American Rifle - Alexander Rose [244]
Return to text.
110. Vandiver, “Makeshifts of Confederate Ordnance,” pp. 184–90.
Return to text.
111. Ibid., p. 193.
Return to text.
112. Bruce, Lincoln, p. 105.
Return to text.
113. Report by Lieutenant J. Green to Colonel J. Harris, commandant, Marine Corps, February 6, 1860, in Sharpe, Rifle in America, pp. 198–99.
Return to text.
114. Letter from Winchester, Scientific American, March 7, 1863.
Return to text.
115. Ibid.
Return to text.
116. Scientific American, September 19, 1863.
Return to text.
117. I. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Macmillan, 1924), p. 1:6.
Return to text.
118. Bruce, Lincoln, p. 39.
Return to text.
119. Ibid., p. 38. The Annual comprised 200 or 300 dense pages covering the year’s technological developments around the world, as well as contributions from America’s leading scientists. Lincoln was so fascinated with his copy—given to him by his law partner, William Herndon—that he immediately went out and purchased the entire set. “I have wanted such a book for years,” Lincoln explained, “because I sometimes make experiments and have thoughts about the physical world that I do not know to be true or false. I may, by this book, correct my errors and save time and expense.” Herndon to Weik, December 16, 1885, in E. Hertz, ed., The Hidden Lincoln: From the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon (Garden City, N.Y.: Blue Ribbon Press, 1938), pp. 112–13.
Return to text.
120. G. B. McClellan, McClellan’s Own Story . . . (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1887), p. 162.
Return to text.
121. New York Times, August 4, 1858; Scientific American, August 28, 1858.
Return to text.
122. H. C. Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln (1892; reprint Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1940), p. 121. Whitney, interestingly, added that “he was equally inquisitive in regard to matters which obtruded on his attention in the moral world; he would bore to the center of any moral proposition, and carefully analyse and dissect every layer and every atom of which it was composed, nor would he give over the search till completely satisfied that there was nothing more to know, or be learned about it.”
Return to text.
123. There is some debate as to what piece Lincoln carried. Traditionally, it is thought to have been an experimental Henry, though Bilby (Revolution in Arms, p. 67) points out that early, bronze-framed Henrys did not appear until April 1862. However, the Winchester historian Herbert Houze notes that iron-framed Henrys might have been available in May of 1861 as a result of Winchester contracting with Colt for a limited production run. The case can’t be proven either way, and I think it perfectly possible that Lincoln had in his hands one of these rare Colt-made, primitive Henrys. Stoddard says Lincoln actually carried “a kind of Spencer”—which could easily be misidentified or misremembered as a Henry; Bilby, however, believes Stoddard might have confused this test with one conducted by Lincoln using a Spencer a year later. (Stoddard’s anecdote can be found in his Inside the White House, p. 42.)
Return to text.
124. Stoddard, Inside the White House, p. 41.
Return to text.
125. Ibid., pp. 43–44. The anecdote regarding Mrs. Grady is in Bruce, Lincoln, p. 103n.
Return to text.
126. Ibid., p. 108.
Return to text.
127. Bilby, Revolution in Arms, p. 77; Bruce, Lincoln, p. 112. McClellan allusively explained later that at the time there weren’t “a sufficient number of suitable officers to perform their duties at the various headquarters.” The key word here was “suitable.” Report by McClellan on the “Operations of the Army of the Potomac from July 27, 1861, to November 9, 1862,” dated August 4, 1863, Official Records, 1st ser., p. 5:29.
Return to text.
128. Davis, Arming the Union, p. 124.
Return to text.
129. Quoted in Bruce, Lincoln, p. 167.
Return to text.
130. See the report in the Pittsfield Sun, January 30, 1862, p. 3; Davis, Arming the Union, p. 69.
Return to text.
131. Bruce, Lincoln, p. 168;