Flintlocks at ITV

[North_State_Rambler]

Will flintlocks be allowed at this event? If so, will there be limitations put on their use? My Knox volley gun hasn't seen the light of day for a long time.

[PogueMahone]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV

The 57th was issued new muskets just days prior to the Kentucky Campaign. Prior to that, they were without arms.

So, no, no flintlocks.

[North_State_Rambler]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV

I was thinking more for civilians, bushwackers, wagoners...you know, the exciting non-military impressions with which this event abounds.

[PogueMahone]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV

Can't speak to the others, but the reason for the infantry is to guard the wagons, so the need for the wagoners is low. The civilians would likely be encouraged to be unarmed because I'm not happy about armed civilians in my midst in Unionist territory.

But check with the Boss Lady.

[North_State_Rambler]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV

Is there no clause in the Confederate Constitution guaranteeing citizens the right to bear arms?

[Spinster]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV

Young William

YOU are in the army. What your Boss Man says goes for you. If you are fightin fer yer rats I imagine you will find they are rather limited.

How low class-low life civilian contract wagoners are armed is none of your concern. Nor is their traffic with the local populace.

Flatlander, and up from Savannah no less. Probly nevah saw a hill higher than his haid afore.

[North_State_Rambler]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV

For those who can't read between the lines:

If you are CS Infantry, no flintlocks.

Everyone else should bring as many as they can. Pretend Uncle Sam is paying for all that ammo. Not like hill-folk would have access to the latest and greatest tech, nor the supply of expensive shiny copper bits to make them go boom. Shazam.


Thank you for this ecumenical experience.

[flattop32355]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV

I'd wager the Union loyalist bushwackers would have mostly squirrel guns and shotguns. Them what were run off and jined the army in Kentucky were better armed, but mostly stuck at Cumberland Gap with Morgan's division, getting ready to make the long trek through the mountains of Eastern KY to Greenupsburg (Greenup) on the Ohio River after getting cut off by Kirby Smith.

Our little band of sojers had just received its allotment of captured Federal arms in Knoxville.

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV



Yep, a bushwhacker would use a flintlock more than a year into the war for the same reason Afghans still prefer Lee-Enfields.

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/YN-DS5X0qZUdrYdWenis0rKJZlXzgRul2QDWdYBh1jinzIJ_AbNqb7MrnxILc0TgM5r4EDw2CujAoepukFpO_VOWEqbkODIUag/Stuff%20to%20Read/The%20Patriots%20and%20Guerillas%20of%20East%20Tennessee%20and%20Kentucky.pdf

A very interesting document has been posted on the event site, which discusses some of the guerilla operations in the region. It mentions weapons at several points, describing for example Tinker Dave Beatty's band as supplying itself from the enemy (Confederates). James Ferguson is described as using a breech-loader. His brother Edward uses revolvers. One citizen is described using a "musket", which might perhaps be an obsolete flintlock, but she was a woman named Zachary and did not take an active part in the fighting.

It never hurts to do some research before bothering the event organizers with such a question, particularly when they have provided the means for doing such.

[PogueMahone]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV

If you read the Champ Ferguson book, guerillas on both sides were in the habit of taking the arms of their victims, er, opponents when victorious. I would think that would apply to military weapons taken from military opponents as well. As long as they have won the field and there was no pursuit, they would have time to rob the dead.

We shouldn't assume that just because these people lived in the mountains of East Tennessee/southwest Virginia that they were backwards, uneducated or technologically disadvantaged. They weren't planter class socially, but they weren't idjits either.

[Old Reb]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV

In The Civil War in the Smokies there is a great method described how a woman protected her food supply from bushwhackers. She urinated on it. The bushwhackers left in disgust and she retrieved the food supply and washed it off. Another resourceful woman, when raided, dropped her ham in the slop jar. The raiders left without the ham and she retrieved it and washed it off for family consumption.

[PogueMahone]

Re: Flintlocks at ITV

Note to self:

Don't let the civilian women handle rations. Check!