Weapons Info - 69th PA Vol Infantry

[Sanssouci]

Gents,
Looking to see if anyone had primary source information on what the 69th PA Vol Inf would have carried into action for the Gettysburg campaign for weapons.

Thanks in advance.

John "Red" Turner

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Weapons Info - 69th PA Vol Infantry

Hallo!

Coates and Thomas site 1863-1864 ordnance returns and ammunition requests to have the 69th PA with a mix of M1861 and Enfield RM's.

Curt

[Sanssouci]

Re: Weapons Info - 69th PA Vol Infantry

Thanks Curt.

John Turner

[PhiladelphiaBrigadier]

Re: Weapons Info - 69th PA Vol Infantry

Hi John,
The 4th Quarter of 1862 ordnance return for the regiment shows the regiment had 56 Springfield rifled muskets .58 cal, 111 Enfield rifled muskets .577 cal and 114 Smoothbore muskets .69 caliber (1816, 1840,1842) In most cases companies show mixed armament except for company B and K, which carried exclusively Enfield rifles and company F which carried exclusively smoothbores. At Gettysburg nearly every man in the 69th would find himself once again in possession of a smoothbore weapon. After the repulse of Wright's Georgia Brigade on the afternoon of July 2nd, the regiment collected all of the captured and discarded ordnance. According to corporal John Buckley of Company K:

"After taking care of the wounded and removing them back, we gathered the guns and ammunition of the dead. This is the point I want to give you and show exactly what use we made of the spare guns. We kept the best- and reloaded, and reclined them against the wall. The ammunition we gathered was found to contain three buckshot and ball cartridges if, my memory does not fail me. The ammunition had a label showing it had been manufactured in Birmingham, England. And I will guarantee it brought more harm upon them than upon us, we abstracted the buckshot from the ammunition and reloaded the spare guns putting 12 to the load, and almost every man had from two to five guns that were loaded and were not used until Pickett got within fifty yards of the wall, the slaughter was terrible, to which fact-the ground was literally covered with the enemy's dead bore ample testimony."
(John Buckley to Colonel Batchelder, The Batchelder Papers, Gettysburg Pa)

I've also had the pleasure of handling the 1842 Springfield of Peter Diamond of Company D that until 15 years ago still retained the buckshot load rammed on the night of July 2nd. Diamond seems to have left the loaded weapon at the angle and picked up a supperior one which served him until his death at Mine Run just a few months later. His original weapon was picked up by a soldier of one of Pennsylvanias emergency regiments and was eventually delivered to a GAR hall in Philadelphia. When the hall was sold and liquidated, the musket passed to a good friend of mine who still owns it to this day. The stock is marked "D 69" forward the buttplate and bears diamonds Rack number (13 or 17, I cannot recall which) on the left side.

-Conor Timoney
Liberty Rifles

[Sanssouci]

Re: Weapons Info - 69th PA Vol Infantry

Thanks to all for this information - greatly appreciated!