Flintlocks in the American Civil War

This is a sketch of a flintlock musket, the height of weapons technology in the late 18th century. When the trigger was pulled, the lock snapped down, bringing a piece of flint against a plate of steel. This made sparks fly into a pan filled with gunpowder. A hole between the pan and the inside of the barrel set off a larger charge of powder that shot the bullet out the barrel.

By 1861, the flintlock was old tech. All modern armies used the percussion cap, an explosive cap struck by a hammer that replaced the unwieldy and often unreliable flint and pan. The problem was, many people hadn't caught up. Underfunded local militias, who hadn't heard a shot fired in anger in a generation, often still carried flintlocks. Many rural farmers also had flintlocks as family heirlooms. Modern guns were pricey and the flintlock was still good enough for hunting.

But not good enough for the modern battlefield. Armies on both sides scrambled to supply enough percussion lock rifles for their troops. The industrial North soon had this sorted out, and government contractors got rich selling modern weapons or refitting flintlocks into percussion locks.

The South, however, lagged behind. Many regiments required individuals to bring their own guns and were thus a motley collection of flintlocks, shotguns, and percussion rifles scrounged from dead Yankees.

An account of the 1861 Battle of Lexington, Missouri tells how one old farmer approached the Union fortification every morning with a flintlock and a lunch his wife had packed him. He'd sit behind a tree and take potshots at the Union troops all morning, take a break for lunch, then fire at them all afternoon before going home to his wife. He doesn't appear to have hit anyone!

Even more primitive weapons appeared on the battlefield. Check out my post on Medieval weapons in the Civil War.

Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Civil War Photo Friday: William T. Biedler, 16 years old

This young rebel is William T. Biedler, who had his picture taken at just sixteen years of age. He was in Company C of Mosby's Virginia Cavalry Regiment.

I suspect this was taken at the beginning of the war because he's armed with an antiquated flintlock musket. Both sides, especially the rebels, had chronic supply problems and some men had to go to battle with inferior weapons or no weapons at all. They picked up better weapons from the dead or captured as soon as possible and it's doubtful that Biedler would have carried his flintlock beyond the first year of the war.

Compare this with the photo of Jesse James as a Confederate bushwhacker at the same age. There's quite a difference!


Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Civil War Photo Friday: Civil War hand grenades

Here are two interesting shots of hand grenades from the Civil War. They already have captions so I won't say much. One thing to point out, though, is that grenades were nothing new in the 1860s. I've already blogged about medieval hand grenades, and they became popular in the 17th century when "grenadiers" used them.

They eventually fell out of favor because their slow-match fuses were unreliable in wet weather, could be pulled out by quick-thinking opponents, and could be dangerous to the thrower. Grenades saw a revival in the Civil War because the percussion cap made for a more reliable way to ignite the charge. As you can see, both of these examples had to hit head on or they wouldn't go off. This proved a problem and many soldiers didn't like hand grenades, thinking them unreliable.

Civil War Photo Friday: Confederate Cavalryman or Bushwhacker?

I came across this curious photo in the Library of Congress online archive. The caption says this guy is an "unidentified cavalry soldier in Confederate uniform with slant breech Sharps carbine, two knives, and two revolvers."

This is not, however, a regulation uniform. The shirt looks about right except for the decoration on the front and breast pocket. The hat is also nonregulation. In addition, few Confederate cavalry were armed with the Sharps carbine, with only about 5,000 being produced in the South.

So is this really a Confederate cavalryman? As I've mentioned frequently on this blog, rebel uniforms often varied quite a bit because of shortages and the men supplying their own clothes. So this odd-looking fellow could indeed be a cavalryman.

There's another possibility. He may be a bushwhacker. These guerrilla warriors often went heavily armed with multiple weapons. They also liked wearing decorated "guerrilla shirts", a subject I'll delve into further in a post next week.

Whoever he is, I'm glad I didn't have to face him in battle!

The LeMat Combination Revolver/Shotgun

Here's a strange gun that saw a fair amount of use in the Confederate army.

Called the LeMat pistol, it was patented in 1856 by Jean Alexandre LeMat of New Orleans. It featured a nine-shot cylinder, rifled barrel, and a smoothbore shotgun underneath. This was fired by a pivoting striker on the hammer that could be rotated so that it struck a percussion cap on the lower barrel, thus firing the buckshot.

The advantages of this pistol over regular six-shooters is obvious. Reloading black powder weapons is a slow business and not at all fun in the middle of a battle. Many bushwhackers compensated by carrying more than one pistol, or extra loaded cylinders that could be snapped into place. Extra guns or cylinders weren't always available, however, especially to regular army units, so having more shots in the same gun came in handy.

One disadvantage of the gun was that revolver part originally fired .35, .40, or .42 bullets, all nonstandard sizes. Quartermasters had to stock special bullets or the troops were forced to cast their own. Later versions were made to fire .36 or .44 caliber bullets, the standard for both Union and Confederate armies.

New Orleans was captured early in the war and LeMat fled to France, where he had his special guns produced by French, Belgian, and English manufacturers. About 3,000 slipped through the Union blockade to make it into the hands of rebel troops.

