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Model 1841
Mississippi
Rifle
M
any enthusiasts consider it the most beautiful American military lon-garm ever produced, and I tend to agree. With its handsome proportions, brown-toned barrel, color case-hardened lock and elegant brass furniture, the “Mississippi Rifle” is a tribute to the martial gunmaker’s art.
But beauty is as beauty does. The U.S. Percussion Rifle, Model 1841 (to give its correct title) was actually many guns. Also known as the Windsor, after a couple of its contractors, and the Jager, . Yager or Yaeger because of its style and erstwhile Germanic origins, the gun served many masters in different guises over its 30-plus-year career.
AMERICAN RIFLE
The United States was into riflery even before it became the United States. German and Swiss immigrants developed their shorter Jager hunting rifles into what eventually became one of the most famous firearms of its type—the Pennsylvania or “Kentucky” longrifle.
Its use in the American War of Independence, while somewhat overestimated by propagandists of the period and later by folklorists, was still felt to be enough of a force on the battlefield to influence military officials to continue with some
sort of rifle program.
Remember, the average soldier of the time was equipped with a muzzleloading smoothbore flintlock musket, and the main attribute of a good soldier was to be able to load and fire his firelock as fast as he could—usually around three rounds per minute.
A rifle, with its slower loading process and greater accuracy, was considered a specialist’s weapon, and rifle troops were always limited in numbers. Their tactical use in the field was generally relegated to skirmishing and support work, though they were called upon, should it become necessary, to fight in the ranks, loading their guns without patches in the manner of a standard infantry musket.
With the exception of the British and Germans who understood the advantages of rifle troops, outside of the Americans there was not much interest in their establishment or the development of proper arms with which to equip them.
Period illustration: Mississippi riflemen—with their slouch hats and Model 1841 rifles-distinguished themselves at the battle of Buena Vista.
April 2010 GUNScAMMO 73