Some useful research

[johan_steele]

I blew my back out last week and have been laid up taking vacation time instead of workmans comp, today I was allowed a rare treat when a friend rolled me into his van and we spent the day in the MN Historical society.... I continued my quest for info on arm carried by the 3rd & 4th MN VI and felt I had to share my discoveries w/ some who might appreciate them.

Ironically the most complete records of Minesota Infantry Regiments are those of the 1st & 7th MN VI.

A price listing of items purchased by the 7th Regiment MN VI was quite intriguing to me. I was suprised to see leather canteen straps still being issued and had a devil of a time figuring out what an "axe helve" was. hehe do you all?

12 Nov 1863

Knapsack & Straps $1.85
Haversack unpainted $.33
Painted $.49

Axe $.98
Axe helve $.13

Canteen complete $.41
strap leather $.15

Shelter tent $3.78 (I'm assuming both halves)

As a Living Historian it is intereting to see how the prices have changed, even more fun to put them through an inflation calculator...

The 3rd MN VI was most certainly a full on garrison unit (being one of the largest Vetranized Infantry units west of the Appalachians fielding better than 800 men) reporting 28 wall tents and 262 common tents in the garrison equipage while at the same time the 5th MN VI reported just two wall tents for their hospital and no common tents!

Finally my only sucess on more on the arms issued to the 4th MN VI was an ordnance return fom April 62 showing 198 M1841/44/45 rifles & 80 M1817 rifles percussion conversion spread between three companies. 5 other Companies were whlly armed w/ M1816/22 Conversion Muskets and one company carrying "Bright Belgian" muskets. I found photographic evidence of men from B & E companies changing out M1816/22 Percusion conversion for M1841/45 w/ a hint that D company may have traded their M1817 rifles for M1841's and another company may have traded their "Bright Belgians" for M1841/45's... this brings the total M1841's to about 600 w/ the balance still being M1816/22 conversions. In 1863 the 4th MN may have been one of the Regts authorized by Genl Grant to trade in their old smoothbores for Captured P53's and a document sans date shows the 4th aquiring "180 stands Captured arms" I can assume these would be Enfields captured at Vicksburg.

Now as a bit of backgroud to those who don't know an M1861 from a hole in the wall. The M1861 & P53 Enfield were considered the epitome of military small arms in 1861. THe 4th MN VI had gained a reputation as a hard marching & hard fighting unit by the time of the Vicksburg Campaign and might well be considered a representative unit of the AoT US. In April of 62 they were still carrying a majority of arms made in 1816 & 1817 converted from Flintlock to Percussion along w/ one company carrying despised Belgian "pumpkin throwers." That means the Regiment had only two companies carrying anything newer than 20 years old in short only 2 out of 10 men were firing anything w/ a range past 100 yards. And by the time of Vicksburg only 5 of 10 were when the garrison of Vicksburg was almost completely armed w/ first rate arms w/ ranges in excess of 400 yards.

The M1841/44/45 was essentially the famed Mississippi bayonet rebored to .58 cal w/ a better rear sight and bayonet added. It was a first rate arm w/ a very high reknown; however it's only advantage over an M1861 was that it was considerably shorter... yet it was no lighter due to a thicker barrel.

By the fall of 1863 the Union had pretty much eliminated their small arms deficiencies and there were ample P53 Enfileds (near to 80,000 courtesy of the CS) and M1861's available in the ranks. Most older arms were returned to various arsenals and later reissued to the USCT. Most conventional wisdom states that upon vetranizing (fall of 63 to summer 64) most men were issued new M1861 or M1863 Springfields.

But a real kicker and quite a bit of confusion for me was finding a tintype showing Sgt John E Risedorph w/ an M1841 and a riflemans belt supposedly dated 1865 taken in Washington DC after the Grand Review! All of my reasoning says this has to be an incorrect date on the tintype.... until I found a muster out document showing a soldier from D Co purchasing an M1845 w/ saber bayonet upon his muster out! Could the 4th MN, or some of the men have managed to hold onto their M1841's?

One of those annoying detail mysteries that I've been working on for quite a while.

[ole]

The "helve" I believe, is the handle.
Ole

[larry_cockerham]

Ole, you've been taken to the woodshed too many times!

