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HOW WE WERE ARMED: Stonewall Brigade during the Valley Campaign
By Craig L. Barry
General Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, 1862. (Image Public Domain)
“On the road I picked up an Enfield rifle which I exchanged for mine, an old fashioned Springfield percussion musket.” Thomas F. Wood, 13th NC Infantry, June 1862.By Craig L. Barry
Military strategists have long marveled over the tactical success of Jackson’s Valley Campaign. One question that arises is if the weapons issued to his troops were a factor in that success. The underlying presumption being that after “Colonel” Jackson liberated the arms and equipment from the Harpers Ferry Armory in April 1861, his men marched off armed with the cache of relatively modern US Armory produced rifles and muskets. This was not the case.
Infantry arms were in short supply in the first months after secession from the Union. Mobilization was futile if the troops could not be armed prior to taking the field. Hence, arms had to be doled out cautiously and first issued to the soldiers who were going to be deployed. The small supply of percussion muskets on hand was quickly exhausted by the end of May, 1861. [1] Hence, the Army of Northern Virginia was largely armed with “old Springfield muskets such as had been captured from Government Arsenals in the South,” many of these were still in flint. The same was true of the inventory of most state arsenals, including virtually all the military long arms in the Virginia Armory. There were also shotguns hunting rifles, etc. brought from the home front...almost anything that would shoot.
US 1822 flintlock musket (Image Courtesy nps.gov)
Many historians define the Valley Campaign, as beginning in November 1861 with Romney, rather than with the First Battle of Kernstown in late March 1862. If so, we can easily determine how General Jackson’s troops were then outfitted. It was documented that, "In November 1861 the nucleus of Jackson’s division in the Shenandoah Valley was armed with flintlock muskets. Governor Letcher of Virginia later replaced these with the loan of 1,550 percussion muskets from the state armory." [2] Jackson also borrowed several hundred US 1851 cadet muskets from VMI. This "borrowed" supply of VMI muskets were still in the ranks of the 4th Virginia Co H (Rockbridge Grays) during the Valley Campaign of 1862, and afterwards. The Governor of Virginia wrote asking for their return some months later. Jackson’s response was telling, he replied that he could not return VMI's cadet muskets "until in their place percussion muskets could be issued." [3]US 1822 musket converted to percussion in excellent condition (image courtesy College Hill Arsenal, Nashville, TN)
A company armed with smoothbore muskets is not necessarily at a disadvantage in close quarter fighting, and may in fact have the benefit of the greater hit rate by firing buck and ball rounds. A hit does not have to be fatal to take an enemy out of action. Flintlocks were a different story. Slower loading and a greater number of misfires (especially in wet weather) diminished their effectiveness against an opponent armed with percussion muskets. Continued battlefield success during the campaign led to a large amount of captured Union equipment which could be swapped out for the older, obsolete Confederate weapons. One soldier who served with Jackson in 1862 recalled the following:“When our regiment was forming, the officers, to induce the men to enlist, promised to arm them with Enfield rifles imported from England as soon as we were mustered in. But these they did not have, and the men were inclined to rebel; but all returned to camp from the barracks in Savannah, where they took the military oath, and continued to drill with the old shotguns and squirrel rifles with which they had left home. Sometime after this the government sent wagonloads of pikes to arm the regiment. This also came near causing great trouble, and the officers did not attempt to compel the men to take them. Finally the regiment was armed with old smooth-bore muskets which had done service in previous wars, and with these we were armed when we reported to Stonewall Jackson in 1862…in June, our camp was near the railroad station, where there was a great pile of new Springfield muskets that had been left on the numerous battle fields by the Federals and picked up by our men, and we were told to exchange our old muskets for these. We were armed with these new Yankee (US model) Springfield muskets when we first opened fire on the enemy on June 27, 1862, in the first great battle of Cold Harbor (Gaines Mills), where General McClellan's splendid army was defeated. The wonderful events of that historic day made a great and lasting impression on my mind. The dreadful roar of the cannonade, the incessant roll of small arms, and the dead and wounded men and horses can never be forgotten.” [4]
Imported French and Belgian smoothbore muskets were common on both sides early in the Civil War. There is no evidence that either the US or CS would import flintlocks from Europe, as they already had too many here. Percussion muskets were what were in demand and then modern rifled arms in the standard smaller caliber.
