Abraham Lincoln had an interest in technology, and on June 10, 1861 he sees a new weapon he likes. I write about this and other incidents in my forthcoming book:
A few weeks into the war, he pressed Captain James Dahlgren on a new gun presented by Orison Blunt. After encouraging Dahlgren to “please see Mr. Blunt,” Lincoln wrote “What do you think of it? Would the government do well to purchase some of them?” When Dahlgren replied positively the same day, Lincoln endorsed the envelope with another prod for action: “I saw the gun myself, and witnessed some experiments with it,” Lincoln wrote, adding “I really think it worthy the attention of the government.” Presumably these were the Enfield-patterned rifles Blunt made for the Army a year later.
Pursuing another promising new rifle, Lincoln wrote to Ripley “to introduce you to Mr. Strong who has what appears to be an ingenious and useful Carbine” and asked Ripley to give it a service test. Strong was an unlikable man with dubious ethics, but his breechloading carbine provided the advantage of faster loading at the base of the shorter barrel compared to the longer barreled, muzzle loading muskets most commonly in use. Ripley was unimpressed. While admitting that the new system was “novel and ingenious,” he told Lincoln that it was no better than any of the other breechloading rifles available, which Ripley found to be too complicated to employ in service. Keep it simple was Ripley’s motto, and he preferred old muskets to simplify supply of guns and ammunition to thousands of green troops.
The above is just a teeny snippet from the new book. I’m doing the final editing for submission to the publisher within the next few weeks. Over the next several months I’ll have more information to release about the book, including a stellar Foreword by a well-known author, a cover reveal, and much more.
David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His newest Lincoln book is scheduled for release in February 2022. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
Follow me for updates on my Facebook author page and Goodreads.
Fascinating, especially in light of the recent US District Court for the Southern District of California ruling on “assault rifles”, in which Judge Roger T. Benitez’ compared an AR-15 to a “Swiss army knife”. As much as new technologies of war shaped the bloody character of the US Civil War, they’ve certainly come a long way since.
Interestingly, it was the South that was often more innovative. They had fewer resources and people so had to come up with inventive means of fighting to compensate. Luckily for them (i.e., the South), the North had a lot of crappy Generals at the beginning who didn’t really want to win. Once Lincoln had some like-minded generals (Grant, Sherman, Sheridan), the South was a goner.