Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

[Roger Hansen]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Dave
I'll look for the Wright photo - but we are talking about 30 years ago.

Have you reviewed the 4 volumes of "Confederate Faces" ? A number have English accouterments in these books. I can take a look for you if you have not.

Roger Hansen

[DBURT]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Roger,

Only have one of those books in my collection " Even more Confederate Faces" by W. Turner. Not much in that except a few soldiers wearing snake buckle belts, so any new pictures would be welcome.

Dave Burt

[Mississippian]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Dave,

Here is a ordnance receipt for the the 22nd South Carolina, sounds like Enfield traps to me.

CSR of Capt. L. Gibbon, O.O.

May 18th 1862 (To Col. Goodlett, 22nd SCV)

80 Long Enfield Rifles
80 Bayonets
80 Gun Slings
24 Cones (extra)
8 Screwdrivers
3 Bullet Molds
80 Cartridge Boxes
80 Cartridge Box Belts
80 Cap Boxes
80 Waist Belts
80 Oil Cans
80 Frogs

Will MacDonald

[DBURT]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Will,
Yes it has to be. The mention of bullet moulds and screw drivers gives it away. Have seen lots of invoices with Enfields being imported with those items. The "Oil Can" too.

Dave Burt

[cobooya]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

I am not questioning the research that has been done here...... But when it comes to the issue of Ball Bags there is something that makes no sense to me. Where is the logic in placeing a container of oil inside a pouch that holds the next ten paper cartridges,( and poss. your caps), you are going to need? If this oil was only used to oil the rifle after use and cleaning than why not place it out of the way,(I have used a Ball bag w/oiler in place and you can not "sweep" the last few rounds out easily).
It seems to me that the need for oil, right there up front at your waist, would best serve a soldier that was issued a Snider/Enfield conv. and NOT a muzzle loading Mdl 1853 Enfield. It is well know that after a few rounds the Snider cases are hard to eject and a small amount of oil will correct this problem.
Is it possible that the oiler and oil can loop was an added improvement to be used with the Snider/Enfield and later the Martini/Henry? Lets face it the "Ball Bag" as a piece of equipment was in use from the 1830's thru WW1, in one form or another. And just to be clear; the first use of the Ball bag was not to bring cartridges forward. The Brunswick Rifle has only two grooves down the bore. A patched ball was not used, they had "Banded Balls", or a musket ball that had a thicker band of lead around it. A Brunswick rifleman could load and fire with the Infantry, but when a longrange shot was required, the reg. musket ball was replaced with the Banded Ball that was carried in the..... "Brunswick Ball Bag".

Steve Tyler

[Mississippian]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

How about issuing imported horse blankets to soldiers? This letter comes from the CSR of Maj. Downer, at Richmond Arsenal.

Ordnance Bureau, Richmond
Sept 24th 1863

Major Downer,

I am informed by the Quartermaster General that in consequence of the loss of the “Hebe” his supply of blankets is very meager. As the imported horse blankets on hand will be serviceable to soldiers in the field you will turn them over to the Quartermasters Department, receiving $9 each or $18 a pair for them.

Very Respectfully,
Col. Gorgas

Will MacDonald

[DBURT]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Steve,
I cannot honestly say why the oil bottle was placed inside the ball bag. As usual with British army equipment, it was always "over engineered". The new ball bag- and the one most frequently seen in pictures and museums was the Pattern 1861. The oil bottle was in the list of changes as: " Oil bottle for fitting inside the ball bag, 5th July 1860." A new seamless version "for ball bags" was introduced on April 23rd, 1862.

Dave Burt

[cobooya]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Hello Dave, Let me see if I can put into words what is in my head! This thread was started asking for ,"photos of CS soldiers wearing full sets of English accoutrements.". I would asume this is being done to authenticly show how US and CS troops used these items that had been issued to them.

I think this thread is making two very dangerous assumptions.
#1, That US and CS soldiers would automaticly conform to British orders/guildeines on how this equipment was to be used/function.
#2, That the latest and greatest British equipment was being supplied to the American Armies.

#1A, There has been a few ref.'s to how British guidelnes say to bring 10 rounds forward from Cart. Box to fill the Ball bag. I could go on here w/assumptions of how Americans used the Ball Bag issued to them, but to my knowledge no ACW Soldier ever recorded how they used this piece of issued equipment. From the pictures posted it is clear that most troops did not even know how to wear the equipment,(based on British guidelines), and then this brings up the issue of were these troops truely issued this gear and Soldiered with it, or was this just props that the photographer had to loan. It makes sense to me if you were a new recruit, wanting to send a picture home to the folks, why not show off the latest stuff that came over all the way from England!

