Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVI, July 1852, Vol. V

The shop where this swedging work is done at the Armory contains a great number of forges, one only of which however is fully represented in the engraving. The apparatus connected with these forges, differing in each according to the particular operation for which each is intended, is far too complicated to be described in this connection. It can only be fully understood when seen in actual operation under the hands of the workman. The visitor however who has the opportunity to see it thus, lingers long before each separate forge, pleased with the ingenuity of the contrivances which he witnesses, and admiring the wonderful dexterity of the workman. There is no appearance of bellows at any of these works. The air is supplied to the fires by pipes ascending through the floor from a fan blower, as it is called, worked by machinery arranged for the purpose below.

THE STOCKING SHOP

The Stocking Shop, so called, is the department in which the stocks to which the barrel and the lock are to be attached, are formed and finished. The wood used for gun stocks in this country is the black walnut, and as this wood requires to be seasoned some years before it is used, an immense store of it is kept on hand at the Armory – sufficient in fact for four years' consumption. The building in which this material is stored may be seen on the right hand side in the general view placed at the head of this article. It stands off from the square, and behind the other buildings. The operations conducted in the stocking shop are exceedingly attractive to all who visit the establishment. In fact it happens here as it often does in similar cases, that that which it is most interesting to witness is the least interesting to be described. The reason is that the charm in these processes consists in the high perfection and finish of the machines, in the smoothness, grace, and rapidity of their motions, and in the seemingly miraculous character of the performances which they execute. Of such things no mere description can convey any adequate idea. They must be seen to be at all appreciated.

A gun stock, with all the innumerable cavities, grooves, perforations, and recesses necessary to be made in it, to receive the barrel, the lock, the bands, the ramrod, and the numerous pins and screws, all of which require a separate and peculiar modification of its form, is perhaps as irregular a shape as the ingenuity of man could devise – and as well calculated as any shape could possibly be to bid defiance to every attempt at applying machinery to the work of fashioning it. The difficulties however in the way of such an attempt, insurmountable as they would at first sight seem, have all been overcome, and every part of the stock is formed, and every perforation, groove, cavity, and socket is cut in it by machines that do their work with a beauty, a grace, and a perfection, which awaken in all who witness the process, a feeling of astonishment and delight.

The general principle on which this machinery operates, in doing its work, may perhaps be made intelligible to the reader by description. The action is regulated by what are called patterns. These patterns are models in iron of the various surfaces of the stock which it is intended to form. Let us suppose, for example, that the large cavity intended to receive the lock is to be cut. The stock on which the operation is to be performed is placed in its bed in the machine, and over it, pendant from a certain movable frame-work of polished steel above, is the cutting tool, a sort of bit or borer, which is to do the work. This borer is made to revolve with immense velocity, and is at the same time susceptible of various other motions at the pleasure of the workman. It may be brought down upon the work, and moved there from side to side, so as to cut out a cavity of any required shape; and such is the mechanism of the machine that these vertical and lateral motions may be made very freely without at all interfering with the swift rotation on which the cutting power of the tool depends. This is effected by causing the tool to revolve by means of small machinery within its frame, while the frame and all within it moves together in the vertical and lateral motions.

Now if this were all, it is plain that the cutting of the cavity in the stock would depend upon the action of the workman, and the form given to it would be determined by the manner in which he should guide the tool in its lateral motions, and by the depth to which he should depress it. But this is not all. At a little distance from the cutter, and parallel to it is another descending rod, which is called the guide; and this guide is so connected with the cutting tool, by means of a very complicated and ingenious machinery, that the latter is governed rigidly and exactly in all its movements by the motion of the former. Now there is placed immediately beneath the guide, what is called the pattern, that is a cavity in a block of iron of precisely the form and size which it is intended to give to the cavity in the wooden stock. All that the workman has to do therefore, when the machine is put in motion is to bring the guide down into the pattern and move it about the circumference and through the centre of it. The cutting tool imitating precisely the motions of the guide, enters the wood, and cutting its way in the most perfect manner and with incredible rapidity, forms an exact duplicate of the cavity in the pattern. The theory of this operation is sufficiently curious and striking – but the wonder excited by it is infinitely enhanced by seeing the work done. It is on this principle substantially that all the machines of the Stocking Shop are constructed; every separate recess, perforation, or groove of the piece requiring of course its own separate mechanism. The stocks are passed from one of these engines to another in rapid succession, and come out at last, each one the perfect fac-simile of its fellow.

DIVISION OF LABOR

We have said that the number of separate parts which go to compose a musket is forty-nine; but this by no means denotes the number of distinct operations required in the manufacture of it – for almost every one of these forty-nine parts is subject to many distinct operations, each of which has its own name, is assigned to its own separate workman, and is paid for distinctly and by itself, according to the price put upon it in the general tariff of wages. The number of operations thus separately named, catalogued and priced, is three hundred and ninety-six.

