**Appendix A**

***Springfield Republican***, February 24, 1866: **"Matters at the
Armory"** -- "In the . . . of the east arsenal building, . . .. On the
second floor several thousands of the Springfield pattern, the model of
'61 are stored."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, March 3, 1866: "A curious feature of that
portion of the work at the armory to which Superintendent Schermerhorn
attends has been the unpacking and storage in the east arsenal of a
large lot of rebel guns which, about a month ago, were forwarded to this
post to be stowed away. . . . Many Springfield guns of the date 1862 are
found, showing that the rebels now and then made a lucky haul from our
regiments."

. . . . . . .

*SPAR microfilm 151*

Scrapbook

***Springfield Sunday Republican***, December 22, 1878: "**The
Springfield Armory**" -- "Here the national flag daily floats, through
storm and sunshine, from the tower of the grand arsenal, while within,

"From floor to ceiling,

Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms."

. . .

"The two upper floors of the new arsenal are filled with the old
58-caliber muskets, of which there are now on hand some 189,000. The
lower floor contains a great variety of arms, either made here or
purchased, among them being 35,379 Enfield guns, 10,000 Sharp's
carbines, 10,000 Remington rifles, 4732 muskets of the 50 caliber, etc.
The 58 caliber are the old muzzle-loaders, the kind with which the
rebellion was fought, and are kept in good order for an emergency. As
fast as needed, however, they are taken to pieces and the parts used as
far as possible in the manufacture of the new model."

. . .

"In the museum, arranged in its present shape by Capt. Greer about a
year ago, the government have a valuable collection of foreign arms and
curiosities. There are specimens of every kind of modern European gun,
and among the large number of old and rare pieces are, a matchlock of
the 14^th^ century, one of the earliest possible firearms made; a large
wheel-lock rifle of 1520, used with a crutch, the lock of which goes
with a sort of clock work; a Chinese piece with the stock inlaid with
ivory figures; an Albanian silver-mounted, flint-lock, an Arab gun, and
a large collection of European muskets used in the rebellion by our
troops, before the government was able to arm them. In one rack there
are a number of guns made in the South during the war, one of them being
an imitation of an Enfield rifle, made by Cook and Brothers of Athens,
Ga. One of the most curious things in the room is a Sharp's cavalry
carbine with a coffee-mill in the but. Here are to be seen also three of
the Gatling battery guns, the largest one having ten barrels which will
fire 800 balls a minute."

. . . . . . .

King, Moses, Edit., **[King's Handbook of Springfield]{.underline}**,
James D. Gill, Pub., Springfield, Mass., 1884, pp. 246-8: "In 1860,
during the superintendency of Capt. George Dwight, the Middle Arsenal
was converted into a workshop. . . . Later, when Major A. B. Dyer was
commandant, the East and West Arsenals were also used as workshops. The
Main Arsenal, which was built during the superintendency of Col. James
W. Ripley, and under his personal supervision, was copied to some extent
from the East-India House in London, England. It was begun in 1846, and
finished a few years later. The building is 200 feet long by 70 wide,
three stories high, with a storage capacity of about 300,000 arms, -
100,000 upon each floor. It is impossible to describe the impression
which is made upon one's mind at the first view of the interior, where

"From floor to ceiling,

Like a huge organ rise the burnished arms."

As you enter the door, and pass down the "aisle" to the lower or south
end of the room, 50,000 stands of arms are brought into view; retrace
your steps, and by walking to the upper or north end, another 50,000 are
seen; and from their peculiar arrangement in racks, or stanchions, it
requires no vivid imagination to see before you one hundred regiments of
infantry in brigade or division columns."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, October 25, 1888: "**Springfield
Armory**" - "Here is built the arsenal where Longfellow found material
for his poem, comparing the display of guns to the pipes of an organ.
But it would take a long stretch of imagination today, to recognize the
interior of the arsenal as described by the poet, in the prosaic
arrangement of the arms of today. The old method of standing them
upright, in long tiers on cases and standards, has been done away with,
and in its place may be seen long tiers of cases resembling coffin
boxes, stacked one upon another in a way which is anything but poetic in
arrangement. . . . Each of these unpainted wooden boxes or gun cases,
with long rope loops at each end which serve as handles for
transportation, contains twenty latest improved Springfield rifles
arrayed in two tiers of ten each."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, November 20, 1892: **"A RARE COLLECTION OF
WEAPONS --DISPLAYED IN ARMORY MUSEUM"** -- "We walk down a long shining
row of old Springfield flintlocks that have never seen service and look
very different from grand'ther's weather-beaten weapon which he bagged
the Britishers at Concord."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, April 3, 1898: **"War Memories of the
Armory. Persecution of a Copperhead"** -- "In all the accounts of the
various workshops of the armory, I have never seen it mentioned that the
big arsenal that has the clock in its tower was partially turned into a
workshop during the war. So it was. The first story or floor was full of
workmen- the writer of this among them -- finishing the barrels,
assembling the guns and boxing them to be shipped to the army. It was
all hard work done here, no machinery being required. There were men
enough employed to do all the above work during the day. The arsenal was
thus used for 2 ½ years, until needed for storage; then other provisions
were made for its workmen in the east arsenal, which had had an extra
story added to it. Thus it will be seen that every building was used for
workshops that could be made available. Of course the second and third
stories of the big arsenal could not be used because of fixtures that
had been used, and were to be used again, for stacking of finished guns.
These stacks of guns were in appearance what Longfellow calls 'huge
organs' in his poem entitled 'The Arsenal at Springfield,' . . .. On
each floor were 10 (I think) of these 'huge organs,' containing
thousands of 'burnished arms' each, making in all nearly 100,000 to each
floor. These racks that were full at the beginning of the war -- or
perhaps I should say just before Lincoln's inauguration -- were depleted
of their guns sent South by the order of Floyd, Buchanan's secretary of
war. . . .. Now all guns are boxed as soon as finished." \[from
Rediscovery file for SPAR 696\]

