After the fall and capture of the Union-held town of Harpers Ferry, Va, the Southern states captured equipment that was more valuable than the town itself. They were able to capture, seize, and relocate all of the tooling equipment from the U.S. Arsenal and moved it to the Confederate Capital in Richmond. They moved the equipment into the Old Virginia Manufacturing of Arms warehouse and renamed it the Richmond Armory (RA). They began right away manufacturing their own rifled-muskets, rifles, carbines and repair work. When supplies was short at hand they began taking damaged and captured arms from the battlefields salvaged the workable parts from them and began turning out guns. It is well documented (Confederate Rifles and Muskets, By. Dr. Murphy)  that the RA was building rifles from parts, examples are seen with mixtures of Confederate made parts and U.S. parts or even all U.S. parts. Most rifled-muskets that had damaged muzzles or barrels, were cut down to either carbine or rifle length, with barrel measurements between 30”-33” and overall lengths of 46”-49”. Some of these guns can be identified by known confederate markings or confederate manufactured parts, but others have to be examined closer and determined by their measurements and certain characteristics.
This Rifle that’s being offered is a Cleaned & Repaired, or C&R, marked Confederate arsenal altered Model 1861 Springfield Rifled-Musket. This was determined by the Barrel length of 33” inches an overall length of 48” inches. It retains its original Military Rear sight, the muzzle has been re-worked to attach a socket style bayonet, it retains its original rifling, and most importantly, it has a C&R "T" inspection stamp located on the stock underneath the barel.  The vast majority of the cut down muskets you see today are post war alterations that have had their rifled barrels bored out to smoothbore and replaced their military sights with what is known as blacksmith shop, or country style, sights which this process is also known as being “shot-gunned”. The action of this rifle is still tight and in working order, it has a NJ stamped barrel, martially marked stocked, and a 1863 dated savage contract lock plate. All the Hallmarks of a unmarked confederate arsenal altered rifle!