Christopher Spencer received a patent for his Spencer Repeating Rifle in 1860, just before the Civil War broke out:
Cheney arranged an interview in June, 1861, for Spencer with the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, who was a friend and neighbor of Cheney. Spencer claimed his rifle could shoot fifteen times a minute, which was unheard of in that day. He shot an average of 21 shots a minute in this casual meeting.Commander John Dahlgren, the inventor of the Dahlgren naval cannon, was so impressed that Captain Andrew Harwood as Chief of Naval Ordnance ordered 700 Spencers. Not a large order.
A test was also arranged in August, 1861, with the Army under Captain Dyer (later the Army’s Chief of Ordnance) at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. Although Fortress Monroe was safe from Confederates, such a test was rather close to the enemy. Capt. Dyer reported he “fired it some 80 times” and gave the sample gun nasty tests with sand and covered it with salt water for 24 hours. “The rifle was then loaded and fired without difficulty…” (an amazing feat) “…I regard it as one of the very best breech-loading arms that I have ever seen.”
But the Army stalled in ordering any:
Spencer was interviewed by President Lincoln, who is reported at some time in 1861 to have fired a Spencer at short range using his own front sight whittled from a piece of wood. The President instructed the Army Chief of Ordnance, General Ripley, to order 10,000. Spencer (perhaps Cheney) accepted this first large order on the last day of 1861.But the Army (and the Navy) balked at placing further substantial orders for another year and a half. Spencer roamed the western fighting front south from Indiana and Illinois trying to sell guns to individual commanders. Colonel John Wilder facing the Confederates in Tennessee ordered Spencers; the Army rejected the order; the brigade voted to buy them anyway, and did, at $35 each. That’s when a private earned $15 a month — which was about the cost of the traditional muzzle loading musket.
Spencer had another meeting with President Lincoln on August 18th, 1863, when the President hit a 6″ wide pine board at about 40 yards with at least six shots.
Looking back, we know that repeating rifles are the future of small arms, but the Union did not rapidly adopt them. Why not? Largely because they were expensive, and they used a lot of expensive ammo, which had to be carted around:
For a very long time, like about the year 1700 to today, soldiers going into battle carried only a few pounds of ammunition on their person. In the Civil War, the goal was for muzzle loading infantry to go into battle with about 40 rounds apiece (at 11 to 12 shots per pound for 4 pounds). The Confederates could shoot that off in about a dozen minutes or so. In World War Two, the soldiers carrying the M1 Garand carried 96 shots (12 eight round clips) at 20 shots per pound and could shoot that off in about four minutes. In Vietnam, the soldiers carrying the M16 could carry 200 to 300 rounds for about 6 pounds, and could shoot that off in about three minutes. When General Phil Sheridan headed south from Winchester, Virginia, on February 28th, 1865, on a sustained cavalry ride that carried his 10,000 troopers (Sharps and Spencer armed) all the way to the end of the War, each trooper started off with 40 rounds each carried on the horse. Muzzle loader firing for 12 minutes or Spencer firing for 3 minutes, 40 rounds was the Civil War standard allotment of ammunition per man.Taking all this in, General Ripley of Army Ordnance may not have been as wrong as frequently portrayed. The money, the transport, the speed the soldiers would shoot off everything they had before the battle was over, and the lack of more horses to pull more wagons laden with heavy ammunition, all of this says the repeating Spencer, as wonderful as it was, may not have been the big issue.
This seems like a job for Operations Research — which did not exist until WWII, even though it could have and probably should have been applied to earlier “modern” wars.
Obviously the Union’s resources are constrained. Arming every soldier with a repeating rifle, at twice the cost, and more ammo, that is also more expensive per round, is not an option. But what are the trade-offs?
If trained soldiers can shoot 20 rounds per minute from a repeating rifle versus three rounds per minute from a muzzle-loader, this seems like an overwhelming advantage for the repeaters — seven times the firepower. We now know, for instance, that bayonet-charging men with repeating rifles is suicide, because they get so many shots at short range against a target without cover. A soldier with seven times the firepower is not quite seven times as effective — see Lanchester’s Square Law — but he’s more than twice as effective.
On the other hand, if two forces take up positions across from one another and take potshots throughout the day, the limiting factor is not rounds per minute but total rounds available. If you only have 40 rounds, you only have 40 rounds. Blowing through all 40 in two minutes doesn’t help. In this scenario, the advantage goes to whichever side has more ammo — because it is cheaper or lighter — or to the side that causes more casualties per round — whether from more accurate weapons or more accurate shooters. Those expensive brass cartridges start looking worse, and those $50 Whitworth sharpshooter rifles start looking better, under such conditions.
In either case, fewer men with better weapons could conceivably form a more effective force — with much fewer logistical demands for food, water, medicine, etc.