Bayonets thrown like spears

Ethan S.

First Sergeant
Joined
Aug 19, 2019
Location
Carter County Kentucky
At the battle of Petersburg, it is a known fact that many confederate soldiers threw their bayonet equipped muskets into the "barrel of fish" and killed many Union soldiers that way.

Did any of these soldiers, or their officers ever get reprimanded for such behavior?
 
I would have thought they would be... and with a 6-8lb rifle they must have been awfully close their enemies to pull off such a feat.

On an related note, I wonder if either side at Petersburg tried putting together trench raiding teams?
 
I think a similar thing happened at the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania . It seems odd to me because you would essentially be throwing away your weapon and giving it to the enemy .
 
As far as I can tell, what happened during these fighters were one of the following:

A) The weapon had become jammed. In which case, during the heat of battle, there would have been no time to really fix it, with the enemy so close.

B) They were out of ammunition. In the cases of like Spotslyvania, where ammunition was being fired like they were going out of style, there really wasn't anymore to be found.

C) The combatants were so packed together, that the space with which to reload simply wasn't there. We hear of this at the Crater, where men were so packed together that they couldn't return fire.

In all these cases, especially in scenario C, it may indeed have just been better to throw your rifle musket, especially if it had a bayonet attached, at the enemy, then fighting a losing fight to reload it.
 
I don't really know much about bayonets being thrown at Petersburg, but some of the Stonewall Brigade during second Manassas were reduced to throwing rocks when ammunition ran low. Not sure if this was done under the same theory or circumstances...
 
I recall reading that bayoneted rifles were also thrown at Franklin. As at Spotsylvania, Feds and Rebs occupied opposite sides of a parapet. At both battles there were plenty of abandoned muskets due to the many casualties.
 
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