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Cartridge Trading Table Featuring a wide range of antique, obsolete, and modern ammunition for collectors Picture Page February 2006 Another great crate..............
I included pictures of an 1873 Union Metallic
Cartridge Company .50-70 shipping crate on the
May 2004
picture page; here's another, this one a Frankford Arsenal .50-70 crate
which held 1000 copper cased bar-primed cartridges when packed at the
arsenal in early 1867. These cartridges would have
been intended for use in the new Model 1866 Springfield Allin's conversion
rifles that were being made available to the Army as replacements for their Civil
War muzzle-loading rifles shortly after the December 1866 Fetterman
massacre. According to the stenciling on the crate, it was packed
in
Both officers whose names are on the crate were West Point graduates and Civil War veterans. Major Edie, while a 2nd Lieutenant, was one of three Ordnance officers assigned to the Allegheny Arsenal in Pittsburgh on September 17, 1862 when a series of explosions destroyed the main building where civilian employees, mostly women and young girls, manufactured paper cartridges for the Union Army. Seventy eight employees were killed and 70 were injured in what is considered the worst civilian disaster during the war. Lt. Edie was then assigned to the Ordnance Department of the Army of the Potomac, serving on General George G. Meade's staff. In December of 1864, he was appointed by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to the military board that was given the task of examining and testing breechloading rifles for the purpose of selecting the one most suitable for adoption by the Army. I believe it was in conjunction with his board duties that Lt. Edie found himself in Omaha in early 1867, perhaps for field tests of the Model 1866 rifle that had been selected. Next, Edie was assigned as the Commanding officer at the Detroit Arsenal in Dearbornville, Michigan, then to the Washington Arsenal in the nation's capital, and finally to the National Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts as the Chief Ordnance Inspector. In July of 1873, Edie was responsible for signing the contract with Colt's Firearms Manufacturing Company for the first 8,000 Single Action Army revolvers. His signature, along with that of Armory Sub-inspector O. W. Ainsworth, also appears on the inspection reports that were made for these revolvers after their delivery to the armory. He died at the age of 35 in October of 1874, seven months after the last of the 8,000 revolvers had been inspected. My information on William H. Lewis is still a bit sketchy. He graduated from West Point in July of 1841, shortly after the conclusion of the Mexican War, and spent most of the next 15 years assigned to the 5th Infantry Regiment on the Western frontier. During the Civil War, he received a Brevet promotion to Major in March of 1864 for gallantry and meritorious service involving the destruction of a Confederate train at the battle of Peralta, New Mexico. In September of 1866, as the commanding officer of a company of the 36th Infantry Regiment, he assumed command of Camp Douglas, Utah Territory. It was here that the ammunition crate was sent in early 1867. Lewis was a Major (Brevet Lt. Colonel) at this time. The 36th Infantry was commanded by Colonel (later Brigadier General) John Gibbon, who took over command of Camp Douglas in 1869, probably in May of that year when the 36th Infantry was consolidated with the 7th Infantry; the resulting unit retaining the 7th Infantry designation. Sometime in the early 1870s, Lewis was transferred to the 19th Infantry, where he was promoted to Lt. Colonel in December of 1873. The 19th Infantry was assigned to reconstruction duties after the Civil War, and headquartered at Jefferson Barracks. They were probably stationed in New Orleans at the time Lewis joined them. In June of 1874, the regiment was transferred to the Department of the Missouri, the headquarters and two companies going to Fort Lyon, Colorado, and the remaining companies going to Indian Territory (later the state of Oklahoma) and Kansas. It would appear that Lt. Colonel Lewis accompanied those bound for Kansas, and he may have been assigned the command of Fort Dodge, Kansas at that time. The troops assigned to Fort Dodge spent much of their time escorting supply trains, guarding the railroad, scouting in central Kansas, and pursuing renegade Indians. The attitudes of the townspeople towards the troops in Dodge City were less than welcoming, with widespread harassment and cheating by businessmen and lawmen alike. In 1877, Lt Col Lewis and a detachment of his troops took over the city for the purpose of resolving this problem. Under a flag of truce that was raised by a town judge, improved treatment of the troops was arbitrated. On September 25th of 1878, Lt Col Lewis, with troops of the 4th Cavalry and 19th Infantry, went in pursuit of a band of Cheyenne Indians led by Chief Dull Knife. The Indians had broken out of the Darlington Agency reservation in Indian Territory in an attempt to make their way to the Dakotas. After two days, the troops overtook the Indians and engaged them Near White Woman Creek in Scott County, Kansas. During the battle, Lt Col Lewis sustained a wound to a femoral artery, from which he died the following day, September 28, while enroute to Fort Wallace, Kansas. He has the dubious distinction of being the last casualty of the last Indian battle in Kansas. Ft. Lewis at Pagosa Springs, Colorado was named in his honor a month after his death. In 1880, the fort was renamed Cantonment Pagosa Springs (and abandoned shortly thereafter) following the establishment of a new Fort Lewis near Durango, Colorado.
. . . . . . . . To be Nitro, or not to be Nitro, that is the question.....
Here's an interesting headstamp on a monstrously long Eley .500 3 1/4" Express. Introduced about 1880 as a black powder cartridge with a standard load of 142 grains of powder and a 440 grain lead copper-tubed express bullet, the .500 3 1/4" developed enough of a following to make the transition to nitro (cordite) powder in the early1890s. This particular case was originally intended for nitro powder, but was modified by Eley Brothers to use with black powder by neatly marking through the NITRO portion of the headstamp with two lines. .
. . . . Three variations of the 7mm Karcher............
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