larger, better-armed Union army at bay for four years. Examples of Confederate grit and gumption to keep its army supplied are available in Rock Island Auction Company\u2019s Feb. 21-23 Sporting & Collector Auction.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/h3>\n

Confederate Handguns, by William A. Albaugh III, Hugh Benet Jr. and Edward N. Simmons<\/p>\n

Confederate Longarms and Pistols, A Pictorial History, by Richard Taylor Hill and William Edward Anthony<\/p>\n

The Unfinished Fight \u2013 A Few Thoughts on Colt Revolvers, by Craig L. Barry, Civil War News<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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With its agrarian economy and a Union blockade, the Confederacy faced an uphill battle from the start to arm its insurrection. The North enjoyed the United States industrial might capable of ramping up production to arm the Union military while the South struggled. Churches donated bells for brass. Limited numbers of guns slipped through the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}