This model has the distinction of a number of firsts.  It was the first standard infantry shoulder arm to have a rifled barrel.  It was the first caliber .58, and also the first to use the “Minie” ball.  After the adoption of the percussion system by the services, inventors were not slow to devise a system of automatic feed of percussion primers to firearm locks, because the small primer cap was difficult to handle, especially mounted.  The Maynard tape primer was the invention of Edward Maynard, a dental surgeon from Washington, D.C.  It consisted of a narrow strip of varnished paper of double thickness having deposits of fulminating compound between the two strips, at equal distances apart.  The strip was coiled in a recessed magazine in the lock plate of the arm, and was pushed up by a toothed wheel when the hammer was cocked, so as to bring a fulminate cap up on the cone and at the same time cut off the paper behind the exploded cap.  On March 20, 1845, the government contracted to pay Dr. Maynard the sum of $4,000 for the rights to apply his tape primer device to 4,000 muskets.  On Feb. 3, 1854, for the consideration of $50,000 to be paid in three installments of $16,666,66 each, Dr. Maynard sold the government Maynard primer rights, permitting unreserved use of the device.  While the mechanism functioned well under favorable conditions, in inclement weather it did not possess the reliability of the metallic percussion cap and so was not adopted for the hundreds of thousands of rifle-muskets produced during the Civil War. 

     This arm was also the first standard issue shoulder arm to have a rifled barrel and use the caliber .58 “Minie ball.  Up until about 1844 all military arms had used the spherical ball.  A great many investigations were carried on with different styles of bullets and methods of expanding them, the object being to have a loose fitting ball that could be easily loaded, expanded either in the loading or firing of the arm, so that it would fit the rifling.  The “Minie” ball was designed by Capt. Minie of the French Army.  The bullet had a solid cone base united by a short grooved neck to an oval head.  He later added a hollow base in which an iron cap was inserted and driven half way up the bullet on firing, with a sphero-conoidal head.  Boxwood and baked clay wedges were also experimented with.  Between 1849 and 1855, the government did a great deal of experimenting along these lines.  It was discovered that an expanding plug was unnecessary because the gasses from the explosion sufficiently expanded the hollow base without it.  This type of bullet was adopted and used thereafter in all newly made muzzle loading rifles.

     Our specimen is marked on the lock plate behind the lock “1858”.  In front of the lock “US” “SPRINGFIELD” in two lines and an eagle on the tape cover.  The bands are marked “U”.  The top of the butt plate is marked “US”.  The left side of the barrel is marked “V” “P” and eagle head.  The date on top of the barrel is worn, “18” visible.  Carved on the left side of the stock below the rear sight “NW”.  Note the brass nose cap.  The bayonet is marked “US”.  The socket is marked “6” “F”.