Editing Springfield Armory (section)

===Late 19th century===
[[File:Springfield Maynard Lock.JPG|thumb|[[Springfield Model 1855]] with [[Maynard tape primer]] mechanism]] [[File:Springfield 1855 Pistol-Carbine.jpg|thumb|Springfield Model 1855 pistol-carbine]]
With the destruction of the [[Harpers Ferry Armory]] early in the [[American Civil War]], the Springfield Armory was briefly the only government manufacturer of arms, until the [[Rock Island Arsenal]] was established in 1862. During this time production ramped up to unprecedented levels never seen in American manufacturing up until that time, with only 9,601 rifles manufactured in 1860, rising to a peak of 276,200 by 1864. These advancements would not only give the Union a decisive technological advantage over the Confederacy during the war but served as a precursor to the mass production manufacturing that contributed to the post-war [[Second Industrial Revolution]] and 20th century machine manufacturing capabilities. American historian [[Merritt Roe Smith]] has drawn comparisons between the early assembly machining of the Springfield rifles and the later production of the [[Ford Model T]], with the latter having considerably more parts, but producing a similar numbers of units in the earliest years of the 1913–1915 automobile assembly line, indirectly due to mass production manufacturing advancements pioneered by the armory 50 years earlier.<ref name="MRS_cspan"/>

In 1865, Master Armorer [[Erskine Allin]] introduced the "Allin Conversion," which incorporated the far more advanced design of [[Breech-loading weapon|breech-loading]] into the now-obsolete [[muzzleloader]]s, thereby extending their service life. In 1891 a new function was assigned to the Armory—it became the army's main laboratory for the development and testing of new small arms.

One of the most distinctive elements of the Armory is the fence surrounding the site, which was started after the Civil War and completed in 1890. Unable to find funding for the purchase of a fence, Major James W. Ripley requested obsolete cannons from government storage, some from the Revolutionary War. He had the cannons sent to a local foundry to be melted down. The foundry kept some of the iron as payment, and the remainder was cast into 9-foot palings, formed as pikes and spearheads which were then sunk into a red sandstone base.