Springfield Model 1861 [SEP] conflict
Springfield Model 1861
The Springfield Model 1861 was a Minié-type rifled musket shoulder-arm used by the United States Army and Marine Corps during the American Civil War. Commonly referred to as the "Springfield" (after its original place of production, Springfield, Massachusetts), it was the most widely used U.S. Army weapon during the Civil War, favored for its range, accuracy, and reliability.
Overview.
The barrel was forty inches (102 cm) long, firing a .58 caliber Minié ball
and a few other minor alterations to make it cheaper and easier to manufacture, thus creating the ubiquitous Model 1861 Springfield. The Model 1855 was the best arm available at the beginning of the conflict as it took some time for the Model 1861s to be manufactured and actually reach the field. However, less than 80,000 Model 1855s had been manufactured by the start of the war. Some of them were destroyed when the Confederates captured the Harper's Ferry Arsenal in April 1861, and several thousand more were in Southern hands. Approximately