Southern Rifles and the War Between the States

[Mike R]

I saw a period photo of Arkansas volunteers in formation--all armed with "squirrel rifles"...can't remember the source; but there is a similar photo blown-up and hanging in the museum at Washington, AR state historic park that shows nearly every soldier carrying a big Bowie knife.  West of the Mississippi at least, the southern troops were poorly uniformed and equipped.  Shotguns and 'country rifles' were common, at least early on.  The Captain of my Gr-great grandfather's 8th MO CSA infantry wrote in his diary that most of his men had no shoes or blankets and that food was hard to come by during their Arkansas campaign. But they fought valiantly at Prairie Grove, AR,  Sabine Crossroads [Mansfield, LA] and other major battles of the 'west'.  As a child in the 50s in Arkansas I saw many a relic longgun--all converted to, or made as,  percussion rifles.  I guess most of these are now in collections, as they are hard to locate now.

[Hungry Horse]

I examined a Southern gun some time ago, that was originally a Southern mountain rifle, of the type commonly referred to as a hog rifle. It probably was about .50 cal. originally. It had been reamed out smooth to .58 cal., and the barrel had been shortened to 26". The two side washers, under the lock screws, were joined with a metal rod about 3/16" diameter, that might have had a saddle ring on it in the past. The gun was definitely originally flint, and had been converted with the holes in the plate filled with lead. A southern cavalry carbine would be my guess.


                  Hungry Horse

[nosrettap1958]

I don’t know about the Southern army being “well equipped” until the end if the war. Did not General Lee send back thousands of troops because of their shabby appearance before the Battle of Antietam? Didn’t the artillery have all sorts of trouble with their charges before Pickett’s Charge and even run out of ammunition prior to the infantry advancing? Didn’t the two armies ‘bump’ into each other when A.P. Hill’s men went into Gettysburg looking for shoes?  We like to think the South was adequately equipped during the war especially the way they destroyed one Union army after another, but these few examples I provided prove otherwise.

[Hungry Horse]

 The South was short of everything, with the possible exception of powder. The Atlanta Powder Works was the most advanced in the world. it produced powder of a quality that the North only dreamed of. If Atlanta had been up and running at first Manasas, the second big battle of the war would have been in the streets of Washington. Confederate powder shortages, were only caused by transportation problems after Atlanta got into full production. Atlanta had giant reserves at the end of the war.
 Food, uniforms, and guns, were a entire other issue. Shoe shortages were chronic, and it was often stated that no Yankee showed up at heavens gate with shoes on.

                      Hungry Horse

[mbriggs]

The large gun powder mill that belonged to the Confederate Government was located in Augusta, not Atlanta.

Michael

[TPH]

I don’t know about the Southern army being “well equipped” until the end if the war. Did not General Lee send back thousands of troops because of their shabby appearance before the Battle of Antietam?

Hundreds, yes, but certainly not thousands. There were also those in the Army of Northern Virginia who refused to cross the border into Maryland because they felt they had not enlisted to fight in a foreign invasion. They later stretched the truth and said they had been sent back because of a lack of equipment. The problem was in provisions for men and animals, not ammunition or weapons.

Didn’t the artillery have all sorts of trouble with their charges before Pickett’s Charge and even run out of ammunition prior to the infantry advancing?

They did run low on ammunition but did not run out, a common occurrence with any army on the move in enemy country. The biggest problem the artillery had was poor visibility largely due to smoke of their own fire. That day, they had a tendency to fire over their target and dropped many, if not most of their rounds behind the Union line. They began to slack fire and then had to hold their fire because they were concerned that they would not be able to support the troops if the infantry was successful carrying the enemy positions and they had to move forward to reinforce and extend. They still had plenty of short range ammunition - more than an adequate supply to move forward to protect Picket's flanks and support further advance. There was also more long range ammunition but it was going to take too long to bring up from other batteries that may have needed it if their commands decided to move forward in support of a possible success on Picket's part.

Didn’t the two armies ‘bump’ into each other when A.P. Hill’s men went into Gettysburg looking for shoes?  We like to think the South was adequately equipped during the war especially the way they destroyed one Union army after another, but these few examples I provided prove otherwise.

Yes, that is the old legend told about the poor starving Confederate troops who went everywhere barefoot and half naked because of poor resources. In actual fact, while there was not a surplus of shoes and uniforms available to Southern troops, there were more than adequate stores of both around Richmond/Petersburg and in other places throughout the South. The problem was usually transportation of the supplies to the troops where and when they were needed. At Gettysburg, Confederate troops were simply pushed to far forward by Heth without adequate support and ran into Union cavalry led by Buford who was a very smart and experienced cavalry officer who realized that he had to hold their advance until reinforcements could arrive and he did. They were not looking for shoes in particular, they just moved too fast despite orders to the contrary. Lee was then forced to concentrate his forces before he wanted to and the battle happened where he did not want it to.

[Hungry Horse]

I stand corrected, the Confederate powder works was at Augusta, not Atlanta. Thanks Mr. Briggs.