I have found no record of these weapons seeing service west of the Mississippi so they won't be featuring in my next Missouri Civil War novel. I do have plans to write some Westerns some day and I probably won't be able to resist the urge to outfit at least one character with a LeMat!

Here's a look at the business end of this fearsome weapon. I took both photos at the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford. For more on this interesting gun check out this website by some Florida Reenactors.

Civil War Video Friday: Loading and firing a Springfield rifled musket

Here's a video showing how to load and fire the 1861 Springfield rifled musket. This was the standard issue weapon for Union infantry. A large number of Confederate troops also used the Springfield. It was a single-shot muzzleloader.

For dramatic effect he pulls off several shots at the end instead of just one. In reality he'd have to reload for every shot but they edited that out.

One realistic aspect of this is the fellow playing the Union soldier. So many reenactors are paunchy middle-aged guys, when in fact most Civil War soldiers were skinny kids like this guy. He looks a bit too clean, though. Maybe he just bathed in the creek.

You also might be interested in a video on how to load and shoot a Colt Navy revolver.

Civil War Photo Friday: Union soldier of the VII Corps (Department of Arkansas)

This is an unidentified soldier from the Union VII Corps of the Department of Arkansas. The Corps was formed in January of 1864 and got most of its fighting during the Camden Campaign under General Steele.

The soldier carries a "Volcanic pistol" from the fearsomely named Volcanic Repeating Arms Company. This was a lever-action repeating pistol that saw some use during the war although it wasn't as popular as the Colt revolver.

Was this Union soldier from Arkansas, or just assigned there? Although Arkansas was a Confederate state, several Union regiments were raised there. In fact, every Confederate state contributed regiments to the Union army. Support for secession was by no means universal in the South. Desertion was rife and Unionist guerrilla bands operated in many areas. On the other hand, there were Southern sympathizers in northern states, although their activities were limited.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Hazards of the Civil War battlefield (besides the enemy)

In a recent post I pondered the origin of the many so-called "slight" wounds of the Civil War. How could so many soldiers only receive reportedly minor wounds when a direct hit by a musket ball or rifle bullet so often meant death or dismemberment?

My main theory was that the widespread use of buck and ball--a musket ball and three shotgun pellets--meant soldiers were being hit more often by pellets than actual bullets. Some researchers over at the Missouri in the Civil War Message Board pointed out that buck and ball was only used in smoothbores, and these fell out of favor later in the war.

After a holiday lull, the thread has picked up again. Now one very well-read individual has examined ordnance reports listing buck and ball rounds well into 1864 and said many units in fact preferred smoothbores because they had a greater chance to hit. Also, rifles have an arced trajectory and require a great deal of target practice most units on both sides never got. Smoothbores fired at a higher muzzle velocity than contemporary rifles and this gave them a flatter trajectory, further increasing their accuracy over rifles. We'll take up the subject of smoothbore vs. musket again once I've done some more research.

Of course, getting "slightly wounded" doesn't have to come from enemy action. General Lyon got kicked in the stomach by a horse when he was breaking up the rebel Missouri State Guard camp outside St. Louis in 1861. A reenactor in Missouri recently got his groin stepped on by his horse. Not sure how he managed that. Horses aren't always the gentle beasts we like to think they are, especially when shells are bursting nearby and they're getting hit by bullets.

Also, when large groups of men are charging over rough ground, it's quite easy for one or more of them to sprain an ankle and be put hors de combat for some time. I used to be on the cross country team and I remember this risk all too well. When you have an enemy formation shooting volleys at you, chances are you aren't looking where you're stepping! Add to this powder burns in the face or eyes, accidentally jabbing someone or yourself with your bayonet, cavalrymen getting hit by low branches, and any number of other embarrassing pratfalls, and one wonders why the number of "slightly wounded" wasn't higher

Of course, these are rarely reflected in the historical record. What commander wants to put in his official report, "I charged the enemy up a steep slope under heavy fire. We lost three men dead and five seriously wounded by enemy action. Ten more were slightly wounded: three sprained their ankles on the uneven slope, one was knocked out when a panicked horse ran him over, three suffered painful power burns to the face, two of my cavalrymen were thrown by their horses and injured their backs, and one man put out his shoulder due to the recoil of his weapon."


Not very glamorous. War rarely is.


Charge of Weaver's brigade across the Salkehatchie, South Carolina, courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Can you imagine several thousand guys running across this swamp and nobody spraining an ankle?

How to load and shoot a Colt 1851 Navy Revolver

I've talked a lot on this blog about the Missouri bushwhackers and their use of the Colt Navy revolver. They often carried several of these and would close with the enemy as quickly as possible, absorbing the one volley of the Union troops single-shot rifles and then opening up a murderous fire at close range. This tactic worked time and again. In my Civil War novel, Union militia captain Richard Addison begs his general for pistols to fight back against the bushwhackers. When they aren't forthcoming, he decides to raise the money in other ways. . .