#2A, You are very correct that the British gear was always being improved and refined, but is it not also true that when an improvement to a piece of equipment was made...... they would then dump all the old gear on Volunteer Units, Home Guard, and then surplus markets? It seems to me that it would not be the latest and greatest model Ball Bag,(much like the one being offered by a well known leather maker for over $200), with the oiler and any other bells and whistles that would be availible to the common American Soldier.
#2B, Craig Barry has showed us that when American buyers started placing large orders for Mdl 1853 Enfields, it was not the latest and greatest 4th version used to fill these orders, but the 3rd version that went back into production just for this American market. Why would not the leather gear been done the same way? So maybe pictures of the newest model 1862 ball bag on a soldiers waistbelt, may not have anything in it at all! Or, it could be some crazy flat pouch that makes no sense,(like those seen on the Mass. State Vol.s), is it a cap pouch, or a ball bag, or a map case???? But they wore it because it was issued.
#2C & #1B, Then we ignore clear examples because we have no photo-proof. Clearly there were Enfield Cart. Boxes issued with a small pouch stitched to the front of the box,(not the front of the flaps). Here is one of those boxes;

http://www.mikelynaugh.com/VirtualCivilWar/New/Originals2/pages/Disembowelled.html

This picture can be hard to look at, but if you look just over the musket,(trigger guard area), you will see a British Cart Box sitting open, you can see the outer flap is folded back and the inner flap is up, and on the front of the box is one of those rounded pouches that was not taken off the Box. It says that this is a Union Soldier at G-burg.
I have seen original boxes like this w/three stitch lines running down thier face, and I have seen original cap pouches w/one or two belt loops but also w/these three lines of stitches on the back with no need. Clearly the pouch on the front of the box has been removed and made into a cap pouch to be worn on the waistbelt.

Is this all as clear as mud now?

If there is clear docs, and proof that I am way off base here, I am sorry to have wasted your time. But I think that if we wish to wear British gear, we should do it with a "Yankee" flair, and not like a good Englishman! (No insult intended!).
Steve Tyler

[DBURT]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Steve,
Myself and craig Barry have been researching for a long time now British accoutrements that were imported by Caleb Huse and Edward Anderson. This includes how many, whom it was bought from and where it was issued, and who to. It will be set out in a new book by us later next year.
You are right about the fact that Confederate soldiers' did not know how it was supposed to be used, and we have evidence that some items were given up. We also set out in our book on SIC&Co about all the volunteer gear that they were selling to the South, this one will go further to explain the equipment involved. Don't want to give too much away yet.

Dave Burt

[DBURT]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Steve,
The same would be said if I turned up at next year's Sharpsburg event - as say a Georgian - in a jacket and trousers of blue grey English army cloth and a full set of English accoutrements...But the evidence for imported "Army" cloth and accoutrements that early on is there.

Dave Burt

[Marc29thGA]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Dave,

I started re-reading “First Regiment Engineer Troops P.A.C.S.” by Harry L. Jackson and on page 29, there is an ordinance report for Co. K dated April 8 1864 listing a mix of weapons including:

29 Enfield Rifles
32 Fayetteville Rifles
6 Harpers Ferry Rifles
7 Sergeants Sabers
34 Saber Bayonets
31 Bayonet Scabbards
34 Frogs
62 Screw Drivers
44 Knapsacks
58 (each) Cartridge Boxes, Cartridge Box Belts. Waist Belts, Cap pouches and Haversacks
57 Canteens
57 Canteen Straps

The detail of the origin of the accoutrements is not noted.

Thanks for a great thread and I will definitely buy the book when it comes out!

Y.O.S.,

[VA-Patriot'61]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Roger,

Only have one of those books in my collection " Even more Confederate Faces" by W. Turner. Not much in that except a few soldiers wearing snake buckle belts, so any new pictures would be welcome.

Dave Burt

Dave,
I have the other 3 volumes of Confederate Faces, unfortunately the first 2 in the "series" are fraught with mis-IDed photos and even Feds mixed in plus the quality of the photos aren't anywhere near the 2 most recent books. I'm unpacking my library today and will take a break to look through them. If there are a significant number of photos with English gear clearly visible I'll let you know and we can talk off line so I can get the details to you.

Cheers,

[DBURT]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Marc,
Thanks for that. I have recently seen some invioces of the Engineers recieving "English spades and axes" from the CSR's.
And thanks for that too Kirby.

Dave Burt

[VA-Patriot'61]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Dave,
I've looked through all 3 books and found numerous images of men carrying Enfield rifled muskets, most ID'd but tagged the pages where English gear was visible and that only turned up on a handful of them, most I'm sure you're already aware of. The majority of the men were from the 44th, 45th, 46th GA Infantry, 4th Florida Infantry, 21st NC Infy and one Captain wearing a nice snake buckle belt (don't know much about swords, could be English as well) that is ID'd as a Captain John Murphy, image owned (at the time of publishing) by Herb Peck Jr from Nashville, TN.

I can go through and tag all the images of men carrying Enfields if you'd like, many of those are ID'd as well. Unfortunately the first volume in the series the images were too poor to really discern much in the way of details. Hope this helps some.

[Mississippian]

Re: Soldiers wearing English accoutrements

Ok, I think I found another unit, the 9th Batt. Mississippi Sharpshooters was formed in May 1862 with three companies and was with the Chalmer's/Tucker Brigade the entire war.

CSR of Capt. O.F. West. Co. A 9th Batt. Mississippi Sharpshooters

Received at Corinth MS, May 26th 1862

125 Enfield Rifles and Bayonets with Equipments
125 Cartridge Boxes
125 Cartridge Box Belts
125 Shoulder Straps
125 Bayonet Scabbards
125 Cap Boxes
12,000 Enfield Cartridges
15,000 Caps
125 Gun Slings


It sounds like Enfield gear to me, additionally, in the CSR of the Battalion commander Maj. Richards, there are reports of Saber Bayonets and Bullet Moulds being returned to the brigade ordnance officer. Also, the Battalion got a few Whitworth rifles in 1864.

Will MacDonald