No spontoons or halberds in the Civl War.

major bill

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Aug 25, 2012
Although a few pikes and lances were used during the Civil War, both the Union and the Confederacy mostly avoided the use of other pole arms. For a very long time foot officers had been designated by carrying a spontoon (a.k.a. half pike) while foot sergeants carried halberds. Bellow is a spontoon.
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Originally a Halberd was a useful weapon for sergeants not only to defend themselves but was also used to dress ranks, hack apart or pull apart defensive works, as a measuring rod to layout encampments and even pull bodies into graves. By end of the 17th century halberds were no long sharpened and were merely a symbol of office. Officers used the spontoon to defend themselves and dress troops but was used to indicate directions and pass orders. The last use of the spontoon in a useful manner was during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Never very popular in the United States both the spontoon and halberd had fallen out of service by armies before the start of the Civil War and U.S and Confederate officers and sergeants were not burdened with these relics. Bellow is a halberd.
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They survive today only in ceremonial units such as the Vatican’s Swiss Guard and the Spanish Halberd Guards. The U.S. Army has the Drum Major of the U.S. Army’s Fife and Drum Corps carry a spontoon. Bellow is a Swiss Guard.
swiss gd.jpg
 
Yeah, just outdated weaponry by 1861. To make use of these one would have had to be within three or four feet of the enemy and that just wasn't all that likely to occur before the enemy shot you. And if you were thusly armed you wouldn't have had a musket/rifle so would have been useless until face-to-face with the enemy. Thus, is wouldn't have made much sense to arm anybody with those instead of a musket.

It was just another phase of putting distance between the combatants (could they have imagined drones ?).
 
Union officers were to be armed with swords and could purchase pistols if the desired. A spontoon would be every bit as good as a sword. But other than this I would agree with you that the weapon was obsolete. A reasonable amount of pikes were made and limited numbers used during the Civil War.
 
AFAIK, pikes were still aboard during the years of sail up to the 20th century. The British retained the 1803 spontoons up until the 1850s and in two lengths. The late military nco halberd bears little resemblance
to the fantasy example first shown in this thread.
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Although dated, Neumann's Swords and Blades of the American Revolution is an inexpensive book with a very good polearms section.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1880655004/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

As they had been primarily nco items in the infantry, there were few amongst the militia groups of all states and territories as an item that was expected to show up for muster. Naval pikes a separate issue.

Cheers

GC
 
Yes, Naval pikes or boarding pikes were still found during the Civil War but not often used during the war. Lances were used during the war. The Confederacy had some foot pikes, but they were not used in combat as far as I know. A Confederate pike.

pikw p.jpg
 
Well we have the 1st U.S. Lancers who received lances but we not accepted by the U.S. Army and were disbanded. Also the Confederacy had units armed with lances, see Battle of Valverde.
 
Though no halberds or spontoons were formally issued to troops during the Civil War I will bet dollars to donuts that somewhere, someone dragged out one of these from an arms collection, blacksmith shop or museum and took it with him to some skirmish somewhere where it was used to seriously threaten somebody. In that war, given its extent, I'll bet someone once used a wheelock or matchlock musket , a crossbow or longbow, Roman short sword, South African assegai, Seleucid ballista, Irish shelailah, Balearic sling or big rocks (Like Jackson's man at Second Manassas). Heck, I think I even saw on the Net an advertisement for a Civil War Era Assyrian chariot used at Philippi, or was it Corinth?
 
I suppose if I had said Rush's Lancers were the only Lance Regiment in the Civil War I would have been more correct! As shown by major bill the 5th Texas Cavalry had one company armed exclusively with lances, Company B. The rest of the companies of the 5th Texas Cavalry were apparently designated as either Mounted Rifles or Dismounted Cavalry.

Over and out.....off to the Mansfield Civil War Show!
J.
 
I was always fairly certain this home guard of teenagers frighten the Confederate Army so much they never dared to attack Michigan. Well maybe not. I do wonder if a Confederate regiment could have brought themselves to shoot these poor teenagers if the ever encountered them. Capture them and send them home as released prisoners?

The Home Guard (St. Joseph, St. Joseph County Michigan) was formed in 1861 by young men in the town of St. Joseph. Captain Ed Aiken as elected as the commander. They selected red, white and blue uniforms which would display their patriotism: red shirts, white pants and blue caps. For arms they carried lances tipped with small American flags. One report said their uniforms were neat and tasty. The patriotism of the young men soon waned and this company did not survive for very long.



St. Joseph Traveler, July 3 1861, p. 3, col. 1.
 
The First United States Lancers a.k.a. Rankin’s Lancersa.k.a. Michigan Lancers (the headquarters was in Detroit but the companies formed in several cities) was formed under Colonel Rankin who was a colonel in the 9th Division of the Canadian Militia and who also a member of Canada’ Parliament. He was soon forced to resign and the regiment was ordered to disband.

