Original Item: Only One Available. This is only the second  time that we have handled one of these rare very early breech loading carbines, however this one is definitely quite a bit different than the first. Not only is it one of the 3,000 M1843 Carbines manufactured by Simeon North after the Hall Production line at Harper's Ferry closed, but it is also one of the 5,000 carbines involved in the infamous "Hall Carbine Affair", which took place at the onset of the U.S. Civil war during 1861. This was one of many examples of various parties rushing to profit off the sudden large need for "modern" firearms after the Southern States attempted to secede from the Union.

One of the first actions in the conflict was the loss of Harpers Ferry Armory in Virginia, along with all the weapons and machinery stored there. In the face of an advancing Virginia Militia, the workers set fire to the buildings and escaped. While the Confederate forces were able to salvage some of it, it represented a large loss of weapons to the Union. Many contracts were subsequently issued, not all of them for the best terms, and in many cases the way that high ranking Federal officers as well as stage militias requisitioned arms made many opportunities for a quick profit.

The "Hall Rifle Affair" was one such example, and would eventually make national headlines, partly due to the involvement of John Pierpont Morgan, who was one of those who financed the deal. It involved arms dealer Arthur M. Eastman, who negotiated a deal with James Wolfe Ripley, Brigadier General and head of the US Ordinance Bureau, in June 1861. This was to purchase 5,000 obsolete "Hall's Carbines" at $3.50 each. He then made a deal to sell these to Simon Stevens, who subsequently made a deal with field general John C. Frémont for $22, promising to bore out the smooth bore carbines to fifty-eight caliber for use during the Civil war.

This of course involved several different financiers to supply the necessary money during the process, the first of which was J. P. Morgan, and the second was Morris Ketchum. Unfortunately some snags arose, and news of the deal got back to Ripley, who had not authorized Frémont to make such a deal for the carbines, and also felt that he had been significantly overcharged. Ripley then complained to the Secretary of War, and the matter was reported in major newspapers on September 26, 1861, resulting in a scandal. It was later revisited in 1910  with the publication of Gustavus Myers' History of the Great American Fortunes, which included a chapter on J. P. Morgan.

A result of this was further interest in the affair, which became a cause célèbre, and also cast Morgan in a negative light. It got to the point that R. Gordon Wasson, Vice-President for Public Relations at J.P. Morgan & Co., published a book called "The Hall Carbine Affair" in 1943 that attempted to remove any guilt from Morgan regarded what many thought was "War Profiteering". As early as 1937, Wasson had attempted to influence historians Allan Nevins and Charles McLean Andrews regarding Morgan's role in the affair. He would later use Nevins as a reference for the book.

Included with this carbine is a cased copy of THE HALL CARBINE AFFAIR by R. Gordon Wasson, a special edition privately printed during 1971 in Danbury, Connecticut, which measures 8"W 11 3/4"H x 1 1/2". It also includes a copy of HALL'S BREECHLOADERS by R.T. Huntington, which looks to be one of 1000 paperback copies printed in 1972, measuring 6"W x 9"H x 1". We do not know if these books have been with this particular carbine since the 1970s, but they definitely make a great set with the carbine.

The carbine itself is a lovely example, which looks to have been repeatedly cleaned over the years, giving it a great look. It still has the original production information stamped on the top of the breech block, though it is partially worn away from cleaning :-

There were also examples made by Harpers Ferry arsenal, but they bore different markings, and were made in somewhat larger numbers. Our example is in very good condition, with legible markings on the breech block, and a lovely polished patina on the metalwork. It is also marked with inspection cartouche JH on the right side of the breech, which could be one of several different inspectors, though on Hall-North Carbines this is usually thought to be Joseph Hannis. The stock is in very good service used condition, with a lovely red-brown color and glow from years of cleaning and polishing. It definitely looks to have seen long service, and there are dents, chips missing, gouges, and so forth, however we did not note any major structural damage. The initials J H F have been carved into the right side of the butt stock.

The breech loading mechanism works well, with the side lever opening and closing easily, which also holds it in place once opened. The lock, built into the breech block, is fully functional, holding at half cock and firing at full. The bore of the barrel is in very good condition, showing a partly bright finish with crisp lands and grooves. There is some past fouling and oxidation present, but nothing out of line with use in service, and it does look to have been relatively well cared for. The carbines were originally produced with smoothbore barrels, and were not rifled like the longer models. However, this is one of the 5,000 or so that were rifled as part of the infamous "Hall Carbine Affair", also often called the "Frémont Affair".

A lovely example of a rare early breech loading design, which was also part of of a scandal involving the legendary J. P. Morgan. Complete with some very hard to find reference materials, this carbine is more than ready to be a great part of your Civil War Firearms Collection!

Specifications-

Year of Manufacture: 1849 - modified later
Bore Diameter: 0.53-0.54 with Six Groove Rifling.
Cartridge Type: Cap and Ball
Barrel Length: 21 Inches
Overall Length: 40 Inches
Action type: Top Action Percussion Lock
Feed System: Hinged Breech Block

More on the Hall Breech Loading Rifles & Carbines

The original flintlock model had a 32.5-inch barrel rifled with 16 "clockwise" (right-hand) grooves making a turn in 96 inches. The muzzle was reamed to a depth of 1.5 inches, creating the illusion of a smoothbore when the user looked down the muzzle of the firearm. Overall length was 52.5 inches, and weight without bayonet was 10.25 pounds. The rifle fired a .525" ball weighing 220 grains (one-half ounce), using a 100-grain black powder charge and 10 grains of fine powder primer (flintlock versions only).

