The most advanced infantry weapon in the world of its times, it was patented in 1860 by Christian Spencer, a machinist who worked for Sharps and developed the Spencer on his own time. It was the world's first practical repeater and fired a .54 caliber metallic rimfire cartridge (patented by Smith & Wesson and perfected by Henry in the late 1850's) which completely prevented gas leakage from the back because the brass casing expanded on ignition to seal the chamber. It had a "falling block" activated by lowering the trigger guard. This movement opened the breech and extracted the spent cartridge. Raising the lever caused a new cartridge to be inserted into the firing chamber from a 7-round magazine in the stock. It was easy to manufacture, had relatively few parts, many of which were in common with the Sharps rifles, and was cheaper than other repeaters on the market such as the Henry. It also turned out to be extremely reliable under battlefield conditions. The great advantage over the muzzle loading rifles such as the Enfields and Springfields lay not so much in the rapidity of fire, but rather in the ability to aim each shot. In a battle situation, the muzzle loaders were fired in an aimed manner only the first shot, thereafter it was usually a case of hurried fire after frantic loading. A trained soldier could get off one or two shot a minute with them. With the Spencer the soldier could fire 20 to 30 times a minute when necessary. The only disadvantage of the Spencers was the relatively small powder charge in the cartridge which limited its range and made it less sought after by infantry than the single shot Sharps breechloader which used paper or linen cartridges. With the Sharps you could fire about 10 times a minute.  But for the cavalry which fought mostly at close range, the Spencer was the weapon of choice. Introduced in Jan. 1862, it found its first major use by Col. John Wilder's  Indiana "Lightning Brigade" of mounted infantry at Hoover's Gap during the Tullahoma Campaign (22-29 June 1863). The firepower and speed of this unit overwhelmed Wheeler's cavalry guarding the southern end of this pass and allowed George H. Thomas's 14th infantry corps to place itself on the flank of the Confederate General Hardee. This sudden  development misled Hardee into thinking he had been suddenly outflanked by the entire Union Army of the Cumberland, and he retreated without orders back to Tullahoma, 15 miles in his rear. This in turn undermined Bragg's entire defensive line, and he had to pull back into Chattanooga. At the price of about 500 casualties the Union Army advanced 100 miles and made military history.

Between the rifle and carbine versions, about 48,000 of these weapons were in use by 1865. The carbine was a shorter version of the Spencer 7-shot repeating rifle and was introduced primarily for cavalry use in 1864. The effective range (about 500 yards) was the same as the longer "rifle", but it was more difficult to aim because of the relatively short distance between the sights. Rest assured that very few marksman with the unaided eye could or can reliably hit a man-sized target at more than 200 yards, regardless of the effective range of the weapon.

Click to enlarge image.

The Confederacy captured some of these weapons, but was unable to manufacture the ammunition. It is only a small exaggeration to state that this cartridge decided the outcome of the Civil War.

* This cartidge is equivalent to today's .44 caliber special which has more powder and a heavier bullet. The force of the bullet upon arrival, measured in foot-pounds, is about the same. That means that you can go out and buy for around $300 a modern Henry made by Rossi (actually a copy of an 1892 Winchester), model 44 magnum, load up to eleven .44 special cartridges in the magazine under the barrel) and relive the shooting experience of a rich or lucky Civil War soldier, or of a normal post-war settler or Indian.

**The effective range is difficult to establish since so much depended upon the skill and training of the marksman. In general the longer barrels of the "rifles" made sighting easier, thus improving accuracy. However, with the unaided eye, very few people can hit anything beyond 200 yards anyway. The other question is lethal range, i.e. how far could the weapon throw a bullet with enough energy left in it to do damage? This depended mostly on the powder charge and the weight of the bullet.

Burnside went to become a well-known Union general who pioneered amphibious landing techniques on Roanoke Island, NC in Feb. 1862.  However, his reputation is tarnished by a loss to Lee and Longstreet at Fredericksburg, VA (13 Dec. 1862) and an undistinguished performance under McClellan at Antietam (17 Sept. 1863). To be sure, at Fredericksburg Burnside had been very poorly served by the War Department (which delayed consignment of the necessary pontoon boats) and at Antietam by McClellan who, not even present on the field, withheld an entire corps from the battle. Burnside then did very good work at Knoxville, defeating a larger force under Longstreet on 29 Nov. 1863. After the disaster of the mine explosion at Petersburg in May 1864, a failure probably caused by Meade's and Grant's last minute intervention to change the battle plan, Burnside was removed from active command. After the war he served as governor of Rhode Island and then as US senator from Rhode Island.
 
 

During the Civil War, the Sharps rifles, with their fast breech reloading and their deserved reputation for accuracy, were in high demand. Col. Hiram Berdan issued them to his notorious "Sharpshooters" who wore green "camouflage" uniforms and were trained to fight behind cover. The maximum effective range was about 1000 yards, less than that of the muzzleloading Springfields and Enfields, but its breechloading mechanism allowed up to 10 shots a minute (as opposed to twice a minute with the muzzleloaders), and the soldier could easily reload the Sharps in a prone, i.e. protected position.
 
