In the early 1840s, just as the U.S. military was transitioning from the flintlock musket to percussion-primed longarms, there emerged a new rifle that armed the sharpshooters of the Army: the Model 1841 "Mississippi" rifle. Watch our "American Rifleman Television" I Have This Old Gun segment above to hear the history of the Mississippi and see how it shoots on the range.
"Right in that period, as they're transitioning, there emerges what is just a beautiful, beautiful arm. It's one of the, in my opinion, the best-looking small arms of the 19th century, and that's the Model 1841 rifle," American Rifleman Executive Editor Evan Brune said. "Nobody really calls it the Model 1841 rifle, because everybody calls it the 'Mississippi.'"
As one of the first percussion-primed small arms adopted by the U.S. Army in the 1840s, the Mississippi was intended to arm riflemen engaged in skirmishing or picket duties, so it differed from the smoothbore muskets used by most soldiers of the time. As a consequence, the gun was intended to be much handier than a musket, and was equipped with a shorter 33" barrel.
"Model 1841, .54-caliber, single-shot muzzleloading rifle," American Rifleman contributor Kenneth L. Smith-Christmas said. "It is gorgeous, has a brown barrel, beautiful walnut stock, brass barrel bands, beautiful brass patch box that also has a spare nipple in it and tools and so forth for using it. This came out as a replacement for the American Model of 1817 rifle."
At the outbreak of the Mexican-American War, Jefferson Davis was a rising star in the U.S. House of Representatives and was appointed colonel of the Mississippi Rifles, a volunteer regiment from his home state. With the support of then-President James K. Polk, Davis was able to equip his regiment with the new Model 1841 rifle.
"The Mississippi Rifles fought admirably at Monterey and Buena Vista, and notably at Buena Vista is when they use their rifles to stop a Mexican cavalry charge," Brune said. "And so it's an arm that they use so effectively throughout the war that the rifle becomes intimately tethered with the Mississippi volunteers and coming out of the Mexican-American War, that's when these guns become unofficially but widely known as 'Mississippi' rifles."
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