A Note about Quality

The cartridges made during the Civil War were produced by tired and overburdened factory workers. These civilian workers, often very young, were paid according to how much they produced and were expected to fabricate a certain amount in an allotted time. For example, according to the Ordnance Manual of 1861, “One man can make with the machine 30,000 balls in ten hours,” and “one boy could make 800 cylinders in 10 hours” (14).  One observer at the St. Louis Arsenal wrote that the “boys did the work and their fingers fly pretty nimble” (15). A visitor to the Washington Arsenal in June 1861 found one building crowded with over 200 boys aged 12 to 16 producing cartridges at the rate of 120,000 to 130,000 per day (16).  At the St. Louis Arsenal, 700 workers could produce up to 1,500,000 cartridges per week (17).  With repetition and expectations came speed but also imperfections. The original cartridges and bundles that I have examined often show imperfections. The cylinder may have been slightly wrinkled, the folds were not always perfect, and the bundles may not have been perfectly folded and may even appear lopsided. There were standards for quality to be sure, and this is not to say that the cartridges that were produced were poorly constructed, but they were made by tired individuals performing a repetitious and tedious task for as many as 72 hours per week.