Henry Rifle Essay

The rifle was invented in late industrial age because in the early industrial age, soldiers fought on horse or foot with a weapon called a muzzle-loading musket which was a single firing gun with a very slow rate of fire

On February 25, 1932, the Army Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, put an end to the caliber issue, stating "this change will introduce an element of chaos, confusion and uncertainty which, when magnified under war conditions, would more than counteract the beneficial effect of any semi-automatic rifle." With this statement, MacArthur ordered the development of a .30 caliber rifle. This did not delay Garand's work because he had already developed a design to fire the .30 caliber on his own time in anticipation of such an event. Two more years would pass before the rifle was adopted as the United States Rifle, M1 on January 9, 1936. The United States became the first country in history to adopt a semi-automatic rifle as its standard military rifle after this event. Problems beset the M1 as it was first being issued. They occurred in the area where expanding gases of the fired bullets were tapped from the barrel to operate the rifle and the rifle suffered stoppages after firing only seven of the eight rounds in its clip.

In the first battle Henry thinks he has overcome his fear and he fights valiantly. Henry and his fellow soldiers engage in battle. Henry faces the enemy and fires repeatedly, and the enemy leaves. I would say Henry feels accomplished. He has overcome a portion of his fears and gains confidence as he works with the other soldiers of his regiment to hold the line. Along with his fellow soldiers, Henry stands his ground and makes some movements toward confidence and maturity.

The first guns used in America were a simple machine where the person did most of the work. The user measured and put the powder

The history of firearms has changed dramatically since the late 1700’s. A rifle is no longer defined as a single shot, muzzle loading musket. Should

whom nobody trusted. Clardy wanted to be colonel of the Mississippi Volunteer rifles, but when Jeffery Davis got the job he moved far away from the south. The next day, on his way back to Fort Leavenworth, he sees David's mom forcing David to go back to the Fort. They return together.

     Although the Model 1861 and the Spencer were the primary weapons for Union soldiers, their side arms were equally important. The Colt Army Model 1860 was the most popular sidearm among the Union army. The Colt Model 1860 was a .44 caliber six shot weapon which weighed 2 pounds 11 ounces. At $13.75, the Colt Army Revolver was much more expensive than those made by Remington or Starr. Production for the Colt Model 1860 ceased in November 1863. This pistol was the main weapon carried by upper class lieutenants, colonels, and generals throughout the war.5

1830: President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act authorizing the move of of several tribes to Western lands. 1830: The Choctaws sign a treaty exchanging 8 million acres of land east of the Mississippi for land in Oklahoma. 1832: Democrat Andrew Jackson is re-elected president over his opponents, gathering 216 electoral votes to National Republican candidate Henry Clay's 49. 1834: Anti-Catholic protestors burn the Ursuline convent in Somerville, Massachusetts. 1836: Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that any slave brought within its borders by a master is free.

In wars prior to the Civil War, soldiers wielded weapons such as the musket which shot only one bullet at a time. Though these types of weaponry could shoot as far as 250 yards, they were inconvenient and wasted time. To even aim at the target accurately one had to be 80 yards away. Similarly to muskets, rifles were inconvenient because they took a while to reload because the bullet was almost the same size of the barrel and again, wasted time. Bullets with a pointed tip were created in 1848 by Claude Minie. Because the diameter of the bullets were smaller than the barrel, soldiers could put them into the gun quicker and more effectively. With Minie’s bullets, rifles were simpler to reload but still had to be reloaded with one bullet at a time. That unprotected gap of time made soldiers more vulnerable so in 1849 a repeating rifle called the Volitional Repeater was patented by Walter Hunt. They were popularized in 1863 during the Civil War. By this time many models were being sold but the most common one was the Spencer Carbine which could shoot seven bullets in just 30 seconds. These, like most Civil War era weapons, were produced and used by the North, but not

“There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.”

“Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated…” (Henry).

This design lead to greater and more powerful weapons to be used in the First and Second World War. The weapons used in the World Wars were by far the most advanced of their time. The new weapons produced three times the amount of firepower either sides of the Civil War could produce at any given time. These weapons were feared by the citizens of the time. These new weapons consisted of the Thompson, a submachine gun, which fired a .45 caliber bullet at high velocities. This rifle became the standard fully automatic rifle for the United States Armed Forces. Though this weapon had a very important role in winning the war, it was also used in various crimes throughout the United States in the early nineteenth century. Does this make this rifle a bad thing to own? While some would argue that the weapon was a threat to the public’s safety, and while the others would say it was not, it still fired at a high velocity which makes the possibility of multiple deaths more possible. This caused a large concern to erupt among the public in large cities where mobs were becoming popular. It was obvious that these new found guns would be great for protecting the public, however, it would also come to harm them since they were falling into the hands of criminals. These weapons would never stop evolving with years to come weapons would become more deadly and even more common than the thompson would ever be.

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of

The long range infantry weapon of the 1700’s was the musket. The musket is stronger than the bow and arrow. The kinetic energy and momentum of an 18mm musket ball shooting from a Brown Bess musket are 1460 joules and 9.36 kg*m/s. The kinetic energy and momentum of an arrow being shot from a bow are 16.5 joules and 1.15 kg*m/s. The musket ball clearly has a much stronger momentum and kinetic energy than the arrow, which means it has more stopping power. Firearms of the 1700’s also have much greater maximum range than bows and arrows. If a Brown Bess was fired at a forty five degree angle in a frictionless environment, the musket ball would travel 9783 meters. If a bow fired it’s arrow at forty-five degrees in a frictionless environment, it would travel only one hundred and nineteen meters. The musket has more than eighty-two times the maximum range of the bow and arrow. Some might say that bows and arrows are stronger than muskets, but that is not entirely true. Most people refer to muskets and rifles of the eighteen and nineteenth century only as smooth-bore barrel muskets. Muskets barrels later became rifled in the nineteenth century and are much more accurate than their smooth-bore relatives. Not only are muskets more lethal than bows and arrows, but cannons and artillery are more lethal than medieval catapults.

Samuel Colt with his invention in 1836, the Colt revolver establishes a series of events that change the course of American history. From the Wild West and the Civil War, to present days, this simple invention would create a Western culture and contribute toward making America a global military