American Rifle - Alexander Rose [128]
Brigadier General Daniel Flagler, a New York–born Ordnance lieutenant during the Civil War and superintendent of three arsenals (Rock Island, Frankford, and Watertown), replaced the aged Benét in early 1891. His job, as he saw it, was twofold. First, he needed an American-made powder; and second, he needed an American-made rifle to fire it. The 1890s were perhaps the high point of nationalist fervor, and while he could simply have bought Mausers and Mannlichers from the Germans, the very idea of outsourcing U.S. military requirements to foreigners was abhorrent. “It is hoped,” wrote Flagler, “that this country can produce a better arm, and until it can, or certainly until it has been demonstrated that it can not, it would be wise to defer a change from the excellent single-loader now in service to a magazine system.”28 To those who complained that Ordnance was desperately grasping on to an outmoded weapon (the New York Times accused him of dithering), Flagler retorted that an infantryman using one of these apparently obsolete Springfield single-shots could fire up to twenty rounds per minute “with the accuracy generally needed in action.”29
His opponents immediately attacked by highlighting the disingenuousness of that reply. What did “accuracy generally needed” mean? At what range? How likely was it that a soldier could load, aim, and fire a bullet every three seconds in battle for a sustained period? To them, soldiers obviously needed a modern rifle with a magazine designed so that they could choose to fire singly or quickly, depending on range and conditions. Moreover such a rifle would finally allow diehards and progressives to reach compromise after so many decades of infighting. If progressives accepted the diehard emphasis on rapid, intense firing at close quarters, and if diehards accepted that marksmen could be used to harry the enemy at long distance with accurate fire, then surely peace between the warring camps was nigh.
The principle of a magazine being mutually agreed upon, the last point of contention, then, would be the type of magazine. Diehards tended to favor a Mannlicher-style clip that would slot into place and be instantly ready to unleash hell. More progressive soldiers were keener on a Winchester-style magazine that needed to be loaded one cartridge at a time, both as homage to the single-shot rifleman’s traditional skills and also to remind troops not to waste their ammunition like the musket men of yore and the repeater-armed civilians of then.
To make the final decision, Flagler set July 1, 1892, as the deadline for the submission of rifles for a new board to test. Fifty-three arms were sent to Ordnance; all but one or two were bolt-action pieces, and most were magazines (some in the forestock, some in the buttstock, some rotary, some box). Thirty-seven were quickly rejected as poor to useless. Then, surprisingly, the British-made Lee, the vaunted Mauser, and then a highly experimental .30 single-shot Springfield flopped out. Neither the Lee nor the Mauser company was quite out of the running, since they both had other models entered, but still their missteps were embarrassing. As for the Springfield, it had been patched up many times in its twenty-six years of faithful service, but this was once too often. Even Flagler had to admit that the United States was “suffering in a military reputation” from its reliance on the single-shot Springfield.30
The next round saw further culling, and by the third heat there were just seven left, including a Mannlicher, a Mauser, a Lee, and a Krag-JØrgensen—a Norwegian rifle developed by Captain Ole Krag, superintendent of the Königsberg arsenal, and Erik JØrgensen, its civilian master armorer. It was quickly emerging as the surprise star of the competition.31 “Greatly to the surprise of the average American