Hundreds of Gévelot pinfire cartridges excavated at Civil War site in Rolla, Missouri

During the American Civil War, Rolla, Missouri was a heavily garrisoned town that played a strategic role protecting the terminus of the Southwest Branch of the Pacific Railroad. This section of the railroad branched off the main Pacific Railroad of Missouri 40 miles southwest of St. Louis in Pacific City. It began construction in 1855 and the first train pulled into Rolla on December 22, 1860.

When the war first started, the city aligned itself with the Confederate States and organized the Phelps County Minutemen. This was very short-lived as within 2 months of this formation Union troops commanded by Brigadier General Franz Sigel arrived from St. Louis and took over the town. Over the course of the war it is estimated that there were always between 5000 and 50,000 troops stationed in Rolla and it was heavily fortified with two forts and multiple division headquarters helping protect the road and supply line between Springfield and St. Louis.

Although there were dozens of regiments from Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Ohio stationed here over the course of the war, we will focus on the 9th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment and the 4th Missouri Cavalry Regiment, also known as the Fremont Hussars.

The 9th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment was attached to the District of Rolla from their formation in 1862 until April of 1863. Company B of this regiment is one of the two companies with their Lefaucheux revolver serial numbers recorded in the National Archives. Company D of the 2nd Kansas Volunteer Cavalry is the other.

The following serial numbers are recorded:

The 4th Missouri Cavalry Regiment, also known as the Fremont Hussars, were attached to multiple divisions over the course of the war. In 1861 and 1862 they were part of the 4th Division, commanded by Alexander Asboth. This division was headquartered at Camp Halleck, about a mile outside Rolla’s city center. In an 1862-dated report to the Adjutant General this regiment of 588 soldiers listed that they had 128 Colt revolvers and 82 French revolvers. The Lefaucheux revolvers were often referred to as French revolvers in many correspondences and records.

So there were multiple regiments carrying pinfire revolvers stationed around Rolla and other records show troops stationed here and commanded by General Halleck likely received some of the 1600 French revolvers held at the Louisville Depot.

The Dig

A few years ago a prominent digger in the Missouri community who searches for buried historical artifacts came across a location in Rolla that had never been given much attention. He mentioned that whenever there is a new building going up or being torn down, word quickly gets around if there are bullets or other artifacts that show up and people will take their metal detectors to the site.

The location he found has not really had any building developed on it, at least in over 100 years. In 1915 this location was a 36-acre pasture owned by Mrs. Jane Bishop, the widow of Edmund Bishop. The field was purchased by a group of businessmen who turned it into Rolla Golf Club. A couple years later it was renamed to Rolla Country Club and then a couple years after that was sold to the University of Missouri who operated it as a golf course until 2007 when they converted it into an outdoor trail, allowing nature to convert the rest it back into its original form.

Near the end of 2017, this digger and his friend pulled a little over 300 pinfire cartridges out of the ground! He contacted me at the time asking about some more information on them.

The location where they were found is right outside of the Missouri University of Science and Technology’s football stadium in the field we talked about. But in 1862 this exact location is marked on the above map. It is a quarter of a mile outside the downtown at the time, just north of John Webber’s homestead which was the first house built in what would become Rolla.

The 9th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment was part of the Division that manned Fort Wyman as well as Fort Dette (known at the time as Star Fort) which would be built right in the city where it says Depot. The Fremont Hussars were based out of Camp Halleck which is also shown here.

I imagine that there was a ton of activity going on all around the city at the time with so many soldiers stationed but I am sure we will never know what caused over 12 boxes worth of these pinfire cartridges to get left together in a field.

I reconnected again recently with the man who found these and I was able to acquire 110 of them from him! When I received them I was able to confirm that they are all examples of one of Gévelot’s earliest metallic pinfire cartridges.

These cartridges were made for Eugène Lefaucheux’s brand new revolver in 1854. There are a couple characteristics that are extra interesting about them. I think it is the only box I have seen that is specifically labeled that they are for Revolver E. Lefaucheux. Later boxes made by everyone else including Gévelot (as shown in the other very early box, below) omit Eugène and his first Initial. Early boxes of cartridges that I have seen that were made for Casimir Lefaucheux’s guns also only say Lefaucheux.

It is likely that this nomenclature was chosen to indicate that they were for this brand new gun; and they definitely do not fit Casimir’s older pistols.

The other interesting thing about these cartridges is that they have a G stamped into the tip of the bullet. This indicated Gévelot’s new compressed lead method and is a unique feature to this particular cartridge. The G can still be seen on some of the excavated examples as well as shown below, pictured along with a non-excavated example.

This is an amazing find even though it is so curious to picture why over a dozen boxes were left out in a field. These cartridges will fit in perfectly with my existing collection of Excavated Pinfire Cartridges from American Civil War Battlefields and Encampments that I wrote about before.