With its agrarian economy and a Union blockade, the Confederacy faced an uphill battle from the start to arm its insurrection.

A rare Civil War Confederate Texas Dance & Brothers revolver. Available this May.

The North enjoyed the United States industrial might capable of ramping up production to arm the Union military while the South struggled. Churches donated bells for brass. Limited numbers of guns slipped through the blockade. Entrepreneurs did their best to manufacture weapons as they could, but the cold truth was that fewer than 10,000 Confederate revolvers were made during the Civil War. Colt produced more than 120,000 Model 1860 Army revolvers for the Union.

A Confederate Robinson carbine, a copy of the Sharps carbine manufactured in Richmond, Va., at top, and a desirable Griswold & Gunnison revolver.

Confederate Revolver: Griswold & Gunnison

Samuel Griswold arrived in Georgia from Connecticut in 1822. A shrewd businessman he manufactured cotton gins while operating a sawmill and grist mill. He purchased about 4,000 acres of land about 9 miles outside of Macon where he founded Griswoldville. The village had a foundry to go with the factory and mills, a post office, a soap tallow and candle factory, a laundry and cottages for slaves, white employees and houses for Griswold and his wife and their families.

When the Georgia governor put out the call for “pikes on a 6-foot staff,” in January 1862, Griswold folded production of the cotton gins and got into the weapon-making business. The state paid $5 per pike and Griswold’s factory produced more than 200 by late April 1862.

This Griswold & Gunnison revolver is one of about 3,700 revolvers made by Samuel Griswold at his Griswoldville, Ga, factory. It has a brass frame and dragoon-style barrel.

By August, Griswold’s factory had changed course and produced revolvers that were copies of Colt’s Model 1851 Navy with the goal to make five per day. The Confederate revolver was described in an article in the Macon, Ga., Telegraph newspaper: “The pistol, to our inexperienced eyes, was as well finished as those made by the patentee himself and we have no doubt equally as efficient.”

An officer of the Confederate Ordnance Department described Griswold’s manufacturing process, explaining that the barrels were forged from ordinary 1-inch square bar iron and the cylinder were from ordinary round bar. Heating the bars and twisting them strengthened the metal. The twist lines can still be seen on the cylinders. “I cannot approve of this process, but the proprietors feel confident that they will stand the required test.” Production from October 1862 to November 1864 averaged about 100 revolvers per month with the Confederacy paying $40 per gun. By comparison, Colt was paid $20 per revolver. Griswold tried to get the government to rent or lease the factory but didn’t get approval. Griswoldville and its factory were one of the first destroyed on Sherman’s “March to the Sea.”

Confederate Revolver: London Armoury Co. Kerr’s Patent

Both the Union and Confederacy sent representatives to Europe in search of arms and Confederate ordnance officers set up shop at the London Armoury Company to the dismay of the North’s representatives. Union Col. George Schuyler reported in August 1861, “No Enfield rifles can be procured in England. All private plants in London and Birmingham are working for Ohio, Connecticut and Mass. except the London Armoury Co. whose product is supposed to be for the South.”

London Armoury Company, set up to manufacture Enfield rifles, had to complete a contract for the British government before it could devote production to the Confederacy. The company made both single action and double action revolvers that were well liked by the Confederate soldiers. Among the revolvers made were the Beaumont-Adams revolver like the one carried by Jefferson Davis when he was captured in the war’s last days.

The Civil War-era London Armoury Co. Kerr’s Patent double action revolver has a barrel marked “London” and the lock plate is marked for the London Armoury.

The LAC guns were imported in large numbers, were well made and well finished. The company shipped 70,000 rifles and 7,000 revolvers to the Confederacy before going out of business in the spring of 1866, a year after losing its biggest customer.

Confederate Revolvers: Civil War Colts

Before the Civil War, Samuel Colt sold guns to everybody and did good business selling in the South, including the Texas Rangers, so it was natural that some Colts would find their way to the front lines for the Confederates. The first shots of the Civil War didn’t stop Colt from shipping guns to the South. Union forces at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor surrendered to Confederate forces on April 14, 1861. A shipment of 500 Colt Model 1860 Army revolvers were shipped to Richmond, Va., what would be the Confederate capital, two days later, and 1,100 were shipped on April 19 to New Orleans.

After public outcry and claims of southern sympathies weighed on the Connecticut company’s reputation, the shipments south stopped. Along with Colts already purchased by Southerners, revolvers were also captured by the Confederacy. Historic photographs show soldiers armed with Colt Confederate revolvers. Generals like Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest were known to carry Colts.

Manufactured in 1861, this Colt Model 1860 Army is accompanied by a letter attributing it to the Confederacy stating it was purchased by a family in Columbia, Tenn. and carried during the war by a family member.

The Colt 1851 Navy was popular with Confederate troops because of its availability and reliability. Nathan Bedford Forrest, likely with the assistance of Confederate sympathizers, purchased 500 Colt Model 1851 Navy revolvers in October 1861 and had them shipped to Louisville, Ky. where they were put in potato sacks and smuggled south. Forrest liked the Navy revolvers and recommended his men carry two each while setting aside their sabers.

The Navy revolvers were also used after being captured but were not as prevalent as the 1860 Army. J.E.B. Stuart, known for carrying a Le Mat revolver, captured a wagonload of 1860 Army revolvers during the Seven Days battle in the summer of 1862.