These operations are entirely distinct from one another – each constituting, as it were, in some sense a distinct trade, so that it might be quite possible that no one man in the whole establishment should know how to perform any two of them. It is quite certain, in fact, that no man can perform any considerable number of them. They are of very various grades in respect to character and price – from the welding of the barrel which is in some points of view the highest and most responsible of all, down to the cutting out of pins and screws of the most insignificant character. They are all however regularly rated, and the work that is performed upon them is paid for by the piece.

ASSEMBLING THE MUSKET

When the several parts are all finished, the operation of putting them together so as to make up the musket from them complete, is called "assembling the musket." The workman who performs this function has all the various parts before him at his bench, arranged in boxes and compartments, in regular order, and taking one component from this place, and another from that, he proceeds to put the complicated piece of mechanism together. His bench is fitted up expressly for the work which he is to perform upon it, with a vice to hold without marring, and rests to support without confining, and every other convenience and facility which experience and ingenuity can suggest. With these helps, and by means of the dexterity which continued practice gives him, he performs the work in a manner so adroit and rapid, as to excite the wonder of every beholder. In fact it is always a pleasure to see any thing done that is done with grace and dexterity, and this is a pleasure which the visitor to the Armory has an opportunity to enjoy at almost every turn.

The component parts of the musket are all made according to one precise pattern, and thus when taken up at random they are sure to come properly together. There is no individual fitting required in each particular case. Any barrel will fit into any stock, and a screw designed for a particular plate or band, will enter the proper hole in any plate or band of a hundred thousand. There are many advantages which result from this precise conformity to an established pattern in the components of the musket. In the first place the work of manufacturing it is more easily performed in this way. It is always the tendency of machinery to produce similarity in its results, and thus although where only two things are to be made it is very difficult to get them alike, the case is very different where there is a call for two hundred thousand. In this last case it is far easier and cheaper to have them alike than to have them different; for in manufacturing on such a scale a machinery is employed, which results in fashioning every one of its products on the precise model to which the inventor adapted the construction of it. Then, besides, a great convenience and economy results from this identity of form in the component parts of the musket, when the arms are employed in service. Spare screws, locks, bands, springs, &c., can be furnished in quantities, and sent to any remote part of the country wherever they are required; so that when any part of a soldier's gun becomes injured or broken, its place can be immediately supplied by a new piece, which is sure to fit as perfectly into the vacancy as the original occupant. Even after a battle there is nothing to prevent the surviving soldiers from making up themselves, out of a hundred broken and dismantled muskets, fifty good ones as complete and sound as ever, by rejecting what is damaged, and assembling the uninjured parts anew.

To facilitate such operations as these the mechanism by which the various parts of the musket are attached to each other and secured in their places, is studiously contrived with a view to facilitating in the highest degree the taking of them apart, and putting them together. Each soldier to whom a musket is served is provided with a little tool, which, though very simple in its construction, consists of several parts and is adapted to the performance of several functions. With the assistance of this tool the soldier sitting on the bank by the roadside, at a pause in the middle of his march, if the regulations of the service would allow him to do so, might separate his gun into its forty-seven components, and spread the parts out upon the grass around him. Then if any part was doubtful he could examine it. If any was broken he could replace it – and after having finished his inspection he could reconstruct the mechanism, and march on as before.

It results from this system that to make any change, however slight, in the pattern of the musket or in the form of any of the parts of it, is attended with great difficulty and expense. The fashion and form of every one of the component portions of the arm, are very exactly and rigidly determined by the machinery that is employed in making it, and any alteration, however apparently insignificant, would require a change in this machinery. It becomes necessary, therefore, that the precise pattern both of the whole musket and of all of its parts, once fixed, should remain permanently the same.

The most costly of the parts which lie before the workman in assembling the musket is the barrel. The value of it complete is three dollars. From the barrel we go down by a gradually descending scale to the piece of smallest value, which is a little wire called the ramrod spring wire – the value of which is only one mill; that is the workman is paid only one dollar a thousand for the manufacture of it. The time expended in assembling a musket is about ten minutes, and the price paid for the work is four cents.

THE ARSENAL

The New Arsenal, which has already been alluded to in the description of the general view of the Arsenal grounds, is a very stately edifice. It is two hundred feet long, seventy feet wide, and fifty feet high. It is divided into three stories, each of which is calculated to contain one hundred thousand muskets, making three hundred thousand in all. The muskets when stored in this arsenal are arranged in racks set up for the purpose along the immense halls, where they stand upright in rows, with the glittering bayonets shooting up, as it were, above. The visitors who go into the arsenal walk up and down the aisles which separate the ranges of racks, admiring the symmetry and splendor of the display.

