Not sure if I'm asking in the correct forum, but here goes.
I've been revisiting some old reading a doing a bit of new in anticipation of "Vicksburg is the Key". One issue on the Confederate side appears in multiple sources, and that is a shortage of percussion caps. Seems there was, according to the sources I have read, a considerable effort to get them into Vicksburg once the siege had begun. Seems ammunition wasn't the problem, but a shortage of percussion caps was.
Now, I know US arsenal packs of ten cartridges came with twelve percussion caps. I've always assumed that CS arsenal packs followed this pattern as well, but am I wrong on this? If they did follow that pattern, how would there be a shortage of musket caps. (Or, were the caps included in those packs notoriously unreliable?)
I want to recreate my CS arsenal packs as authentically as I can, and I thought adding the twelve percussion caps was a matter of course, but now, because of this reading, I'm left wondering if I was wrong to assume such?
Answers?
I've been revisiting some old reading a doing a bit of new in anticipation of "Vicksburg is the Key". One issue on the Confederate side appears in multiple sources, and that is a shortage of percussion caps. Seems there was, according to the sources I have read, a considerable effort to get them into Vicksburg once the siege had begun. Seems ammunition wasn't the problem, but a shortage of percussion caps was.
Now, I know US arsenal packs of ten cartridges came with twelve percussion caps. I've always assumed that CS arsenal packs followed this pattern as well, but am I wrong on this? If they did follow that pattern, how would there be a shortage of musket caps. (Or, were the caps included in those packs notoriously unreliable?)
I want to recreate my CS arsenal packs as authentically as I can, and I thought adding the twelve percussion caps was a matter of course, but now, because of this reading, I'm left wondering if I was wrong to assume such?
Answers?
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