1.
Spencer repeating rifle
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The Spencer repeating rifle was a manually operated lever-action, seven shot repeating rifle produced in the United States by three manufacturers between 1860 and 1869. Designed by Christopher Spencer, it was fed with cartridges from a magazine in the rifles buttstock. The Spencer carbine was a shorter and lighter version, the design for a magazine-fed, lever-operated rifle chambered for the. 56-56 Spencer rimfire cartridge was completed by Christopher Spencer in 1860. Called the Spencer Repeating Rifle, it was fired by cocking a lever to extract a used case, like most firearms of the time, the hammer had to be manually cocked in a separate action before the weapon could be fired. The weapon used copper rimfire cartridges based on the 1854 Smith & Wesson patent stored in a tube magazine. A spring in the tube enabled the rounds to be fired one after another, when empty, the spring had to be released and removed before dropping in fresh cartridges, then replaced before resuming firing. Cartridges were loaded with 45 grains of powder, and were also available as. 56-52. 56-50, and a wildcat. 56-46. The fact that several Springfield rifle-muskets could be purchased for the cost of a single Spencer carbine also influenced thinking. Lincoln was impressed with the weapon, and ordered Gen. James Wolfe Ripley to adopt it for production, after which Ripley disobeyed him and stuck with the single-shot rifles. The Spencer repeating rifle was first adopted by the United States Navy, and subsequently adopted by the United States Army, and used during the American Civil War, where it was a popular weapon. As the war progressed, Spencers were carried by a number of Union cavalry and mounted infantry regiments, president Lincolns assassin John Wilkes Booth was armed with a Spencer carbine at the time he was captured and killed. The Spencer showed itself to be reliable under combat conditions. Compared to standard muzzle-loaders, with a rate of fire of 2–3 rounds per minute, however, effective tactics had yet to be developed to take advantage of the higher rate of fire. Similarly, the chain was not equipped to carry the extra ammunition. One of the advantages of the Spencer was that its ammunition was waterproof and hardy, the story goes that every round of paper and linen Sharps ammunition carried in the supply wagons was found useless after long storage in supply wagons. Spencer ammunition had no such problem, in the late 1860s, the Spencer company was sold to the Fogerty Rifle Company and ultimately to Winchester. Many Spencer carbines were sold as surplus to France where they were used during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Even though the Spencer company went out of business in 1869, later, many rifles and carbines were converted to centerfire, which could fire cartridges made from the centerfire. 50-70 brass
2.
Christopher Miner Spencer
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He developed the first fully automatic turret lathe, which in its small- to medium-sized form is also known as a screw machine. Spencer worked for Samuel Colt’s factory, where he learned the arms-making trade, although the Spencer rifle had been developed as early as 1859, it was not initially used by the Union. On August 18,1863, Christopher Spencer walked into the White House carrying one of his rifles and he walked past the sentries, and into Abraham Lincolns office. Near the site of the Washington Monument, they engaged in target shooting, subsequent to that meeting, the US ordered some 13,171 rifles and carbines, along with some 58 million rounds of ammunition. General Ulysses S. Grant declared Spencer rifles the best breech-loading arms available, total wartime production approached 100,000 rifles. Many veterans took these rifles home with them after the war, with so many military surplus rifles available, there was little post-war demand for new rifles, and Spencer was unable to recover investments made in manufacturing machinery. Spencer Repeating Rifle Company declaring bankruptcy in 1868, and assets were acquired by Oliver Winchester for $200,000 in 1869, in 1868, while at the Roper Repeating Arms Company in Amherst, Massachusetts, he worked with Charles E. Billings, and Sylvester H. Roper. Around 1882, Spencer started a new company, the Spencer Arms Company, in Windsor and its most remarkable product was likely the Spencer Pump-Action Shotgun. Produced between 1882 and 1889, this was the first commercially successful slide-action shotgun, most were manufactured in 12-gauge with 10-gauge being an uncommon variant. Roe, Joseph Wickham, English and American Tool Builders, New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London,1926, and by Lindsay Publications, Inc. A Short History of Machine Tools, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, MIT Press, flayderman, Norm, Flaydermans Guide to Antique American Firearms. and their values, 5th Edition, Northbrook, Illinois, USA, DBI Books, Inc.1990. Christopher Miner Spencer Collection page from the Windsor Historical Society Christopher Spencer’s Horizontal Shot Tower
3.
