Why did the U.S. army turn their back on the lever gun after the Civil War?

[Slamfire]

Maybe I've got it wrong but I always thought Lee should have just quit Gettysburg once it was established that the Union held the more favorable high ground. Just keep marching on Washington until he was able to secure the ground of his choosing. Sooner or later the Union army would have had to chase him down. That would have made him the great general he was purported to be.

Lee should have transferred his Army, or as much of his Army as possible, to save Vicksburg. The Confederacy was basically dead once they lost Vicksburg. Once the North had split the South in half, prevented imports to the coming up the Mississippi by occupying New Orleans, and Southern exports from leaving New Orleans, it was over. Sure things made it west to east across the Mississippi, but not as much as before. Southern commerce was staked through the heart. Union gunboats would blow any Southern supply attempt out of water. It is hard to find a more definitive Strategic victory for the North in the entire Civil War.

Instead, Lee thought he would raise trouble by invading the North. He did, scared a lot of Northerners. But unless he completely destroyed the Army of the Potomac, messing around in Pennsylvania did not matter much in the big scheme of things.

Beating the Confederacy was more than just winning battles. It was about destroying the ability of the Confederacy to feed itself, to arm itself, to wage war. Sherman understood this, and made Georgia howl. Civilians in a 60 mile swath suddenly found themselves burnt out, no food, no animals, no transport, and a burden on the rest of confederate society. Eventually, the system would collapse, and it did.

 

[Buzzcook]

With today's revisionist history's teaching that the North's goodness-of-cause meant
it was never teetering on a razor's edge of complete & total collapse just two years
into the war has done us a grave disservice.

Well the just cause did keep Europe from recognizing the South so it did have some value.

I kinda think the insurmountable lead in population, materials, and manufacturing is still the more popular the theory.

It was the North's ability to produce lever action rifles that turned the tide, not the rifles themselves.

Anyhow.

Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery after touring the Gettysburg battle field agreed that both Lee and Meade messed up and that a flanking attack would have been Lee's best bet.

I think those guys might have been working with 20/20 as so many others have.
First Meade gets a bad rap. He unfortunately had a very powerful enemy in Dan Sickles who did everything possible to poison Meade in the public memory. Grant thought enough of Meade to leave him in charge of the Army of the Potomac till the end of the war.

The confederates had attacked both flanks of the Union position. The attack on the right flank stalled out and the guys from Maine stopped the attack on left, with the help of a unit armed with Sharps rifles btw.

Longstreet might have thought the Union left center was weaker than it really was because of his ability to drive Sickles corps out of the peach orchard. But by that final day the Union forces were strong all along the line. Meade also had internal lines ad could have moved reinforcements to his left fairly quickly.

 

[James K]

Not a view popular with partisans of the CS, but Lee has been called a tactical genius and a strategic disaster. Where he was on defense (even when attacking) he was superb. But when he went over to the strategic offense, he seemed to lose his bearings and become incautious, even foolhardy. Both his forays into the North were based on faulty intelligence, an underestimation of the enemy forces, poor understanding of the northern populace, and an overconfidence in his own army. Those failures led to abandoning the southern strategic plan of defense and cost him heavily.

Jim

 

[us920669]

Absolutely correct about Lee. He needed Jackson as offensive coordinator. He couldn't fill his corps commander's shoes, just like Jackson never could have done his job.
Custer and his Gatlings has come up. If he had taken them along, he and his command probably would have survived, because they never would have reached the operational area. Gatlings simply could not have been transported through that country. What got Custer was a village far larger than anyone thought possible, and Indians fighting together rather than as competing tribes.
The lever gun was unsuitable for all the reasons cited - expensive, flimsy, high-maintenance design, demanding logistics and lack of real need.
I found most interesting the discussion of our struggle to find a rifle for the Cold War Era. It may reflect a fundamental conflict of vision. Were we serving as a strategic counterweight to Soviet power, or were we practicing counter-insurgency to win brush-fire wars?

 

[Darto]

The reason the trapdoor was used instead of lever guns would be clear to anyone who thoroughly tested both. The trapdoor is a longer range gun that with a faster rate of fire. By far. The army tested both quite properly and completely and made the right decision.

For instance this site says:
http://www.westernerspublications.ltd.uk/CAGB Guns at the LBH.htm

" Although lever-actions could give an initially high rate of fire, unless they were equipped with some kind of loading gate, breechloaders in the long run had a higher rate of fire, which was sustainable throughout a battle. "

This is not true when using non fouling smokeless. Or using black powder fora few (say a dozen) rounds. Keep firing much longer and the lever gun will quit due to fouling and require cleaning. The trapdoor goes on and on for hours of battle time.

I would not want to be caught in a long battle with a lever gun shooting black powder if I could instead have a trapdoor or rolling block, etc. Neither would the army after their testing.

The same general idea is why not a single army in 1770 would take a rifle over a musket. Not even the American army when and if it had the choice it used muskets. Muskets over rifles of those days was like a semiauto instead of a bolt action in wWii. Must faster firing over time. No contest. The armies were not stupid or dense and did not therefore saddle themselves with obsolete weaponry. What is good for a hunter taking a few shots is all wrong for a soldier firing many rounds over a long time.

 

[Jimro]

The same general idea is why not a single army in 1770 would take a rifle over a musket. Not even the American army when and if it had the choice it used muskets. Muskets over rifles of those days was like a semiauto instead of a bolt action in wWii. Must faster firing over time. No contest. The armies were not stupid or dense and did not therefore saddle themselves with obsolete weaponry. What is good for a hunter taking a few shots is all wrong for a soldier firing many rounds over a long time.

Get to 1780 and see military forces adopting an air rifle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle

Just think about how long it would take to transfer out an air cylinder on one of those things. But it was quite the terror weapon in its day.

Jimro