Knapsacks in storage

[cprljohnivey]

I have read several first hand accounts of knapsacks being dropped off in a town and stored at the beginning of a campaign/march. I have read only one account of returning and getting those knapsacks back by an Orderly Sgt who happened to be British serving in the AOT I believe. Sorry but I can't remember his name or the name of the book while I am at work. He remarked about the men who were now dead and was reminded of them when he saw their knapsacks there.

My question is do you know of any other accounts of retrieving their knapsacks. I am specifically looking for accounts of what was done with the knapsacks of the fallen once the regiment returned to re-claim them.

Thanks,

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Knapsacks in storage

This comes from The Civil War Notebook of Daniel Chisholm (W. Springer Menge and J. August Shimrak, eds., Ballantine Books, New York, 1989). It addresses clothing rather than knapsacks, but under circumstances similar to what you cite:

(p. 48) “Monday, Novr 7th [1864] Our overcoats came up to day that we had left at Brandy Station April 20th. I went over and took charge of Co 'K's' boxes. I opened them and took out 68 overcoats, some dress Coats, shirts, Drawers, &c., and we have only 17 men left here in Co K to take them and some of them did not send coats to the rear. 70 men killed, wounded, sick and missing since May 3rd. It makes me sad to read over the names & know so many of them will never say here or present again."

Knapsacks seem to have been part of the logistics planning of the Army of the Potomac by 1863 (the men were supposed to carry as much as ten days rations in them, plus extra ammunition), so the accounts I've read, such as the above, relate to storing clothing.

If the troops did store knapsacks, then the excess caused by casualties would remain company property ("camp and garrison equipage") until turned over to the nearest quartermaster with the exchange of appropriate invoices and receipts. This would also apply to such contents as shelter halves.

Excess clothing, on the other hand, would be the property of the soldier. If he was still alive it could be forwarded to him at home or in hospital. If not, it was to be turned over to his family or auctioned off and the money reported in his Final Statement.

I've seen more accounts of knapsacks dropped somewhere before an attack than before a march or campaign. In those cases I get the impression that those of casualties tended to get lost and even the living were lucky to get back their own.

[cprljohnivey]

Re: Knapsacks in storage

Michael,

Thanks. That is exactly what I was looking for. I know the CS troops (unfortunately I know more about the CS armies than the US) sometimes left knapsacks in storage in towns. Certain regiments left them prior to the 1864 Valley Campaign in VA. I agree this was not a very common occurance, but it sometimes did happen and I wandered how they handeled items (especially personal property) of the dead, wounded, and missing.

Does anyone else have other first hand accounts or resources?

Thanks,

[C. Hyson]

Re: Knapsacks in storage

Have you found any of your references in regards to the storing of knapsacks prior to a campaign? Not trying to start an argument, but I have yet to ever come across a written account of same.

[GreencoatCross]

Re: Knapsacks in storage

I've been trying to locate the actual quotes but I have yet to find them among my thousands of pages of research dealing with the U.S. Sharpshooters. There is at least one time during their service that I know their knapsacks were turned in.

Almost immediately after the Seven Days campaign they were ordered to turn in their knapsacks and any spare clothing before the 2nd Bull Run campaign. They were ordered to take only one change of underclothing, a shelter tent half (if they had one), and either a wool or rubberized blanket but not both. Many diarists and correspondents in the Sharpshooters lamented the fact that they did not have knapsacks through the last several months of 1862, despite the fact that a lot of them threw theirs away during the Peninsula campaign (two companies even lost theirs in combat at Beaver Dam Creek). The knapsacks that were turned in between the two regiments came back emptied of their contents and in some cases deliberately cut and shredded up.

They must have wised up after that affair, or their officers did, because there was not a single instance after that which records turning in knapsacks. However, they were ordered to drop and stack knapsacks at Chancellorsville but lost them during combat; a year later during the Wilderness the veterans found their old rotted knapsacks still filled with extra green clothing, blouses, overcoats, etc.. While knapsacks weren't turned in after the 1862 mishap, but sometimes ordered to be left in camp during short forays, they were still ordered to turn in dress coats, overcoats, blankets, etc. during campaigns. In late 1863 they received boxes of clothing that were turned in during during the Peninsula campaign, prior to the 2nd Bull Run campaign, and in June 1863 prior to the Gettysburg campaign; plenty was at hand due to high attrition in the ranks so men constantly swapped out their garments for "new" ones.

