Gun Cap Factory
Fredericksburg, Gillespie County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the Civil War, at this site, E. Krauskoff, gunsmith, and Adolph Lungkwitz, silversmith, made gun caps. Inventing machinery, they rolled copper thin and cut it to cap-size pieces. Saltpetre and quicksilver went into the caps, to detonate rifle and pistol ammunition. Saltpetre came from nearby bat caves. Quicksilver and copper had to be brought through neutral Mexico or the coastal blockade. Rifles, cannon, gunpowder and pistols were made at Austin, Houston, Bastrop, Waxahachie, san Antonio, corpus Christi, Burnet, Lancaster, Rusk and Tyler.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Cut off from Northern factories by war, the Confederacy improvised its arms wherever it could—including this Fredericksburg workshop, where gunsmith E. Krauskoff and silversmith Adolph Lungkwitz built machinery to roll copper thin and stamp out percussion caps. They charged the caps with saltpetre from nearby bat caves and quicksilver smuggled through Mexico or past the coastal blockade. Their tiny caps fed rifles and pistols made in a scatter of Texas towns across the interior.
Why it matters
Small backcountry shops like this reveal how the Confederate war effort depended on scarce raw materials and homemade ingenuity, and how deeply the Civil War reached into remote frontier communities.
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Related people
- · E. Krauskoff
- · Adolph Lungkwitz
Themes & tags
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