weapons availability, early war...

[Busterbuttonboy]

Corresponding with a project I am doing and partly connected to some of my recent posts I have another perplexing question regarding the availability of “modern” arms at the outset of the conflict. I know we have discussed similar topics in the past; however, I find there to be a rather large lapse of accounting on behalf of the resources I am using.

For starters I have pulled some numbers from Zimmerman’s site (however reliable his service I assume his numbers are close enough for this).

Model 1842; c. 1844-1855. Total 275,000 (Harpers Ferry Armory; 103,000) (Springfield Armory; 172,000).
Model 1855; c. 1857-1861. Total 59,273 (Harpers Ferry Armory; 12,158) (Springfield Armory; 47,115).
Model 1841; c. 1846-1855. Total 25,296.

Considering these to be “modern” rifled and or percussion the total is 359,569, round up to 400,000 with the few contracts I missed.

Now in Echoes of Glory, (Yes, I know it is another secondary source) it says that when Ripley took office, “Fewer then 40,000 of the infantry arms were of modern design.” Considering half of the arsenals were in the south I would cut the 400,000 number in half therefore leaving 200,000 to be considered as modern arms. Unfortunately for me if I cannot work these numbers out more, my thesis for my paper looses its major plank.

Can anyone help shed some light on my estimates and these secondary sources to help me draw a conclusion about what was truly available? I am trying to stay away from the smoothbore/common/conversion/flintlock count at the moment. Any primary sources would be a huge help. However, I will be appreciative of any hints, thoughts or pushes in any direction.
Most Respectfully
Drew Gruber

[JohnTaylorCW]

Re: weapons availability, early war...

Hi Drew,

What is the original source for the "Echoes of Glory" numbers? If that original source only included rifled arms as "modern weapons" as opposed to rifled and/or percussion cap, then your numbers drop considerably, to (59,273 1855's + 14,182 1842 rifled =) 73,455 arms in total nationwide prior to seccession.

Sorry I can't be of more help, I'm on the wrong continent for my CW resources at the moment....

[Matthew Semple]

Re: weapons availability, early war...

For clarification: What do you mean by available?

Weapons that were already issued and in service?
Weapons that were in storage at various arsenals (both state and federal) that were waiting to be issued?
Both of the above?

Don't forget that most states had arsenals and had weapons in storage. This might help explain the descrepancy. I believe that it must be considered when researching "'modern' arms at the outset of the conflict."

[ACo.]

Re: weapons availability, early war...

Is this an academic work or for your own pleasure? If academic, the sources you mention are actually, at best, tertiary resources as they take their figures from earlier, better works on the subject – they do not quote from primary resources and it all depends on how accurate and detailed you want your information to be, both are in the “nice to know those figures” category that dabblers use. If you want valuable information to start with, try William B. Edwards’ “Civil War Guns” published in, I believe, 1961 with a Second Edition published a few years ago. Don’t think that due to its age the information he quotes in the detailed account of arms available at the beginning and those procured during the War is out of date, it is good solid information that is still valuable and he quotes from true, primary sources which he details and may be more helpful to you. There are also more recently written works that may have more information but Edwards work is still one of the best and it inspired all of the rest.

[Busterbuttonboy]

Re: weapons availability, early war...

Thank you all for your time and consideration.
I went with the sources and numbers therein becuase they were the medium of all the other sources i have been refering to. It is an academic work for my museums call here at school, where we are taking an object and writing up an accessing paper. However some folks have made some excellent points, what was their definition of modern? Rifled and Percussion? If so that leaves us with the 41's and 55's with a grand total of: 84,569. Still considerably above that quote. I am also considering these 400,000 of my estimate to be available in the armories all over the country.

