American Rifle - Alexander Rose [245]
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132. Hitchcock, Fifty Years, p. 441; Bruce, Lincoln, p. 169.
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133. Bilby, Revolution in Arms, pp. 86–91; Edwards, Civil War Guns, p. 161.
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134. It is sometimes alleged that Spencers were used at the beginning of the battle of Gettysburg, though without causing any casualties. William G. Adams Jr., in “Spencers at Gettsyburg: Fact or Fiction,” Military Affairs 29, no. 1 (1965), pp. 41ff., casts doubt on the assertion.
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135. Bilby, Revolution in Arms, p. 103. See also Edwards, Civil War Guns, p. 149.
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136. For example, trooper Robert Trouax used “his Seven Shooting Spencer rifle, killing six rebels as they were crossing the [Rapidan] river.” Quoted, with others, in Edwards, Civil War Guns, p. 150.
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137. T. Dennett, ed., Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1939), p. 82; Bruce, Lincoln, pp. 261–63; Bilby, Revolution in Arms, p. 119; “Lincoln and the Repeating Rifle,” Scientific American, December 1921. Spencer’s record of the day is reprinted in Edwards, Civil War Guns, p. 151, and see also Bartlett’s transcript of an interview with Spencer, in “Lincoln’s Seven Hits with a Rifle,” Magazine of History, pp. 71–72. In 1883 the target board was donated by Spencer to the collection of Civil War and Lincoln relics in Springfield, Illinois, but was lost sometime between then and 1956, when an investigation of the inventory discovered it missing (Edwards, Civil War Guns, p. 152.)
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138. The New York Times picked up early rumors on September 10, 1863.
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139. New York Times, September 15, 1863.
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140. American National Biography entry.
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141. Davis, Arming the Union, pp. 140–41.
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142. Report on the “Principal Operations of the Ordnance Department,” October 22, 1864, Official Records, 3d ser., p. 4:802.
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143. Scientific American, January 2, 1865.
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144. The preceding section is heavily based on Nosworthy’s brilliant chapter in Bloody Crucible, pp. 571–93; P. Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Civil War (New Haven, Conn./London: Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 145–50; and C. M. Wilcox, Rifles and Rifle Practice . . . (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1859), pp. 236–37 (on hit rates). Wilcox rightly warns that these figures are not exact, but they nevertheless illustrate essential truths.
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145. See Table 6.1, “Ranges of musketry fire,” in Griffith, Battle Tactics, p. 147. Griffith points out (p. 148) that during the Second World and Korean Wars, the average combat range was about one hundred yards, while in Vietnam, that figure was even less. “There is therefore a fallacy in the notion,” he says, “that longer-range weapons automatically produce longer-range fire.”
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146. Nosworthy, Bloody Crucible, pp. 571–93; Griffith, Battle Tactics, pp. 145–50.
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147. Wilcox, Rifles and Rifle Practice. On the army copies, see G. D. Townsend (assistant adjutant general) to the publisher, June 28, 1859, reproduced in ibid., front matter.
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148. W. L. Willard, Comparative Value of Rifled and Smooth-bored Arms (1863), quoted in Fuller, Rifled Musket, p. 9.
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Chapter 5
1. P. D. Jamieson, Crossing the Deadly Ground: United States Infantry Tactics, 1865–1899 (Tuscaloosa, Ala./London: University of Alabama Press, 1994), p. 25.
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2. D. Rickey Jr., Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay: The Enlisted Soldier Fighting the Indian Wars (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963), pp. 234–35. On the Sioux and Crow, see J. S. Brisbin, ed., Belden, the White Chief . . . (Cincinnati and New York: C.F. Vent, 1874), pp. 440, 451; on the Pawnees, see R. I. Dodge, The Plains of the Great West and Their