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, April 21, 1898: "**The Difference in the
Display Now and When Longfellow Saw It**. . . . The Springfield Armory
is indebted to Mr. Longfellow for a certain amount of theatrical
dignity, but for the sake of historical accuracy, it is well to call
attention to the fact that the picture which the lines bring to mind has
for a number of years been not in accordance with fact. Nearly all local
people who have reached middle age will remember 'the organ' when it was
in its prime, but it has now passed out of existence for a long time,
and only one small collection of pipes is left to indicate what a fine
instrument it was in its day. As a matter of fact, the 'organ' was from
the first due to a most unscientific method of storing arms. They looked
well, but they were exposed to constant danger from rust, and they had
to be handled an unnecessary number of times. The way the thing is done
now is not so romantic, but it is much more practical. . . . Then they
are stored away in dingy cases of 20 . . . Practically the same method
was in operation during the civil war, and it was only the extra arms
which were stored up in the arsenal for a sort of fair weather display,
when the poet happened along and had his imagination fired by them. If
he had seen the greasy arms packed away in boxes ready for business, his
muse would probably have refused to act."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, April 13, 1913: "**In and about
Springfield/view of the Armory museum/war relics to be seen there"**
--"Also there is one of the famous armory racks in which Springfield
rifles were used to be stored before the present system of packing was
evolved. The rack is made up of concentric squares of rifles standing
tightly together so that 2000 of them occupy floor space only six feet
square. A row of these racks inspired Longfellow to immortalize them in
verse . . .."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, October 14, 1931: **"U.S. ARMORY OFFICERS
ARE PROBING FIRE"** -- "The famous old stack of rifles, immortalized by
the poet Longfellow, stood through the entire blaze unscathed."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, March 3, 1933: "Longfellow tradition is
based in error"- "There has existed for several generations an erroneous
tradition in regard to Longfellow's arsenal poem in spite of suspicions
that have been entertained for years that the 'Main arsenal' on the brow
of the hill near Byers street was not the building celebrated by the
poet. Those who have delved deeply into local history have been aware of
the error for some time but the tradition has persisted, along with
embellishments which have no basis in fact.

The truth of the matter is that the main arsenal building with the tower
that used to be regarded as one of the show places of the city had not
been built in 1843, when Longfellow came here on a trip that caused the
famous peace poem to be written. This arsenal not having been
constructed until after 1845, the only question remains to be settled by
the historians was the identity of the buildings in which Longfellow saw
the rifles stacked from floor to ceiling. It has been suspected that
this was the 'middle arsenal,' the central building on the State-street
side on top of which is the eagle weathervane cut in silhouette, and
lately Col. John W. Joyes, the commandant, who is much interested in the
historical lore of the armory, has come across facts in correspondence
and reports which make it practically certain that it was the middle
arsenal to which Longfellow referred. . . . the significant facts that
reveal the middle arsenal as the inspiration for the poem are found in
official documents which show that it was in the early 1840's that the
middle arsenal was equipped with the racks which suggested the organ
pipes of the poem and that by the time Longfellow came to the middle
arsenal was filled with the shinning rifles. . . . There is no doubt,
however, that Mrs. Longfellow had a part in inspiring the poem. In the
'Life of Longfellow,' edited by Samuel Longfellow, it is said: "His wife
pleased her husband by remarking 'How like an organ looked the ranged
and shinning gun barrels, which covered the walls from floor to
ceiling,' and suggesting what mournful music Death would bring from
them."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, April 28, 1935: **"ARMORY MUSEUM FINE
TRIBUTE TO CUSTODIAN LEE'S DEVOTION"** -- "The accompanying photograph
of Mr. Lee was taken in front of the rack of Civil War rifles which for
13 years have been duly decorated each May by the Daughters of Civil War
Veterans."

. . . . . . .

***Armory Records***,1940: "The Museum was moved from Building 16 to
Building 27, C Floor, in new space being remodeled under a W.P.A.
Project."

. . . . . . .

***Armory Records***,1942: "Due to the War effort, the museum was closed
in March 1942."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, March 15, 1947: **"MUSEUM WEAPONS STILL IN
STORAGE"** -- "When conditions are right, when funds are made available
for it and when space can be provided the famous guns will again be
displayed and the public will see what led Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to
write in his "The Armory at Springfield," . . .."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, October 19, 1947: **"ARMORY'S NOTED
COLLECTION OF FIREARMS AGAIN WILL BE PLACED ON PUBLIC VIEW" --** "Plans
have been made to restore the exhibit so that it can be shown about May
1, 1948, it was learned."

. . . . . . .

***Springfield Republican***, March 4, 1954: **"ARMORY MUSEUM, SHUT
SINCE KOREAN WAR, IS OPEN AGAIN"** -- "The Springfield Armory Museum has
been opened to limited numbers of authorized visitors, . . .."

. . . . . . .

1955 -- HSOA 1JUL -- 31DEC -- "The Armory Museum was relocated from "C"
floor West and to "B" floor East end of Building No. 27."

. . . . . . .

1968 -- **"THE INFORMATION RETRIEVAL MUSEUM."** -- "The Springfield
Armory Museum has moved from its old quarters and is now located in a 3
story building formerly known as the Main Arsenal."