The original source for the Echoes of Glory is not listed, however it does compare the 40k quotes with that of the smoothbores/common/flintlock, etc in stock;
"When Ripley took command, there existed an inventory of 437,433 muskets and rifles... Fewer that 40,000 of the infantry arms were of modern design." So how do we decide which rifles he is refering to in the 437,433 quote. At the point in which this is refering, commencement on the converstion of arms via HF and Springfield had started and the private alterations on the conversions had begun to. Is the EOG quote off? or reflecting only one particular model? Personally i am still riding on the 437,433 count being the number of recently converted smoothbores, common rifles, state guns etc (out of a total of about 700k, available throughout the us that splits nicely).

So my real question herein lies does anyone have any major primary sources counting, totaling and or relaying the numbers in details of the availabilties north and or south at the outset? These to hopefully further clarify the numbers at hand in subsections. Again thank you all for your creative input on what these numbers might actually represent.
Most Respectfully
Drew Gruber

[Busterbuttonboy]

Re: weapons availability, early war...

Came across some other resources today while reading excerpts from a dissertation on foreign weapons. Daniel Roche- The aquistion and Use of Foreign Shoulder Arms By The Union Army, 186101865. University of Colorado 1947.
"By the time that the frenzy of secession was over, the Union had 390,690 arms in its arsenals and armories. Only 35,335 of these arms were of the new type adopted in 1855 and modified in 1860; the remaining 355,355 were of the caliber .69 variety" He footnotes, Maynadier to Holt, Jan 21, 1861.
Drew Gruber

Heres a list of my biolography thus far for any interested parties. It is not in any method at the moment and does not refer to the primary sources i have cataloged yet. (of which i have few)

Bilby, Joseph B. Civil War Firearms, Their Historical Background, Tactical Use and Modern Collecting and Shooting. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005.

Flayderman, Norman. Flayderman’s Guide to Antique American Firearms… And Their Values. 7th Ed. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1998.

Gluckman, Arcadi. Identifying Old Us Muskets, Rifles and Carbines. Harrisburg, Pa: Stackpole Books, 1965.

Hewett, Janet B. Supplement, Part 3, Correspondence, Vol 1. The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1999.

Kelley, Tom. “Sweet Little Sixteen.” Civil War Guns. (1998) www.civilwarguns.com/9809.html (Accessed September 3, 2006)

Kelly, Tom. Email Correspondence referring to 1816 surcharge and type clarifications. October 5th, 2006 till present. kelley@civilwarguns.com

Library of Congress. “Selected Civil War Photographs.” Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-B8184-3287]

McCabe, John. Letters to Drew Gruber. September 16, 2006. November 2, 2006. Springfield Armory National Historical Site, Department of the Interior.

Reilly, Robert. United States Military Small Arms 1816-1865. Baton Rouge, LA: The Eagle Press, 1970.

Roche, Daniel M. “The Acquisition and Use of Foreign Shoulder Arms by the Union
Army, 1861-1865.” Master’s thesis, University of Colorado, 1949.

Time Life Editors. Arms and Equipment of The Confederacy. Echoes of Glory Series.
Morristown, NJ: Time-Life Books, 1996.

Time Life Editors. Arms and Equipment of The Union. Echoes of Glory Series.
Morristown, NJ: Time-Life Books, 1996.

United States Patent and Trademark Office. Percussion-Primer and Gun-Lock Therefore. No. 4.208, Dated September 22, 1845. Submitted by Edward Maynard.

Whisker, James B. The United States Armory at Springfield, 1795-1865. Ny, Ny: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997.

Winant, Lewis. Early Percussion Firearms. Bonanza Books, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1959.

[Charles Heath]

Re: weapons availability, early war...

Drew,

This may only add to the confusion, but this is a good read, as well as the Enfield article that follows (on the same website):

http://www.civilwarguns.com/9901.html

[Tom Ezell]

Re: weapons availability, early war...