Rimfire ammunition
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Rimfire is a method of ignition for metallic firearm cartridges as well as the cartridges themselves. It is called rimfire because the pin of a gun strikes and crushes the bases rim to ignite the primer. Once the rim of the cartridge has been struck and the bullet discharged, while many other different cartridge priming methods have been tried since the 19th century, only rimfire technology and centerfire technology survive today in significant use. Frenchman Louis-Nicolas Flobert invented the first rimfire metallic cartridge in 1845 and his cartridge consisted of a percussion cap with a bullet attached to the top and the idea was to improve the safety of indoor shooting. In English-speaking countries, the Flobert cartridge corresponds to.22 BB, Rimfire cartridges are limited to low pressures because they require a thin case so that the firing pin can crush the rim and ignite the primer. Rimfire cartridges of.44 caliber up to.56 caliber were once common when black powder was used as a propellant, however, modern rimfire cartridges use smokeless powder which generates much higher pressures and tend to be of.22 caliber or smaller. Rimfire cartridges are typically inexpensive, primarily due to the inherent cost-efficiency of the ability to manufacture the cartridges in large lots, the price of metals used in the cartridges increased in 2002, the prices of the ammunition then further increased in 2012 possibly due to hoarding. The idea of placing a priming compound in the rim of the cartridge evolved from an 1831 patent, by 1845, this had evolved into the Flobert.22 BB Cap, in which the priming compound is distributed just inside the rim. The.22 BB Cap is essentially just a percussion cap with a round ball pressed in the front, intended for use in an indoor gallery target rifle, it used no gunpowder, but relied entirely on the priming compound for propulsion. Its velocities were very low, comparable to an airgun, the next rimfire cartridge was the.22 Short, developed for Smith & Wessons first revolver, in 1857, it used a longer rimfire case and 4 grains of black powder to fire a conical bullet. This led to the.22 Long, with the bullet weight as the short. This was followed by the.22 Extra Long with a longer than the.22 Long. The.22 Long Rifle is a.22 Long case loaded with the heavier Extra Long bullet intended for performance in the long barrel of a rifle. Larger rimfire calibers were used during the American Civil War in the Henry Repeater, the Spencer Repeater, the Ballard rifle and the Frank Wesson carbine. The early 21st century has seen a revival in interest in rimfire cartridges, a new and increasingly popular rimfire, the 17 HMR is based on a.22 WMR casing with a smaller formed neck which accepts a.17 bullet. The advantages of the 17 HMR over.22 WMR and other rimfire cartridges are its much flatter trajectory, the.17 HM2 is based on the.22 Long Rifle and offers similar performance advantages over its parent cartridge, at a significantly higher cost. While.17 HM2 sells for about four times the cost of.22 Long Rifle ammunition, it is significantly cheaper than most centerfire ammunition. A notable rimfire cartridge that is still in production in Europe and this cartridge can fire a small ball, but is primarily loaded with a small amount of shot, and used in smoothbore guns as a miniature shotgun, or garden gun
4.
