Military History Photo Friday: Medieval Handgonnes in Slovenia

When I started researching my book Medieval Handgonnes: The First Black Powder Infantry Weapons, I discovered the Balkans were early adopters of the earliest handheld firearm technology. Many of the photos for the book, for example, come from Croatia.

Just north of Croatia is Slovenia, the subject of my current travel series for Gadling. While in the National History Museum in the capital Ljubljana I came across two examples of early firearms.

This top one of from the early 15th century. It's of the earliest of the three main types I outlined in my book. It's only a little more than a foot long with a touch hole at one end. The hook at the bottom was for hooking over a wall or shield in order to steady it. The handgonne may have been fixed to a wooden shaft but I couldn't see any evidence for that.

This is from the late 15th century and as you can see it's a much more advanced model. Well, hopefully you can see. It's really hard to take good photos through glass! Anyway, it's about three feet long and has the familiar hook. It also has a pair of gunsights and a pan for the gunpowder that was originally fitted with a swiveling top in order to secure the loose powder.

Here's a closeup of the back end, showing the pan, maker's mark, and rear sight.

As you can see, there's no trigger on either of these pieces. Triggers of the matchlock type only came into use slowly near the end of the 15th century.

You might also want to check out a guest post I did about the accuracy of medieval handgonnes.

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: 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.

The three traits you need to win a gunfight

In my last post I reviewed Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier by Bat Masterson, who was a gunfighter himself. While I found the book flawed on a couple of levels, it did have some useful information about life (and death) in those days. One interesting passage is about how to survive a Western-style gunfight.

Masterson says every gunfighter needs three traits. The first is courage, which should be obvious. You should also have skill, which is also obvious. But both of these traits are useless without an all-important third trait--a cool head.

Masterson states, "I have known men in the West whose courage could not be questioned and whose expertness with the pistol was simply marvelous, who fell easy victims before men who added deliberation to the other two qualities."

He goes on to give a few examples. Here's one:

"Thirty-five years ago Charlie Harrison was one of the best-known sporting men west of the Missouri River. His home was in St. Louis but he traveled extensively throughout the West and was well-known through the Rocky Mountain region. He was of an impetuous temperament, quick of action, of unquestioned courage and the most expert man I ever saw with a pistol. He could shoot faster and straighter when shooting at a target than any man I ever knew; then add to that the fact that no man possessed more courage than he did, the natural conclusion would be that he would be a most formidable foe to encounter in a pistol duel.

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 Photo Friday: John Alphonso Beall, 14th Texas Cavalry

Now that the April A to Z Challenge is over (whew!) I'm getting back to my regular Civil War Photo Friday posts. This guy is Third Lieutenant John Alphonso Beall of Company D, 14th Texas Cavalry Regiment. His regiment was formed in the summer of 1861 and saw action in many different battles and campaigns. Like many regiments from west of the Mississippi, they were sent east for the duration. This genealogical website has some more information.

An interesting fact about this regiment was that they were dismounted a year into their service and fought as infantry for the rest of the war. This happened to many cavalry units because of a shortage of mounts, and tended to have a bad effect on morale. Guys like John signed up to serve as glamorous cavalry, not foot-slogging ground pounders! That disappointment didn't stop the 14th from fighting well and fighting until the end.

John is armed with a Spencer carbine, an early repeating rifle that some Northern soldiers had. John must have retrieved it from a dead Union soldier.

Judging from his photo, John seems like a nice guy, with an open face and a ready smile. It would have been sad to have to shoot him on the battlefield, but with him shooting at me, I doubt I would have have hesitated. I wonder how many of these of veterans of the blue and gray carried the faces of the enemy slain in their memories.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

D is for Derringer

Here's a cute little gun that's fun for all ages. It's called a Derringer, a small pistol used for personal protection. They were mostly one-shot models, although a double-barreled Derringer was also produced. Being so small they didn't have room for a magazine or cylinder.

These guns were so small they could be hidden in pockets or even ladies' stockings and were favored by gamblers, prostitutes, and other citizens who sometimes had need to protect themselves. A newsboy even fired one at Jesse James and his gang when they held up the Missouri Pacific Express in 1876. The newsboy objected to one of the gang members stealing his assortment of pies and tried to plug him. The gang took it in stride and laughed, "Listen to that son of a bitch bark!"

Below is the most infamous Derringer of all, the one that was used by John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

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?

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.

Anvil artillery

You learn the weirdest things writing for Osprey Publishing.

While researching my latest project, The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang—Jesse James and the Northfield Raid 1876, I came across an account of the citizens of Northfield celebrating after they fought off the James-Younger gang. The gang had tried to rob the bank and local shopkeepers grabbed their guns, killed two of the robbers on the spot, wounded the rest, and sent them galloping out of town.

To mark this special occasion, Northfielders set off some "anvil artillery". This consisted of putting a load of gunpowder under an anvil, lighting a fuse, running away, and watching the anvil fly into the sky.

I wonder if anyone used anvil artillery in the Civil War? It would have been more useful than the hollowed out log used at the Battle of Athens, Missouri

Kids, don't try this at home!



Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Shrunken heads and preserved human flesh: mixing travel and horror

I've realized that I've been overlooking the horror genre on this blog. My Civil War novel A Fine Likeness is technically historical horror, although it's also been called paranormal, action/adventure, even mystery. It being between genres is one of the reasons I decided to self-publish with Kindle Direct Publishing. Now that we're in the final days leading up to its release, I'll be mixing horror in with my history posts.