This itself is a secondary quote since I cooked it down froma dozen or so different places into an old newsletter article, but it gives an idea of what was where in the opening days of 1861:

In the Federal arsenals in January, 1861, the Ordnance Department reported an inventory of 22,821 M1855 rifle-muskets, 12,508 .58 caliber M1855 and M1841 short rifles, 42,011 .54 cal. M1841 short rifles, and 499,554 .69 caliber muskets. (The M1861 Springfield was first approved to gear up to start manufacture on Feb. 20, 1861, and didn’t begin to reach the field in appreciable numbers until the first few months of 1862.)

In the Confederate states, here‘s what they had available at the beginning of the War in the summer of 1861:

Alabama’s militia stocks consisted completely of M1822 flintlocks, and was augmented by another 19,000 .69 smoothbores, some percussion-converted, when they seized the Mt. Vernon federal arsenal early in 1861.

Arkansas: 9,600 weapons of all sorts, only 1300 of which were percussion ignition (900 M1855 rifle-muskets, 250 M1842s, and 150 M1841s). 5600 of the remainder were flintlock M1822s, and about 2700 flintlock .54 cal Hall‘s rifles. In August, 1863, some 30% of ammunition production at the Little Rock Arsenal was still for .69 caliber flintlocks, indicating these weapons were still in the field in appreciable quantities.

Georgia owned 1225 M1855 rifle muskets, and 25,780 M1822s, mostly flintlocks, as of April 1861.

Tennessee: 8,761 .69 caliber muskets, all but 280 of which were flintlocks. 700 M1855 rifle muskets. Tennessee regiments were still packing .69 smoothbores in the trenches in front of Atlanta in 1864.

Louisiana: 35,194 .69 cal percussion muskets, 8,283 flintlock M1822s.

Mississippi started the war with 5,500 flintlock M1822s. Period. According to Peter Cozzens’ campaign history of Murfreesboro, half the 44th Mississippi charged at Stones River with nothing more than sticks or clubs. The other half carried muskets so decrepit that the soldiers carried the hammers in their pockets when not actually in combat, to keep from losing them.

South Carolina had 6,000 of its own “Palmetto” muskets, contracted copies of the M1842 smoothbore, and continued manufacture of these through the War. In addition to the Palmetto guns, there were approximately 11,000 other .69 caliber smoothbores in arsenals around the state.

Virginia owned 57,069 3-banded muskets in 1861, of which 53,988 were flintlocks. After an exhaustive search, an additional 35,000 muskets - all flintlocks - were scrounged from around the State. In October 1861, 44,172 flintlocks were still in the hands of troops in the field.

Texas and Florida had no state arsenals, and were in even worse straits than their sister states in equipping the troops.

Texas was able to obtain 1000 M1822 flintlocks from the U.S. Arsenal in San Antonio, and a limited number of other smoothbores left over from the 1836 Texas War for Independence. In 1862, Texas regiments such as the 16th Texas were armed with .69 caliber flintlocks and were accoutered with civilian buckskin hunting pouches.

The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, with its access to abandoned Federal weapons on many battlefields and its priority on many rifles brought through the blockade, was able to equip itself nearly completely with .58 caliber Enfields and Springfields by the end of the summer of 1863. As noted above, the Army of Tennessee still had nearly a third of its troops still armed with .69 caliber smoothbores in the trenches in front of Atlanta, and some troops still carried them to Franklin and Nashville in the winter of 1864.

Consider the active strength of the U.S. Army at ~16,000 troops scattered around the various posts, as well as the organized militias of the various states, and this is a fair accounting. Also note the large number of M1841s cited, as opposed to the 25.3K produced by Harpers Ferry Arsenal. The answer is that these weapons were made by several other contractors for both the military and private market, the M1841 having the same sort of "buzz" about it that M16s and AK-47s have today.

A large number of the "modern" weapons were lost with the destruction of the Harpers Ferry arsenal, which only increased the reliance of both sides on the weapons stashed away in the federal arsenals, as well as the state arsenals and militia meeting rooms under the Militia Act. Most Southern states didn't get serious about making claims under the Militia Act until after the John Brown raid late in 1859, which didn't leave a lot of time for opportunism.