Corduroy the roads with Confederate muskets?

[samgrant]

I've been re-reading An Army at Dawn, Rick Atkinson's account of the birth and maturing of the US WWII army in North Africa, in anticipation of reading Vol. 2 which covers Sicily and Italy. Every now and then he throws in a US Civil War reference.

Here's one I was not familiar with: Describing the fall of the harbor town of Bizerte, he writes "Booty included 30,000 small arms - almost enough to corduroy the roads, as Sheridan had done with confederate muskets near Appomattox."

Well I searched the web for another reference to something like this, in hope of a good trivia question, but in vain. Then I checked the sources in the back of the book and one of them was Shelby Foote's Civil War: a Narrative Vol. 3, and another was Bruce Catton's A Stillness at Appomattox. (Both authors being narrative writers and not "historians" per se, neither give sources.)

But here is what I found in Foote (pg. 874): at Five Forks, speaking of Sheridan, "... so many greyback prisoners that he used their discarded rifles to corduroy the worst stretches of the road." And in Catton (pg. 357): also at Five Forks, "Thousands of prisoners were on their way back to the provost marshall's stockades, and there were so many captured muskets that Sheridan's pioneers were using armloads of them to corduroy the roads."

I'll check again for more CW sources in the Atkinson book, but I'd like to know if any of you have ever come across other references to this event.

[johan_steele]

IIRC Sheridan got an earful as the arms were fine Enfield Rifle Muskets that the QM could have reissued... though by that time there were no shortage of arms in the US Arsenal.

[ole]

If Shane has read it, I'll take it as true, although it is not present in my memory bank. (Not surprising; many areas are cob-webbed.)

ole

[larry_cockerham]

Someone should have called Forrest on the cellphone. He would have gladly relieved them of the extra burden.

[cw1865]

I only remember having seen it once with reference to NJ's plank roads and honestly just thought it was an old archaic expression. But I jammed in the word to get a definition and by definition the reference describes this type of road.



cor·du·royplay_w("C0640600") (kôrd-roi)

n. 1. A durable cut-pile fabric, usually made of cotton, with vertical ribs.

2. corduroys Trousers made of corduroy.

3. A road made of logs laid down crosswise.



adj. 1. Made of a fabric with vertical ribs.

2. Made of logs laid down crosswise: a corduroy road.



tr.v. cor·du·royed, cor·du·roy·ing, cor·du·roys To build (a road) of logs laid down crosswise.

[johan_steele]

Oddly for the life of me I can't recall where. For some reason I was tempted to say Sherman's memoirs but know it can't be right.

Might have been one of those many posts about odd occurances... or I could just be getting senile.

Hey you, whippersnapper! Hand me that bottle of scotch. Umm honey put down the skillet I was only kidd...........

Ouch.

[Dred]

just an oddity i thought was cool. During the union retreat form Front Royal the roads were corduroyed over and the road was called plank road.. still is today can't remember if it was Rte 11 or 522, but either way there are still bodies buried there from the union wounded who dropped dead on the retreat. I love hsitory!!!

[larry_cockerham]

Any of you northern boys ever heard of PUNCHEON? Apparently in Tennessee that referred to split logs being pushed into the soil to create a floor or otherwise "smooth surface". Not to be confused with plank roads. Just curious. Puncheon Road and Puncheon church played a role in the retreat of the AOT through Giles County, TN in 1864.

[ole]

Which came first, the cloth or the road?

The "pioneers" did miraculous things with their axes. Sometimes the only way to get wagons and artillery over a boggy patch was to lay down stringers (the long way) and then cross those with smaller logs. Would have been rough, but better than axle-deep mud.

Joe Johnston paid Sherman one of the highest compliments ever when he remarked on Sherman's transit of the Carolina swamps. Sherman had been making 10 miles per day WHILE corduroying roads for his wheeled vehicles.

Ever watch one of those lumberjack competitions? Today's competitors would certainly have been matched by Sherman's poineers. Cut it down, cut it to length. Thousands of times. It boggles.

ole

[Dred]

Arms and Equipment of the Civil War by Jack Coggins makes a passive reference to the courdoroyed roads with muskets, on page 7 of his preface. Other than that I am looking through To Appomatox by Burke Davis to see if he mentions anything.

Fateful Lightning: A Narrative History of the Civil War by William Hiillenbrand also makes reference to Sheridan corduroying the roads with muskets form Pickets smashed division after Five Forks.