Rifles and Carbines on the American Frontier by Zina Abbott

As part of the research, I came across a weapon with which I was not familiar.

This from 1864-69 Defense of the Kansas Frontier by Garfield, 1932

…Newspaper accounts of the battle stated that there were from six hundred to seven hundred Indians well-armed with Spencer carbines and heavy rifles….

1865 Spencer repeating carbine - .50 caliber

         And

… On September eleventh the Governor had telegraphed Sheridan as follows:

         "Will you issue to me five hundred stand of Spencer carbines with           accoutrements and ammunition?...

From Atlas of Cheyenne Wars Atlas by Charles D. Collins, Jr.

…Believing it would be two or three days before he linked up with his main trains again, Custer distributed supplies from the wagons to the troopers. Each soldier carried 100 rounds of ammunition for his Spencer carbine and enough hardtack, coffee, and forage to get by for a couple of days….

         And

…Godfrey frequently had to face his soldiers about and form a skirmish line to drive back the oncoming Indians with carbine fire,…

         And

…The soldiers’ .50 cal. Spencer carbine, a seven-shot repeater, was a good weapon, but its effective range was, at the most, only 300 yards….

         And

…Equipment [distributed by the quartermaster] included a leather saber belt with a pistol holder, percussion cap pouch, pistol cartridge box, carbine cartridge box, and a leather carbine sling. Weapons included a carbine, pistol, and saber. The issue carbine was a .50-caliber Model 1865 Spencer seven-shot-repeating carbine….

And from "Hostile Actions with Indians" (https://www.spbakker.nl/?page_id=82)

… The herder, named as Charles Teck, went down fighting; being well armed with a Winchester carbine or rifle which unfortunately for him jammed on the sixth shot…

From Wikipedia, the specifications for a Spencer Repeating Rifle are as follows:

         47 inch (1,200mm) rifle with a 30 inch barrel

         39.25 inch (997mm) carbine with a 22 inch barrel

From Wikipedia: a Sharps rifle weighed 9.5 pounds and was 47 inches in length.

A Sharps carbine, like all carbines, weighed less and the barrel was shorter.

Large quantities of breech-loading carbines were procured by the military because they gave cavalrymen the firepower they needed while in the saddle. The simple-to-use cartridges of these carbines meant that soldiers could carry two dozen rounds or more on their belts, plenty of rounds for a quick fire fight while the cavalry feels out the strength of the enemy before him.

The greatest quantity of carbines produced for the American Civil War were the Sharps, followed by the Spencer, and third, Burnside carbines.
 

1863 Sharps breech-loading carbine - .50-70 caliber

The military Sharps rifle was used during and after the American Civil War in multiple variations. Along with being able to use a standard percussion cap, the Sharps had a fairly unusual pellet primer feed. This was a device which held a stack of pelleted primers and flipped one over the nipple each time the trigger was pulled and the hammer fell—making it much easier to fire a Sharps from horseback than a gun employing individually loaded percussion caps.

Berdan Sharps Rifle

The Sharps Rifle was produced by the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut. It was used in the Civil War by multiple Union units. The Sharps made a superior sniper weapon of greater accuracy than the more commonly issued muzzle-loading rifled muskets, primarily due to the higher rate of fire and superior quality of manufacture. It could easily be reloaded from a kneeling or prone position. However, Sharps never sold as many standard rifles to the military as they did their carbines.

 

Unlike the Sharps rifle, the carbine version was very popular with the cavalry of both the Union and Confederate armies and was issued in much larger numbers—almost 90,000 were produced—than other carbines of the war. More were produced than either Spencer or Burnside carbines. By 1863, it was the most common weapon carried by Union cavalry regiments, although in 1864 many were replaced by 7-shot Spencer carbines. The falling block action lent itself to conversion to the new metallic cartridges developed in the late 1860s, and many of these converted carbines were used during the Indian Wars in the decades immediately following the Civil War.

The Model 1873 Winchester was produced in three variations: a 24-inch barrel rifle, a 20-inch barrel carbine, and a "musket"—which was aimed at military contracts and only made up less than 5% of production. The standard rifle-length version was most popular in the 19th century, although Winchester would make rifles to order in any configuration the customer wished, including longer barrels or baby carbines with barrels as short as 12 inches and other features.

The short version about carbines is this: many people think soldiers (and some civilians) carried a standard rifle in a holder attached to their horses’ saddles. Most of them were technically carbines, or saddle guns, as opposed to the heavier rifles with longer barrels.

 
Since my current work in progress, Mail Order Penelope, involves a military escort patrol traveling with the stagecoaches from the railroad's "End of Track" at Wilson's Station, I mention carbines. This book is on preorder now and will be released August 14, 2020.

My other two recent books, Mail Order Roslyn and Mail Order Lorena, are currently available. Please click on the book titles above to find the book descriptions.

Forts Fletcher & Hays by Zina Abbott

Fort Fletcher, which later became Fort Hays, in Ellis County, Kansas, was an important U.S. Army post established in 1865. The mission of the fort was to protect military roads, guard the mails, and defend construction crews on the Union Pacific Railway. Fort Hays also served as a major supply depot for other U. S. Army posts in western Kansas. It was also to protect the white settlers who moved into the region.

 

Fort Fletcher, Smoky Hill Trail & B.O.D.

