A spot named Buttermilk Falls doesn’t sound prefer it needs to be related to a lethal firearm, however that New York city was the house of Gilbert Smith, inventor of a .50-caliber breechloading carbine he patented in 1857 that bears his title.
In 1860, the Washington Arsenal Ordnance Board examined the carbine and was impressed with its ease of loading and accuracy, recommending “it’s adopted….”
Many Northern troopers favored the Smith. The tenth New York Cavalry, for instance gave it excessive marks for its sturdiness and ease of use. However others complained that the exterior spring that held the breech closed was generally made from inferior metallic, and will break and render the gun ineffective.
In 1860, Raleigh Colston, then a Virginia Navy Institute professor who would change into a brigadier normal within the Accomplice Military, examined the gun for his college and located that after 60 photographs the Smith “clogged up in order that it might now not be labored.”
Regardless of its flaws, greater than 30,000 Smith carbines had been issued in the course of the warfare, and it was the fourth most generally used carbine within the Union arsenal.
Pop! Pop! Watch a Smith Carbine hearth.
See our demonstration of an authentic Smith Carbine being loaded with .50-caliber bullets and fired at a goal.
this text first appeared in civil warfare occasions journal
