During Centennial, when historians were less aware of historical firearms, it was commonly believed that Brigadier General John Buford’s horse soldiers were armed with Spencer repeating carbines when they conducted their holding action on July 1 at Gettysburg. This was, however, not the case. As dawn broke on July 1, 1863, Buford’s Division was deployed on ridgelines north and west of the little Pennsylvania town. Buford’s job was to seek out the Army of Northern Virginia while shielding his own Army of the Potomac from prying enemy eyes. That morning both armies, primed for a climactic, perhaps war-ending, fight, were converging via roads that radiated out like spokes from a Gettysburg hub.
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As Confederate infantry warily approached his position, 2nd Lieutenant Marcellus E. Jones grabbed his sergeant’s Sharps carbine, dropped the lever, slipped a linen cartridge into the open chamber, closed the action, cocked the hammer, and capped the nipple. Using a fence rail for a rest, he jacked up the sights to what he thought was an appropriate height for the range and squeezed off a shot at the advancing enemy some 600 yards away. The bullet hit the ground in a puff of dust halfway to the Rebs. Jones had miscalculated the range but accomplished what he set out to do. Forever after the lieutenant, of Milton, Ill., and the 8th Illinois Cavalry, could claim the honor of firing the first shot of perhaps the greatest of American battles, Gettysburg.
by Joe Bilby
cavalry was indeed a heavily armed force, with each trooper carrying a breech loading carbine, saber, and cap and ball revolver. At first glance, dismounted horse soldiers, with their faster-firing shoulder arms backed up by six shot handguns, might seem to have an advantage over infantrymen armed with single shot muzzle loading rifle muskets. However, Civil War cavalry did not engage in standup fights with infantry, as the mounted arm’s tactical role was quite different than that of foot soldiers. In addition to not being schooled in infantry tactics, a dismounted cavalry force immediately lost a quarter of its potential firepower, as every fourth man was required to hold horses behind the skirmish line.
Breech loading carbines had long been preferred for cavalry, as they could be fired and reloaded on horseback. Such use in the Civil War was rare, however, as carbines were primarily used for dismounted skirmishing. In addition to the Sharps, men in Buford’s cavalry screen were equipped with a variety of carbines, including the Burnside, Gallager, Smith, Merrill, and Sharps and Hankins. These guns fired .50 to .54 caliber cartridges with 40 to 45 grain powder charges. All, save the Smith and Merrill, were operated by lowering a trigger guard lever to expose the chamber for loading.
All but the Sharps and Hankins used semi-fixed ammunition, a cartridge containing powder and bullet with priming supplied by a percussion cap placed on an external nipple. Civil War carbines used a variety of non-interchangeable specialty cartridges of different shapes and materials, some of which acted as breech seals, although the Sharps and Merrill depended on mechanical breech sealing. This ammunition diversity proved an ordnance officer’s nightmare, especially when, as was often the case, a unit was armed with several varieties of weapons.
The sturdy and accurate Sharps, the most common and popular carbine, used a combustible .54 caliber linen cartridge; it replaced a paper cartridge that allowed loose powder to migrate into places where it could explode. The Gallager chambered a .52 caliber brass cartridge that had to be manually extracted after firing, often with great difficulty, and was variously described as
Michigan Cavalry Brigade monument located east of Gettysburg on East Cavalry Battlefield. This monument was dedicated by the State of Michigan on June 12, 1889. (Sue Boardman Collection) “inefficient,” and “not equal to a bar of iron,” in field evaluation reports by the men it was issued to.
The .54 caliber Burnside, as durable and accurate as the Sharps, fired a tapered brass cartridge loaded in a breechblock chamber that tilted upward and featured a primitive bump extractor
that jarred the fired case loose on opening the action. The .50 caliber Smith employed a rubber cartridge that expanded to seal the chamber on firing, and then shrank for easy manual removal. A well-regarded gun during the war, it has remained so in original and reproduction form among carbine shooters in the North- South Skirmish Association. The .54 caliber Merrill used a paper cartridge that, like the Sharps paper rounds, was fragile and often broke up in cartridge boxes due to the “jouncing” effect conveyed by trotting horses. Most respondents to a late war survey of carbine effectiveness considered the Merrill “worthless.”
The most modern gun on the field that day was the Sharps and Hankins, designed by Christian Sharps after he left the company that produced carbines bearing his name. It fired a .52 caliber
rimfire cartridge with powder, bullet, and priming compound in one convenient water and jounce proof copper package. Most Sharps and Hankins carbines were purchased by the navy, but New York bought some as well, apparently including those carried by three companies of the 9th New York Cavalry at Gettysburg.
Historical myth long held that Buford’s troopers were armed with seven-shot repeating Spencer carbines on July 1 and credits the Spencer’s firepower with delaying the Confederate advance. The cavalry presence forced the Confederates, who did not know where the Union infantry was, to deploy into line of battle, which took up the time needed for Union infantry to arrive. Casualties were light on both sides. One cavalryman only fired a dozen rounds from his carbine all morning.
Were there Spencers at Gettysburg? Yes, rifles in the hands of the 5th and 6th Michigan Cavalry, which made their mark in the cavalry action on July 3. In fact, Spencer carbines were not even manufactured until October 1863.
Joseph G. Bilby received his BA and MA degrees in history from Seton Hall University and served as a lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division in 1966–1967. He is Assistant Curator of the New Jersey National Guard and Militia Museum, a freelance writer and historical consultant and author or editor of 21 books and over 400 articles on N.J. and military history and firearms. He is also publications editor for the N.J. Civil War 150 Committee and edited the award winning New Jersey Goes to War. His latest book, New Jersey: A Military History, was published by Westholme Publishing in 2017. He has received an award for contributions to Monmouth County
