Williams Cleaners

This selection of Williams Cleaners from my personal collection shows each of the three types that were produced during the war. From left to right: Type I, Type II in the center, and the shorter Type IIIs on the right. Williams Cleaners are abundant in the collecting market and usually sell for just a few dollars apiece. The cartridge box shown is a .58 caliber box produced by Smith, Bourn, and Co. of Hartford, Connecticut while the cap pouch is a product of Emerson Gaylord of Chicopee, Massachusetts. 

    At the outset of the Civil War, inventor Elijah D. Williams of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania decided to contribute to the Union war effort by casting standard .58 caliber Burton-style ammunition for rifle muskets, producing thousands of three-ring bullets with a regulation cone cavity weighing (depending on the variation) between 458 and 481 grains. Upon further study, Williams decided that improvements could be made in the existing bullet design that could offer improved accuracy.

Williams finalized his new bullet design and had applied for a patent on May 30, 1861; the patent was approved on May 13, 1862. His invention encompassed a three-ring bullet with two zinc plungers; the idea was that the gases from the detonation of the charge would force the plunger into the base of the bullet which would expand the bullet ever so slightly and allow it to better take the rifling of the barrel. A secondary effect was that the edges of the zinc plunger would also “scrape” along the barrel and in effect “clean” off a layer of black powder residue which gave his patent bullets the popular name of Williams Cleaners.

Williams didn’t claim this ‘cleaning’ property in his initial patent applications and while the primary thrust of his invention was to design a more accurate bullet, it was the secondary effect of the design that became what the bullet was known for, i.e. its cleaning properties. Black powder muskets show a tendency to become fouled with repeat firing; the powder itself was a mix of charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter which upon ignition leaves a residue coating along the barrel. 

A lot of factors go into how quickly a barrel becomes fouled including atmospheric conditions, the quality of the powder itself, etc., but suffice it to say, the more fouled a barrel became, the harder it became for the soldier to ram the bullet home such that it was properly seated upon the powder charge. An 1855 War Department test showed that a soldier should aim to clean his rifle musket after about 20 rounds had been fired. In combat conditions, this was unlikely especially in the Federal army where emphasis was laid on rapid firing. Williams’ cleaners, if they worked as designed, would have potentially slowed this rate of fouling. 

Williams’ “cleaners” eventually went through a few design iterations. Type I bullets measured 1.09 inches long and weighed 546 grains with a .574 caliber diameter. The rounds were packaged in tan or blue paper but otherwise looked similar to standard Burton-style ammunition; most surviving examples have the bottom zinc plunger broken off and the protruding hardened lead post is a dead giveaway that the bullet is a Type I. Type II cleaners were patented on December 9, 1862 and featured three rings with a single zinc plunger packaged in white or off-white paper. Dimensionally, the Type II measured 1.07 inches long, weighed 560 grains, with a .570 caliber diameter. The Type III bullets were introduced later in the war (around 1864) and were markedly different in appearance than their predecessors: the bullets were both much shorter (.89 inches long), much lighter (455 grains), and had only two rings instead of three. Type III measured .570 in caliber diameter and the cartridges were available in red, blue, or tan paper. It is worth noting that there are two more ‘types’ of Williams bullets produced during the war for the Union repeating gun: these bullets look similar to the Type III bullets but feature a larger diameter (.578 or .582 depending on type) and were slightly longer and heavier.

Diagram of a Williams Type II Bullet patented in December 1862. 

Williams enjoyed great success in convincing the War Department to purchase his new design; that he offered them for 20% below the cost of a comparable Burton ball certainly helped. Williams opened a factory on 51^st St. in New York and set to work producing millions of rounds of his patent ammunition. An endorsement from Colonel Hiram Berdan stating that Williams’ design was “the most perfect projectile for Army use I have ever seen” also helped open the floodgates for sales of millions of rounds of ammunition. Initial Ordnance Department direction indicated that one round out of every ten rounds issued to the troops would include a Williams bullet; this amount was later increased to two out of ten in November 1863 and in August 1864, six out of ten. Williams’ bullets were packaged in distinctive paper (tan, blue, red, etc.) to make them easily seen within a package of rounds.

Once the Williams bullets got into the field, results were mixed. Some soldiers complained that the Williams bullets flew erratically and that their cleaning properties were exaggerated. Evidence that Williams’ bullets actually damaged the rifling within the gun barrel led to them being unpopular with the troops. War Department tests also showed mixed results such that by early 1864, the War Department halted further purchases having accumulated a stock of millions of rounds, enough to last the rest of the war. Elijah Williams died in New York City on May 1, 1864, and within a few months his wife was auctioning off “the entire lot of improved bullet machinery, consisting of mold, compressing and sizing machines, kettles, together with the improvements on the outbuildings, gas pipes, water works, also one third of the patent right on the Williams’ bullet.”

Williams’ cleaner bullets are quite common on the collecting market today, with examples available for just a few dollars each.