How to explain this: even as I am working through a long series of books about American Indians in the 19^th century, the most recent two winnowing down to Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and the iconic battle at the Little Bighorn valley, brother Kevin – unaware of my reading habits – tracks down and buys a rifle which was, in all but the most minor details, the very model used by the Seventh Cavalry on June 25, 1876.  The “Allin conversion” or “Trapdoor” model of the Springfield carbine.

Used widely by the Union army during the civil war, many thousands of the rifle were available after the war ended.  The government decided to use them, but being muzzle-loading rifles, they were already obsolete; many white settlers and Indian tribes had newer repeating rifles, including the Winchester that held 17 rounds.

Gun designer Erskine S. Allin invented a ‘trapdoor’ device which converted the Springfield into a breech-loader; soldiers could now fire up to 20 rounds per minute instead of two.  Kevin’s rifle is from the first conversion, in 1865, and bears the Union mark on the wood stock.  As if proof were needed, the muzzle rod is still with the rifle.

By 1873, Springfield was manufacturing carbines that were native breech-loaders, but all other characteristics are identical to the conversion model that Kevin has.  I recently had a chance to hold the rifle. It’s weight and utilitarian beauty seemed a palpable confluence of past and present; a connection, small and remote though it may be, with a moment in history still vivid in my mind.