This Colt Model 1851 Navy was manufactured in 1860. Its backstrap is inscribed “Capt. Creighton C.S.A. 1861” Research shows Confederate Capt. William Creighton oversaw a plantation of more than 400 slaves and fought in the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas. The revolver features a relief carved eagle, shield and flag on the left side.

Confederate Guns: Massachusetts Arms Co. Maynard First Model Carbine

Edward Maynard was a dentist and inventor who studied at the Military Academy at West Point only to resign because of poor health. As a dentist he would serve the Washington, D.C. elite and hold high positions in respected dental institutions. As a firearms designer, he would receive an impressive 23 gun-related patents. The U.S. Army adopted them in 1856 and several southern states, including Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina bought them prior to the start of the Civil War. The carbine was also seized from captured Union armories in southern states.

The first model was originally made with a tape primer system but it was abandoned because of poor performance on the battlefield and weather-related issues. The gun had a simple and unique drop barrel that the shooter had to lower a lever to tilt the gun downward and expose the chamber. The carbine weighed a mere 6 lbs.

The Massachusetts Arms Co. Maynard First Model carbine was chambered in both .50 and .35 caliber. This carbine, available on Day 2 of the Sporting & Collector Auction is chambered in .35 caliber.

Confederate Guns: S.C. Robinson Carbine

The Sharps carbine was well-liked by Union soldiers because they didn’t have to stand to load it like a musket and could fire it five times faster. More than 80,000 Sharps carbines were manufactured for the Northern cause.

Samuel C. Robinson (has anyone studied why all gunmakers are named Samuel?) owned the S.C. Robinson Arms Manufactory that made a copy of the Sharps breech-loading carbine. The Confederate government bought the manufactory from Robinson in March 1863. Production is estimated at 3,000-5,000 carbines between 1863 and 1864.

The Robinson carbine, a copy of the Sharps carbine, was in demand with Confederate troops and reportedly saw hard use during the Civil War so that few examples remain, according to the NRA Museum.

Confederate Rifle: Fayetteville Armory Two-Band Rifle

The state of North Carolina seized the Fayetteville Armory on April 22, 1861 and offered the arms there to the Confederate government that readily accepted the 32,678 muskets and 3,685 rifles. Machinery captured at Harper’s Ferry was moved to Fayetteville in June 1861 where gun parts were made and flintlocks were converted to percussion arms before going into full production in the spring of 1862 to manufacture Springfield Model 1855 rifles with captured parts.

The machinery was moved in the last months of the Civil War to avoid capture but couldn’t prevent that from happening as the equipment was seized around the time of the Confederate surrender. The Fayetteville Armory produced over 10,000 rifles.

This Fayetteville Armory two-band rifle is dated 1862 and marked “C.S.A.” and Fayetteville” and has an iron patchbox installed in the stock.

Confederate Revolver: Colt 1861 Navy with “Leech & Rigdon C.S.A.” Barrel

Thomas Leech was a Memphis cotton broker and Thomas Rigdon worked as a scale manufacturer in Cincinnati. Together they made another Confederate copy of the Colt 1851 Navy.  Leech opened a business to make bladed weapons and purchasing materials like copper and brass. After taking on Rigdon as a partner and a number of moves, the company of Leech & Rigdon, now located near Greensboro, Ga., started making revolvers in 1863. The company made 1,500 revolvers as well as repairing weapons. The two men dissolved their partnership at the end of 1863 and Rigdon took on new partners J.A. Ansley, A.J. Smith and Charles R. Kern to continue making revolvers.

This Colt Model 1861 Navy was assembled with a Navy revolver frame and parts of a Leech & Rigdon revolver. The barrel has a partially obscured “LEECH & RIGDON C.S.A.” marking on the breech and the frame shows traces of a “COLTS/PATENT” marking on the left side.

Confederate Revolver: LeMat First Model

Jean Alexandre François Le Mat was a French émigré and doctor in New Orleans who received a patent in 1856 for a revolver with a single shotgun barrel in the middle. The cylinder held 9 shots of .42 caliber around a 16 gauge shotgun barrel. A selector on the hammer switched between the two barrels.

The New Orleans’ “Daily Delta” in 1861 described the revolver as “one of the most formidable weapons of the pistol kind ever invented.” The LeMat revolver went through two informal trials and after one was recommended for a field trial but no record of it being done is known.

Le Mat split his time between New Orleans and Paris. About 2,900 revolvers were produced in Belgium, Paris and England after Le Mat was unable to secure a domestic factory. Despite its limited production numbers and the Union blockade, the revolver still found its way to the battlefield and was carried by generals Braxton Bragg, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. Stuart was firing his Le Mat revolver at Union troops when he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Yellow Tavern in 1864.

The Le Mat revolver was distinct with its 16 gauge barrel and the 9-shot cylinder that revolved around it. This revolver can be identified as a first model because of the spur on the trigger guard. The second model had a rounded trigger guard without a spur.

Confederate Guns for Sale

Despite its lack of industrial heft and inability to manufacture large numbers of firearms, the Confederacy used determination and guile to arm its military and keep the larger, better-armed Union army at bay for four years. Examples of Confederate grit and gumption to keep its army supplied are available at Rock Island Auction Company.

Find Confederate revolvers for sale and more at Rock Island Auction Company.

Sources:

Confederate Handguns, by William A. Albaugh III, Hugh Benet Jr. and Edward N. Simmons

Confederate Longarms and Pistols, A Pictorial History, by Richard Taylor Hill and William Edward Anthony

The Unfinished Fight – A Few Thoughts on Colt Revolvers, by Craig L. Barry, Civil War News