What were common smalls arms issued to "Mounted Batteries"?

[tjdull]

Given that ...

Heavy or foot-artillery is that portion which takes charge of and manoeuvres the siege, sea -coast, and mountain -artillery. Light or field-artillery, is that portion which manoeuvres field -pieces with troops in the field. It is divided into horse-artillery and mounted batteries. Artillerist's Manual (Gibbon, 1859 & 1863)

With the horse-artillery being with the cavalry and the mounted batteries being with the infantry, I was wondering where I might find information on the small arms and accoutrements used by the cannoneers for the mounted batteries. They look like infantry, they smell like infantry, so I'm thinking they carried the same small arms of the infantry ... but I'd like to find out for sure.

Thanks, in advance, for your help.

Terrance J. Dull
aka "Terry"

[Jeffrey Cohen]

Re: What were common smalls arms issued to "Mounted Batteries"?

Mounted Batterys like the 6th NY Ind Batt. were issued .36 cal. side arms. After Brandy Station these were turned in for .44 sidearms. (A local historian have copies of these.)In the book "3 Years a Soldier" there is a mention of carbines, however no model were mentioned. Many mounted batterys were cross trained as cavalry.
Regards,
Jeffrey Cohen

https://www.6thny.com

[tjdull]

Re: What were common smalls arms issued to "Mounted Batteries"?

Mounted Batterys like the 6th NY Ind Batt. were issued .36 cal. side arms. After Brandy Station these were turned in for .44 sidearms. (A local historian have copies of these.)In the book "3 Years a Soldier" there is a mention of carbines, however no model were mentioned. Many mounted batterys were cross trained as cavalry.
Regards,
Jeffrey Cohen
www.6thny.com

Thanks Jeffery, except that starting in 1862 the 6th NY Ind Batt is listed as "horse atrillery" serving with Cavalry Divisions. So, it would be common for them to have pistols and carbines. I'm looking for strictly mounted batteries. Thanks tho!

http://dmna.state.ny.us/historic/reghist/civil/artillery/6thIndBat/6thIndBatMain.htm

[viceroy]

Re: What were common smalls arms issued to "Mounted Batteries"?

Mounted Batterys like the 6th NY Ind Batt. were issued .36 cal. side arms. After Brandy Station these were turned in for .44 sidearms. (A local historian have copies of these.)In the book "3 Years a Soldier" there is a mention of carbines, however no model were mentioned. Many mounted batterys were cross trained as cavalry.
Regards,
Jeffrey Cohen
www.6thny.com

I would love to read more about this.

[Jeffrey Cohen]

Re: What were common smalls arms issued to "Mounted Batteries"?

Greetings:
Here is the link for the book from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/157233455X/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&qid=1321332807&sr=1-1&condition=new

Regards,
Jeffrey Cohen

https://www.6thny.com

[tjdull]

Re: What were common smalls arms issued to "Mounted Batteries"?

Well, not having much of a response, I hiked up to Columbus to the Ohio Historical Society and found a few nuggets of gold ...



The picture is a digital image of an inventory book of what was provided to the 6th Battery from Crawford County in 1863. You see they were issued 100 Percussion Smoothbores, our at least that is want I see. 50 to Co. A and 50 to Co. C ... 0.70 caliber.

I also found this ...



His name was Issac Roose ... he was with the 6th Battery ... looks like a infantryman with his sack coat and hardee hat

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: What were common smalls arms issued to "Mounted Batteries"?

I think that's actually "Prus." smooth bore. Were the companies that received these serving as infantry, or drilling as such pending receipt of cannon?

[CompanyWag]

Re: What were common smalls arms issued to "Mounted Batteries"?

An earlier thread regarding small arms use in the artillery:

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?21621-Would-Artillery-Be-Armed&highlight=side+arms+artillery

[Dan Kohli]

Re: What were common smalls arms issued to "Mounted Batteries"?

The two small arms returns I have seen from Battery A 4th U.S. Artillery just before Gettysburg and “Walling’s” battery, I forget when. They had fifteen pistols pared with fifteen sabers, and twenty pistols pared with twenty sabers respectively. I forgot the exact dates, but Battery A was supporting infantry and Walling’s Battery oddly enough was supporting a battalion of cavalry and a battalion of infantry. But generally light artillery during the war was defended by ether infantry or cavalry. The cannoneers were not armed only a small fraction of the battery will be armed, about two pistols and sabers per artillery piece probably the sergeant and a driver. If they were armed with long arms while still having the artillery pieces they would have musketoons and only a few soldiers would be issued them.

That being said I don’t want to open a can of worms like some of the previous threads.

Daniel kohli

[Dan Kohli]

About the picture of Issac Rose, sack coats and Hardee hats are not unique to the infantry, The hat and coat were used by everybody and their grandma. the main thing that is unusual as far as I am aware is that the light/ field artillery by regulation had the same uniform which meant that they were supposed to have shakos for dress hats and not the universal hardee hat. That being said, I wonder how Mr. Rose got his hands on one of the hats, possibly a substitute for the rarer shako? Did he get it off the battlefield? or some other way? The horse artillery and mounted artillery had the same uniform as each other. Of the three types of artillery,heavy artillery was the only one that had a uniform that completely resembled the infantry uniform. As far as musketoons are concerned, the artillery were expected to be familiar with the duties of cavalry and infantry including the use of small arms. The use of musketoons when acting as artillery was more of a prewar thing as when battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery had to turn in their modified 1842 muskets that got converted to musketoons. But the muskets were used when the battery was relatively unsupported by the other two combat arms before the war. When the war was being fought battery were usually defended by, and supported by the infantry or cavalry which meant that they did not need to carry muskets or carbines unless they were shoehorned into the cavalry or infantry roll which has been known to happen.

[Pennvolunteer]

It is furthermore sometimes supposed that batteries require arms for the use of their camp guards. Nothing is more fallacious. A drivers whip in the hand of sentimental at the picket line is far better in preserving order among the horses that a saber or revolver, & as to sentinels over the battery park, their functions, as mere watchmen are performed quite as well without as with arms. To the eye of the amateur soldier these suggestions may seem highly unmilitary; but it must be remembered that in time of war all that is not actually useful should be discarded.'

Colonel John C. Tidball, commandant of the Artillery School at Fort Monroe VA The Artillery Service in the War of the Rebellion 1861-1865.

And more Tidball; Pistols and Sabres | The Wildcat Battery: Company A, 2nd U.S. Artillery 1861 - 1865 (wordpress.com)

[RalphBaltimoron]

"Armed to the teeth"

Forgive me if this is not immediately useful, but in the course of researching my great great grandfather's horse artillery battery (B, 1st U.S.) I came across this analysis from the now-dormant "To the Sound of the Guns" blog. Most of the content is still accessible via the Wayback Machine. The author Craig Swain had been performing a meticulous analysis of every battery's equipment through the war. If you have in mind specific batteries at specific timeframes, you will probably find a post from Swain about it. It can be hard to sift through the Wayback Machine archives, but I'd happily help. Perhaps start here at this index of ordnance summary statements: https://web.archive.org/web/20170105...ery-summaries/

Just for fun, here is what he had to say about my ancestor's unit in the second quarter of 1863:

• Battery B: One-hundred Army revolvers, seven cavalry sabers, and 153(?) horse artillery sabers.