Federal smoothbores at Gettysburg, Jul. 1863

[DaveC]

J. Swain at Jefferson Arsenal posted this ammunition supply from Indiana for the U.S. Army of Tennessee in May 1861, basically the "resupply" order after Shiloh on the Federal side:

https://www.thejeffersonarsenal.com...chargeId=88eaf992-62cf-435f-8820-b053d44089c6

 

[Stantheman86]

Not much has changed, the Infantry expends a staggering amount of ammo when deployed today.

Also figure that....what's a good number.....10% maybe of all that ammo was discarded by US troops who didn't feel like carrying the extra arsenal packs.

The shops at Gettysburg say the streams and areas around old trees (presumably where soldiers hung out ) are full of "dropped" Minies and .69 round balls. Because that stuff was heavy and they would be issued 50-60 rounds, maybe more . They would fill their cartridge box and some of the guys would just toss the 1-2 arsenal packs that they were supposed to keep in their packs or haversacks.

 

[DaveC]

The list reveals a lot of smoothbore ammunition:
601k .69 round ball
63k buck without caps
21k buck and ball .69

I was frankly surprised by the sheer scale of .69 elongated ball/ Minie/Burton ammo: 921k cartridges.

 

[beyu]

The shops at Gettysburg say the streams and areas around old trees (presumably where soldiers hung out ) are full of "dropped" Minies and .69 round balls. Because that stuff was heavy and they would be issued 50-60 rounds, maybe more . They would fill their cartridge box and some of the guys would just toss the 1-2 arsenal packs that they were supposed to keep in their packs or haversacks.

Or — a lot of the "dropped" ammunition was tossed out by the troops under orders. We all know black powder absorbs moisture from the air. If there had been a period of rain, fog or just humid air, higher command would order the men to refill their cartridge boxes with fresh ammo.

BTW, it is my understanding that the typical Union Army cartridge box carried held 40 rounds. I have a Civil War style repro cartridge box, and that is the capacity of the two tin inserts.

 

[Eterry]

The 7th Texas showed up in Tennessee with 750 men. Their arms consisted of 123 shotguns--of which, 25 were in need of repair--150 miscellaneous "rifles"--48 in "poor condition"--and 104 percussion muskets given to them while they marched through Louisiana. A total of 377 weapons for those 750 men.

By August 1861 Tennessee had raised 17,541 infantry of which 69 percent were armed with flintlocks, 20 percent with smoothbore percussion guns, and 11 percent with rifles.
Apparently the 47th TN had 10 different makes and models of firearms in their possession!

At the time of the ACW Texas was waging unofficial war with marauding Indians and Bandits from south of the border. I'm sure they didn't want to take arms away from family or friends, and figured to acquire them on the way.

 

[Stantheman86]

The "American " style box holds 40, the Enfield style box holds 50.

 

[DaveC]

By then cartridges were being bundled into ten or even fifteen round paper packets. The ten round package contained a paper tube with twelve musket caps. These were torn open to use the cartridges within. Four packages fit in the cartridge tins of the U.S. type box.

Enfield cartridges are longer, and so it caused all sorts of modifications to have to be made for the mostly CSA troops issued that type. The .69 box could fit them OK. Extra packages of cartridges were expected to be carried in pockets or knapsacks or haversacks. Sometimes 60 cartridges would be issued, at other times double the quantity for 80 total.

 

[smoothshooter]

Westerners as a rule, North and South, came from a much more pronounced firearm culture. These men were keen aficionados of firearms, and followed all of the technological breakthroughs and developments. Recall that the Texas Revolution had been fought with flintlocks for the most part (although wealthy men like Mirabeau Lamar had caplock shotguns and so on). As soon as Texas Independence had been won, the Lone Star Republic adopted the Model 1816 musket, but also the Jenks breech-loading carbine, the Colt Paterson revolvers, carbines, and shotguns, etc. Samuel Colt put the Texian Navy in Campeche as the "roll engraving" scene on his U.S. Navy Model 1851 .36 revolver, while others had various Western themes.

In the U.S. Civil War, it seems that while the arms in the Western Theater were often secondary or even tertiary class arms, the complaints from the men about them seemed more frequent and vociferous too! The soldiers sometimes balked at the issued arms. Sometimes even threats of punishment didn't quell their displeasure. In other cases officers or even State governors would fume and fulminate about the arms on offer... Notably the governor of Indiana.

While given the relative penury of the CSA and general inadequacy of the industrial base, with a few notable exceptions, it is most frequently Confederate rebels who exchanged arms on the battlefield--another "home court" advantage--it is also the case that Federals frequently swapped out arms. On the Confederate side, I have recently read of Tennesseeans smashing their flintlocks against trees and rocks so that no one would go and gather up their discarded obsolete muskets and foist them on some other hapless unit! I have even read of Federals swapping their arms for Richmond copies of Harper's Ferry Model 1855s!

Returning to the Army of the Potomac: Notice how the equation seemed to be "IRISH=.69 smoothbore." Poor Paddy? Were these "mere Irish" B'hoys simply thought to lack the ability of the use of the rifle, I wonder? Certainly interesting.