                Hungry Horse

[TPH]

....................................................Shoe shortages were chronic, and it was often stated that no Yankee showed up at heavens gate with shoes on.

                      Hungry Horse

That could be true, for many reasons but shoes or other equipments were certainly not taken during the actual fighting. One was the oft quoted "legend" of shoes being taken from the Yankee dead by Confederate troops. True? In some cases, yes. If the bodies were in easy reach of troops lacking shoes after the battle, whether by collection by those responsible for gleaning the battlefield of weapons and equipment for resupply or, less likely, by individuals who needed shoes, it may have left them shoeless at heaven's gate. But, it is also true of Union troops who went into battle inadequately shod as did many Union troops at the Battle of Antietam where after the battle the shortage of shoes was chronic. Many Yankees were barefoot during the pursuit of Southern forces retreating back to Virginia - they had literally walked through their shoes pursuing the Confederate invasion and replacement supplies were well below adequate. This wasn't the only time it happened, even Northern resources of supply were often less than needed, especially when troops were on the move.

[TPH]

I will have to find the link again but when the Wythe Grays of Wytheville, Virginia were called into service and met with the rest of Virginia's First Brigade in Harper's Ferry, a personal diary entry talks of some guns being converted from flintlock. I assume personal guns. Like I said in an earlier post a local historian has researched and found Jacob Shaffer rifles being issued to the home guard in 1863. Virginia's First Brigade quickly became known as the Stonewall Brigade.

I wouldn't assume that the guns were personal guns.   Virginia provided military arms made at the Virginia Manufactury of Arms to the Militia units for members who did not have appropriate firearms.   A longrifle would not be appropriate for military use.   An old fowling piece or musket would be but not a rifle.  A rifle could not be loaded quickly and did not use the standard ammunition issued by the state.   It is my assumption that most of the militia units in the State by the start of the Civil War were probably using VMA supplied weapons.    Many of them probably were flintlock muskets.   The arms provided by the VMA mirrored that standard issue by the U.S. Army, if not a few years behind in technology.

A good and well thought out post by Mark. The Virginia Manufactory of Arms ceased production in 1821 due to the fact that the state government felt that adequate supplies of armaments had been produced for the Commonwealth's future needs and that well made arms were finally available from other sources, primarily the federal government, and the relatively expensive production of arms could be stopped. I do not have my copy of Cromwell handy so I am using Bell's on line monograph for production numbers. According to Bell, the Virginia Manufactory produced the following during it's 19 years of production:

58,000 flintlock muskets
  2,000 flintlock rifles
10,000 swords
  4,000 flintlock pistols
     300 cannon

Bell's monograph is available here:

http://springfieldarsenal.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/va-manufactory-presentation.pdf

These arms were manufactured for the use of state forces and many were on issue to the state militia in 1861 but many were still in storage, some still brand new. There were two state facilities for storage, the primary being in Richmond at the Virginia Manufactory and the second was in Lexington where the Virginia Military Institute was soon built and the cadets took over the guard duties of the Lexington facility.

If you will go back to my earlier post of May 3, you can read what sort of arms were issued to Virginia troops in 1861. This document does not tell what arms were issued from the Lexington Arsenal.

I do have to say that Virginiaboy's statement about the Wythe Grays (which became Company A of the 4th Virginia Regiment) was indeed under Jackson from the beginning and the document I linked shows several issues of weapons and ammunition sent to Jackson and his subordinates at Harpers Ferry where the 1st Brigade was training.

As far as the Lexington Arsenal, information can be found here:

http://www.vmi.edu/archives.aspx?id=8737

As you can see in all of this, very few civilian arms were issued to front line troops for very long and especially that "squirrel rifles" brought from home were not allowed to stay on issue for longer than absolutely necessary.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Parts of it are still there and it is interesting how they built 3 sides brick and one side wood siding so that if there was an explosion, the wood wall would take the damage and could easily be replaced.........

[TPH]

What are you speaking of Doc.? The remnants of the Virginia Manufactory were torn down circa 1900. All that's left is part of the aqueduct and that is mostly underground.

[Gaeckle]

Reading all these post I wonder how many wonderful old guns  fell victim to the many metal drives throughout our nation during World War 2. I know this statement is far different from the previous, but during this time everything and anything not thought to have much value found it's way to scrap heaps.

Just the other day, the Missus and I went a nearby fleamarket just to pass the time and see what's what.....there was a fella who had the most interesting collection of old clocks from all over the world. In speaking with him he told me his greatest find was an alarm clock made during the war....the case was pressed cardboard that had been heavily shellaced....metal shortages due to the war effort forced the manufacturer to use cardboard and due to that, not many survived, so this little gem he had a high dollar on it.

Kinda makes me think how much and how many old time rifles ended up being scrapped. Just a thought.......

[Hungry Horse]

 On the subject of metal drives collecting genuine antiques. My small town in Northern California, had two brass cannons, and carriages,  from the Civil war, mounted on two concrete stars, on the court house lawn, when WWI broke out. They were donated to a brass drive, to make shell casings. They were replaced with two little Japanese steel field pieces, after WWII.


                          Hungry Horse