The Richmond Rifle was a rifled musket

Rifled musket

The term rifled musket or rifle musket refers to a specific type of weapon made in the mid-19th century. Originally the term referred only to muskets that had been produced as a smoothbore weapon and later had their barrels rifled...

 produced by the Richmond Armory in Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

, for use by the Confederate States Army

Confederate States Army

The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...

 during the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

.

History

At the start of the Civil War, the Confederacy suffered from a lack of resources with the capability to produce small arms weapons. In 1861, the Confederacy captured the Union-held

Union (American Civil War)

During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...

 town of Harper's Ferry

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. In many books the town is called "Harper's Ferry" with an apostrophe....

 in western Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, and in doing so, gained access to much needed machinery to produce small arms weapons. The equipment was dismantled and sent to armories or arsenal

Arsenal

An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...

s in the South

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

, including the Richmond Armory.

The first Richmond Rifles produced were Confederate-made copies of the Harpers Ferry-produced Model 1855 musket

Springfield Model 1855

The Model 1855 Springfield was a rifled musket used in the mid 19th century. It was produced by the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts.Earlier muskets had mostly been smooth bore flintlocks. In the 1840s, the unreliable flintlocks had been replaced by much more reliable and weather resistant...

. Improvements were made in 1862 and 1863, paralleling the improvements that the Union made to their Springfield rifle-muskets.

Design and Features

Because the Richmond Rifles were produced using equipment seized at Harpers Ferry, the Richmond Rifle retained many of the features of the Harpers Ferry rifles. They had a .58 caliber barrel, which was 40 inches long, and an overall length of 56 inches.

The locks for the Richmond Rifles were produced using equipment that had been originally designed to produce Springfield Model 1855 rifle-muskets. As a result, even though the Richmond Rifles did not use the troublesome Maynard Primer system that had been featured on the Springfield Model 1855, the Richmond Rifles did have the Model 1855's distinctive hump on the lockplate.

The Richmond Rifles also differed from the Union rifles they were based on with a different rear sight, brass buttplate, and brass nosecap on the Confederate model.