The Armory: Production and Legacy

The history of the Eli Whitney Armory is a history of industrial innovation, but also of conflict and violence. The Armory made guns, and guns were made to injure and kill, whether during war, colonialist conquest, or for personal protection or hunting.

The history of the guns manufactured on the site - when and how they were made, and how to identify them - is well-recorded. The history of those guns’ presence in and impact on American and global history is more fragmentary, but it is an essential part of the Eli Whitney Armory story.

After the Revolutionary War, the United States government had a problem: newly independent from Britain, they needed a source for well-built firearms to equip the armed forces, and there were not enough highly-skilled gunsmiths to meet the demands, let alone to also supply the civilian market. The government decided to start manufacturing its own firearms at National Armories, the first of which were in Springfield, MA (now Springfield Armory National Historic Park) and Harpers Ferry, WV (then Virginia). The National Armories could not meet the full demand, however, and so the government also contracted with private gun manufacturers, including Eli Whitney Sr.

The 1798 Armory contract was likely initiated because of the Quasi-War, an undeclared and primarily naval conflict with France from 1798-1800. This contract was completed by 1806, but the War of 1812 followed soon after, bringing further government contracts. Between 1816 and 1840, the Armory produced Springfield M1816 and M1822 flintlock muskets which went on to be used in the Mexican-American War and even until the Civil War.

When Eli Whitney Jr. took over direction of the Whitney Armory in 1841, he immediately took a new contract from the government and began updating the factory equipment to create a new type of gun: a muzzle-loading percussion rifle, the M1841. It was the first government model to use the percussion system, a major improvement in reliability from the previous flintlock. Five years later, the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) began. Although the M1841 was not yet widely distributed in the armed forces during that war, it was famously used by the "Mississippi Rifles” (Mississippi 155th Infantry), hence the gun’s nickname, the Mississippi rifle. While newer government models did begin to replace them in the 1850s, Mississippi rifles were used into the Civil War by regiments on both sides of the conflict.

The first revolvers manufactured at the Armory were also a result of the Mexican-American War. In 1847, Samuel Colt convinced Captain Samuel H. Walker of the Texas Rangers to make an order for 1,000 of Colt’s revolver design. However, Colt did not have his own factory, so he contracted with the Whitney Armory to produce the guns. By 1855, the success of the product meant that Colt could open his own factory in Hartford. Colt took his designs and machines with him, but the Whitney Armory also continued to manufacture revolvers, filing many patents for design improvements in the ensuing decades.

When the Civil War (1861-1865) began, the government needed more firearms than ever before. The Whitney Armory again took government contracts. Much like in the 1840s, the Armory was modernized and expanded to meet this new demand. A c. 1862 advertisement for the Armory shows the new main Armory building with a large Union flag flying above it and further reinforces the link with the armed forces: at lower left, a man on horseback speaks with a soldier in full uniform carrying a rifle fitted with a bayonet.

Operating margins at the Whitney Armory, and all armories like it, were always narrow. The government’s need for firearms kept the company afloat. It may not be a coincidence that the Armory was sold in the 1880s, during the longest period of peace since the nation’s founding.
 

The Whitney Armory’s government firearms were not only used during periods of official war. Whitney rifles and especially revolvers were also used by government regiments and civilians during American westward expansion. They therefore played a part in the often bloody subjugation of Native American peoples as their land was claimed for white settlement, as well as in the decimation of animal species through overhunting.

At first, the Armory made guns to fill government contracts. However, armories were expensive to run, and relying only on government contracts meant income could dry up.Therefore, the Armory also began producing guns to sell to civilians. Eli Whitney Jr. was especially interested in diversifying the Armory’s income streams after he took control of the company in 1841. He came up with a new way to manufacture guns for civilians: he visited the government armories at Springfield and Harper’s Ferry and bought rejected parts - gun pieces that were imperfect, but still usable. He brought these discounted supplies back to his armory and used them to produce cheaper guns for the civilian market.

Like the guns produced for government contracts, the Armory’s civilian marker guns are part of a long legacy of gun ownership and gun violence that underlies much of American history.