He enthusiastically commented on the gun’s accuracy and efficiency. To say that the President was impressed would be putting it mildly. He fired seven consecutive shots in quick succession, hitting the bullseye on the second shot. From forty yards away, Lincoln addressed the target, Spencer’s loaded gun in his hands. The group walked over to the “test site” where a wooden board had been set up as a target, painted with a crude bullseye. Lincoln greeted him, along with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and a small number of other officials. The next afternoon, Spencer returned with his new repeating weapon. He immediately arranged to have one convened the next day on the weed-filled area behind the White House, not far from the Washington Monument, which was then still under construction. Following the discussion, the President agreed to a firing demonstration. Spencer even field-stripped it to show the President its parts and how it operated. This they did, and Lincoln was shown the new lever-action gun hands-on. Intrigued by the brashness and enthusiasm of the young inventor, Lincoln invited Spencer to sit down and talk. He had heard that Lincoln had some doubts about his gun, garnered from a previous test firing of an apparently defective example in July, and he wanted to dispel any unwarranted concerns the President might have had. Spencer was not to be deterred, and was determined to go right to the top in order to provide the Army with an effective multi-shot weapon in that age of muzzle-loading single shot rifles. However, the Union Army’s Bureau of Ordnance had repeatedly rejected its official adoption. Spencer had invented the gun he was carrying, which was already in limited initial production (it had first been used in battle at Gettysburg). I’m guessing that even with an ongoing war, presidential security was not quite as stringent as it has become in modern times! Civil War was raging and the country was still burying its dead from the epic battle of Gettysburg, Spencer strode past sentries and walked right into Abraham Lincoln’s oval office to keep his scheduled appointment. Spencer grabbed a unique repeating firearm and a supply of cartridges and walked into the White House. On August 18, 1863, 30-year-old Christopher M. This is another draft article - as always, comments welcome.
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