Originally designated Fort Fletcher (after Governor Thomas C. Fletcher of Missouri), it was located five miles south of present-day Walker and became operational on October 11, 1865. Troops stationed at Fort Fletcher were to protect the stage and freight wagons on the Butterfield Overland Despatch (BOD) traveling along the Smoky Hill Trail to Denver. Despite the presence of the soldiers, Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho Indians continued to confront traffic along the trail. Due to reduced use of the Smoky Hill Trail, Fort Fletcher was closed May 5, 1866.

 

Fort Hays 1867 by Alexander Gardiner

On October 11, 1866, Fort Fletcher was reopened approximately one-fourth mile north of its previous location, at the confluence of Big Creek and the North Fork of Big Creek. In November 1866 Fort Fletcher was renamed Fort Hays in honor of Brigadier General Alexander Hays, who was killed during the Civil War.

 

Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division construction train east of Fort Hays

The Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, was being constructed westward roughly paralleling the Smoky Hill Trail and construction workers needed the protection of the U.S. Army. As the railroad approached Fort Hays, it became apparent that it would pass approximately five miles to the north of the post.

 

Fort Hays Military Reservation

A flood in June 1867 nearly wiped out Fort Hays killing nine soldiers and civilians. This forced the relocation of the fort. The army wanted the fort to be used as a supply depot for other forts in the area, this provided the momentum to relocate the fort close to the railroad line. Two weeks later, on June 23, the new Fort Hays was built and occupied fifteen miles west of the previous location and near the railroad right-of-way.  With the arrival of the railway a few months later, the goal of a large supply depot to service forts to the south and west was realized.

 

Buffalo Soldiers & US Express Overland starting from Hays to Denver, Colorado

African American soldiers, sometimes called Buffalo Soldiers, members of the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry regiments had been deployed to the fort in response to an increase in conflicts with Plains Indians. At various times, Fort Hays served as home to the 7th U.S. Cavalry. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer commanded the 7th Cavalry and visited, but did not live at Fort Hays. Buffalo Bill Cody also spent time at the fort.

Many of the records about the fort came from the post surgeon’s reports. These records detailed the cholera epidemic of 1867. Cholera plagued several of the forts in Kansas that year. The first case of cholera at Fort Hays appeared July 11, 1867. The post hospital had not yet been built so soldiers and civilian patients were housed in tents. The epidemic lasted two months, killing 36 soldiers and approximately 150 civilians.

 

Fort Hays

The post surgeon’s reports can also tell us about the civilians at Fort Hays. Rose Glennan was working as a servant in the home of Lieutenant Colonel Bliss in August 1881. Glennan used kerosene to light a fire in the kitchen stove, but was engulfed in flame when the oil can exploded. She ran to the front part of the house, where Bliss threw a blanket around her to extinguish the fire. She suffered second and third degree burns on her hands, arms, underarms, and legs from ankles to hips. The surgeon reported that flour was applied and the burns were dressed with raw cotton. “She was doing well,” the surgeon wrote, “although ulceration of the duodenum supervened during the second week, death was at one time imminent.”

 

Officer Quarters- restored

There is little information about the children of Fort Hays. From among them came the history of the Maier family. Charity Humphries Maier was married to Christian Maier, a sergeant in the 18th Infantry. Charity gave birth to three daughters while her husband was stationed at Fort Hays. The oldest, whose name we do not know, was born in 1885 and died at the age of seven months from cholera. The next daughter, Jessie, was born in 1886, followed in 1888 by Gertrude, who died at the age of two months from an “inflammation of stomach and bowels.”

 

Fort Hays Block House

The post surgeon’s records mentioned the everyday ailments suffered by soldiers, including “boils, colic, contusions, diarrhea, frostbite, sprains, and ulcers.”

Fort Hays was abandoned in 1889. 

Fort Hays Guardhouse - made of stone

After its closing, the land and buildings of Fort Hays were turned over to the Department of the Interior, which later transferred them to the state of Kansas in 1900. Most was sold to private businesses and individuals. When Frontier Historical Park was opened at the site in 1929, Of the original fort buildings, only the blockhouse and guardhouse remained. The two officers' quarters had been sold at auction in 1902 and moved into town at the time the other buildings were being sold for scrap. The officers' quarters were relocated in 1964 and 1987. The visitor center was built in 1967. Today it operates as Fort Hays State Historic Site.

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I have two books so far in which Fort Ellsworth serves as part of the setting. In Hannah’s Handkerchief, book 24 in the Lockets & Lace series set in 1865, Jake Burdock often finds his quartermaster duties take him to Fort Ellsworth. Hannah’s Handkerchief is now available. To find the book description and purchase link, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

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In Mail Order Roslyn, book 9 in the Widows, Brides & Secret Babies series set in 1866, my heroine finds herself and her baby in the Ellsworth Stage Station near the town and Fort Ellsworth. At that time, hostile tribes, particularly the Cheyenne, frequently attacked stagecoaches and stations in an attempt to capture livestock and either kill or drive away the white Americans invading their favored hunting grounds. This book is now available. To find the book description and purchase link, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Sources:

http://www.kansastravel.org/forthays.htm

https://kshs.org/kansapedia/fort-hays-post-surgeon/15494

https://kshs.org/kansapedia/fort-hays/11793