American Rifle - Alexander Rose [43]
The second factor in Hall’s success came in the form of Callender Irvine, the new commissary general of purchases for the army, who had begun casting a beady eye Whitney’s way. In June 1813 Irvine, a man who hated waste and extravagance, began targeting greedy arms manufacturers who “did not expect in the beginning to be able to comply with their [contractual] engagement nor do they now intend it.”25 Four months later the first warning shot from Irvine blazed across Whitney’s bow when he rejected as worthless a batch of his Model 1812s. “These defects must be remedied,” he warned, “or the muskets will not be received or paid for by me.”26 When Whitney complained, Irvine airily replied that “your opinions and criticisms on the exceptions taken to your musket have little weight in my mind.” Either supply the muskets in perfect condition immediately, he concluded, or “refund, promptly, the money with interest, which has been advanced to you by the United States.”27 Irvin wanted to terminate the contract because “no good arms can be expected from him,” but Whitney was saved by the War of 1812, when the American government was crying out for guns, any guns, even Whitney’s guns.28
Despite (or because of) Whitney’s lucky escape, reform was in the air. Colonel Decius Wadsworth, a colleague of Tousard’s and Irvine’s, was appointed head of the newly founded Ordnance Department, an agency carved out of the War Department whose specific task it was to improve efficiency in arms procurement and manufacture.29 His motto? “Uniformity, Simplicity and Solidarity.”30 It would soon become his fiefdom’s mantra.
Wadsworth was a man whose clockwork mind functioned along precisely dotted and plotted lines, much as did his “uniformity system.” In 1815, with his deputy George Bomford’s assistance, he undertook a major reorganization of the American military-industrial complex. Henceforth, he directed, the two national armories at Harpers Ferry and Springfield would pursue uniformity in all things, from using precision gauges and standardized accounting to constructing “model” or “pattern” weapons (i.e., perfect specimens issued to private makers that they would copy to the millimeter) before production began.31 Thanks to Hall, Ordnance would soon be able to put principle into practice.
The third factor militating in Hall’s favor was Andrew Jackson’s surprise victory at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815, which produced a flurry of interest in rifles.32 Jackson’s triumph over the British general Thomas Pakenham’s veteran troops was an extraordinary event in American history. Just five months before, the White House and Capitol had been burned by the enemy, and public opinion had turned despondent, but news of New Orleans, recalled one contemporary, “came upon the country like a clap of thunder in the clear azure vault of the firmament, and travelled with electromagnetic velocity, throughout the confines of the land.” The battle, boasted the papers, amply demonstrated the “rising glory of the American Republic” and placed “America on the very pinnacle of fame.”33
The Battle of New Orleans was the culmination of two weeks’ bitter fighting around the city. On January 8, on the plains of Chalmette, Jackson and Pakenham had faced each other for the final trick. The Americans were entrenched behind a long wall of sugar casks and barrels, mortared together with mud. They were protected by a ten-foot-wide ditch, with a cypress swamp on Jackson’s left and a river levee to his right. In short order Jackson’s outnumbered forces—consisting of between 3,500 and 4,500 assorted U.S. Marines, navy sailors, Baratarian pirates, freed black soldiers, Choctaw