As most of you know, part of my writing career is travel writing. I've seen some things that wouldn't look out of place in a horror novel, and so of course I've written about them. For example, I did an article on Five Places to See Shrunken Heads. More recently I examined the Preserved Human Flesh at Amsterdam's Tattoo Museum. When I was conducted historical research in Rome earlier this year, I took time out to write a whole series titled Vacation with the Dead: Exploring Rome's Sinister Side.

So there you go, some horror along with the history! There will be more to come. If you're more into the days of black powder and pistoleros, check out the news about my latest book project over on my personal/writing blog.


Photo courtesy Joe Mabel.

Creative foraging in the Civil War

 As I mentioned in a previous post on weapons shortages during the Civil War, both sides had to deal with constant shortages of essential equipment. While the Confederates suffered more, Union troops were not immune, as this dispatch from the Official Records shows. It's from Major Frank J. White (Union) and dated 24 October 1861, but recounts events from two weeks before. It's addressed to acting Brig.-Gen. Whyman.

"On the 5th instant I received your orders to organize a scouting cavalry squadron for special service, and organized one by making the following details: Company L, First Missouri Cavalry, Captain Charles Fairbanks, 65 men; Company C, First Missouri Cavalry, Captain P. Kehoe, 65 men; the Irish Dragoons, independent, 51 men. We left Jefferson City on the 5th instant, and after a severe march reached Georgetown, our men in good condition, on the afternoon of the 8th. Our horses being all unshod, and consequently unfit for travel, we procured a few shoes and a quantity of old iron, called for blacksmiths from our ranks, took possession of two unoccupied blacksmiths' shops, and in five days shot our horses and mules, 232 in number.

"Our scanty supply of ammunition having been destroyed by the rain, and having two small bullet-molds in our possession, we procured lead and powder, and turning a carpenter's shop into a manufactory, made 3,000 cartridges for our revolving rifles."

Major White doesn't mention if these items were given up voluntarily, or why the villagers had so much powder in their possession. The soldiers' hard work, however, would soon be rewarded.

"On the 15th instant Colonel Hovey, commanding at Georgetown, received a dispatch from Lexington, stating that a valuable baggage train had left the vicinity of Lexington destined for Price's rebel army; also a private dispatch from Colonel White, stating that if he and his fellow-prisoners were not relieved within twenty-four hours they would be assassinated by the rebel marauders infesting Lexington. As Colonel Hovey's command was under marching orders, and therefore could not go to their relief, my command volunteered for the service, and Colonel Eads, of Georgetown, tendered me 70 men from his regiment. Accompanied by Colonel Eads, I started at 9 p. m. on the 15th instant, my whole force being 220 strong. By a severe forced march of nearly 60 miles we reached Lexington early the following morning, drove in the rebel pickets without loss, and took possession of the town. We made from 60 to 70 prisoners, 60 stand of arms, 25 horses, 2 steam ferry-boats, a quantity of flour and provisions, a large rebel flag, and other articles of less value. The rebels fled in every direction."

The next day the Union troops captured another steamer and left Lexington because the rebels were massing against them. With wry humor White added that, "As soon as the rebels were satisfied of our departure they attacked our deserted camp with great energy."

"We then proceeded to Warrensburg, making a few captures on our route. The evening of our arrival at Warrensburg we easily repulsed a slight attack, and by threatening to burn the town if again attacked, remained two days unmolested. We next proceeded to Warsaw, and are now on our route to Stockton. . .I have no casualties to report, and my men are all in good health, anxious for further service."

Threatened to burn the town if you got attacked? Nice. The war was getting ugly in Missouri.


Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons. It's actually a blacksmith's shop in Pinal, Arizona, in 1882, but I liked the picture.

Book review: A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor in All Countries and in All Times

A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor in All Countries and in All Times by George Cameron Stone

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A flawed but classic study.
My high school library had a copy of this book and I spent many hours poring over the descriptions of odd weapons and staring at the hundreds of photographs. When I grew up and started researching and writing military history, I consulted it again. What a disappointment! This book is filled with mistakes. Stone was an expert on Asian arms and armor but makes countless errors when he writes outside his area of expertise. He should have had a coauthor!

That said, you can still learn a lot about Asian militaria from this book, and the photos are a goldmine of information no matter what region you study. I suggest buying The Complete Encyclopaedia of Arms and Weapons, edited by Tarassuk and Blair, instead of Stone's work. If you have deep pockets, buy both.

NOTE: This review is of the original 1961 edition. I haven't seen the later facsimile edition. Another reviewer said the photos are poor quality in the facsimile. They weren't too good in the original, although they were clear enough. I suppose they may have lost some quality in the reprint.

View all my reviews

Civil War Photo Friday: The Fog of War

"The fog of war". . .we often hear that term to describe the chaos and confusion of the battlefield. Back in the days of black powder, however, it was quite literally a fog. Check out this Wikimedia Commons photos of some Confederate reenactors setting off a volley. Each one gets a little puff of gunsmoke in his face while a big cloud of it shoots out of the end of his rifle.

I use this fact in several scenes in my Civil War novel A Fine Likeness. Faces are an important element of the plot, and the fact that an enemy soldier literally becomes faceless when he shoots at you gets used for symbolic effect.

Strangely enough, this photo was taken in England. the caption says, "Civil War reenactment at American Museum, Bath The American Museum in Bath is dedicated to showing how our transatlantic cousins lived from the 1680s to the 1860s. Set in Claverton Manor, this gorgeous neo-classical house was bought by two Americans in 1961 to display their collection of American furniture and artefacts. Eighteen period rooms show the development of America, from the time of the earliest English settlers to the eve of the Civil War. Look out for re-enactments and special workshops. These include displays of Native American dancing and a re-enactment of a Civil War battle. The American Museum, Claverton Manor, Bath BA2 7BD."