At the outbreak of the American Civil War, both the Union and Confederate troops were armed with a weapon that neither side realized was so deadly.  The 1861 Springfield - .58 Caliber Black Powder Rifle was really a weapon suited for a more modern approach to warfare.  Back then, military officers were trained in field tactics developed sixty years earlier by Napoleon Bonaparte.  Those tactics accommodated a basic flaw with the flintlock musket; that they were grossly inaccurate beyond a hundred yards.  But when an innovation called rifling was added to the weapons, which are the spiral grooves that hold a bullet and give it a spin as it moves down the barrel, they became extremely accurate out to well over three hundred yards and even further.  Though there was still a use for some aspects Napoloen pioneered, massing troops in such large formations with such highly accurate weapons would result in massive amounts of casualties that were almost unheard of prior to the Civil War.  This would result in more than 600,000 dead on both sides of the war, and with many hundreds of thousands of amputees on top of that.  This and other replica guns and swords of that era are great collector’s pieces any Civil War aficionado would love to have in their possession.  It is a muzzle loader that utilizes a percussion cap just like the old ones did and actually fires.  This Springfield Armory rifle is a classic piece of Americana that helped shaped the destiny of a nation from Bull Run to Appomattox Courthouse.