My new (170 years old) M1841 "Mississippi" rifle

[cannon jockey]

I had been looking for one of these for quite some time and finally, at the end of June, I snagged what I think is a pretty nice example in a live online auction out of South Carolina.    According to the auction house it came out of a collection belonging to a Greenville, S.C. family. Unfortunately, the auction house would not provide any more information than that.

 

It’s a US model 1841 "Mississippi" rifle designed to shoot a .54 caliber patched round ball.     From 1846 until about 1855, around 25k of these were manufactured by the Harpers Ferry arsenal while another 60k or so were produced by various contract manufacturers such as Eli Whitney, Remington, Tryon, Robbins & Lawrence, and Palmetto.  My example was made by Robbins & Lawrence and has a lock date of 1848 which was the first year of their 5 year contract to produce 15k rifles.  While it was probably made too late to have actually seen service in the Mexican war it did get issued to the military as evidenced by the inspector’s stamps.  It was evidently well-taken care of and is in fairly good condition for a 170-year-old military-used rifle.   It's bore is quite usable with well defined shiny rifling.   The lock is mechanically perfect so I do intend to shoot it once I can get a new nipple installed.  Finding this in shooting condition was an unexpected bonus.

The M1841 was the first designed percussion muzzle loading rifle to be used by the US military.  However, they were never intended to be issued as a main battle weapon so they had no provision to mount a bayonet.  They instead were intended for well-trained specialty units such as skirmishers, scouts, and what were sometimes referred to as flanking units.  During this same period, the main battle long arm of the US was the model 1816 flintlock smoothbore musket. Many of the M1816s were modified starting in the early 1840s to percussion and were still in service with some militia units at the start of the ACW.  In fact, the M1816 in one form or another probably had the longest service record of any US military long arm in our nation’s history--from 1816 until 1861,

 

Once the .58 caliber Minié ball was adopted in 1855 by the US military, many of the "Mississippi" rifles were reworked by re-boring and re-rifling to .58 cal along with adding improved sights and adding several systems to mount bayonets--mostly the overly heavy and unpopular brass handled saber types.    Many of the M1841s saw service in the ACW—both with the North and the South.  My example escaped any of the later revisions and is still in its original configuration.   Here's a close up of the lock plate showing the Lawrence & Robbins stamp in the middle of the plate while just behind the hammer is the manufacture date of 1848 under Windsor, VT (Vermont)

 

Amazingly, the original inspector's cartouche is still mostly intact on the side opposite of the lock plate.  The Initials stand for William Anderson Thornton-Capt. U.S. Army, (1840-1866)

 

Here's a shot inside the patch box with an extra percussion nipple screwed into it's cavity.   From the vintage hour glass channel design and minor surface oxidation, it appear to be a period original while the patches which look like stone washed denim are probably not.

 

The M1841 was reportedly first used in combat by the 1st volunteer Mississippi Rifles, a regiment commanded by Jefferson Davis during the Mexican-American war (1846 to 1848). Davis had requested the new M1841s for his Mississippians but Winfield Scott the commanding general of the army refused--indicating that they were untested for battle. Davis went over Scott's head to President Polk and got the rifles anyway.  Davis and his Mississippi regiment were instrumental in turning the tide of the battle of Buena Vista and became heroes of the war.  This is how the rifle earned the "Mississippi" sobriquet that is used to describe it today.   Since the M1841s did not have a fixture to mount a bayonet, the Mississippians were issued large Bowie knives.

 

 

If you want to read a quick history of the 1st Mississippi regiment in the Mexican American war, check out the following link:

Mississippi and the Mexican American war

 

The regiment still exists today in the form of the 155th infantry regiment of the Mississippi National guard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/155th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)

 

Below, the illustration on the left depicts both a regular army Dragoon (the general term for a US cavalry during this period) and to his right a depiction of one of the members of the 1st Mississippi rifles with their bright red over shirts and wide brimmed straw hats.  The oddball-looking longarm that the Dragoon is sporting is a Hall's breechloading percussion carbine.  Yes, these predate the M1841 but they were originally designed as flintlocks then later easily both converted and adapted to percussion.      Volunteers made up about 2/3rds of the forces that fought in the Mexican-American war.

 

The larger panel on the right is meant to depict the Mississippi regiment at Buena Vista---having halted the Mexican lancer's charge with several volleys from their rifles, they then charged with nothing more than their oversized Bowie knives.

 

 

As already stated, my rifle would have been produced too late to have seen service in the Mexican war but I couldn't resist setting up a "Mississippi" rifles themed layout for a photo.   The front barrel band/nose cap spring was broken and I found at repro replacement at S & S firearms.  While browsing their other M1841 rifle parts, I noticed they had a repro Mexican war white buff sling

and rifleman's pouch with sling on sale, so why not.   The wide brimmed straw hat came from Pennsylvania Dutch country but it was a perfect match for those that some of the Mississippians wore.

I finished it out with a huge repro Bowie with a period correct type sheath, a wooden cask style canteen and and an original clay pipe that's been in my family since the 1840s.

 

 

Not last or even least, here are two smoothbore Mexican war US Dragoon Horse pistols that I’ve acquired previously.   On top is the US M1842 manufactured in 1847.  This was the first percussion pistol adopted by the military.   On the bottom is the US M1836 manufactured in 1841, which was the last flintlock martial pistol used by the military.  Many of these were converted to percussion, but this one escaped conversion.  Both of these are also in shooting condition and either could have seen service in the Mexican American war.   Even though these .54 cal smoothbore single shots saw some service at the start of the ACW, they were effectively obsoleted by the big six-shot Colts Dragoons introduced at the very end of the M-A war starting with the 1847 Colt Walker.  

 

Comments or corrections welcome.

 

Cheers

 

 

[rayg]

Nice rifle and set up, Ray

[VMI88]

Beautiful rifle - the Mississippi is one of my favorites!  I have a reproduction in .54 and I've just finished making up a batch of cartridges to take shooting soon.

[mdk0911]

very nice rifle in great shape - I would want to shoot it too! 

[M24 Chaffee]

Very nice looking weapons! 
 

Frank

[sundance]

Very nice. Love that Bowie also.

[cannon jockey]

Thanks for the nice comments.   As a side note, something happened to one of my pictures.   It's a shame there is no edit function available for at least 24 or 48 hours so I could fix it--not to mention a few grammatical errors I spotted.

 

Here are the illustrations that somehow disappeared.  They are not copyrighted and in common use since they are quite old.

 

[SARGE]

A very nice clean M1841 rifle.  Congratulations and thanks for showing.

 

 

[Brian Keith]

Excellent find and great historical presentation. Thanks!

BKW

[Connor1941]

Beautiful rifle! Its in extraordinary condition!

 

Best regards,

 

Connor

[Nack]

Spectacular!