Guns have played a key role in military battles for centuries, and the technology around them has continually evolved. Here, Erick Redington looks at the importance of the Burnside carbine gun in the US Civil War.
The burnside carbine. Source: Smithsonian Institution, available here.
In the years leading to the US Civil War, the industrial revolution was making itself felt in the field of military technology. During the Mexican War of 1846-1848, the standard infantry weapon in the United States was the smoothbore musket, while the standard cavalry weapon was the smoothbore carbine, a shorter version of the musket. There were multiple issues with these weapons. A smoothbore musket has no rifling and has limited range and accuracy. The firing mechanism, using loose black powder, was messy, and prone to fouling. The biggest problem was rate of fire. As a muzzle loader, a trained soldier could fire about three shots a minute. These issues combined to drive the desire for a new weapon.
Just as there were many problems with the standard smoothbore musket, there were issues with early breech loading rifles as well. First among these was the creation of a seal in the breech to prevent the escape of gas. Another was the cartridge used. Precise machining and mechanical issues were present as well.
The first practical breech loading rifled musket was developed by Major Patrick Ferguson of the British Army during the American Revolution. This weapon solved several issues, such as gas leakage from the breech and allowed for quicker loading, resulting in five or six shots a minute. Despite these positives, the weapon was also expensive to make and required precise craftsmanship. The British Army of the time was willing to outfit small numbers of men with the Ferguson Rifle, but the Brown Bess remained the standard for decades.[1]
Solving the issue
With the development of industrialized mass production and interchangeable parts, the technological ability to solve the issues inherent in breech loading weapons emerged. Precision tooling gave manufacturers the ability to rifle on a mass scale. Samuel Colt began mass producing firearms. Veterans began trying their hands at new inventions. One of those was Ambrose Burnside.
Ambrose Burnside has a reputation amongst historians and Civil War buffs. He is generally seen as an amiable fool at best, and an incompetent at worst.[2] These are grossly inaccurate generalizations.[3] Burnside had a very incisive mind with good attention to detail. During his service in the American Southwest after the war, he was exposed to the Hall Breechloader. This weapon had many of the improvements of a rifled breech loader but had severe issues with gas leakage at the joint of the breech and the barrel. When he decided to turn his attention to the issue of weaponry, he had a very creative solution. Burnside designed his own cartridge that was conical shaped with the bulge in the middle. This conical casing created a seal at just the point where the issues with gas leakage occurred. As Burnside was serving in the cavalry at the time, he developed his firearm as a carbine. The final product was a .54 caliber rifled carbine.[4]
In 1853, Burnside applied to the army ordinance bureau to have a prototype of his carbine design made and was granted permission. When the prototype was made, he resigned from the army and created an arms manufacturing company to market, produce, and sell his new weapon. In 1857, the army was trying to replace the Hall Carbine, and was soliciting entrants for a competition to choose a new carbine. Burnside entered the competition, and his carbine was approved. This was the first breechloader adopted by the army that utilized a metallic cartridge. The army placed an order with Burnside.[5]
US Civil War
During the Civil War, over 50,000 Burnside Carbines were ordered by the Union Army, however most of these would be delivered only in the last year of the war. At the start of the war, the Union would arm its cavalry with any weapon it could get its hands on, mostly smoothbore muzzle loaders. The Union cavalry would be repeatedly thrashed by Confederate cavalry through the first years of the war. A weapon that provided a clear advantage in firepower and rate of fire would have been a force multiplier for the North.[6]
Two questions present themselves, first: If the United States approved a breech loading carbine prior to the war, why did they not adapt the design to a full-sized rifle for the infantry? Second: If Burnside’s Carbine was approved before the war, why was it not mass produced and ready at the start of the war? The answers to these questions were complicated. First, the army leadership at the start of the Civil War was old and set in its ways. This is especially true of the head of the Army Ordinance Bureau, General John Ripley. At the start of the war, General Ripley insisted on issuing smoothbore weapons instead of rifled due to costs. The government had large stocks of smoothbores and it was more cost effective. He also opposed breech loading and repeating rifles. The higher rate of fire of these weapons would only encourage soldiers to use more ammunition and create carelessness in aiming. The consequences of these decisions were a war that lasted years longer and cost tens or hundreds of thousands of more casualties.[7]
After the Civil War
The difference between breech loading rifles and muzzle loading rifles can be seen in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. The two armies were reasonably evenly matched in manpower, but the superior firepower of the Prussians led to their decisive victory. The fabled needle-gun showed the way to the future of military small arms. It also showed the importance of a military that was willing to innovate and utilize the latest technology in pursuit of victory.
Much like many other aspects of the career of Ambrose Burnside, this was a case of good ideas and intentions, but poor development and execution. If the ossified army leadership had tried to implement the innovations of Burnside's Carbine on a mass scale prior to the war, the Civil War could have been significantly shortened, saving lives and perhaps the reputation of Ambrose Burnside.
What do you think of the role of the Burnside carbine? Let us know below.
[1] Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2011. p. 740.
[2] I could cite hundreds, if not thousands of books here.
[3] United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington :[s.n.], 1894. https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records.
[4] Books, Time-Life. Arms and Equipment of the Union. Time Life Medical, 1999, p. 58
[5] Bodinson, Holt. General Burnside’s Little Carbine. Guns Magazine, 2011. https://www.thefreelibrary.com/General+Burnside%27s+little+carbine%3A+this+odd+breechloader+saw...-a0268787627.
[6] United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington :[s.n.], 1894. https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/official-records.
[7] Scales, Robert H. “Gun Trouble.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, December 29, 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/gun-trouble/383508/.