Bullet
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The word bullet is a firearm term. A bullet is a projectile expelled from the barrel of a firearm, the term is from Middle French and originated as the diminutive of the word boulle which means small ball. Bullets are made of a variety of materials and they are available singly as they would be used in muzzle loading and cap and ball firearms, as part of a paper cartridge, and much more commonly as a component of metallic cartridges. Bullets are made in a numbers of styles and constructions depending on how they will be used. Many bullets have specialized functions, such as hunting, target shooting, training, defense, a bullet is not a cartridge. In paper and metallic cartridges a bullet is one component of the cartridge, bullet sizes are expressed by their weight and diameter in both English and Metric measurement systems. For example.22 caliber 55 grain bullets or 5. 56mm 55 grain bullets are the same caliber, the word bullet is often used colloquially to refer to a cartridge, which is a combination of the bullet, paper or metallic case/shell, powder, and primer. This use of bullet, when cartridge is intended, leads to confusion when the components of a cartridge are discussed or intended, the bullets used in many cartridges are fired at a muzzle velocity faster than the speed of sound. Meaning they are supersonic and thus can travel a substantial distance, bullet speed through air depends on a number of factors such as barometric pressure, humidity, air temperature, and wind speed. Subsonic cartridges fire bullets slower than the speed of sound and so there is no sonic crack and this means that a subsonic cartridge such as.45 ACP can be effectively suppressed to be substantially quieter than a supersonic cartridge such as the.223 Remington. Bullets do not normally contain explosives, but damage the target by impact. The first use of gunpowder in Europe was recorded in 1247 and it had been used in China for hundreds of years. Later in 1364 hand cannon appeared, early projectiles were made of stone. Stone was used in cannon and hand cannon, in cannon it was eventually found that stone would not penetrate stone fortifications which gave rise to the use of heavier metals for the round projectiles. Hand cannon projectiles developed in a similar following the failure of stone from siege cannon. The first recorded instance of a ball from a hand cannon penetrating armor occurred in 1425. In this photograph of shot retrieved from the wreck of the Mary Rose which was sunk in 1545, the round shot are clearly of different sizes and some are stone while others are cast iron. The development of the hand culverin and matchlock arquebus brought about the use of cast lead balls as projectiles, bullet is derived from the French word boulette, which roughly means little ball
5.
Gunpowder
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Gunpowder, also known as black powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate, the sulfur and charcoal act as fuels, and the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Black powder firearms are in limited use today in hunting, shooting, Black powder has been replaced for most industrial uses by high explosives such as dynamite. Black powder is assigned the UN number UN0027 and has a class of 1. 1D. It has a point of approximately 427–464 °C. The specific flash point may vary based on the composition of the gunpowder. Gunpowders specific gravity is 1. 70–1.82 or 1. 92–2.08, Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate, ignition of the powder packed behind a bullet must generate enough pressure to force it from the muzzle at high speed, but not enough to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is suitable for shattering rock or fortifications. Gunpowder was widely used to fill artillery shells and in mining and civil engineering to blast rock until the half of the 19th century. Black powder is used as a delay element in various munitions where its slow-burning properties are valuable. The spread of gunpowder across Asia from China is widely attributed to the Mongols, the earliest record of a written formula for gunpowder appears in the 11th century Song dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao. This discovery led to the invention of fireworks and the earliest gunpowder weapons in China, in the centuries following the Chinese discovery, gunpowder weapons began appearing in the Muslim world and Europe. The technology spread from China through the Middle East or Central Asia, the earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century. The most ardent protagonists were Nathaniel Halhad, Johann Backmann, Quintin Craufurd, however, due to lack of sufficient proof, these theories have not been widely accepted. A major problem confronting the study of the history of gunpowder is ready access to sources close to the events described. The translation difficulty has led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence, early writings potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where old words acquired new meanings. For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and there is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various largely medicinal combinations
6.
