Palmetto Iron Works—william Glaze

By Tim Prince · Originally published November-December 2025 · pp. 57

Glaze & Radcliffe partnership sold an additional 640 Model 1842 muskets to the state of South Carolina; this time, they were obtained from Benjamin Flagg, who had previously worked as the foreman in the Waters operation and who was attempting to strike out on his own. By March 1851, the partnership between Glaze and Radcliffe had dissolved, with Radcliffe returning to his pre-partnership business of general line and fancy goods sales, while Glaze pursued a new career as an “arms maker.” Glaze partnered with Benjamin Flagg and James Boatwright in the establishment of what would be known to history as the Palmetto Armory, which was originally named the Palmetto Iron Works. Boatwright, however, would not remain with the firm for long. Both partners were instrumental in the initial success of the venture, as Glaze had neither manufacturing experience nor any real experience in the arms trade, other than the small group of weapons that Radcliffe and he had sold in 1849 and 1850. As previously mentioned, Flagg had served as Water’s foreman before venturing out on his own. Flagg had all the required knowledge to establish a functional armory, as well as the contacts to acquire the necessary machinery to make arms and to obtain component parts for arms. Boatwright was an old friend of the Glaze family who was politically well-connected, with the necessary contacts to obtain further state contracts for arms. The looming crisis between slave holding states of the South and the free states of the North was clearly forefront in the minds of the South Carolina government as they sought to establish the ability to manufacture arms within their own state, rather than rely upon arms from northern factories. This path had been successfully followed by the state of Virginia during the first two decades of the 19th century and likely served as a model for the new South Carolina operation that the government sought to establish via Glaze and his partners. In April 1851, the new company had a factory but was, as yet, unlikely to be capable of producing much of anything. However, they entered into an agreement with the state of South Carolina to provide the following arms: 6,000 percussion muskets, 2,000 percussion pistols (1,000 pairs), and 1,000 each of rifles, dragoon and artillery sabers. The items ordered, and their relative ratios of

production (three times as many muskets as pistols, half the number of dragoon sabers as pistols, etc.), looked quite oddly like the products and output ratios of the Virginia Manufactory. The contract specified that the arms were to be delivered during the calendar year 1852 and were to be of the current U.S. patterns then in use. In other words, the arms were to be U.S. Model 1842 pattern muskets, U.S. Model 1842 pattern pistols, U.S. Model 1841 pattern rifles, and U.S. Model 1840 cavalry and light artillery sabers. However, the most important contract requirement noted that “These arms and their component parts, to be manufactured within the State of South Carolina, of the best material and workmanship and as far as practicable, of material and by mechanics obtained in the state foresaid.” From this contractual clause, it is clear that the State of South Carolina was trying to establish a Virginia Manufactory type facility and wanted to be completely independent of any reliance upon the industrial north for the manufacture of the arms. This clause would also be Glaze’s undoing. It appears that even though Glaze built a factory and acquired some machinery, he never intended to actually fabricate arms in the facility. Rather, he intended, at the most, to acquire finished components and assemble them into complete arms. While it was certainly bad enough that Glaze was violating the contractual requirement that the arms be made within the state from components and raw materials sourced from the state, the use of condemned parts certainly violated the clause that noted the arms were to be of the “best material and workmanship.” Despite the fact that Glaze eventually delivered 6,000 muskets, 1,000 rifles, and 1,000 pistols that he had assembled from parts obtained elsewhere, no further contracts for arms “manufacture” were forthcoming. He also delivered some 2,526 swords, which he only stamped his name upon and did not “manufacture” in any sense of the word. Glaze would additionally convert some 6,000 muskets from flint to percussion for the state, but his clear violation of nearly every term of the contract, from delivery time and sourcing of parts to the quality of the parts used, simply excluded him from any serious consideration for arms production for the state in the future.

About the Author

Tim Prince is a full-time dealer in fine and collectible military arms from the Colonial Period through WWII. He operates College Hill Arsenal, a web-based antique arms retail site. A long-time collector and researcher, he has been a contributing author to two major book projects about Civil War era arms including The English Connection and a book on southern retailer-marked and Confederate-used shotguns. He is the author of over 75 articles on weapons in Civil War News and Military Antique Collector. Tim is also a featured Arms & Militaria appraiser on the PBS Series Antiques Roadshow and serves as a Senior Consulting Specialist to the Arms & Armor department of Cowan’s, a Freeman’s | Hindman Company.