Inspection
The Confederate Kerr Rifle
Last month we talked about James Kerr’s revolver in Confederate service. Now we turn our attention to his rifle design, a gun that was acquired in very limited quantities but was as important as the Whitworth to Confederate sharpshooters in the Western Theater.
The Kerr Rifle was designed circa 1860 by James Kerr, who at that time was serving as the superintendent of the London Armoury Company, a position formerly held by Robert Adams of Adams Revolver fame. On May 10, 1861, Kerr received English Patent #4348 (1861) for his unique rifling design. The small bore, .451 rifle had a six groove, 37" barrel that was slightly recessed at the muzzle to protect the rifling and to facilitate the loading of the paper cartridge. The overall length of the rifle was 53", and it was stocked to within 1-¼" of the muzzle, with no provision to mount a bayonet.
All of the guns were produced by the London Armoury Company, and it is believed that only about 800 of the rifles were manufactured between 1861 and the cessation of London Armoury Company operations in 1866, although I am not aware of any Kerr Rifles with dates later than 1864 on their locks. For all practical purposes, the gun was a standard London Armoury P-1853 Enfield Rifle Musket, with an upgraded barrel and finer quality sights. The barrel could be easily exchanged for a standard 39” long .577 caliber barrel for those who wanted a dual caliber rifle. This was important for the military target rifle shooters in England, who often competed in matches that required a standard military pattern rifle in .577 caliber, but who also competed in classes that allowed for small-bore rifles. The interchangeability and swappable barrels made the Kerr small-bore Military Target Rifle a popular choice for those competitive shooters.
The rifle was also one of the most accurate designs available during the early 1860s, eclipsed in its accuracy
only by the Whitworth patent rifle, which sold for substantially more money. From an economic standpoint, a Kerr rifle cost roughly twice what a standard P-1853 Enfield rifle musket did, but a Whitworth could cost as much as 20 times more than a Kerr Rifle! The Kerr Rifle was typically equipped with an upgraded and refined version of the standard “Enfield” type rear sight and with a windage adjustable front sight. As production of the rifles continued, more expensive and complicated sights were offered as options on the guns, including various tang mounted “peep” sights. Extended triggerguard spurs, and other target shooting enhancements were also available as special order features on later production rifles. The initial production guns were typically standard brass mounted P-1853 London Armoury Enfields, with the Kerr barrel, enhanced sights, and a special bronze tipped rammer of appropriate length for the shorter barrel. As production continued, better quality wood was used in the stocks, and checkering of the wrists and forends became more common. Iron mountings were also made available as well.
Later guns were more often enhanced with engraved locks, screw heads, and forend tips, and of course, a myriad of custom order features were always available. As with all London Armoury produced arms, the Kerr Rifle underwent some minor improvements as production continued. The most obvious being the adoptions of the rounded Baddeley Patent barrel bands in the lower and middle positions of the stock. These bands had a small, recessed tension screw that eliminated the possibility of snagging the screw from the standard Palmer Patent clamping bands.
The Palmer band, however, remained in use in the upper position, where the sling swivel was installed. During the American Civil War era, only those Enfields produced by the London Armoury Company and the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock (RSAF) utilized the Baddeley Patent barrel bands. The rifles were marked like most London Armoury produced Enfield pattern arms, with the date of manufacture over L.A.
Additional details of Kerr Rifle #485 showing the 1862 / L.A. Co. lock marking, the refined rear sight and the engraved serial number 485 located on top of the barrel between the breech and rear sight. Co. on the lock plate, forward of the hammer. The tail of the lock plate was marked with a British Crown over the initials VR. While normally these initials would indicate British government ownership, it appears that London Armoury used them on nearly all of their lock stampings, even on guns that were clearly for commercial sale and not for sale to the crown. The nocksform of the rifle was marked KERR’S PATENT, and a two-line oval cartouche reading REG’D / 10 MAY 1861 was typically stamped at the upper left of the breech. A serial number was normally engraved on the top of the barrel, between the breech and the rear sight.
The extreme accuracy of the Kerr rifles, their reasonable price (when compared to Whitworth Rifles) and the strong relationship between the London Armoury Company and the Confederacy would suggest that a large number of these special rifles would have been acquired by the South for use by sharpshooters. While the Confederacy did, in fact acquire some of these special rifles, it seems unlikely that they obtained more than 60 to 80 of them, and documents suggest that only about half that number ever made it into the field. The only confirmed purchase of Kerr Rifles by the Confederate central government was an order placed with Sinclair, Hamilton & Company in July of 1862 by Caleb Huse. It is important to remember that Archibald Hamilton, the principle in Sinclair, Hamilton & Company was also the Managing Director of the London Armoury Company.
Muzzle detail of Kerr Rifle #485, showing the patent rifling of the .451 caliber bore, the windage adjustable front sight, and the special bronze tipped ramrod.
The order specified “20 small bore Rifles, best cheq’d stocks, brass mountings.” The rifles cost 108 schillings each, only about 25% more than the 75 schillings that Huse had been paying for London Armoury P-1853 Enfields, complete with bayonets. The 20 Kerr Rifles from this order apparently ran the blockade sometime between the fall of 1862 and the fall of 1863, and were eventually delivered to the Richmond Arsenal, where they remained in storage until November of 1863. It is not clear when the rifles were delivered, nor when they left England and when they arrived in the South, so they may have been in Richmond for
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a much shorter time than it appears.