Rifle
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A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called lands, which contact with the projectile. When the projectile leaves the barrel, this spin lends gyroscopic stability to the projectile and prevents tumbling and this allows the use of aerodynamically-efficient bullets and thus improves range and accuracy. The word rifle originally referred to the grooving, and a rifle was called a rifled gun, the word rifle is now used for any long hand-held aimed device activated by a trigger, such as Air rifles and the Personnel halting and stimulation response rifle. Rifles are used in warfare, hunting and shooting sports, formerly, rifles only fired a single projectile with each squeeze of the trigger. Modern rifles are capable of firing more than one round per trigger squeeze, some fire in an automatic mode. Thus, modern automatic rifles overlap to some extent in design, in fact, many light machine guns are adaptations of existing automatic rifle designs. A militarys light machine guns are chambered for the same caliber ammunition as its service rifles. Generally, the difference between a rifle and a machine gun comes down to weight, cooling system. Modern military rifles are fed by magazines, while machine guns are generally belt-fed, many machine guns allow the operator to quickly exchange barrels in order to prevent overheating, whereas rifles generally do not. Most machine guns fire from a bolt in order to reduce the danger of cook-off. Machine guns are often crewed by more than one soldier, the rifle is an individual weapon, the term rifle is sometimes used to describe larger crew-served rifled weapons firing explosive shells, for example, recoilless rifles. In many works of fiction a rifle refers to any weapon that has a stock and is shouldered before firing, the origins of rifling are difficult to trace, but some of the earliest practical experiments seem to have occurred in Europe during the 15th century. Archers had long realized that a twist added to the feathers of their arrows gave them greater accuracy. This might also have led to a increase in accuracy. Rifles were created as an improvement in the accuracy of smooth bore muskets, the black powder used in early muzzle-loading rifles quickly fouled the barrel, making loading slower and more difficult. Since musketeers could not afford to take the time to stop and clean their barrels in the middle of a battle, rifles were limited to use by sharpshooters, muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at relatively low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle
7.
Cartridge (firearms)
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Military and commercial producers continue to pursue the goal of caseless ammunition. A cartridge without a bullet is called a blank, One that is completely inert is called a dummy. Some artillery ammunition uses the same concept as found in small arms. In other cases, the shell is separate from the propellant charge. In popular use, the bullet is often misused to refer to a complete cartridge. The cartridge case seals a firing chamber in all directions excepting the bore, a firing pin strikes the primer and ignites it. The primer compound deflagrates, it does not detonate, a jet of burning gas from the primer ignites the propellant. Gases from the burning powder pressurize and expand the case to seal it against the chamber wall and these propellant gases push on the bullet base. In response to pressure, the bullet will move in the path of least resistance which is down the bore of the barrel. After the bullet leaves the barrel, the pressure drops to atmospheric pressure. The case, which had been expanded by chamber pressure. This eases removal of the case from the chamber, brass is a commonly used case material because it is resistant to corrosion. A brass case head can be work-hardened to withstand the pressures of cartridges. The neck and body portion of a case is easily annealed to make the case ductile enough to allow reforming so that it can be reloaded many times. Steel is used in some plinking ammunition, as well as in military ammunition. Steel is less expensive than brass, but it is not feasible to reload, Military forces typically consider small arms cartridge cases to be disposable, one-time-use devices. However, case weight affects how much ammunition a soldier can carry, conversely, steel is more susceptible to contamination and damage so all such cases are varnished or otherwise sealed against the elements. One downside caused by the strength of steel in the neck of these cases is that propellant gas can blow back past the neck
8.
