Alabama at Fort Donelson

[Daniel]

Does anyone know the types of small arms the 26th and 27th Alabama Infantry Regiments carried at Fort Doneslon?

Dan Stewart

[markj]

Re: Alabama at Fort Donelson

Does anyone know the types of small arms the 26th and 27th Alabama Infantry Regiments carried at Fort Doneslon?

Dan Stewart

I presume you are actually talking about the 26th ("Coltart's," later redesignated 50th) Alabama?

This guy might have some answers:

http://www.rootsweb.com/~alcw26/26thala.htm

As for the 27th AL, you might want to check with this guy who runs a 27th AL website:

http://www.datasync.com/~jtaylor/27th.htm

I'm sorry to say the regimental order books for the 26th/50th AL have apparently not survived. However, this list of sources from the National Archives might give you some leads:

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/summer_1995_the_little_regiment_appendix_a.html

The "Compiled Service Records" for the 26th/50th may also tell you, although looking through them is often a crap shoot. Looking through the newspapers published in the counties that provided troops to the 26th/50th may be helpful as well--they can sometimes be surprisingly good sources of information.

In the absence of any other information, a fairly safe guess is that the 26th/50th was partially or fully armed with Model 1816 flintlocks or variants of them. At the time of Fort Donelson, these arms were ubiquitous throughout units that eventually formed the Army of Tennessee.

Here is a "50th Alabama" web page that might be of interest to you:

http://www.geocities.com/coh41/50Al.html

Regards,

Mark Jaeger

[Jerry Ross]

Re: Alabama at Fort Donelson

Does anyone know the types of small arms the 26th and 27th Alabama Infantry Regiments carried at Fort Doneslon?

Dan Stewart

Dan ,
I have spent some time at Donelson with a Tennessee Unit during living Histories .The Tennessee units there 49th Tenn were Flintlocks(the journal did not say what kind) The 50th Tenn were issued 4 or 5 different Guns to include Miss Rifles ,Double barrel Shotguns , Flint Locks .

I did read that several Alabama unit came to Donelson with out rifles .They were issued Shovles and they were upset .
I have this info at home if you would like for me to dig it out ,I don't have a computer at Home .

My email is jerryrosssgt@hotmail.com

Hope this helps
Jerry Ross
Critter co

[lks312]

Re: Alabama at Fort Donelson

Does anyone know the types of small arms the 26th and 27th Alabama Infantry Regiments carried at Fort Doneslon?

Dan Stewart

J. P. Cannon, a veteran of the 27th Alabama, noted that when the 27th left Florence Alabama for the seat of war in Tennessee, they were armed with double barrelled shotguns and bowie knives. That was Decmber 26th 1861.
Cannon noted that when the 27th evacuated Fort Heiman to move to Fort Henry (February 5th 1862) they were still armed with the shotguns loaded with "buck and ball". Most of their bowie knives had been left behind at Fort Heiman in the haste of evacuation. Sorry, but I don't have any info on the 26th. Hope this helps.

Larry Shields

[Daniel]

Re: Alabama at Fort Donelson

Mark, Jerry, and Larry,

I want to thank you all for the great information about the Alabama and Tennessee units at Fort Donelson.

Dan