Numbers on Guns: New Info

[spgordon]

I've spent much of the last few days looking at thousands and thousands of images on microfilm. The return on that investment is small--not much of interest turns up. But occasionally something interesting does. Here is a detailed account of repair work done by Ludwig Fohrer in Philadelphia in late 1776 and early 1777. The detail Fohrer provides of the work is interesting enough. But notice, on p. 3, that he indicates that there is a number on every gun that he's worked on ("they are all numbered upon the Thumb Piece and Bayonet") ... it seems that the captain of the company "ordered" that the numbers be placed on each weapon. Fohrer keys his account to the numbers already on the guns.

[smart dog]

Hi Scott,
I assume these are muskets not rifles.  Numbering the bayonets and musket with a company designation may have been important in this context to make sure the individually fitted bayonet stays with the right musket.  However, on British muskets there are often 2 numbers in a "ratio" format.  The upper is the company and the lower is the rack number of the musket.  Sometimes a third regimental number is also engraved but often that was on the barrel instead.

dave

[spgordon]

Yes, muskets.

[WESTbury]

Scott,

Thank-you for posting this, as it is interesting on a number of levels.

As Dave very correctly, as usual, pointed out the Brits used a different system. One could infer that none of the muskets were captured Long or Short Land muskets, but possibly of American manufacture. Certainly not French arms as none had wrist (thumb) plates.

Kent

[spgordon]

Kent,

These are, it is very likely, American-made muskets, many of them having been rounded up from non-associators, owned personally by the soldiers, or "public" armaments that survived from the French and Indian War. Pennsylvania conducts a furious effort in 1775 to collect muskets. There's a fantastic document among these same papers (Papers of Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Governments: 54 microfilm rolls) that identifies the persons from whom muskets were taken (in and around Philadelphia). Many, too, were newly produced by Pennsylvania's gunsmiths after the revolutionary provincial government compelled them, county by county, to produce quotas of stands of arms.

To me, this sort of detail strengthens the argument that these numbers were put on arms (muskets, in this case, but also rifles used by soldiers in companies) long after production.

Scott

[WESTbury]

To me, this sort of detail strengthens the argument that these numbers were put on arms (muskets, in this case, but also rifles used by soldiers in companies) long after production.
Scott

Scott,

I agree, 100%.

Rack numbers were, in most cases, very probably put on the weapons by individual company armorers.

The only documented case, that I am aware of, where an individual put rack numbers on the weapons of battalion size units, was for the French Muskets used by the New Hampshire  infantry Battalions.

Kent

https://americansocietyofarmscollectors.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2009-B100-New-Hampshire-Marked-French-Muskets-of-t.pdf