“The Confederate troops are now entirely armed with excellent rifles, mostly Enfields.” Quote from the work: dated 22d June, 1863 (Monday), written by Lieut.-Colonel Arthur J. Fremantle, titled ‘Three Months in the Southern States.’
The question comes up during discussions about imported Union and Confederate long arms as to the origin of the Enfield rifles that were in wide use by both sides during the U.S. Civil War. Did the English Government Sell Arms to either government in America? In general, the answer is “no.” However, the commercial gun makers in London and Birmingham sold quite a few arms to both sides. A distinction has to be between the British War Department and their own production facility at Enfield Lock (Royal Small Arms Manufactory) and the commercial military contractors in England who sold to both sides in the American Civil War. These are two different things entirely.
The British Government Armory at Enfield Lock could not produce enough grade 1, class 1 weapons for the British army, much less sell any overseas to the U.S. or C.S. Their Ordnance Dept. contracted with London Armoury Company as well as other London and Birmingham commercial gun-makers to fill their own internal needs. The English had a huge private military weapons conglomerate in Birmingham Small Arms Trade as well as individual London firms that sold arms to anybody with enough money to buy them. A persistent fantasy among Civil War enthusiasts is that every P53 Enfield long rifle made in England was used in America during our Civil War.
Au contraire. There were foreign governments buying arms for wars in South American, Greece, Southeast Asia, etc. In addition, the British Volunteer units paid to arm themselves, quite often with commercial P53s which were only recently legally available for them to buy. We take for granted our constitutionally protected rights to keep and bear arms–but it is the exception rather than the rule worldwide. There are no known examples of British service arms with U.S. Civil War provenance. This, of course, excludes retired, obsolete or condemned weapons previously sold back into the gun trade by the War Department. However, the P53s used here on both sides were not condemned or obsolete Govt. weapons. A few were possibly privately refurbished and sold
abroad, though. The War Department would have no problem with that. A number of the obsolete smoothbore “Brown Bess” 1840s vintage .75 caliber percussion muskets were an example of such arms no longer in Government service. These weren’t the apex military arm of the time, the P53 Enfield long rifles. They were so common that here is the simple truth about the Enfield, if you do the math, there were more P53s in use here during the U.S. Civil War than there were U.S. 1861s. Conservative estimates are 800,000 and perhaps as many as a million P53 Enfields, and according to Claud E. Fuller (The Rifled Musket) around 261,000 U.S. 1861s were made at Springfield Armory and another 500,000 or so by private contractors...If that math is right, there were many thousands more Enfield rifles in use during the American Civil War than U.S. model 1861s. To clarify, this figure would not include the “improved” U.S. models 1863 and 1864 that were made later in the war.
How could someone distinguish a War Department (Govt.) gun vs. a commercially made weapon? The War Dept. stamped the so-called “broad arrow” and WD (War Dept.) on the weapon and had their own government barrel proof marks. Commercial military arms were proof-marked by the London or Birmingham proof house(s). I know of only one surviving weapon with bona fide British Govt proof marks and a U.S. Civil War history–a London Armoury Co (LAC) P53 used by a soldier from Georgia that is in a private collection. At one time or another LAC had contracts with both the U.S., C.S. as well as the WD, and one theory is that this particular LAC P53 got mixed in with the wrong shipment. John Dent Goodman, Chairman of Birmingham Small Arms Trade, put the figure at over a million, and one could argue he should know. So that is literally, one in a million. Whatever the case with the production of LAC, no P53
Enfield long rifles have been found that were made at the Government run Royal Small Arms (Enfield Lock) which also had documented U.S. Civil War provenance.
Did the British government encourage selling arms to the Confederacy? The most that may be said is that the Crown did not step in to prevent an unrecognized nation (Confederate States of America) from purchasing arms made by English commercial contractors for use against their former government in America. A notion which no doubt gave them pause to reflect about all their recently armed subjects which took part in the 2nd Volunteer movement during that same period. Monarchies typically look down on armed rebellions, less the notion of overthrowing the government take hold among their own citizens. And the British were also worried about U.S. intentions towards their colony in Canada. In fact, they sent 25,000 troops to Canada to guard the border against possible Union aggression in December 1861.
It has been said that bloodshed and prosperity traditionally mix well, and the English commercial arms makers made out like bandits, but the British government thought it prudent to sit that one out and see how things transpired in their former American colonies. Their armies were spread pretty thin as it was, coming off the recent Crimean War which was followed by the 1857 Sepoy Rebellion in India. France was making noise about attacking “perfidious Albion” after an assassination attempt on Napoleon III (bomb parts were traced to England) and French troops were massing at the border to potentially cross the English Channel. Hence, the British did not supply arms from their own government arsenals to either side. They had their own problems. However, the British commercial military suppliers in Birmingham and London were happy to facilitate the fraternal slaughter across the pond.