Springfield USM Pattern Model 1842 Musket

[cannonmn]

http://gs19.inmotionhosting.com/~milita ... /read/9630 (http://gs19.inmotionhosting.com/~milita8/cmh/member/member.cgi/read/9630)


Company of Military Historians Website: http://www.military-historians.org/

[R. McAuley 3014V]

Though the "USM" (U.S. Model) arms were produced by both national armories, they were not produced as singles in each model, but were instead produced as samples to be exchanged with the other national armory on a quarterly basis. That infers that at least four per year were produced for each and every year of production. So there should have been as many as 200 such "USM" samples produced by Springfield Armory between 1798 and 1848, and an equal number of samples produced by Harpers Ferry Armory.

From the testimony before Congress in April 1854 into the management of the national armories, taken before the select committee of the House of Representatives appointed February 13, 1854, Adam Rhulman testified:


Question: Did your employment as inspector at the Harper's Ferry armory give you any knowledge of the quality of the arms manufactured at the Springfield armory? If yea, state it.

Answer: All the arms made at the Springfield manufactory, that I have ever seen for a number of years, are the samples required to be exchanged by the armories quarterly. For some four or five years prior to 1852, no samples had been received at the Harper's Ferry armory from Springfield. In the year 1852, we received from there ten muskets - two of the manufacture of each of the years, respectively, from 1848 to 1852, inclusive.

In the examination of these muskets, I found one of them very defective; the four lock-screws on it should never have been found anywhere but in a scrap-box; the tumbler was spoiled, because it had but three threads on the screw; the barrel was so badly breeched that I considered it dangerous to use, the thread in the barrel on the breech-screw being very defective; besides, the barrel was flawy to such an extent that it should never have been received. In the examination of this musket, Mr. Benjamin Wilson, one of the inspectors of block work, was present. I pronounced it a mass of scrap-iron. The balance were tolerably good, but deviated from the standard of gauges and sizes, and were not as good as those made at Harper's Ferry.