Allin, the Master Armorer of Springfield Armory. ![]() The system that was selected was a relatively simple one developed by Erskine S. Instead, the Ordnance Department was directed to convert the existing muzzle-loaders to a standard breech-loading arm. In 1865 the US faced the possibility of war with one of these powers: France had installed a puppet government in Mexico while the US was distracted by the Civil War, and many Americans believed war would be necessary to dislodge the French-backed Emperor Maximilian.Īt the same time, the usual postwar mood of retrenchment had set in and a penny-pinching administration was reluctant to scrap large numbers of usable weapons and initiate a costly replacement program. Also, it was relatively easy to ram more than one load into a muzzle-loader by mistake.īecause of these glaring defects, most European armies had already adopted breechloading arms. As a result, soldiers would frequently fail to ram the bullet fully down on the powder, so that the weapon burst on firing. Wartime experience had shown that muzzle-loaders were becoming obsolete: it was difficult to load them in other than a standing position, and as they became fouled from repeated firing, it became increasingly difficult to ram a cartridge home. ![]() 58” caliber rifle muskets of the Springfield pattern, most of which were still serviceable. At the end of the Civil War the US Government had on hand over one million single-shot, muzzle-loading.
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