It appears clear that Jackson did not achieve his success in the Shenandoah Valley during 1862 because of his troops being better equipped than the Union forces, if anything the opposite was the case. In late 1861, many Confederates under Jackson were still armed with flintlocks. By March 1862, many (but not all) had upgraded to percussion smoothbore muskets. And by late June percussion muskets were the norm and some had scrounged up newer rifle-muskets. This process of replacing smoothbores with rifle-muskets continued well into late 1864, but was never fully implemented for all of the Confederate armies before the Civil War ended. [5]
Were flintlocks still in use by the Union in 1862? It appears there were still a few but in very small numbers. Note the following: "It is an established fact, and readily accepted as such, that the Confederate soldier was issued far more flintlock arms than his northern counterpart. Nevertheless a number of instances are recorded which indicate without question that at least some Federal soldiers went to war with flintlock muskets on their shoulders. After the Battle of Fredericksburg, for instance, fought in December, 1862, there were thirteen flintlock muskets included among the more than 9,000 recovered from the field by the Confederates." [6] Considered another way, this illustrates that by late 1862 almost all flintlocks were already replaced by percussion muskets in the Union army. 13 found out of over 9,000? This is a small fraction of a percent (.14%). We can conclude that flintlocks were rare by late 1862 in both the US and CS, especially in the Eastern Theater. Within six months by mid- 1863, supplies of imports and deliveries of new US model rifle-muskets would replace most of the older smoothbore muskets in the Union. And once the Union had new rifle-muskets, the Confederates captured them. After Chancellorsville in May 1863, reliable estimates put the number of captured US model 1861 rifle muskets in the hands of Confederates at 147,000. [7]
If battlefield success resulted in the capture of newer weapons, it stands to reason that defeats resulted in their loss. After the Confederate defeat at Missionary Ridge in November 1863, over 6,000 infantry arms were lost to capture by the Union. Hence out of desperation, smoothbore flintlock muskets were back in use in the trenches outside of Atlanta in mid-1864, if only as a stop gap measure until more modern rifled arms were available to replace them. [8]
Notes
1. Douglass Southall Freeman, Lee, (New York, NY), Touchstone Publishing, 1961, p. 126.
2. Peter Cozzens, Shenandoah 1862: Jackson’s Valley Campaign (Chapel Hill, NC), UNC Press, 2008, p. 41. See also, Joe Selby, Stonewall Jackson as Military Commander, reprinted by Barnes & Noble Books, 1999, p. 48.
3. Keith Gibson & George Whiting, “The US Model 1851 VMI Cadet Muskets”, North-South Traders Civil War Magazine, Volume 22 Sept 1995 p. 39
4. L.G. Beadwell, “How We Were Armed”, Confederate Veteran Magazine, Volume 24, (Nashville, TN), 1916, p. 22.
5. Scholars believe it was not until after Chancellorsville in early May 1863 that the majority of Confederates in the ANV had replaced their smoothbores with newer .58 rifle-muskets, both foreign imports and battlefield pick-ups. The smoothbore musket was still found in the CS ranks when Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
6. Robert Reilly, US Military Small Arms 1816-1865, (Highland Park, NJ) Gun Room Press, 1983, p. 57.
7. Claud E. Fuller & Richard Steuart, Firearms of the Confederacy, (Huntington, WV), Kessinger Publishing, 1944, p. 47. See also, Dennis Adler, Guns of the Civil War, (Minneapolis, Minnesota), Zenith Press, 2011, p.210 for a breakdown of Confederate battlefield pick-ups.
8. Larry Daniel, Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee, (Chapel Hill, NC) UNC Press, 1991, p.47. While most CS soldiers in the AoT were well-outfitted by this point in the war, the loss of over six thousand infantry arms at Missionary Ridge left 369 men with no infantry arms at all during the Atlanta Campaign. See also Joe Bilby, Civil War Firearms: Their Historical Background and Tactical Use, (S. Boston, Mass), Da Capo Press, 1996. There is anecdotal evidence of a CS soldier in mid-1864 that was burned by black powder fragments from the flash pan of a flintlock fired by his file partner which was too close to his face.
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