Civil war guns?

[mark308]

I have an old friend with a couple of civil war era fire arms. One is a Spencer mark K Co. 9th CAV. I’ve look up some info about civil war units, the only reference that I find is to the confederacy. Could this be a union weapon that was captured and reissued by the confederates?

The other is unusual, it has a breach plug that can open the breach by lifting the lever and rotating it, treading out the plug opening the breach. The name on it is “Merrill” what I’ve gathered is that only 770m were produce and issued. Dates show the Patten July 1858 and manufacture 1861.

[CrazyIvan]

You should be able to call Spencer Rifles & find out what it was used for. Spencer Rifles: 615-325-3551 If they can't answer your questions, you should be able to go to a major public library and look up Civil War Weapons and find out where it came from. If it has a serial number on it (doubtful), Spencer may be able to figure out where it was made and where it was sent to be used in the war. You may have to pay them, as I doubt they have it in a computer database; it is probably on a hand-log somewhere, written long ago.

As for the "Merril" rifle, these were made in Baltimore between 1861 and 1865. They were short-lived in the war, though used by enthusiasts who liked em, but were bought by and used a lot by the railroad.


You may want to visit the following sites to do some additional identification:

Various Civil War Weapons: (Spencer Rifle is about halfway down the list)
Shooting Merrill's Carbine

Review of the Spencer Rifle:
Civil War Guns: Spencer Repeating Carbine

Various Civil War weapons: (Shows Merrill Carbine)
Guide to Identify US Military Percussion Carbines of the Civil War

Here is a web-sale of a Merrill Rifle: (!!!!, that's not cheap)
Merrill Mississippi Rifle

Here is a detailed review/description of the Merrill Carbine:
Shooting Merrill's Carbine

[troylaplante]

The Spencer rifle was popular with the Union Army, but not too many were adopted for service at first. Spencer set up a personal meeting with Abe Lincoln after being denied a contract for more by the army. He demonstrated the rifle by disassembling it in the White House and showing its operation. He and Mr. Lincoln then went to the area where the Washington Monument stand and they set up a target. Lincoln was a bit off the first shot but the second two were pretty accurate. Spencer shot a little better, and Lincoln was impressed. Lincoln then insisted that Spencer rifles be mass produced for the Army.

The army's thought was that they would rather have a rate of fire that was slower (many times slower with muzzle loaders as opposed to the Spencer) that would cause people to take their time and pick their shots. This, it was thought, would keep the supply of ammo available as opposed to a huge amount of cartridges for heavier rates of fire.

The Union militia units bought and used more Spencer rifles at first than did the Union Army. The secondary advantage of the Spencer as opposed to the muzzle loader was that if captured by Confederate troops or militia, the Spencer would only be used against the Union forces for as long as they had existing ammo. The Confederates had not perfected rolling of brass or copper sufficiently to produce the cartridges necessary to feed the Spencer.