George W. Morse Carbine Cartridge Belt

By Shannon Pritchard · Originally published November 2018 · p. 19

By Shannon Pritchard George Morse invented a brass framed breech loading .50 caliber carbine and eventually settled in to make nearly a thousand of them at the Greenville, S.C., State Works. His unique breech loading system used a cartridge of his own design that contained ball, powder and percussion cap in a single center fire cartridge, much like those in use today. After the carbine was fired, the cartridge was extracted when opening the breech and another pre-charged cartridge was ready for insertion. This relatively rapid firing carbine would have helped the Confederate cavalry compete with the Spencer carbines issued to Northern cavalry, but the carbine had a downside. They could only use the unique self-contained center fire cartridge that Morse had invented, so keeping them supplied with ammunition was a major problem. Morse invented the carbine and the cartridge that it fired; he also invented a cartridge box specifically to carry the unique center fire cartridges. An example of his cartridge box and belt is shown here. Two leather boxes, each containing twelve individually soldered tin tubes were mounted on a very heavy, coarse woven cartridge box belt. The twenty-four cartridges were placed into the tubes on a bed of cotton. Very, very few of these rare belts have survived the intervening years, but in the not too distant past a few were found in a wooden box down south in varying states of decay. The example shown here is among, if not the most, complete of that group.

Cartridge pouches for Morse breech loading carbines made by or for the South Carolina State Military Works, Greenville, S.C. (ca. 1864-65). Morse’s breech loading carbine required a new means of carrying its .50 caliber brass cartridge ammunition. Each pair of pouches contained twenty-four tin tubes for cartridges, an inexplicably small number given a potential rate of fire of about eight rounds a minute. Photographs courtesy the George W. Wray Jr. Civil War Collection, Atlanta History Center.

Below: Morse breech loading carbine made by the South Carolina State Military Works, Greenville, S.C. First type (1863). At about six and a half pounds in weight and forty inches in length, his .50 caliber breech loading carbine was three or four pounds lighter and about sixteen inches shorter than an ordinary .577 or .58 caliber muzzle loading rifle-musket, but, theoretically at least, just as accurate and powerful.

(Jack Melton)

Daguerreotype of George W. Morse and family in Louisiana (1853). Left to right: Morse with his daughter, Lelia Everiste; wife, Marianne; and son, Peabody Atkinson.

Shannon Pritchard has authored numerous articles relating to the authentication, care and conservation of Confederate antiques, including several cover articles and is the author of the definitive work on Confederate collectibles, the widely acclaimed Collecting the Confederacy, Artifacts and Antiques from the War Between the States, and is co-author of Confederate Faces in Color.

Brass cased Morse .50 caliber cartridge.