American Rifle - Alexander Rose [248]
37. J. B. Gillett, Six Years with the Texas Rangers, 1875–1881 (Austin, Tex.: Von Boeckmann-Jones Co., 1921), pp. 68–69; R. I. Dodge, Our Wild Indians: Thirty-three Years’ Personal Experience Among the Red Men of the Great West (Hartford, Conn.: A. D. Worthington & Co., 1882), p. 423. Alternatively, the Indians soaked the heads off matches and arranged the phosphorus in a circle at the base of the cartridge; it was hoped that when the rim was struck, the lit phosphorus would ignite the powder. W. R. Austerman, “Guns of Many Voices,” WildWest Magazine, October 1990, p. 7.
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38. Quoted in Garavaglia and Worman, Firearms in American West, p. 2:378.
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39. Ibid., pp. 2:370–71, 375, 377.
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40. Rickey, Forty Miles a Day, pp. 299–300.
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41. G. Custer “Official Report of the Engagements with Indians on the 4th and 11th Ultimo,” August 15, 1873, in Custer, “Boots and Saddles,” pp. 237–48.
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42. Even muzzle-loaders could still be found, not least because they could fire virtually any caliber or unorthodox type of ammunition that came to hand. Private James Lockwood laughed to recall that in the “Hayfield Fight” of August 1867—when thirty soldiers and civilians held out, in grand Rorke’s Drift style, against a force of hundreds of Cheyenne—one of his comrades saw an Indian sneak into a wagon to gulp down molasses. Short of ammo, he threw a handful of .32-caliber pistol cartridges (“copper shells and all”) down the barrel of his trusty old Springfield .58 muzzle-loader and blasted the intruder (Vaughn, Indian Fights, p. 102). As late as 1883 the Pittsburgh firm of James Bown & Sons ran an advertisement claiming that “in some parts it is very difficult to get cartridges for breech loaders. But you can always get powder, lead and caps in the most remote part of the world, and this is why we claim the muzzle-loader is better.” Quoted in A. Halsey’s review of Henry Kauffman’s The Pennsylvania-Kentucky Rifle in Technology and Culture 6, no. 1 (1965), p. 127.
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43. Quoted in Garavaglia and Worman, Firearms of American West, pp. 2:136, 133. See also D. D. Smits, “The Frontier Army and the Destruction of the Buffalo: 1865–1883,” Western Historical Quarterly 25, no. 3 (1994), pp. 315, 320, for Cody’s hunting.
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44. Gillett, Six Years with the Texas Rangers, pp. 203–4.
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45. The previous section on ballistics and cartridges based on Garavaglia and Worman, Firearms of American West, pp. 2:141–52; and Chuck Hawks’s article, “Buffalo Cartridges of the American Frontier,” at www.chuckhawks.com/buffalo_cartridges.htm.
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46. Dodge, Plains of Great West, p. 137.
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47. A. Hatch, Remington Arms: An American Company (New York/Toronto: Rinehart & Co., 1956), pp. 38–39. P. B. Sharpe, The Rifle in America, 3d ed. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1953), p. 284, disagrees and says Eliphalet possessed a “dry sense of humor.”
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48. Hatch, Remington Arms, pp. 48–61; Sharpe, Rifle in America, pp. 284–87, 304.
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49. W. B. Edwards, Civil War Guns: The Complete Story of Federal and Confederate Small Arms (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Co., 1962), pp. 190–96; Hatch, Remington Arms, pp. 77–82; Sharpe, Rifle in America, pp. 288–89, 305.
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50. Sharpe, Rifle in America, p. 291. On Hartley’s background and business career, see Edwards, Civil War Guns, p. 71.
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51. Hatch, Remington Arms, p. 131.
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52. “Mrs. Frances Hartley dead,” New York Times, April 23, 1909, p. 9. The couple had four children.
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53. Sharpe, Rifle in America, p. 292; H. F. Williamson, Winchester: The Gun That Won the West (Washington D.C.: Combat Forces Press, 1952), p. 66; Hatch, Remington Arms, pp. 109–11. On Frankford’s experiments, see Sharpe, Rifle in America, pp. 32–33. Regarding the dictatorial Berdan, he was loathed by many of his men in the two Sharpshooter regiments. In July 1862, five company-level officers requested his removal from command.