This is interesting...it came to both Joe Bilby and me in a "letter to the editor" which will appear in the next issue of Civil War News:
To the Editor:
I’m a long-time researcher of U.S. Army Ordnance Department records at the National Archives, and for the last ten years I have been focused primarily on Civil War records, but I am new to the Civil War News. At a recent show in Richmond, I picked up a copy of your November 2016 issue (Vol. 42, Number 10) and was quite impressed. However, that is not my purpose in writing. In Mr. Bilby’s column in that issue, I noticed a section titled “Provenance of Gettysburg loaded muskets,” in which Mr. Bilby discussed an April 2016 “Watchdog” column by Craig Barry. I have not seen Mr. Barry’s article so I don’t know specifically what he said, but based on Mr. Bilby’s statements the substance of it was regarding a: “much-repeated account of the 24,000 muskets, many of them with a number of loads in their barrels, retrieved from the field at Gettysburg.” Mr. Bilby noted that neither he nor Mr. Barry had found any official provenance for the story. Well, as a matter of fact, I can help with that problem. On seeing Mr. Bilby’s article I recalled seeing something on this topic, did a search of my material, and found the following notes:
1/4/1864, Record Group (RG) 156, Entry (E) 20, Volume 40, Letter W28 of 1864: Capt. Benton at Washington Arsenal for - warded a report of Master Ar - morer J. Dudley re the condition of small arms received from the battle fields. 1/4/1864, RG156, E201, Report #376: Master Armorer J. Dudley reported to Capt. Benton on small arms received from battlefields. He based his report on the arms taken from the Gettysburg battlefield. Of the number received (27,574), at least 24,000 of them were loaded. About one half contained two loads each, one forth contained from three to ten loads each and the rest had only one load. Some of the guns had two to six balls with only one charge of powder, and in some cases, the ball was at the bottom of the barrel with the powder charge on top of it. In some arms, as many as six paper cartridges were found whole – not having been torn open. Twenty-three loads were found in one Springfield rifle, each load being in regular order. Twenty-two balls and sixty-two buckshot with a corresponding quantity of powder, all mixed up together, were found in one percussion smooth-bore musket. Mr. Dudley also stated: “About six thousand of the arms were found loaded with Johnson’s & Dow’s cartridges, many of these cartridges were found about half way down in the barrels of the guns, and in many cases, the ball end of the cartridge had been put into the gun first. These cartridges were found mostly in the Enfield Rifle Musket.” About 1,000 of all muskets found, Union and Confederate, had stocks broken at the wrist with the butt of the stocks completely gone. One hundred and thirty-six arms of different kinds had been marred by shot; in many the ball had gone through the barrel or other parts had been shot away. Many barrels were burst, almost always near the barrel from having the muzzle clogged by mud or having left the tampion in place. Mr. Dudley noted that barrels of American manufacture were superior to those of the Enfields and Austrian weapons in both material and workmanship."
Without knowing where to look, this report would be difficult to find. One would expect it to have been filed in the letters received by the Chief of Ordnance, which is Entry 21 in the Chief of Ordnance records (Record Group 156), and the first set of notes above supports that assumption, for Entry 20 contains the registers for Ordnance Department letters received. But for some unknown reason, the Ordnance Office in - stead filed the report with “Reports of Experiments,” which the National Archives have cataloged as Entry 201.
Charles Pate