 

Another feature of the Henry was the forked firing pin which struck the cartridge in 2 places, thus decreasing the possibility of misfires. A disadvantage of the Henry was the relatively small powder charge (only 25 grains) which limited the Henry's range and penetration force. The magazine at first was not a separate tube, as with the later Winchesters, but rather machined together with the barrel out of one piece. Due to this machining the Henry was also more expensive than the Spencer and more complicated, and its frame and internal parts were made of brass which made them subject to corrosion, and less robust and durable than the parts of the Spencer. All of these factors limited the Henry's usefulness under battle conditions, and about 10,000 of them were produced during the war. In fact, it really came into its own after the war when it became the weapon of choice of both settlers and Indians. The Army itself put it into the hands of the Indians when it cleared out stocks preparatory to introducing a new version with a steel body. The battle of Little Big Horn took place in the meantime, and for once the Indians were better armed than the US cavalry under Custer.
 
 

Enfield rifle musket
During the Civil War about 400,000 .58 caliber rifled Enfield Lock muzzleloaders firing minié balls were imported from England by the Confederacy during the war. About an equal number of them was imported by the Union. They were manufactured by London Armory in England, or rather under contract for London Armory (to avoid accusations of departure from neutrality), and were generally of very high quality. However, since the Confederacy paid with cotton bonds which became worthless, London Armory went bankrupt after the war. The illustration shows a "trapdoor" breech, a modification of a muzzle loader designed to turn it into a breech loader or, more accurately put, a rear-barrel loader. Due to the expense, this was not a common feature of Civil War infantry rifles.

Springfield rifle musket
During the Civil War about 2 million .58 rifled muzzleloaders firing minié balls were manufactured in the Springfield, Mass. armory (established by George Washington) or elsewhere under contract. The design was based on that of the Enfield. Many of them were captured by Confederate soldiers who then used them. This weapon was first introduced into the U.S. army by Jefferson Davis when he was Secretary of War under Pierce. A practiced marksman could hit a man with aimed fire at about 350 yards. Its large bullet was capable of reaching 1500 yards with lethal force. Except in the minds of many generals on both sides, this revolutionized warfare and should have made mass frontal attacks, cavalry charges, and cannon placement in the front line obsolete.
 
 

About 90% of all battle wounds of the Civil War were caused by the small arms projectile known as the minnie ball. Together with the rifled bore, it changed the face of warfare forever. For the first time in history, infantrymen could aim their weapons at a target a fair distance away and actually have a good chance of hitting it. The days of successful frontal assaults by infantry and cavalry should have been over, and defenders armed with the new rifle-musket could fire from a safe place and knock down attacker after attacker before they got close enough to return the damage. Unfortunately most generals, including many famous ones, were slow learners, so the days of unsuccessful frontal assaults by infantry were not over, but that is another story.

The rifle-musket and minié bullet drastically altered the tactical balance between an attacking army and a defending one. Frontal assaults by infantry on a waiting enemy suddenly became suicidal. During the Napoleonic era, attacking infantry could safely approach to within 100 yards of an enemy line with little danger of being shot down. During the Civil War, however, because of the rifle-musket's accuracy at long ranges, stationary defenders could load, fire, and hit their advancing attackers more quickly than they could fire back.

The combination of the rifle-musket and minié bullet also made the bayonet obsolete. In earlier years, the bayonet was often the most decisive infantry assault weapon, because the smoothbore flintlock musket's short range allowed attackers to approach close enough for hand-to-hand fighting. In the Civil War, however, firepower almost always decided an assault's outcome before charging troops came within stabbing distance. In fact, Civil War surgeons reported very few bayonet wounds.

The rifle-musket and minié bullet also forced a change in the employment of field artillery. In the early 1800s, Napoleon often placed the artillery forward in his battle lines, even during advances, to provide direct fire in support of the infantry. This same tactic was used very successfully by US forces during the Mexican War. During the Civil War, however, it was too easy to shoot down an exposed cannon crew operating in the front lines. The artillery thus had to be placed further to the rear and protected. This made it more difficult to hit enemy targets without endangering friendly troops in the front, but imaginative commanders were able to solve the problem. In any case, the "flying" artillery batteries had their wings clipped in the Civil War, at least where well-schooled commanders were at work.

The role of the cavalry was similarly changed by the rifle-musket and minié ball. Napoleon often used his cavalry as a surprise offensive weapon, sending his horsemen on charges to trample infantrymen armed with smoothbore flintlock muskets. But the Civil War soldier armed with a rifle-musket and minié bullets could reliably hit a man at 100 to 200  yards, while a horse and rider made an even easier target. As a result, the colorful cavalry charges of the Napoleonic era became all but obsolete. In fact, as the war continued, more and more cavalrymen fought as mounted infantry, using their horses for mobility and then dismounting to fight on foot. In effect, they became the forerunners of today's mechanized infantry.

Unfortunately, it took most Civil War generals very long to realize that some of the tactics they had learned at West Point or from military manuals were obsolete, particularly the frontal assault. Some never learned, and Generals on both sides continued to send their men on suicidal charges right up to the end of the war. Notable exceptions to this rule were the Union generals Don Carlos Buell, William S. Rosecrans, and George H. Thomas of the Army of the Cumberland. Some generals, such as Grant, perhaps realized that the old tactics were no longer effective, but they apparently didn't care, as long as they could count on a fresh supply of men. All the more reason for you to study history, so as to be able to help choose intelligent leaders who will protect your interests.