The Arsenal has another charm for visitors besides the beauty of the spectacle which the interior presents – and that is the magnificent panorama of the surrounding country, which is seen from the summit of the tower. This tower, which occupies the centre of the building, is about ninety feet high – and as it is about thirty feet square, the deck at the top furnishes space for a large party of visitors to stand and survey the surrounding country. Nothing can be imagined more enchanting than the view presented from this position in the month of June. The Armory grounds upon one side, and the streets of the town upon the other lie, as it were, at the feet of the spectator, while in the distance the broad and luxuriant valley of the Connecticut is spread out to view, with its villages, its fields, its groves, its bridges, its winding railways, and its serpentine and beautiful streams.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ARMORY

The manufacture of muskets being a work that pertains in some sense to the operations of the army, should be, for that reason, under military rule. On the other hand, inasmuch as it is wholly a work of mechanical and peaceful industry, a civil administration would seem to be most appropriate for it. There is, in fact, a standing dispute on this subject both in relation to the Armory at Springfield and to that at Harper's Ferry, among those interested in the establishments, and it is a dispute which, perhaps, will never be finally settled. The Springfield Armory is at this time under military rule – the present commanding officer, Colonel Ripley, having been put in charge of it about ten years ago, previous to which time it was under civil superintendence. At the time of Col. Ripley's appointment the works, as is universally acknowledged, were in a very imperfect condition, compared with the present state. On entering upon the duties of his office, the new incumbent engaged in the work of improvement with great resolution and energy, and after contending for several years with the usual obstacles and difficulties which men have to encounter in efforts at progress and reform, he succeeded in bringing the establishment up to a state of very high perfection; and now the order, the system, the neatness, the almost military exactness and decorum which pervade every department of the works are the theme of universal admiration. The grounds are kept in the most perfect condition – the shops are bright and cheerful, the walls and floors are every where neat and clean, the machinery and tools are perfect, and are all symmetrically and admirably arranged, while the workmen are well dressed, and are characterized by an air of manliness, intelligence, and thrift, that suggests to the mind of the visitor the idea of amateur mechanics, working with beautiful tools, for pleasure.

And yet the men at first complained, sometimes, of the stringency of rules and regulations required to produce these results. These rules are still in force, though now they are very generally acquiesced in. No newspapers of any kind can be taken into the shops, no tobacco or intoxicating drinks can be used there, no unnecessary conversation is allowed, and the regulations in respect to hours of attendance, and to responsibility for damaged work are very definite and strict. But even if the workmen should be disposed in any case to complain of the stringency of these requirements, they can not but be proud of the result; for they take a very evident pleasure in the gratification which every visitor manifests in witnessing the system, the order, the neatness, and the precision that every where prevail.

Nothing can be more admirably planned, or more completely and precisely executed than the system of accounts kept at the offices, by which not only every pecuniary transaction, but also, as would seem, almost every mechanical operation or act that takes place throughout the establishment is made a matter of record. Thus every thing is checked and regulated. No piece, large or small, can be lost from among its hundreds of fellows without being missed somewhere in some column of figures – and the whole history of every workman's doings, and of every piece of work done, is to be found recorded. Ask the master-armorer any questions whatever about the workings of the establishment, whether relating to the minutest detail, or to most comprehensive and general results, and he takes down a book and shows you the answer in some column or table.

After all, however, this neatness, precision, and elegance in the appearance and in the daily workings of an establishment like this, though very agreeable to the eye of the observer, constitute a test of only secondary importance in respect to the actual character of the administration that governs it. To judge properly on this point, the thing to be looked at is the actual and substantial results that are obtained. The manufacture of muskets is the great function of the Armory, and not the exhibition of beautiful workshops, and curious processes in mechanics for the entertainment of visitors. When we inquire, however, into the present arrangement of this establishment, in this point of view, the conclusion seems to be still more decidedly in its favor than in the other. The cost of manufacturing each musket immediately before the commencement of the term of the present commander was about seventeen dollars and a half. During the past year it has been eight dollars and three quarters, and yet the men are paid better wages now per day, or, rather, they are paid at such rates for their work, that they can earn more now per day, than then. The saving has thus not been at all made from the pay of the workmen, but wholly from the introduction of new and improved modes of manufacture, better machines, a superior degree of order, system, and economy in every department, and other similar causes. How far the improvements which have thus been made are due to the intrinsic qualities of military government, and how far to the personal efficiency of the officer in this case intrusted with the administration of it, it might be somewhat difficult to decide.