“We have seen the undress uniform of the Lancers. It consists of dark blue pants with an inch and a half gold stripe on either side; a green, tight fitting jacket with three rows of ornamental buttons running from either shoulder and the chin to a point at the waist; the cap is blue, and is surrounded with an inch and a half gold band. The full dress has not been decided upon. The uniform above described will be far the most showy of any yet.”http://civilwartalk.com/#_edn1

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An article on the Detroit Daily Advertiser on January 13 1962 indicates the lancers are now receiving uniforms, but does not give the color or style. It is possible that the green uniforms described above were the uniforms Coronal Rankin was planning to order from New York, but he subsequently changed his mind, and instead ordered the regiment’s uniforms from Samuel Sykes an Company of Detroit. Sykes was to provide two hundred and fifty suits to the 1st Lancers by mid December of 1861. 100 of these uniforms were delivered on December 24.

A drawing in an article in Harpers Weekly shows them in single-breasted roundabout jackets and trousers with light stripes. The Harpers Weekly drawing shows them in their pillbox caps which had arrived on November 7 1861.[ii] The uniforms in the Harpers Weekly do not appear to match the green undress jacket described in the Detroit Daily Advertiser.

The Detroit Free Press of March 22 1862 printed a letter from a recently discharged lancer, which details what he had been issued. He had received an overcoat, 1 jacket, 1 pair of shoddy pants, 1 cloth cap, one blanket, 1 pair of boots, 2 cotton shirts, 2 pairs of cotton drawers, and 2 pairs of socks.

The Detroit Daily Advertiser indicates they were to be armed like the 16th Regiment of British Lancers however; originally, they were issued 7 state owned smooth-bore muskets and 12 state owned musketoons. They eventually were armed with lances, carbines, dragoon revolvers and sabers.

Samuel Shaw made both the lances and swords. In other source, Samuel Shaw is referred to as W. H Shaw. The lances provided by Shaw were nine feet, seven inches long with eleven inches of that being a double bladed lance head, which was one and a half inches wide at the widest point. The pennons were red and white. When the First United States Lancers were disbanded, the state collected the lances and stored then for further use.

When the 1st Lancers disbanded in early 1862, most of the men joined other Michigan regiments. Many of the ex-lancers joined the 16th Infantry Regiment and some of these men may have worn their Lancer uniforms until their new regiment was issued uniforms.


http://civilwartalk.com/#_ednref1 “The Lancers”, Detroit Daily Advertiser October 3 1861, p. 1, col. 2.

[ii] “The Lancers”, Detroit Free Press, November 7 1861, p. 1, col. 2.
 
I suppose if I had said Rush's Lancers were the only Lance Regiment in the Civil War I would have been more correct! As shown by major bill the 5th Texas Cavalry had one company armed exclusively with lances, Company B. The rest of the companies of the 5th Texas Cavalry were apparently designated as either Mounted Rifles or Dismounted Cavalry.

Over and out.....off to the Mansfield Civil War Show!
J.
Actually both companies B and G of the 5th Texas Mounted Rifles/5th Texas Cavalry were armed with lances (at least until after Valverde); however, it was only Co. B that made the infamous charge at Valverde.

There were also a few other units that were armed with lances at the beginning of the war but quickly got rid of them before they ever actually saw combat. IIRC, the 21st, 24th and 25th Texas Cavalry were all initially armed with lances, at least in part, and were originally to be an all-lancer brigade; however, they were soon after discarded and the regiments were separated. The 24th and 25th were later even dismounted and served out the rest of the war as infantrymen east of the Mississippi; the 21st kept their horses but stayed in the Trans-Mississippi. There might have been a few others but those are the ones I am aware of.
 
The 1st California Cavalry Battalion (not to be confused with the 1st and 2nd California Cavalry regiments) was, to a degree, recruited from among the "Californio" population of men of Mexican and Spanish heritage; one of the officers was a de la Guerra, from the Santa Barbara de la Guerra's, and given the use of the lance as a mounted weapon among troops recruited from that population as late as the 1846-48 war, it would not have been surprising that some lances might have been taken on the battalion's active service.

Best,
 
Strange though it seems, European armies in the late 1800s considerably expanded their lancer forces. At the outbreak of World War I, all the armies included lancers.

For example, the British 21st Hussars were converted to lancers as late as 1897 and charged with lances at the battle of Omdurman in 1898 - taking along with them a young Winston Churchill. The 21st was unusual among cavalry regiments of the time in never having won battle honors; supposedly there was a rather unkind joke in the army that their regimental motto was "Thou shalt not kill" :wink:
 
The United States had a few units that carried lances. One of the issues with lancers is that you can not simply give some cavalrymen lances and then they are lancers. It would take considerable time for a mounted unit to lean to be true lancers. In nations that have lancer units they have sergeants and officers who have years of experience with lancer tactics.
 
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