THE UNITED STATES ARMORY.
The United States Armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, is the largest, best appointed, and altogether the most productive establishment for the manufacture of small arms in the world,—those belonging to the Austrian Government at Vienna, and to the British at Enfield, being greatly inferior both in size and appointments; while the quality of the guns manufactured here is very superior to that at either of those important establishments. Indeed, the Springfield rifled musket is justly regarded as the most perfect arm of its kind which has ever been produced. To attain this desirable point of excellence has required the skill and perseverance of the best mechanical minds which this country—always prolific in inventive genius—has produced during a period of more than half a century. It would be impossible to estimate the value of these works during the existence of the present Rebellion; but some idea may be formed of their usefulness from the fact that twenty-five thousand rifled muskets of the most approved pattern are manufactured at this establishment every month, and the number will soon be increased to thirty thousand. There are at the present time one hundred and seventy-five thousand of these muskets in the arsenal, awaiting the orders of the War Department, and the works are daily turning out enough to arm an entire regiment.
When the Rebels fired upon Fort Sumter, the armory was making about one thousand muskets per month, and three months afterwards the increase amounted only to three thousand, so little preparation had been made by the Government of Mr. Buchanan to meet the great struggle which Southern demagogues were precipitating upon us. Indeed, the number of muskets manufactured during the last year of his administration was less by several thousand than these works turned out during the year 1815; while, during this same period, the residents of streets leading to the railway-station witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a daily procession of wagons laden with boxes of Government arms on their way to Southern arsenals!
Twenty-six hundred workmen are now constantly employed,—the establishment being run day and night,—and none but the most expert and industrious artisans are to be found among them.
The original site of this armory was occupied during the Revolution as a military recruiting-post, afterwards as a depot for military stores, and then as a place for repairing arms. The first shops were on Main Street, and among them was a laboratory for cartridges and various kinds of fireworks. The oldest record in the armory relates to the work done in this laboratory during the month of April, 1778, showing that about forty men were then engaged in the business. Not far from the date of this document the works were removed to the hill, where, enlarged and perfected, they are legitimately the object of admiration and pride. The act establishing the armory was passed by Congress in April, 1794.
The arsenal, storehouse, offices, and principal manufacturing buildings are situated on Springfield Hill, and overlook the Connecticut valley at a commanding elevation. The heavier operations of the armory are carried on in another part of the city, about a mile distant, in buildings known as the water-shops. These are situated upon a small stream which flows into the Connecticut River at this point.
The armory-grounds on the hill cover an area of seventy-two acres, and are surrounded, with the exception of a small square detached from the main grounds, by an ornamental iron fence, nine feet in height. These grounds are exceedingly beautiful, and present every variety of landscape. A beautiful slope to the south and west, covered with luxuriant verdure, and crowned with groves of deciduous trees and evergreens, affords the eye peculiar gratification. The grounds combine also the useful with the ornamental, supplying hay enough to feed a score of horses belonging to the establishment.
There are fifteen buildings used in the manufacture of muskets at the works on the hill, and about the same number occupied as residences by the various officers and head-clerks of the armory. Some of the buildings are spacious and elegant in their construction, particularly the quarters of the commanding officer, and the arsenal, and are arranged in a picturesque and symmetrical manner within the square. The grounds are shaded by ornamental trees, and the dwellings are adorned with gardens and shrubbery. Broad and neatly kept walks, some gravelled and others paved, bordered by finely clipped hedges, extend across the green or along the line of the buildings, opening charming vistas in every direction. Four venerable pieces of artillery, all betokening great age, if not service, standing in the centre of the square, furnish the only outward and visible show of the military character of this immense establishment.
The principal building, as regards size and architectural beauty, is the arsenal, which is two hundred feet long by seventy wide, and three stories high,—each story being sufficiently capacious to contain one hundred thousand muskets. 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 of glittering steel, and so closely resemble the pipes of an organ that the propriety of Longfellow's simile suggests itself at once to every observer:—
"This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villages with strange alarms."