In fact, when judging of the advancement made during a period of ten years, in an establishment of this kind, at the present age of the world, some considerable portion of the improvement that is manifested is due, doubtless, to the operation of those causes which are producing a general progress in all the arts and functions of social life. The tendency of every thing is onward. Every where, and for all purposes, machinery is improving, materials are more and more easily procured, new facilities are discovered and new inventions are made, the results of which inure to the common benefit of all mankind. It is only so far as an establishment like the Armory advances at a more rapid rate than that of the general progress of the age, that any special credit is due to those who administer its affairs. It always seems, however, to strangers visiting the Armory and observing its condition, that these general causes will account for but a small portion of the results which have been attained in the management of it, during the past ten years.

CONCLUSION

As was stated at the commencement of the article, it is only a small part of the hundreds of thousands of muskets manufactured, that are destined ever to be used. Some portion of the whole number are served out to the army, and are employed in Indian warfare, others are destined to arm garrisons in various fortresses and military posts, where they are never called to any other service than to figure in peaceful drillings and parades. Far the greater portion, however, are sent away to various parts of the country, to be stored in the national arsenals, where they lie, and are to lie, as we hope, forever, undisturbed, in the midst of scenes of rural beauty and continued peace. The flowers bloom and the birds sing unmolested around the silent and solitary depositories, where these terrible instruments of carnage and destruction unconsciously and forever repose.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 1

BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTTPEACE WITH ENGLAND

It was the first great object of Napoleon, immediately upon his accession to power, to reconcile France with Europe, and to make peace with all the world. France was weary of war. She needed repose, to recover from the turmoil of revolution. Napoleon, conscious of the necessities of France, was consecrating Herculean energies for the promotion of peace. The Directory, by oppressive acts, had excited the indignation of the United States. Napoleon, by a course of conciliation, immediately removed that hostility, and, but a short time before the treaty of Luneville, ratified a treaty of amity between France and the United States. The signature of this treaty was celebrated with great rejoicings at the beautiful country seat which Joseph, who in consequence of his marriage was richer than his brother, had purchased at Morfontaine. Napoleon, accompanied by a brilliant party, met the American commissioners there. The most elegant decorations within the mansion and in the gardens, represented France and America joined in friendly union. Napoleon presented the following toast: "The memory of the French and the Americans who died on the field of battle for the independence of the New World." Lebrun, the Second Consul, proposed, "The union of America with the Northern powers, to enforce respect for the liberty of the seas." Cambaceres gave for the third toast, "The successor of Washington." Thus did Napoleon endeavor to secure the friendship of the United States.

About this time Pope Pius VI. died, and the Cardinals met to choose his successor. The respect with which Napoleon had treated the Pope, and his kindness to the emigrant priests, during the first Italian campaign, presented so strong a contrast with the violence enjoined by the Directory, as to produce a profound impression upon the minds of the Pope and the Cardinals.

The Bishop of Imola was universally esteemed for his extensive learning, his gentle virtues, and his firm probity. Upon the occasion of the union of his diocese with the Cisalpine Republic, he preached a very celebrated sermon, in which he spoke of the conduct of the French in terms highly gratifying to the young conqueror. The power of Napoleon was now in the ascendant. It was deemed important to conciliate his favor. "It is from France," said Cardinal Gonsalvi, "that persecutions have come upon us for the last ten years. It is from France, perhaps, that we shall derive aid and consolation for the future. A very extraordinary young man, one very difficult as yet to judge, holds dominion there at the present day. His influence will soon be paramount in Italy. Remember that he protected the priests in 1797. He has recently conferred funeral honors upon Pius VI." These were words of deep foresight. They were appreciated by the sagacious Cardinals. To conciliate the favor of Napoleon, the Bishop of Imola was elected to the pontifical chair as Pope Pius VII.

Naples had been most perfidious in its hostility to France. The Queen of Naples was a proud daughter of Maria Theresa, and sister of the Emperor of Austria and of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. She surely must not be too severely condemned for execrating a revolution which had consigned her sister to the dungeon and to the guillotine. Naples, deprived of Austrian aid, was powerless. She trembled under apprehension of the vengeance of Napoleon. The King of Austria could no longer render his sister any assistance. She adopted the decisive and romantic expedient of proceeding in person, notwithstanding the rigor of the approaching winter, to St. Petersburg, to implore the intercession of the Emperor Paul. The eccentric monarch, flattered by the supplication of the beautiful queen, immediately espoused her cause, and dispatched a messenger to Napoleon, soliciting him, as a personal favor, to deal gently with Naples. The occurrence was, of course, a triumph and a gratification to Napoleon. Most promptly and courteously he responded to the appeal. It was indeed his constant study at this time, to arrest the further progress of the revolution, to establish the interests of France upon a basis of order and of law, and to conciliate the surrounding monarchies, by proving to them that he had no disposition to revolutionize their realms. A word from him would have driven the King and Queen of Naples into exile, and would have converted their kingdom into a republic. But Napoleon refused to utter that word, and sustained the King of Naples upon his throne.