Jim Snider
Alabama Arms Manuf. Co.
Mon Jul 2 19:41:54 2001


Hayes,

The book "Confederate Home Front, Montgomery During The Civil War" by William Warren Rogers, Jr., 1999, The University of Alabama Press, has references to the "Alabama Arms Manufacturing Company."

Page 70, "William and Frank Gilmer,commission merchants and railroad promoters, established the Alabama Arms Manufacturing Company, which soon promised 'a superior rifle.'"

Page 132, Meeting on January 17, (1865) .............. "President William Gilmer of the Red Mountain Iron and Coal Company (formerly the Alabama Arms Manufacturing Company) presided over a meeting of stockholders two weeks later. In the meantime, production of the Enfield rifle had belatedly begun at the Gilmers' gun factory. A visitor to the manufactory endorsed the product in unequivocal terms: 'We do not think a better gun has been made or imported into the Confederacy.'"

Page 146, "On the afternoon of Tuesday, April 11, Confederate soldiers applied torches. The warehouses in the Commerce Street area burned quickly. The cotton blazed into an inferno that threaten to spread out of control. Hundreds watched as the warehouses first crumbled and then collapsed. ...... By nightfall, the fires were out, and the warehouses, which had been brimming with cotton hours only before, lay in smoldering ruins. ... A survey revealed that the warehouses of Lehman and Durr, Frank Gilmer ..... and other firms were in ruins.

Page 149, "As he had at Selma, Wilson did not leave until he had destroyed everything that might be of military use to the Confederacy, regardless of ownership. .... Troops burned the government arsenal with the foundry and machinery and destroyed some small arms and government supplies.John Janney's foundry, where Confederate ammunition had been produced, met the same fate.

The destruction of The Alabama Arms Manufacturing Company isn't specifically mentioned.

Jim