The revolvers weren't perfect, however. They were extremely slow to reload, as this annotated video shows. This is why the guerrillas carried more than one, and often had preloaded cylinders in the deep pockets of their guerrilla shirt. Also note how much smoke these things create. I've talked about the fog of war before. Now imagine fifty bushwhackers blazing away as quickly as they could. Things would get pretty hazy.

Getting "slightly" wounded in the Civil War

"Buck" from a "buck and ball", Wikipedia

I’ve been thinking about the term “slightly wounded” that's so often seen in battle reports. I doubt if the large lead balls of the era were capable of giving a light wound unless they barely grazed a man. From what I’ve heard, a body or head shot was always grievous and often fatal, and a shot to the limb often shattered the bone and led to the loss of that limb. So how did these "slight" wounds come about?

If my personal library can't help me, my first stop with Civil War questions is the Missouri in the Civil War Message Board. I asked if these wounds could come from the common use of “buck and ball”, in which three (or sometimes more) pellets of buckshot were wrapped in the cartridge paper along with the ball.

Consider for a moment that your position takes a volley from a hundred of the enemy. One hundred bullets are now singing through the air at you. Not a pleasant thought. Also there are 300 buckshot pellets coming at you, so you are three times as likely to get hit by a bit of buckshot as you are by a ball.

Assuming you only get hit by one pellet, you'll probably only be wounded, and probably only “slightly” wounded. Now add to this that many soldiers, especially Confederates and some Union militia, only had shotguns or squirrel rifles and were firing at an unsuitably long range for those weapons, and you can see why there were so many “slight” wounds.

You can even be slightly wounded by a cannonball. I read of one incident of a shell bursting right next to a soldier. The force threw him into the air and his trajectory was stopped by the trunk of a nearby tree. He was knocked out cold, but when he came to he was unscathed except for some nasty bruises.

Someone pointed out that buck and ball was only used in smoothbores, not the Enfield or Springfield rifled muskets with their deadly Minié balls. Smoothbores were only used early in the war. That had slipped my mind. I’m sure some smoothbores still saw action in later years with the Union militia and Confederate forces. Even as late as Price’s invasion in 1864 there were many unarmed rebels in the ranks. I would think they’d grab anything available. But in essence the poster was right. The answer must lie elsewhere.

Civil War author Bruce Nichols replied, "I read in Connelley's 1910 Quantrill and the Border Wars, pages 318-9 and in Castel's 1962 William Clarke Quantrill: His Life and Times, page 113 that the west-central Missouri guerrillas developed the wartime practice of reducing the amount of gunpowder in their revolver loads both to save precious powder and to reduce pistol recoil to improve accuracy, especially from horseback. I think this was especially helpful with repeated or continued shots. Guerrillas from this region were influential in passing along such techniques and tactics to other Missouri guerrillas they encountered, so this practice may have spread."

I'm thinking this may have been common practice with regulars in the Confederate army too, since they were often short of powder.

Another researcher pointed out that slight wounds may have been caused by "spray" from whatever those bullets hit. If soldiers were hiding behind rocks or fences, and bullets hit those barriers, all sorts of stuff would be flying around. There might also be "shavings", bits of the bullets sheared off while coming out of the barrel, creating an unintended "buck" along with the "ball".

Ask a question on this forum, and you always get a wealth of answers! I'm thinking that all of these explanations contributed to the high number of slight wounds in the Civil War. Not that these wounds always stayed slight. One poster mentioned his great-great uncle received a "slight" wound in the side at Hartville in January 1864. He was listed as dead the next month.

Lancers in the American Civil War

I recently did a guest post over at Genre Author about Medieval Weapons in the American Civil War. Space limitations didn't allow me to include all examples of "primitive" weapons used in the war, so here are some more.

Some Texas cavalry units had lances. These weren't the huge lances of the medieval jousting era, rather the slim lances used in the Napoleonic era. The Texans' lance blades were 3 inches wide and 12 long, mounted on a 9 foot shaft. Each sported a red guidon with a white star to "drink the blood" of the Yankees.

At the Battle of Valverde, New Mexico Territory,  on 21 February 1862, Texas lancers under Capt. W.L. Lang, Fifth Texas Regiment, formed three columns and charged the Union left flank. Facing them were the Second Colorado Volunteer Infantry. The infantry waited until the horsemen were only 20 yards away and then gave them a volley. At that range it was hard to miss. At least 20 fell and the Coloradans quickly reloaded and gave them some more of the same.

Some Texans managed to close with the infantry. The Colorado troops didn't break, instead fighting back effectively with their bayonets. At this point the Texans should have been able to destroy the infantry. They had longer reach, after all. That a lancer should be beaten by a bayonet hints that the Texans hadn't trained with their weapons much. A fellow history buff over at the RenWars Yahoo group told me the Texans, disgusted at their performance in battle, ended up using their lances as firewood!

Another RenWars user pointed out an interesting article on pikes used by soldiers in Georgia. None actually saw combat, which was probably a good thing as far as the Georgians were concerned.

I couldn't find a public domain image of the Texan lancers. There's a good modern painting of them here.