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in the mail, but my primary creditors are: David Smith, who runs the New York Public Library’s marvelous Allen Room; Mark Lee, Mark Lamster, and Susan Jacoby, denizens of said room and my fellow scriveners; Professor Robert Gordon of Yale University and John O’Rear for their expert advice; David Miller, associate curator, Division of Military History and Diplomacy, at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, for allowing me the privilege of entering the hallowed Gun Room and for helping me obtain some wonderful new images of some wonderful old rifles; and, finally, Alex MacKenzie, park ranger at the National Park Service– supervised Springfield Armory National Historic Site, who went out of his way (during a move, no less) to take photos of Springfield’s vast inventory of weaponry.

I also greatly owe the staff of the New York Public Library’s Milstein Division of United States History, Local History, and Genealogy for ferrying up piles of books on all manner of musketry, as well as the librarians at the Rare Books Room, the Pforzheimer Collection, and the Science, Industry, and Business Library.

For the look, feel, and “sound” of American Rifle, I’m hopelessly indebted to three people: John Flicker, my editor, who aided in structuring the manuscript; the designer Virginia Norey, who performed magic on my messy collection of photos; and Janet Biehl, the copy editor, who performed surgery on my predilection for passive-voice sentences.

Also invaluable to the Team Rose effort was Emma Parry, my agent at Fletcher & Parry, who shepherded American Rifle from a vaguely expressed idea (“Hey, a book about guns might be interesting”) to a definitely expressed one (“Hey, a book about rifles is interesting”) and then prevailed upon the publisher to take a chance.

Without family, books can’t be written. Mine has always been a source of inspiration and a rock of support. My parents, Olivia, Zoë, and Ari, as well as Erna, David, Carolyn, Liz, Chad, Kyla, Iliana, Ben, and Jaime—all have aided immeasurably and I cannot thank them enough.

The person who aided most immeasurably of all, in all things bright and beautiful, in all things wise and wonderful, is, of course, my beloved Rebecca—to whom this book is dedicated. Without her encouragement, I would have quit halfway through.

Also by Alexander Rose

Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring

Kings in the North: The House of Percy in British History

AMERICAN RIFLE

A Delacorte Press Book / November 2008

Published by Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2008 by Alexander Rose

Photo credits and permissions appear on Photo Credits and Permissions

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rose, Alexander.

American rifle : a biography / Alexander Rose.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

1.Winchester rifle. I. Title.

TS536.4.RR67 2008

683.4'22—dc22

2008023170

www.bantamdell.com

eISBN: 978-0-440-33809-3

v3.0