Springfield Model 1855
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The Springfield Model 1855 was a
rifled musket A rifled musket, rifle musket, or rifle-musket is a type of firearm made in the mid-19th century. Originally the term referred only to muskets that had been produced as a smoothbore weapon and later had their barrels replaced with rifled barrel ...
widely used in the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. It exploited the advantages of the new conical
Minié ball The Minié ball or Minie ball, is a type of hollow-based bullet designed by Claude-Étienne Minié, inventor of the French Minié rifle, for muzzle-loading rifled muskets. It was invented in 1847 and came to prominence in the Crimean War and ...
, which could be deadly at over . It was a standard infantry weapon for
Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...
and Confederates alike, until the
Springfield Model 1861 The Springfield Model 1861 was a Minié-type rifled musket used by the United States Army and Marine Corps during the American Civil War. Commonly referred to as the "Springfield" (after its original place of production, Springfield, Massachuse ...
supplanted it, obviating the use of the insufficiently weather resistant Maynard tape primer.


Origins

The Model 1855 Springfield was a rifled musket used in the mid-19th century. It was manufactured by the Springfield Armory in
Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...
and at the Harpers Ferry Armory in
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
(modern-day
West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
) along with the Whitney Armory. Earlier muskets had mostly been smoothbore flintlocks. In the 1840s, the unreliable flintlocks had been replaced by much more reliable and weather resistant percussion locks. The smoothbore barrel and inaccurate round ball were also being replaced by
rifled In firearms, rifling is machining helical grooves into the internal (bore) surface of a gun's barrel for the purpose of exerting torque and thus imparting a spin to a projectile around its longitudinal axis during shooting to stabilize the proj ...
barrels and the newly invented Minié ball. While older muskets had an effective range of about , the Model 1855 had an effective range of and was deadly to over ."Civil War Weapons and Equipment" by Russ A. Pritchard, Jr., Russ A. Pritchard Jr. Published by Globe Pequot, 2003 The barrel on the Model 1855 was .58 caliber, which was smaller than previous muskets. The Springfield Model 1816 and all of its derivatives up through the Springfield Model 1842 had been .69 caliber, but tests conducted by the U.S. Army showed that the smaller .58 caliber was more accurate when used with a Minié ball. The Model 1855 also used the Maynard tape primer, which was an attempt at improving the percussion cap system that had been previously developed. Instead of using individual caps which had to be placed for every shot, the Maynard system used a tape which was automatically fed every time the
hammer A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nails into wood, to shape metal (as w ...
was cocked, similar to the way a modern child's
cap gun A cap gun, cap pistol, or cap rifle is a toy gun that creates a loud sound simulating a gunshot and smoke when a small percussion cap is ignited. Cap guns were originally made of cast iron, but after World War II were made of zinc alloy, and mos ...
works. While the powder and Minié ball still had to be loaded conventionally, the tape system was designed to automate the placing of the percussion cap and therefore speed up the overall rate of fire of the weapon."Arms and Equipment of the Civil War" by Jack Coggins, Published by Courier Dover Publications, 2004 The Maynard tape system gave the Model 1855 a unique hump under the rifled musket's hammer. The weapon could also be primed in the usual way with standard percussion caps if the tape was unavailable. The Secretary of War at the time
Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...
authorized the adoption of the Maynard system for the Model 1855. In the field, the Maynard tape primer proved to be unreliable. Tests conducted between 1859 and 1860 found that half of the primers misfired, and also reported that the tape primer springs did not feed well."Gunsmoke and saddle leather: firearms in the nineteenth-century American West" By Charles G. Worman, published by the University of New Mexico Press, 2005 The greatest problem was the actual tape itself. Despite being advertised as waterproof, the paper strips proved to be susceptible to moisture. An attempt was made to remedy this problem by making the tape primers out of foil, but despite the improvement this brought, the
United States Army Ordnance Department The United States Army Ordnance Corps, formerly the United States Army Ordnance Department, is a sustainment branch of the United States Army, headquartered at Fort Lee, Virginia. The broad mission of the Ordnance Corps is to supply Army comb ...
abandoned the Maynard system and went back to the standard percussion lock in later rifled muskets like the Model 1861. Most Model 1855 rifled muskets were used throughout the Civil War with standard percussion caps. Approximately 75,000 Model 1855 rifled muskets were produced. The machinery to make the Model 1855 rifled muskets, at Harpers Ferry was captured by the
Confederate Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...
in early 1861. The captured machinery to produce rifled muskets was taken to
Richmond Armory The Virginia Manufactory of Arms was a state-owned firearms manufacturer and arsenal in what is today Richmond, Virginia. It was established by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1798 to supply the Virginia militia with firearms and related items su ...
, where it formed the backbone of Confederate weapon manufacturing capability. The rifled musket machinery was taken to
Fayetteville Arsenal The Fayetteville Arsenal in Fayetteville, North Carolina was built in 1838 because during the War of 1812 the United States government realized that the existing distribution of weapons and ammunition factories was not adequate for the defense o ...
,
North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
where it too was put to use for significant arms production throughout the War. As a result of using the original arsenal machinery, the
Richmond rifles The Richmond Rifles were a professional ice hockey team of the Eastern Hockey League from 1979–1981, playing in Richmond, Virginia at the Richmond Coliseum. They played the final two seasons of the EHL. They were the affiliates of the New York R ...
and the
Fayetteville rifle The Fayetteville Rifle was a 2 banded rifle produced at the Fayetteville Arsenal, Confederate States Arsenal in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The machinery which produced these weapons was primarily that captured at the United States Arsenal ...
s were two of the finest weapons produced by the Confederacy. The Model 1855 was in production from 1856 until 1860 and was the standard-issue firearm of the Regular Army in the pre-Civil War years. The need for large numbers of weapons at the start of the American Civil War saw the Model 1855 simplified by the removal of the Maynard tape primer and a few other minor alterations to make it cheaper and easier to manufacture, thus creating the ubiquitous Model 1861. The Model 1855 was the best arm available at the beginning of the conflict as it took some time for the Model 1861s to be manufactured and actually reach the field. However, less than 80,000 Model 1855 rifled muskets had been manufactured by the start of the war. Some of them were destroyed when the Confederate military captured the Harpers Ferry arsenal in April 1861, and several thousand more were in Southern hands. Approximately 10,000 rifled muskets had also been shipped to
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, and therefore were useless for the Union war effort.