I will keep digging through my collection to find more specifics on the knapsack topic and post it here. I know it's in there somewhere, I've read every scrap of Sharpshooter clothing/equipment info a hundred times over.

[RN_PAC]

Re: Knapsacks in storage

I'm lying in bed right now with my iPhone so I will be brief, so I don't fade out mid sentence or end up with my wife hurling it across the room. Those members of the 5th NY who still has packs left at Harrison's Landing were ordered to turn them to be taken by flatboat to DC prior to the campaign culminating at Manassas No. 2. They were ordered to take their wool blankets ONLY and did not see their packs again - or get any replacement clothing - for 10 weeks. Davenport gives a good account of this in "Camp And Field Life" and another DZ diary or memoir (I'm pretty sure it is not Brandegee's) gives a great account of one of the handfull of DZ's who were detailed to accompany & guard the boats...and missed the near destruction at Manassas. I'll have to check the library in the AM on that one.

[BobbyHughes]

Re: Knapsacks in storage

In Decision In The West, Castel qoutes Sgt Lymen Widney of the 34th Illinois:

A busy day, everybody is packing boxes with extra clothing and the many trinkets possessed of every soldier. The larger portion of our personal property has been shipped home by express as we have found by experiance that the government warehouse is a knapsack 'inferno' and we may well 'abandon hope' for all that enters there.

Drawing from that statement, it would seem that at least the 34th Ill turned in knapsacks prior to the start of the Atlanta Campaign.

[Hairy Nation Boys]

Re: Knapsacks in storage

Here is an excerpt from Alexander Downing's diary. Downing served the whole war in Company E of the 11th Iowa. The below was written prior to the Atlanta Campaign and just after the 11th returned to the front from Veteran Furlough.

"Friday May 20th 1864- We spent the day in washing clothes and cooking navy beans and fresh beef. The troops of our corps were ordered to pack all their extra clothing in thier knapsacks and turn them over to the quartermaster, who would then send them by rail to Huntsville, where they are to be stored. We are to go in light marching order from now on, having but a blanket apiece..." Pg. 189

After a short stay in the hospital he writes:
"Friday September 23d- ...I received my knapsack and equipments..." pg. 216


So it is safe to say this was done in the west...

[H. L. Hanger]

Re: Knapsacks in storage

Have you found any of your references in regards to the storing of knapsacks prior to a campaign? Not trying to start an argument, but I have yet to ever come across a written account of same.

"Moscow, Tenn. Wednesday, Nov. 19, 1862. To-day (sic) ordered to pack our knapsacks, mark them preparatory to turning them over, and take them to be stored until we were to be permanently camped."

An Artilleryman's Diary, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Sixth Wisconsin Battery, Wisconsin History Commission, 1914, p. 13.

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Knapsacks in storage

I'm attaching a couple of excerpts from the ORs from Rufus Ingalls, the QM of the AOP, that I think express the policy of that army on knapsacks, and explains my earlier comment about them being part of the logistical planning. If you want men to carry 8-10 days of hardtack, you pretty much need the knapsacks. I've probably attached these before, but I really find them interesting.

That said, even Ingalls supports blanket rolls for "marches of four or five days without wagons" (see question 11 in the second document), and since Sherman had several days supplies in wagons, plus constant accessions through foragers, it would make sense for some units to dispense with knapsacks on the march to the sea. I've also read several accounts of shorter operations, east and west, when soldiers were ordered into "light marching order" for a few days. Sometimes this "light marching order" meant no more than canteen and haversack, with perhaps a gum blanket.

On the other hand, I remember seeing a diary by a soldier in the 20th Corps that mentions knapsacks throughout the final campaigns through Georgia and the Carolinas, including this excerpt:

Monday, April 10 [1865]. And now being in this camp since March 28th, and all preparations completed for another forward movement, we broke camp, marched thru Goldsboro, traveled 12 miles and bivouacked. On the way during the day we had some little sport, which we all relished more or less. George Noaker's knapsack bursted and spilled all the stuff he had in it. Some one yelled: "Bucktails, fall in for your hardware." This made the old fellow angry. And the language he used was what he knew before he went to service, and that which he learned in the service, and the combination of the two makes it entirely too strong to be printed here. The boys just delighted to get some of our old fellows angry.

http://www.keystoneguards.org/downlo...0-%20Diary.pdf (see p. 89).

So I guess it's another one of those cases where after all the research the best answer to a question might be, "it depends."