ORDNANCE. 



641 



and Us range and force are good. It will throw 

 a ball two thousand yards, and will seldom 

 miss its mark at from seven hundred to a thou- 

 sand. At a distance of from thirty to fifty 

 yards, it will penetrate a pine target to a depth 

 of from nine to thirteen inches. It was used 

 with terrible effect by the Union troops at Get- 

 tysburg and Chickamauga, and in some other 

 battles of the war. At Gettysburg, it was said 

 by eye-witnesses that the head of the column 

 (opposed to the troops armed with this weapon), 

 as it was pushed on by those behind, appeared 



to melt away or sink into the earth, for though 

 continually moving it got no nearer. Acting 

 Brigadier-General John T. "Wilder, of the Army 

 of the Cumberland, in command of a brigade 

 of mounted infantry armed with this rifle, wrote 

 on the 28th of November, 1863, that at Hoover's 

 Gap, June 24th, 1863, one of his regiments de- 

 feated a rebel brigade of five regiments, killing 

 and wounding over five hundred, while their 

 own loss was only forty-seven ; and that from 

 April to November his command had captured 

 over 2,800 officers and men, losing as prisoners 



Section of carbine, showing cartridges In magazine, with 

 lever down and breech open. 



in the same period only six men. The siA- 

 joined cuts exhibit fully the mechanism of the 

 magazine and lock. 



HEXEY'S repeating rifle is a still later inven- 

 tion, patented, we believe, in 1861. The prin- 

 cipal novelty in this gun is the magazine and 

 the manner of loading from it. It consists of a 

 metal tube under the barrel, extending its entire 

 VOL. iv. 11 A 



Spencer Eifie. 



length, of sufficient diameter to admit the can- 

 ridges freely. A section of this tube near the 

 muzzle contains a spiral spring to throw the 

 cartridges upon a carrier-block in the rear, and 

 by means of a metallic sleeve five inches in 

 length, embracing the barrel of the gun at this 

 point, can he revolved upon the axis of the 

 bore so as to open the magazine, and admit the 



