How Effective Were Repeaters?

Since we’re on the subject of repeaters, I wanted to plug a recent book that doesn’t seem to be getting much attention, Joe Bilby’s A Revolution in Arms: The History of the First Repeating Rifles. I’ve never actually met Joe, but we became cyberfriends during the writing of my book, when he generously shared his vast knowledge of period firearms. Joe is both a black powder shooter and a prolific Civil War author, so he has plenty of experience in both fields. He and friend Bill Adams (probably the foremost authority on the Enfield rifle) saved me from several embarrassing errors.

The book begins well before the war with the old Volcanic Arms Company and their “rocket ball,”
(a hollowed out projectile with the powder inside) and continues until about the turn of the century. What I like about the book is that Joe takes a holistic approach and looks at the totality of circumstances. We hear a lot of criticism about the failure to adopt repeating arms, but few pundits seem to realize that there were real problems with them, not to mention the expense and difficulty of manufacture, the running of an arms company, and the like.

Spencers, for instance, were rather prone to jamming – enough so that many soldiers carried a screwdriver with them. The .52 caliber round it fired was rather anemic compared to an Enfield or Springfield and it had a poor sighting system. This was not such a problem with a cavalry carbine, but was a real disadvantage in an infantry weapon. Then too, troops often shot off their ammunition in short order, leaving them virtually defenseless (as happened to the 37th Massachusetts at 3rd Winchester). Yet in many histories written today, if any repeaters figure in the battle (or, as in the Buford case, if they did not), they are invariably credited with giving the winning edge.

Two areas the Spencer did excel in were cavalry use and as a light infantry weapon. After being severely beaten up on the skirmish line during the Overland campaign the Federals formed their own sharpshooter units (meaning light infantry) and quickly equipped most of them with Spencers. On the skirmish line the Spencer worked very well, and at Petersburg the Federals used it as what amounted to an assault rifle as well. Thus by mid-1864 the number of repeaters began to increase in the Army of the Potomac in specialized units such as sharpshooter companies, flank companies of certain regiments, and equipping some depleted but veteran regiments (e.g. 43rd New York) who began to be used essentially as sharpshooter regiments.

I would recommend Joe’s book to anyone interested in the development of repeating weapons, why they were adopted and why not, but especially to anyone who is tempted to credit them with changing the course of a battle. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t – but you should know something about them before making the call. Goes for $26 but you can get it on Amazon for $16.