Self styled "Acting Super intendent" of a proposed "Southern Armory & Foundry" and enterprise to be subscribed
for by the public, for the manufacture of "Artillery, Small Arms, Laboratory Stores and Projectiles." The project
got only as far as proposals for construction. On July 29, 1862 McNeill entered into a contract with Capt. Burton
of the Confederate Ordnance for services in connection with manufacture of 20,000 breech-loading carbines of
C. W. Alexander's invention, but could not raise the $5,000 required for patterns, machinery, etc. and the arm of
which a pilot model had been made under supervision of Capt. Burton, never ma terialized beyond the experimental
stage.
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