Are Slings Underrepresented?

[LibertyHallVols]

Consider the above photograph, taken in Petersburg, Virginia on April 3, 1865.

Can you find any muskets missing a sling? I can't. There are numerous photographs of Federal infanrty with weapons, as well as pictures of the muskets on their own. Many with slings, and without.

However, slings among the ranks of authentic living historians is rather rare.

A question for your consideration:
Should more of us have slings on our muskets and rifles, especially for Federal impressions?

Thoughts?

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Are Slings Underrepresened?

Well, you made me look John... :)

Glancing at the quarterly ordnance returns for the 1st through 5th USCT, it looks like every company had about as many slings as muskets from mid-63 (for the 1st & 2nd) through the end of the war. The 1st, 4th, and 5th were with the Army of the James, the 3rd in the Department of the South (operating from Charleston down to Jacksonville mostly), and the 2nd in Key West and in various operations on the west coast of Florida.

These units did not always have the newest ordnance in other regards. The 1st went off to war with '42s, then were upgraded to 61s either just before or after defeating Fitz Lee's cavalry at Wilson's Wharf. The 2nd trained with imported smoothbores, were upgraded to 42s on shipping out (with one company getting Enfields), then received their '61s in stages during '64.

But whatever weapon they had, they pretty much all had slings. Based on that I would assume it to be the default position for US infantry, but I look forward to seeing what information others have.

[CSchneider]

Re: Are Slings Underrepresened?

The Summary Statements of the Ordnance Returns for every company for pretty much the entire war still exist, so its possible to track every piece of equipment in any particular company at any time (this is why there will be plenty of gun slings but zero cartridge box belts at Silent Machines). Scrolling through a couple dozen pages just now, there's lots of slings. A typical page is attached. Gun slings are certainly a unit by unit thing, but by and large they are very underrepresented in the living history community.