Related video on derringers

[L Verge]

When you look at that baby-faced boy, who was only 18 or 19 when he went to war, it is hard to imagine that he could win 30+ medals - including the Medal of Honor and high awards from France and Britain.

---

Okay, I finished the drudgery of housework for the weekend and decided to answer my own questions about the Spencer carbine and the Army's reluctance to buy it. Spencers mean something to me because there were two of them hidden at Surratt House on March 18, 1865, by John Surratt, Herold, and Atzerodt after the failed kidnap plot. We are 99% sure that Booth had bought them earlier on the black market. One was left behind by the fugitives on the night of the assassination and caused Mrs. Surratt a lot of trouble!

I just finished doing some digging on the history of the Spencer repeating carbine. It was patented by Christopher Spencer on March 6, 1860. Spencer had developed the idea of a repeating rifle shortly after he left the employ of the Colt factory in 1854.

Through a friend, Spencer managed to demonstrate his rifle for Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles in June of 1861. It impressed the Secretary with 21 shots fired in one minute (the average was said to be 15 shots). Welles referred Spencer to Commander Dahlgren, who sent him to the Chief of Naval Ordnance Andrew Harwood, who ordered a meager 700 rifles.

The rifle was also tested at Fortress Monroe in 1861. The testing included not only its fire power, but its resistance to sand and salt water as well. The Army's Chief of Ordnance James Ripley ordered 10,000 on December 31, 1861 - still not a significant number for an army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. They then balked at ordering more until Lincoln met with Spencer on August 8, 1863, and the President was allowed to test the rifle for himself. Lincoln hit a 6-inch wide pine board at forty yards at least six times.

The sources I found, however, do not blame the lack of enthusiasm for the rifle on the probability of the soldiers wasting ammunition. They point out that Lincoln had a hard time getting Congress to approve plans for the conduct of the war - which entailed how to pay for it. It required time for the government to realize that they had to end the old system of local banks issuing currency and move to a nationalized system in order to pay for the war.

The Union was also faced with the reluctance of many to even go to war at the very beginning. This meant that Lincoln had to resort to working with profiteers and sharks in order to support the war effort until he could get the political will behind him.

Spencer carbines cost twice what muskets did, and the ammunition costs were very high. The carbines also required larger amounts of ammo, and this meant that more horses and wagons were needed in order to transport it.

Finally, the issue of gunsmoke came into play. Battles caused heavy clouds of gunsmoke that created visibility problems. Spencers tripled the rate of fire and thus caused more gunsmoke.

When they did become standard issue, they became more for the cavalry than the infantry. Phil Sheridan made very good use of them during his run through the Shenandoah Valley.

End of lesson... And now all you military historians can tell me you already knew this. Bear with me, I'm a slow learner.