A Contribution to the History of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau (Part 4 of Round Ball to Rimfire: A History of Civil War Small Arms Ammunition);

This is the first of three Confederate volumes. The text sets the stage for the organization of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau and the emergence of Josiah Gorgas, Chief of Ordnance, who was one of the few federal ordnance officers to resign his post and join with the "rebellion." But, Gorgas could not run the Bureau alone, and the addition of John W. Mallet to his staff as Superintendent of Laboratories in the spring of 1862, was destined to bring order out of the chaos amid frenzied demands for small arms ammunition. Over 650 specimens of Confederate bullets and cartridges, in addition to bullet moulds and numerous other illustrations.