Cavalry
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Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the most mobile of the combat arms, an individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations such as cavalryman, horseman, dragoon or trooper. The designation of cavalry was not usually given to any military forces that used animals, such as camels. Cavalry had the advantage of improved mobility, and a man fighting from horseback also had the advantages of greater height, speed, another element of horse mounted warfare is the psychological impact a mounted soldier can inflict on an opponent. In Europe cavalry became increasingly armoured, and eventually became known for the mounted knights, in the period between the World Wars, many cavalry units were converted into motorized infantry and mechanized infantry units, or reformed as tank troops. Most cavalry units that are horse-mounted in modern armies serve in purely ceremonial roles, modern usage of the term generally refers to specialist units equipped with tanks or aircraft. The shock role, traditionally filled by heavy cavalry, is filled by units with the armored designation. Before the Iron Age, the role of cavalry on the battlefield was largely performed by light chariots, the chariot originated with the Sintashta-Petrovka culture in Central Asia and spread by nomadic or semi-nomadic Indo-Iranians. The power of mobility given by mounted units was recognized early on, Cavalry techniques were an innovation of equestrian nomads of the Central Asian and Iranian steppe and pastoralist tribes such as the Persian Parthians and Sarmatians. The photograph above left shows Assyrian cavalry from reliefs of 865–860 BC, at this time, the men had no spurs, saddles, saddle cloths, or stirrups. Fighting from the back of a horse was more difficult than mere riding. The cavalry acted in pairs, the reins of the archer were controlled by his neighbours hand. Even at this time, cavalry used swords, shields. The sculpture implies two types of cavalry, but this might be a simplification by the artist, Later images of Assyrian cavalry show saddle cloths as primitive saddles, allowing each archer to control his own horse. As early as 490 BC a breed of horses was bred in the Nisaean plain in Media to carry men with increasing amounts of armour. However, chariots remained in use for purposes such as carrying the victorious general in a Roman triumph. The southern Britons met Julius Caesar with chariots in 55 and 54 BC, the last mention of chariot use in battle was by the Caledonians at the Mons Graupius, in 84 AD. During the classical Greek period cavalry were usually limited to citizens who could afford expensive war-horses
9.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
10.
Battle of Antietam
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After pursuing the Confederate general Robert E. Lee into Maryland, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan of the Union Army launched attacks against Lees army, in defensive positions behind Antietam Creek. At dawn on September 17, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hookers corps mounted an assault on Lees left flank. Attacks and counterattacks swept across Millers Cornfield, and fighting swirled around the Dunker Church, Union assaults against the Sunken Road eventually pierced the Confederate center, but the Federal advantage was not followed up. In the afternoon, Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnsides corps entered the action, capturing a bridge over Antietam Creek. At a crucial moment, Confederate Maj. Gen. A. P. Hills division arrived from Harpers Ferry and launched a counterattack, driving back Burnside. Although outnumbered two-to-one, Lee committed his entire force, while McClellan sent in less than three-quarters of his army, during the night, both armies consolidated their lines. In spite of crippling casualties, Lee continued to skirmish with McClellan throughout September 18, despite having superiority of numbers, McClellans attacks failed to achieve force concentration, which allowed Lee to counter by shifting forces and moving interior lines to meet each challenge. Therefore, despite ample reserve forces that could have been deployed to exploit localized successes, McClellan had halted Lees invasion of Maryland, but Lee was able to withdraw his army back to Virginia without interference from the cautious McClellan. McClellans refusal to pursue Lees army led to his removal from command by President Abraham Lincoln in November, although the battle was tactically inconclusive, the Confederate troops had withdrawn first from the battlefield, making it, in military terms, a Union victory. Robert E. Lees Army of Northern Virginia—about 55,000 men—entered the state of Maryland on September 3,1862, emboldened by success, the Confederate leadership intended to take the war into enemy territory. Lees invasion of Maryland was intended to run simultaneously with an invasion of Kentucky by the armies of Braxton Bragg and it was also necessary for logistical reasons, as northern Virginias farms had been stripped bare of food. They sang the tune Maryland, My Maryland, as they marched, but by the fall of 1862 pro-Union sentiment was winning out, especially in the western parts of the state. Civilians generally hid inside their houses as Lees army passed through their towns, or watched in cold silence, while the Army of the Potomac was cheered and encouraged. While McClellans 87, 000-man Army of the Potomac was moving to intercept Lee, the order indicated that Lee had divided his army and dispersed portions geographically, thus making each subject to isolation and defeat if McClellan could move quickly enough. McClellan waited about 18 hours before deciding to take advantage of this intelligence and reposition his forces, McClellans Army of the Potomac, bolstered by units absorbed from John Popes Army of Virginia, included six infantry corps. The I Corps, under Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, consisted of the divisions of, the II Corps, under Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner, consisted of the divisions of, Maj. Gen. Israel B. The V Corps, under Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter, consisted of the divisions of, the VI Corps, under Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin, consisted of the divisions of, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Slocum, Maj. Gen. William F. Baldy Smith
