The FReeper Foxhole Revisits General John Buford at Gettysburg (7/1/1863)- July 1st, 2005

Was the initiating event in the coffeepot suicide... my coffee?

No, that would have been the suicidee wetting its' pants, at the very moment I swithced the power on, thereby shorting the heating element, and letting the smoke out.

OUCH.

So the smoke was unleashed from its cross-dimensional holding pen.
UGH.

Good luck, may the coffee pot rest in peace.

heh, heh, heh...sweet innocent and diabolically clever.

umm, take the coffee press in for personal use?

We had a brief shower of rain today, and it cooled it off for short while.

Thank you dear and Happy Birthday.

Cross-Section of a Spencer seven-shot repeating rifle, carbine version

At 12, Christopher Miner Spencer begin an apprenticeship in gunsmithing in 1845 near Hartford, Conn. He shifted around from 1850 to 1854. At two different periods he worked in the machine shop of the Cheney Silk mills in Manchester. He made machine tools in Rochester, New York. He tried his hand at repairing locomotives for the New York Central. He was a machinist at the Acme Works, in Chicopee, Massachusetts. Spencer held a job with Colt's Firearms Company, in Hartford. At 21, Spencer wanted to make new Colt's six-shooters. Instead, he was put to work repairing defective and damaged pistols. While Spencer was working at the repair bench, he came the idea of a repeating rifle. The six-shooters he was repairing for Colt used paper cartridges and worked well as pistols but their cylinder principle failed when adapted to the long barrel of a rifle. Spencer visualized metallic shells following each other in Indian style to the firing mechanism of the gun. On March 6, 1860 Spencer received his patent for the rifle. He formed an association with Charles Cheney, the owner of the silk mill where he had worked. Cheney happened to live next door to Gideon Wells, the Secretary of the Navy and persuaded him to order 700 of the Spencer rifles.
In December of 1861, The first big order came in for Spencer. Based on tests ordered by General George McClellen that November, the army ordered 10,000 Spencer rifles. The first delivery of 500 was to be in three months, an impossibly short time. There was no denying that the first deliveries would be several months late. The way the Army contract was written, the War Department could cancel the whole lot. The newly formed Spencer Repeating Rifle Company was facing the very real threat of default. The Spencer situation was examined in May of 1862. Since the company was at that point 2500 rifles behind, the total deliveries for March, April and May, the quantity was reduced to 7500 and the Army order allowed to stand.
Christopher Spencer excused himself from the business problems. He held no financial interest in the company that bore his name and did not take an active part in its day-to-day operation. In fact, he sold his patent rights to the a group including Cheney and other investors for a royalty of $1.00 per gun sold. This is not to say that he did not work hard to make the enterprise a success. There were plenty of technical considerations to keep him busy at the new armory. He designed most of the specialized machinery to make his guns, and then had the machinery built.
Things proceeded slowly in Manchester. The machinery began to arrive and skilled workmen were hired. By late summer gun parts were being produced. The Navy rifles were first to be built. Some key equipment had still not been delivered so Spencer called on his friend, R. S. Lawrence, of the Sharps company, for help. Sharps barrels and lock parts sped up production. Christopher Spencer had used Sharps parts in his prototypes and they again appeared in the early Navy rifles.
The Navy's repeaters were submitted for inspection on December 4th of 1862 and the first 600 were received at the Charlestown (Boston) Navy Yard in February of 1863. In the meantime, the first 500 Army rifles were delivered on the last day of 1862, six months late. These Army rifles were actually the first to be issued, The 5th Michigan Cavalry issued 500 about January 5th , 1863. By March of 1863 things were under control in Boston. With deliveries catching up and no new orders, Spencer set off to tour the Mississippi flotilla and the federal armies in the west to demonstrate his repeater and drum up some business. This trip made a very favorable impression within the armies, but its direct result was only one order. That came from Col. John T. Wilder's brigade of mounted infantry, for 1400 rifles. This order presented a serious problem. It did not come through the Ordinance Department. The men of the brigade pledged their government pay and Wilder, a very successful businessman himself, cosigned the note. This meant that the guns would not be paid for on delivery but rather as the men received their pay. Given the state of the paymasters department at the time, this presented a formidable risk. Spencer crossed his fingers and took the order. This order was later transferred to the Ordinance Department and Wilder got his guns through the regular issue.