[ole]

Once beaten, twice shy.
Ole

[scone]

Shane my friend enjoy the time away from the grindstone and dont be in a rush to get to doing things. Not through my own personal experiance but knowing others that been there .. back troubles take for ever to properly heal..

Great info btw..

[unionblue]

Shane,

Our Rebel friend, scone, is right. Don't rush back to work, not with a back injury (of any kind!).

I envy your chance to do research on a subject you love. Enjoy it to the fullest.

Ole, experience can be a harsh teacher. Mine was a willow tree and being sent out to pick my own branch for my beating.

And I haven't heard an expression (any expression) with 'twice shy' in it in a lot of years. Thanks for that bringing back that memory.

Larry, woodshed? Just how old are you anyway? And did they even have woodsheds back when dinosours roamed the earth?

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[larry_cockerham]

Originally Posted by unionblue

Shane,


Larry, woodshed? Just how old are you anyway? And did they even have woodsheds back when dinosours roamed the earth?

Sincerely,
Unionblue

I'm thirty-nine of course. Have been for several years.

[johan_steele]

Guys, hoping to be back (no pun intended) to work on Tuesday. I am walking (again no pun intended) because of the powers of a competant chiropractor. You have no idea how scary it is to be told by a doctor to get ready for a wheel chair which happened about 5 years ago. My Chiro had me up & moving almost 100% w/in 6 weeks.

Now to the intriguing stuff. Over the years I have spent time in numerous County Historical Societies & the State Historical Societies of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin & SC. f them all the Minnesota was certainly staffed w/ the most helpful people but the Wisconsin... wow.

For any who have not taken a trip to their perspective State Historical society I encourage the trip as the experiance is not to be overlooked.

I watched my Captain's eyes as he handled the original muster roll of the 3rd MN VI and found the muster in paperwork of the man he portrays. Read the request for assistance for a man who had not been paid for more than a year due to the bad luck of being on detached duty and then in hospital recovering from a wound when the paymasters arrived. I saw the batch of daily reports that had the ink stains from where a new pvt knocked over a bottle of ink onto the Adjutants only paper supply (I could almost hear the curses!). I held a blood stained muster roll of the 4th MN taken the day of Allatoona. I saw the everyday paperwork of an Army at War and it reminded me that even at the most chaotic and terrifying times; there was the mundane to be done. Holding pieces of paper or ledgers written or signed by men we portray is a moving esxperiance, I swear you can almost hear the men talking.

[larry_cockerham]

Many times I've been walking through the stacks in our local library and have reached over and picked up a book that caught my eye for no particular reason and discovered information about relatives. Yes, there are folks watching us from afar ........

[Miss Markie]

I would have to agree that there is nothing like holding the actual paper or artifact in your hand to give you that chills running up your spine feeling.
I was a grad student at Western Michigan University, majoring in Public History, which basically is working with all primary sourced original documents. I did some work at the repository (the federal government has repositories all over the US as they could not possibly archive everything in DC. Usually these repository/archives are at universities) and often times I would be taking out and cataloging items that had not been touched in 150+ years. One set of documents was old court records. One of these was about a robbery, and when I opened it up, an ancient coin purse (evidence!) fell out!
I did enough work to get some 'archivist lung' as we called that dust induced cough.

Anyway, great stuff, and I am glad you got a chance, johan, to do that work (although terribly sorry about the back, and second all the advice here about not rushing it). If you are in Madison again, I hope you have time to go out to the cemetery there near Camp Randall. Maybe you have, but here is some information for our non- midwestern members. This cemetery contains the northernmost Confederate burial place in the US. It is actually a part of Forest Hill cemetery, called Confederate's Rest and here is a link to it:
http://www.geocities.com/ad4os/WI_DI...federate_Rest/ These were some Alabama and Tennessee boys who were captured at Island 10, and then taken to Wisconsin to become prisoners. Most of the poor souls died in our inhospitable climate. A local woman, Alice Waterman, took care of the graves of 'her boys' and is also buried there.

Just another one of the places I have cajoled my understanding husband to take me ( I love cemeteries, odd habit I know).