First Use

The Model 1855 got its first test in September 1858 in the
Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...
at the Battle of Four Lakes (Spokane Plains) where the Northern tribes greatly outnumbered U.S. troops. The attacking Native Americans were dispatched by U.S. troops armed with the Model 1855 rifled musket before they could get in range with their smoothbores. Lt. Lawrence Kip noted: "Strange to say, not one of our men was injured...This was owing to the long range rifles now first used by our troops... Had these men been armed with those formerly used, the result of the fight, as to the loss on our side, would have been far different, for the enemy outnumbered us, and had all of the courage that we are accustomed to ascribe to Indian savages. But they were panic-struck by the effect of our fire at such great distances."


Variants

The Model 1855 is generally referred to as a rifled musket, since it was the same length as the muskets that it replaced. It had a long barrel, and an overall length of . Three rifle bands held the barrel to the stock. A shorter two band version, generally referred to as the Harpers Ferry Model 1855 rifle, was also produced. This shorter rifle had a barrel and an overall length of . A pistol-carbine of the Model 1855 was produced as well. The Model 1855 rifled musket was modified in 1858 to include a simpler rear sight (the typical flip-up leaf type), a patch box on the side of the buttstock, and an iron nosecap to replace the brass one. This variant is sometimes referred to as the Type II with the earlier model designated the Type I."2008 Standard Catalog of Firearms: The Collector's Price and Reference Guide" by Dan Shideler, Published by Krause Publications, 2008


See also

*
Springfield rifle The term Springfield rifle may refer to any one of several types of small arms produced by the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts, for the United States armed forces. In modern usage, the term "Springfield rifle" most commonly ref ...
* Springfield musket


References


External links

{{USCWWeapons Springfield firearms Rifled muskets American Civil War rifles American Civil War weapons Weapons of the Confederate States of America