About the same time, the State of Massachusetts was having trouble with federal supply of its State Troops. They decided to solve this problem themselves and convened a board to select arms for the State Militia. This board found the Spencer repeater the best of the 25 arms submitted. It didn't hurt that the company was located in Boston. In May of 1863, the state ordered 2000 rifles.
Up to July of 1863, only rifles had been built. Most of these had been issued to cavalry and mounted infantry. As popular as they were, there was an almost immediate call for carbines. The rifles were too heavy and cumbersome for mounted service. Also, not being equipped with a sling ring, there was a very great danger of loosing the weapon if it was dropped, leaving the unfortunate trooper unarmed. In June of 1863, as the last of the Army's 7500 rifles were being delivered, the Spencer company approached the War Department with a proposal to deliver carbines. This was quickly accepted and led to a contract for 11,000 of the short guns. Initial delivery was to begin in August and be complete before the end of the year. The price was set at $25.
In August of 1863 Christopher Spencer made a call upon President Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln had previously tried two different Spencer rifles supplied by the Navy. The first probably had a rusty magazine tube and could not be loaded. In firing the second, the president experienced a double feed, which locked up the gun and required several minutes to clear. This sort of failure is easy to get with the Spencer action, if the lever is not operated smoothly. Due to this experience, the President personally had stopped the issue of Spencer rifles to some units. The meeting apparently went well. Spencer was able to explain the problems and their solutions satisfactorily.
As usual, deliveries were late, but much less than before. The first carbines were accepted on October 3rd, 1863. Seven thousand were turned over to the Army by year's end. This time the order was not reduced for late deliveries. The worth of the repeaters was finally being appreciated. Before the contract was completed, the quantity was increased to 34,500.
The first use of issued Spencers is also hard to determine with certainty. Among the first operations to include them were naval landings along the Carolina coast in early 1863. These were not strongly opposed and no major battles developed. The Mississippi flotilla used their Spencers early against the numerous bushwhackers who had taken to hiding in the dense cover along rivers and sniping at passing Federal boats. Again, these were nothing like pitched battles.
Colonel John Wilder was certainly among the first field commanders to use repeaters effectively on the battlefield. Wilder's Lightning Brigade probably saved the battle of Hoovers Gap, Tennessee, on June 24th '63. They filled and held the center of a thin and under supported Federal line and held against a vastly superior Confederate force. Braxton Bragg's Confederates believed that a fresh corps was coming up, so great was the volume of fire put out by the Lightning Brigade. The southerners fell back to reinforce and reorganize. Bragg's troops then counter-attacked but could not carry the field. When the Confederates finally yielded, the Federals had shot away almost their entire ammunition supply of 142 rounds per man. This was the first major battle for the new repeaters. It was also the first of many instances where the fire power of Spencers in the hands of cool veteran troops staved off defeat 2 . Interestingly, the Confederate losses were not unusually high, 19 killed and 126 wounded out of an entire brigade.

Spencer repeating rifle, carbine.

BTTT!!!!!!

Thank you for the book suggestions.

As usual I find your comments valuable.

It is wonderful how Buford and Reynolds worked together.

Makes me ponder the guys who ran the last miles to relieve Buford's First Cavalry Division, and got there in the nick of time, that is, makes me think about The Iron Brigade.

"The Iron Brigade lost at Gettysburg 1,153 out of 1,885 engaged, or 61 per cent."

"The 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry sustained the greatest percentage of loss (killed and died of wounds) of any of the 2,000 regiments in the entire Union Army. At Gettysburg it lost 77 percent of those engaged."

"At Gettysburg, out of over 400 regiments engaged, the 24th Michigan Volunteer Infantry sustained the greatest loss, 397 out of 496, or 80 percent. It stands nineteenth in percentage of killed and died of wounds in the entire war."

"Uncommon valor was a common virtue."