The Irish have never been a “ rifle culture “.
Most were so poor that they barely had enough to eat, so no money could be spared for recreational shooting. Or guns.

 

[PathfinderNC]

Great information here.

 

[Gtrubicon]

Posting so I can follow this, very interesting.

 

[Sam squanch]

The Irish have never been a “ rifle culture “.
Most were so poor that they barely had enough to eat, so no money could be spared for recreational shooting. Or guns.

The English banned guns in Ireland for the ordinary people. The wealthy had to have registered guns.

 

[TFoley]

Dave,

In the 1980's, I spent many, many hours in the NPS Reference Library at Chatham Manor, just across the river from Fredericksburg, VA. (Some forum members may know that Chatham Manor was Gen. Burnside's HQ for the Battle of Fredericksburg and later where Gen. Hooker staged part of his "Grand Review of the Army of the Potomac" for Lincoln and other dignitaries.)

I researched many things there over those visits and one visit, I tried to find out where my Paternal Confederate Ancestor fought and what unit he was in. While going through the Original Copies of "The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Civil War" and numerous original references that day, I came across an original reference to a Union Regiment of Soldiers "in the West" who after winning a Battle, noticed the Confederate dead were armed with Enfield Rifles. The Union Soldiers were still armed with "Smoothbore Muskets," so they dropped their Muskets and eagerly took the Enfield Rifles. I THINK this was from the Battle of Shiloh, though it may easily have been another Battle. I know I was very surprised about that at the time that Confederate Soldiers were armed with more up to date Rifle Muskets than Federal Soldiers.

Gus

The CSA got first dibs at the Enfield rifles because they had a large number of agents already in the CSA-friendly United Kingdom - there specifically to acquire them. You might recall that the CSA were also first to obtain the so-called 'English cartridge', first used at Shiloh, and which use caused great consternation among Union troops. Their design was such that the CSA infantry could shoot off five rounds to the Union's two or three. After the battle, Union troops scoured the battlefield for pick-ups from the Confederate dead and injured. See Brett Gibbons' excellent YouTube article about the 'Enfield cartridge', and not the he personally has fired 160 consecutive cartridges without cleaning his rifle.

 

[TFoley]

Actually, the 69th New York is one of the few Federal Units I know some details on, as they got the closest to the sunken road during the Battle of Fredericksburg and they were up against a Confederate Irish Brigade (Cobb's).

http://historyarch.com/2017/12/12/an-american-tragedy-at-fredericksburg-clash-of-the-irish-brigades/

The Federal Irish Brigade was formed VERY early in the War when the North just did not yet have enough "New model" M1861 Rifle Muskets made to issue to the huge numbers of soldiers who needed arms. So like many, if not most "Non Regular U.S. Regiments" in the early War period, they got issued what was available and that usually was a M1840 Percussion Smoothbore at best to at worst, some hastily purchased out of date and often worn European percussion converted smoothbore muskets.

In the Pre War years and after the M1855 Rifle Musket was delivered to REGULAR U.S. Infantry units, they began the first real marksmanship training and actually used their Rifled Muskets as far as 700 yards in combat. This was "in the west" where they often used what was later called "Skirmisher Tactics," so there wasn't the blinding clouds of black powder smoke from huge formations, that didn't allow them to shoot much beyond 100 yards - as was often the norm in the UnCivil War. The thing people don't think about though, is these were already well trained and disciplined Soldiers who were then given additional marksmanship training to properly use the much longer range Rifle Muskets and the Tactics that made them effective. They weren't starting as raw recruits who often didn't know their left foot from their right and a huge amount of available time was eaten up just in basic training of the early War Volunteers.

In the kind of combat in the East where large formations of soldiers were the norm, a single volley would often cloud the Unit firing to the point they could not see the enemy at all and for a time till the smoke dissipated. Add to the fact the same thing was happening with the "other side's" forces, once they fired, they were also sheathed in smoke clouds. A couple more quick volleys from each side and neither side could see individual targets to aim at. So even though the Rifled Muskets of the day could be used at much longer distances than 100 yards, the Black Powder used by both sides caused much of the combat to be 100 yards or less. At that distance, Buck and Ball from Smoothbores was very effective indeed.

Gus

All this would have been good to know when I posted my query a couple of years back asking why the troops of both sides still seemed to be using toe-to-toe tactics when they both had long-range rifles. No mention was made at that time of any of the points you've made above.

 

[TFoley]

The English banned guns in Ireland for the ordinary people. The wealthy had to have registered guns.

You ought to have written 'EVEN' the wealthy......remembering that many of the wealthy had adopted Irish history as their own, and much of the Fenian Brotherhood was drawn from, and funded by people who, a generation or two back in time, had been wealthy ENGLISH landowners, and who were now wealthy Anglo-Irish landowners.

 

[Kev308]

I remember reading years back, and for the life of me I cant remember where, that General Meaghers was a great lover of the smoothbore. He is credited with saying, two rounds of buck and ball, fix bayonets and have at them, boys!
I wish I could find the source of that