Jesse James's Gun
Aug. 12th, 2011 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
The first of what you might call modern cartridges came along about the time of the US Civil War. Most revolvers of that war didn't use them. After the war, though, revolvers that fired the new metallic cartridges were all that most people wanted.
I suppose that had much to do with the fate of the Rogers and Spencer.
The R&S was a good design, but there were only 5000 or so made. They were delivered to the United States Army just as the war was ending, and never issued. It would have been easy to send them back to the factory to be modified for the new cartridges, but it was just as easy to send Remington revolvers back in for that. And there were over 130,000 of those.
They were sold off as surplus, and became popular with civil war reenactors and shooters when shooting these old guns became popular again in the 1960s. It's generally assumed, though, that none of them ever showed up on a Civil War Battlefield. Except then you find one with markings and old, original notes hidden inside the grip which say "I carried this revolver from the Battle of Antietam onward," signed by a person the record shows really was at those battles.
Well, there are some R&S revolvers unaccounted for- the serial numbers add up to more than the Army bought. Perhaps some showed up on battlefields as the result of private purchases. You can't prove they didn't.
There's another explanation of this, though. Let us consider the case of Jesse James.
Jesse, according to the historical record, owned and shot about every model of revolver that existed in his lifetime and, likely, several that didn't. The reason seems to have been that his sainted Mother would sell his old guns to passers-by who wanted souvenirs of the famous outlaw. Apparently she always had one or two, or one or two dozen, of his "this was his favorite" revolvers around for that purpose. Times were hard, after all, and she didn't have a pension.
If some friend or relative wants the revolver you used to defend yourself at the Alamo, it's kind of a pity to disappoint them, right? Just go to the pawn shop, pick up an old gun, doctor it up, and hand it over with the proper documentation. Everybody's happy, nobody gets hurt.
We can check the ink and paper and determine that it really is from the 19th Century. We can trace diaries and find out that the relic or document really has been in family hands since 1884.
But when I'm studying history, it's good for me to remember that fraud, pious and otherwise, is an invention older than history itself. You can trace the facts you think you know back to the people who were actually there-- but the people who were actually there knew how to lie too.
I suppose that had much to do with the fate of the Rogers and Spencer.
The R&S was a good design, but there were only 5000 or so made. They were delivered to the United States Army just as the war was ending, and never issued. It would have been easy to send them back to the factory to be modified for the new cartridges, but it was just as easy to send Remington revolvers back in for that. And there were over 130,000 of those.
They were sold off as surplus, and became popular with civil war reenactors and shooters when shooting these old guns became popular again in the 1960s. It's generally assumed, though, that none of them ever showed up on a Civil War Battlefield. Except then you find one with markings and old, original notes hidden inside the grip which say "I carried this revolver from the Battle of Antietam onward," signed by a person the record shows really was at those battles.
Well, there are some R&S revolvers unaccounted for- the serial numbers add up to more than the Army bought. Perhaps some showed up on battlefields as the result of private purchases. You can't prove they didn't.
There's another explanation of this, though. Let us consider the case of Jesse James.
Jesse, according to the historical record, owned and shot about every model of revolver that existed in his lifetime and, likely, several that didn't. The reason seems to have been that his sainted Mother would sell his old guns to passers-by who wanted souvenirs of the famous outlaw. Apparently she always had one or two, or one or two dozen, of his "this was his favorite" revolvers around for that purpose. Times were hard, after all, and she didn't have a pension.
If some friend or relative wants the revolver you used to defend yourself at the Alamo, it's kind of a pity to disappoint them, right? Just go to the pawn shop, pick up an old gun, doctor it up, and hand it over with the proper documentation. Everybody's happy, nobody gets hurt.
We can check the ink and paper and determine that it really is from the 19th Century. We can trace diaries and find out that the relic or document really has been in family hands since 1884.
But when I'm studying history, it's good for me to remember that fraud, pious and otherwise, is an invention older than history itself. You can trace the facts you think you know back to the people who were actually there-- but the people who were actually there knew how to lie too.
