Federal use of captured equipment?

[KPavia]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

In another thread here, someone mentioned that from US Grant's memoirs, he stated that after a certain battle, Vicksburg I believe, he issued the captured Confederate enfields to his troops and turned in their old arms to supply in place of the captured weapons. I don't have a copy of Grant's memoirs but maybe someone can validate what my memory is telling me.

[J. Donaldson]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

The citation is on page 572.

At Vicksburg 31,600 prisoners were surrendered, together with 1 72 cannon, about 60,000 muskets and a large amount of ammunition. The small-arms of the enemy were far superior to the bulk of ours. Up to this time our troops at the West had been limited to the old United States flint-lock muskets changed into percussion, or the Belgian musket imported early in the war—almost as dangerous to the person firing it as to the one aimed at—and a few new and improved arms. These were of many different calibers, a fact that caused much trouble in distributing ammunition during an engagement. The enemy had generally new arms which had run the blockade and were of uniform caliber. After the surrender I authorized all colonels whose regiments were armed with inferior muskets, to place them in the stack of captured arms and replace them with the latter. A large number of arms turned in to the Ordnance Department as captured, were thus arms that had really been used by the Union army in the capture of Vicksburg.

[Blair]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

I have also read accounts, (sorry I can't site place and time) U S troops exchanged their weapons with those found in the field and carried by C S troops.
These were reported as being arms made by Richmond, Va. Considered to be superior in all respect to the arm they had exchanged.
I do not recall the model type of arm being exchanged in this/these reports.
All here-say at this point, I know. Especially without appropreate/addiquate documentation.
The reason why I tend to remember this account is, the fact that these period U S soldier making the exchange, knew what to look for, or what to check out to make the determination these exchanged arms were indeed better than what they had.

[GWagner]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

Dan and Brian,

Thank you for your posts and for sharing some interesting info...and not simply giving a knee jerk reaction.

Agreed! Well informed answers.

[Daniel]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

Blair, a Federal unit exchanging their arms for Richmond Rifles also was the first thing I thought of. It was at Fort Doneslon. A soldier of the 50th Illinois wrote "We were especially fortunate in beling allowed to exchange our arms for excellent guns made at Richmond, VA., after the Springfield pattern, the most of them had not been unpacked." I think it shows how disorganized the Confederates were. They had unpacked rifle muskets while a lot of units were fighting with flintlocks.

Dan Stewart

[tomarch]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

Of course, in addition to the detectives mentioned in the newspaper articles, there were the scouts employed by Sheridan in the latter half of the war. Those however were using "secech" gear as a disguise instead of using C.S. pickups in lieu of Federal issue.

[GreencoatCross]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

I just remembered another possibility; the Edgar Yergason blanket from the Troiani collection. While I haven't been able to prove it yet, I suspect that it may be an example of a blockade-run English blanket that was captured by the U.S. Navy, sold off, and later issued to Yergarson. The blanket itself is a mixed blue-gray color with dark brown end-stripes and has a black paint "US" in the center. I have yet to see or hear of another Federal-identified blanket like this one; it bears a remarkable similarity to several known Confederate-used imported blankets.

[Blair]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

Dan,

Thank you. very much,
But I am not sure I would ascribed this venture to the miss placed adventures of the CS Ordnance Depot.
Not saying what you are suggesting is incorrect. Please understand that.
I am only offering some alternatives to the original question. But, you may very well be on the right tract.

[sigsaye]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

While not of much interest to the "Army" folk here. What "Union Navy" said is correct. However, there were instances such as with the Confederate Ironclad Tennennesse at Mobile Bay, where the ship was imediately put into US Naval service. It was a matter of shifting flags and a log entry. Everything onboard went into Federal service. This was very common, upto and including crew. Many ships crew of both Navies were not native to this country (47% of the USN enlisteds were off the boat Irish, equal precentages with CSN. Many were merchant Sailors who were stranded in whatever port they were in when it was blockaded, so signed with the Navy for a job and place to sleep. They would fight, but if their ship was taken, many had no problem with "Shifting Colors" along with the ship. Additionally, since most CSN Sailors actually wore blue uniforms, not that much trouble changing sides.

Steve Hesson

[sigsaye]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

To add on to what I originally wrote, the use of the CS gear found aboard captured CSN Vessels was common. I have seen in a private collection of CW Navy items an Issacs and Campbell knapsack with USN hand painted on it.

Steve Hesson

[Horace]

Re: Federal use of captured equipment?

There's some really good stuff in this thread. I've been keeping a file, drawn from first person accounts, of instances where Federal troop used Confederate items. There are four or five such incidents that I've run across. Unfortunately I won't be able to access the file for a couple of weeks as I'm out of town. If anyone's interested I can post the exerpts when I get back home.
One incident involved an Army of the Potomac private exchanging his knapsack for a Confederate one that he liked better. Another involved an officer ordering his men to search rebel knapsacks for clean underwear they were to change into. I don't recall any of these incidents involving taking anythnig directly off of a rebel , but rather in the manner of 'field pickups'.
I can also remember, in the published letters of a US cavalry chaplain named Beaudry, that he describes taking a nap while on campaign and waking up to find that his officers kepi had been replaced on his head with a civilian beehive hat.
These are all examples of improvisation based on need. As far as wearing nonregulation stuff as a novelty, there is a first hand account describing membersof the 15th NY Cavalry wearing women's bonnets as a joke while in the Shenandoah Valley in '64. I'm sure it wasn't too funny to the women who they'd looted.