how much slower paced change was back then
Don't be too sure about that. A person born in the 1820's US would have grown up in a world where there was no heavy industry, the only power source was animal or primitive water wheels, everyone rode horses or carriages, most people were farmers, cities were small, slavery was commonplace, the frontier still started a few days from the Atlantic seaboard in many states, most of the territory beyond was controlled by native tribes, millions upon millions of buffalo roamed the plains, the birth rate was truly incredible, and the United States were (yes were) a small, second rate power. That same person in the 1890's would live in a world where the cities were enormous, heavy industry was churning out products, steam power was ubiquitous, slavery was gone, Congress spent a billion dollars a year, the US was claiming its global empire with a great fleet of steamships, the frontier was something Buffalo Bill offered as entertainment, the tribes were all but gone along with the buffalo, smokeless powder was very rapidly replacing black, and the first automobiles were being made. There were telephones, wireless, Edison's DC, Tesla's AC, and all the technology of the 20th century in its infancy. Muybridge captured horses mid-air in perfect clarity. Short films were produced that showed things like monkey and pet antics--pretty much like Youtube does now. Nothing about it was stagnant or hidebound. Our fellow would be born in a world little changed from Medieval and early modern Europe and travel at 60 MPH by rail to the great Columbian Exposition in Chicago in his retirement to see wonderments undreamed of.
I could list about a hundred other fundamental changes. But suffice it to say a person born in 1820 who died in 1911 would have seen
much more fundamental change than a person born in 1920 who died now. If we had kept that same pace I'd be living on Mars now and target practicing with my magrail rifle and gyrojet pistol.
To get back to firearms in particular, from the physical evidence and primary sources, I see little evidence that the 19th century Americans were interested in clinging to the old ways, particularly after the biggest of the old ways was crushed in the Civil War (and even that old southern society was nowhere near as gentile or traditional as Gone with the Wind would suggest). They mostly adopted and adapted to change very rapidly. They were actually quite a bit younger than we are now, on average. So when the percussion system came into being, there were very few holdouts. The old flintlocks were torn up and converted or just tossed. People who didn't keep up with the times were treated in a similar fashion.
It's only been since WWII, and thanks to the work of a few stalwart gun nuts, that we have preserved any of the traditions of the black powder days. The folks actually living back then couldn't ditch them fast enough. I was just reading last night about how almost all the knowledge of black powder cartridge rifles was tossed aside and lost after the advent of smokeless. It's been carefully reconstructed over the past few decades by reverse engineering and trial and error. Folks have even scrutinized the sales receipts from buff hunters to see what kind of paper patch material was used. Most Americans in the 19th century would have considered this activity worthy of a mental institution (which were also primarily a creation of the 19th century). They'd consider us nuts for bothering with the smoke poles at all. In a fundamental way, *we* are more old-fashioned than they were.
that was the main gun for the first year of the war.
Do you have a source on that? My understanding has been that there were some flintlocks around in 61 and 62, but even at the start the bulk of firearms on both sides were caplocks. Militias across the south had been arming in preparation for hostilities and the federals had been switching over to caplocks since the 40's. It was my understanding that the Mexican war was the last one, perhaps globally, to rely primarily on flintlocks. But I could be wrong about that.
Sorry about this. It's what happens when my history and gun geekery meet!
Things didn't change like that back then.
