All that remained was to fully cock the hammer, aim, and pull the trigger. Raising the lever-which doubled as a trigger guard-would push a new round into the barrel and completely seal off the breech. When lowered with the hammer at half cock, the lever would eject the spent cartridge. The Spencer’s lever action also afforded several advantages. Because the cartridges were rim fire, there was no need to prime the rifle after loading it-an action required with muzzle-loading muskets. It fired copper-cased cartridges, seven of which were held in a spring-loaded tubular magazine in the weapon’s buttstock, which also protected them from damage. 27,393) for his “Magazine Gun.” The weapon featured numerous innovations. On March 6, 1860, Spencer was awarded a U.S. In 1855 Spencer returned to his hometown and the Cheney Brothers silk mills, where in his off hours in the machine shop he could construct a working model of the rifle he envisioned. Several such weapons already existed, but Spencer, now 21, envisioned one that fired self-Ĭontained metallic cartridges-an entirely new concept. It was there, at his oil-soaked workbench, that the idea for a repeating rifle was born. Spencer also began using his skills as a machinist to repair damaged six-shooters at the Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut. But he soon grew restless and drifted around for the next few years, making machine tools in Rochester, New York repairing locomotives for the New York Central Railroad and working as a machinist in Chicopee, Massachusetts. At age 14 Spencer began an apprenticeship at the Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturing Company in Manchester, and in two years he became a full-time journeyman machinist. Dubbed “horizontal shot towers” by the Confederate soldiers who first faced them in battle, Spencer’s lever-action seven-shooters were the war’s finest repeating weapons.īorn in 1833 in Manchester, Connecticut, Spencer acquired an enthusiasm for firearms from a grandfather who had been an armorer for the Continental Army. 52 caliber Spencers spelled victory on many a hard-fought battlefield. In the hands of Federal soldiers in the latter part of the Civil War, the. He is best known, however, for the seven-shot repeating rifle that Lincoln tested. In 1862, a year before his visit to the White House, he built a steam-powered carriage that he regularly drove to work until the authorities asked him to keep off the roads because it spooked the horses. patents for such diverse inventions as a silk-winding machine, a fully automatic turret lathe, and an automatic screw machine. Over his lifetime, Christopher Miner Spencer was awarded more than 40 U.S. Lincoln, according to Spencer, said, “Well, you are younger than I am, have a better eye, and a steadier nerve.”Īfter another such shooting match the following day, Spencer felt certain that Lincoln would recommend his repeater to the U.S. Lincoln’s first shot was low,” Spencer later wrote, “but the next hit the bullseye, and the other five were close around it.” When it was the inventor’s turn, he bested the president by a bit. Spencer then handed Lincoln his loaded seven-shooter, and the president paced off a suitable distance. The men walked to a spot near the unfinished Washington Monument, where the officer set up a target-a three-foot-long pine board with a black spot for a bullseye. “Handling it as one familiar with firearms,” Spencer would later recall, “he requested me to take it apart to show the ‘Inwardness of the thing.’” Intrigued, Lincoln invited the inventor to return the next day so that he could, as Spencer recalled, “see the thing shoot.”Īt the appointed hour Spencer met the president, his son Robert, and a Navy Department officer at the White House. O n August 18, 1863-a day that saw fighting in Virginia, Kentucky, and both Carolinas-President Abraham Lincoln stood in the Oval Office with Christopher Spencer, very carefully examining his guest’s repeating rifle. A New Kind of Firepower that Gave Union Soldiers a Fearsome Edge CloseĬhristopher Spencer’s seven-shot repeating rifle gave Union forces in the Civil War a fearsome edge against their Confederate enemies.
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