If guns could speak, what a story the Confederate Collection at the Greensboro Historical Museum could tell.
The exhibit’s’ official name is the Murphy Confederate Firearms Collection, in honor of Dr. John Murphy and his wife, Isabelle Fournier Murphy who assembled the collection. Among its 140 firearms are some of the rarest and finest examples of Confederate longarms in the world.
Portraits of Dr. John and Isabell Murphy with a display of three extremely rare weapons
(top to bottom: Cook and Brother Musketoon, 1862; George W. Morse Carbine, 1862,
and Tarpley, Garrett & Company Carbine, 1863).
Many of them are .58 caliber Model 1855 or .577 caliber Enfield rifled muskets. But gunmakers also developed breech-loading rifles and carbines which made for quicker reloading.
Following the war, many Confederate guns were destroyed or taken home by Union troops as souvenirs. Collectors like the Murphys prize the existing weapons and seek to learn more about the battles in which they were employed.
Each gun has its own story, often told on the lockplate, stamped with the manufacturer’s name and serial number indicating the year it was made. Some lockplates have the initials of the owner inscribed and his regiment which can identify the battles in which the gun was used.
Also on display are cups, cartridge boxes, buckles, buttons and other accoutrements of the Civil War soldier along with photographs, prints and paintings, including several by Civil War illustratpr Don Troiana.
According to information provided by Greensboro historian Bill White, who leads frequent tours of the exhibit, the Civil War occurred during an important period of development of weapons technology. One example is the percussion cap which replaced the flintlock as a more effective way to ignite gunpowder and fire the projectile.
At the beginning of the war, the Confederate army had a very limited supply of longarms until the capture of the US Arsenal and Armory at Harper’s Ferry on April 18, 1961. There they took possession of a large stock of decommissioned flintlock rifles, weapons parts and machinery for the manufacture of rifled muskets.
Soldiers often brought their guns from home along with other items that reveal the deprivations of war as well as its innovations. To wile away the long ours between campaigns, the soldiers fashioned plates and pens from whatever they could lay their hands.
A display of medical kits with tourniquets and amputation saws recalthe amputation scene in Gone with the Wind when doctors had to operate with no morphine available to mask the patient’s pain.
The curatorial staff, recognizing the need for space for changing exhibits, plan to dismantle the Murphy Collection within the next several months; however, the staff is exploring space to display a small representative selection due to the high interest shown by local visitors as well as those who come from outside the state.
Locally-made rifles by the firms of Mendenhall, Jones and Gardner and H.C. Lamb & Co.
of Guilford County.
Beginning in the 18tn century, several gunmakers were established on the banks of the Deep River in western Guilford County. Prominent was the Lamb family which contracted with the State of North Carolina for 500 rifles for the state militia. Mendenhall, Jones and Gardner manufactured 5,000 rifles ($21 each) to be delivered “as fast as the said firm can turn them out.”
The principals of the firm were Cyrus P. Mendenhall, attorney, mayor, community leader, and developer; Ezekial P. Jones, a tobacco merchant; and Grafton Gardner, a mechanic and gunsmith who may have been the factory. The firm produced five different rifles with only slight variations to each type.
Special thanks to Bill White whose museum tour notes provided much of the information for this article.