The carbine design was produced beginning in 1833, using a smoothbore barrel of 23 inches in length. It had an overall length of 43 inches, weighed 8 lbs, and was the first caplock firearm adopted by the U.S. Army. The following year, a carbine in .69 caliber was introduced for the Regiment of Dragoons, with a second run in 1836–1837. Barrel length was reduced to 21 inches in 1840, and a "fishtail" breech lever design credited to U.S. Army Captain James Huger was also introduced for the next 7,000 carbines, including the M1842 carbine, the final "regulation design" of the series.

In 1843, the Hall-North carbine, variously known as the M1843 and the "improved 1840", featured a side-mounted Henry North-Edward Savage breech lever. 11,000 Hall-North carbines were manufactured with a 21-inch, .52 caliber barrel. The Hall production line at Harper's Ferry closed in 1844, but between 1843 and 1846, 3,000 M1843 carbines were also manufactured by Simeon North.

Design:
The back several inches of the barrel (the chamber) is a separate piece that pivots upwards from the front for reloading, similar in concept to the later Norwegian kammerlader. In essence, the weapon was still loaded front to back, but without the need to ram the charge all the way from the muzzle, similar in concept to loading a cylinder of an early cap-and-ball (percussion) revolver. One could also think of it as similar to loading a short barreled, single shot muzzle-loading "horse pistol", which then hinges down behind an extra several feet of barrel, avoiding the need for extracting the long ram-rod from its underbarrel rings, rotating it so the ramming head faced the muzzle, ramming the charge down the barrel, extracting the rod, flipping it again, and then returning it to its holding rings. With the short chamber, a simple hand-held tool could be used to easily and quickly seat the bullet onto the charge.

More importantly, as with all breechloaders (and muzzle-loaders, prior to the invention of the Minie ball), the fact that one didn't need to load through the whole barrel allowed for the use of rifling in a standard-issue front-line military weapon (as opposed to weapons issued in small numbers to elite troops such as sharpshooters). In order for rifling to work, the projectile must fit very snugly in the barrel, which makes it harder and slower to ram the bullet down the barrel. Once fired, black powder builds up thick fouling very quickly, which makes the gun even harder to load; a typical muzzle-loading rifle couldn't be fired more than 3-4 times before requiring cleaning, or the bullet would be impossible to force down the barrel on loading, even with the mallet typically issued to riflemen to aid in forcing the bullet through the rifling while loading after the first two shots.

This fact is why soldiers were still issued smoothbore muskets firing loose-fitting round balls, long after the merits of rifling were known; rifles simply couldn't be loaded fast enough for use in open-field combat, even though they were far more effective shot-for-shot. The loose fit of a musket ball allowed for faster loading, even after fouling built up, but also made adding rifling useless, since it wouldn't work without a tight-fitting projectile. With a breech-loader, a tight-fitting projectile can be used, as it doesn't have to be forced down the barrel, which allows the use of rifling as well as a fast rate of fire. This fact means that even a breechloader that only achieved the same rate of fire as a muzzle-loading musket would still be superior to the musket, as the breechloader could be rifled and the musket couldn't, although in fact, breechloaders generally also had a greater rate of fire.

The development was primarily the work of Hall, who had been working on a design in the first two decades of the 19th century, receiving critical patents during the time. The work caught the interest of Army, which led to the contract at the end of the latter decade. The breech-loading design was made possible by his focus on using carefully machined components to form a seal, but still allowing enough tolerance for the breech to be opened easily. While precisely machined for the time, the technology of the day didn't allow for tolerances close enough to make a satisfactory seal, which was also one of the biggest hindrances to the creation of a successful revolver until some years later. The Hall rifle offered a significant increase in rate of fire over muzzleloading rifles and muskets (mostly due to the fact that one didn't have to manipulate the long, awkward ramming-rod every time one loaded). However, the design suffered from the gas leakage around the interface of the separate chamber and the bore (much as gases escape from the gap between cylinder and barrel of a revolver), resulting in the necessity of a heavier powder charge that still produced much less muzzle velocity than its muzzleloading competition. No serious efforts were made to develop a seal to reduce the loss of gas from the breech. The penetrating ability of its .52-caliber ball for the rifle was only one third of that of the muzzleloaders, and the muzzle velocity of the carbine was 25 percent lower than that of the Jenks "Mule Ear" carbine, despite having similar barrel lengths and identical 70-grain powder charges.

Thousands of rifles were made, though the troops and many leaders preferred the simplicity and lower costs of muzzle-loaded weapons. However, the advantages were clear, and breech-loading designs would grow to dominate rifle procurement after the Civil War. Many of the lessons learned by Hall would benefit designers of the next generation of breech-loaders such as the Sharps rifle (1848), Spencer carbine (1860), and others.

The Halls were used against Native Americans, and in smaller conflicts. Some saw service in the American Civil War; however, by this time, many rifles were worn out over 30 years of use. As part of the process, Hall built his own shops and machinery at Harper's Ferry, and along with inventing this weapon, he invented many machines, paving the way for uniform manufacturing of weapons with interchangeable parts. The ruins of his shops are still visible today.

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