Differences in Carbine Cal .58

[rbruno]

To All,
I have been going through O. W. Edwards records from the Richmond Ordnance Bur. and have come up with a question or maybe confusion of identifying carbines coming to the Bureau from the armory. I have found several invoices with in months of each other which I will attach to the this post. The carbines are listed as the following:

Carbine Cal. 58
Carbine, new, Cal. 58
Cav. Carbine Cal. 58

These are all records coming from the Richmond Armory to the Richmond Ordnance Bureau and carbines are not listed as any other name. For instance, I have seen records for Sharps, Enfield, Bilharz Hall, and Co. etc. My first question, is it safe to assume that because they are not named, they are the Richmond muzzle loading carbine produced using the Harpers Ferry equipment? Second question, does anyone know the difference to the gun that would give it a different name? Or was this just a mistake of someone filling out the invoice.
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[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo!

In looking at the records and correspondence of the Richmond Armory, I believe that what you are seeing is a "carelessness" on the part of Edwards in not being consistant in his terms.
But, he is talking about the same gun: the Richmond made "Rifle Carbine
.58 Caliber" or the "Cavalry Carbine."

The difference between "new" refers to those made up as carbines, versus what James Burton initially described as "Razee Carbines" with "razee" referring to truncated or cut-off. These referred to rifle-muskets that were remade as carbines. That also included those made from "Old Parts."

The "Rifle Carbines" or the Rifle Carbines .58" entries were done to differentiate form the initial production of the "Musketon .69 Calibre" aka "Carbine" or "Carbine 1842."

Eventually, when the .69 "musketoon" production ended, and the old parts ran out... one would have thought that the entries would be more consistant with just "Carbines." But it wasn't and entries for "Carbines Cal .58" appear well after no .69's were being made.

At any rate, as is common in Period writings and records, the names, terms, and descriptions vary, and even vary by the hand of the same people.

Curt

[rbruno]

Thanks Curt,
I was hoping you would chime in on that. That makes sense that new ones were manufactured that way. I had heard or read somewhere that the did cut down and otherwise piece together guns in the beginning and probably to some degree through the entire war.

[Minieball577]

http://historicfirearms.com/cs-armory.html

Paul Davies book goes into much more thorough details on this to the point of listing the amount and type of arms manufactured for most months during the war. He also sets up an explanation of the various types of arms made using photos of original arms as examples. I think any serious student of CW/Confederate material culture should have this book.