On November 16, 1863, Colonel Gorgas of the Confederate Ordnance Department informed Lt. Colonel Hypolite Oladowski, Chief Ordnance Officer of the Army of Tennessee, that he had ordered the Richmond Arsenal to send 20 Kerr Rifles, complete with ammunition to the Army of Tennessee for the use of their sharpshooters. Lt. Col. Oladowski subsequently transferred 10 of these Kerr rifles to General Patrick R. Cleburne’s Division (Hardee’s Corps) at Tunnel Hill, Georgia on December 23, 1863, at the request of Captain Charles S. Hill, Ordnance Officer. Captain Hill officially confirmed the
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receipt of these rifles on December 24, 1863, and included a personal note wishing Oladowski “Merry Christmas & Happy New Year”. No further documents have been uncovered relating to the field use of the remaining ten brass mounted Kerr rifles, although it seems unlikely that these very important rifles would languish in the Richmond Arsenal unnecessarily, when they certainly could have been put to good use in the field.
An additional group of Kerr Rifles has been documented in Confederate service, and these guns also saw service in the Western Theater with the Army of Tennessee. The group of 11 guns were a gift to General John Breckenridge from an unidentified “English Friend”. Breckenridge had formerly commanded the Kentucky “Orphan Brigade”, and he passed the guns directly to his old brigade. In April of 1864 a shooting contest was held by the brigade in Dalton, Ga., and the two best shots from the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th Kentucky Infantry were issued these special rifles, with the 11th gun going to Lieutenant George Hector Burton who was placed in command of this elite sharpshooting unit.
The Orphan Brigade was officially the 4th Brigade, First Division of General Hardee’s Corps at that time, so all documented issues of Kerr Rifles were to elements of Hardee’s Command. One example of a Kerr rifle in a private collection has strong Confederate provenance and is likely one of the 11 Breckenridge guns. This rifle is iron mounted. It appears likely that the Breckenridge rifles were iron mounted, while the guns ordered by Huse specified brass furniture. In June of 1864, Lt. Col. Oladowski submitted an Armament and Ammunition Report of the Army of Tennessee for the week ending on June 25. In the report he noted 29 “.44 calibre” rifles on hand. Whitworth Rifles are noted separately in this report, which suggests that these 29 rifles were in fact Kerr Patent Rifles, the 10 sent to Cleburne at Tunnel Hill, the 11 given to the Orphan Brigade and eight others, which may have been part of the additional 10 rifles left in storage in Richmond. In an August 4, 1864 Consolidated Armament and Ammunition Report sent to Colonel Gorgas from Captain W. D. Humphries, Depot Ordnance Officer, East Point, Georgia, Army of Tennessee he states that: “We have in this army 38 Whitworth and Kerr’s Rifles which are the same cal. and the Whitworth Cartridge is much preferred of which we have no supply in reserve.”
The report does not, however, specify how many of each rifle were currently in the field. Additional Kerr rifle purchases are suggested by a report found within the Prize Court records of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York. The report relates to the capture of the blockade-runner Elizabeth.
The vessel was captured while attempting to enter Charleston on May 29, 1862, and belonged to John Fraser & Company (the primary importer of Confederate purchased Kerr revolvers). Listed within the cargo of the ship were “14 small calibre Enfield Muskets”, which were almost certainly Kerr Rifles.
The guns were valued at a paltry $7 each, interesting in that U.S. contracts were paying at least double that for regular Enfield rifle muskets! The document further reveals that the rifles were packed in a crate that was marked with a WD within a rhomboid, which almost certainly meant that they were “War Department” (Confederate central government) purchases, but no corresponding reference to these rifles is found in existing Confederate documents or the Gorgas summary. Also, the crate would have certainly contained 20 rifles, so it is unclear what happened to the other six that should have been in the case. It appears almost certain that at least a few other Kerr Rifles were acquired by Confederate speculators, and were delivered to the Confederacy during the war. The configuration of these guns cannot be determined. However, a reasonable assertion can be made that the Confederate acquired and used Kerr rifles were of “best quality” wood with checkered stocks, standard Kerr patent sights and were delivered with both brass and iron mountings. The presence of enhanced target-shooting features such as tang sights, other specialty sights, pistol gripped stocks or trigger guards, etc. would almost certainly rule out the gun as a candidate for Confederate use. Reasonable deduction reveals that the 20 brass mounted rifles purchased by Caleb Huse would be dated either 1861 or 1862, while the iron mounted Breckenridge guns could be dated as late as 1864, although it seems more likely that they are dated 1862 or 1863. The captured guns from the blockade runner Elizabeth could only bear 1861 or 1862 dates, and it is not clear if these were brass or iron mounted. The best estimates regarding the importation and use of Whitworth rifles places the number at fifty on the high end, and probably fewer than that. No more than twenty-three can be documented as being in the field in the Western Theater (Army of Tennessee & Army of Mississippi), thus there appear to have been roughly the same amount of Kerr and Whitworth patent rifles in use by Western Theater Confederate sharpshooters during the Civil War. This makes the Kerr every bit as rare as the Whitworth, but from a collectors’ perspective, the Kerr rifle has not achieved the notoriety or earned the mystique of the Whitworth, and as such, remains an extremely undervalued long arm in Civil War collecting, with a likely Confederate used Kerr rifle rarely selling for more than about 25% of what a Confederate Whitworth rifle will sell for. As such, the Kerr rifle (if you can find one) is currently the ultimate bargain for a Civil War collector who wants to own a Confederate sharpshooters rifle.