Posted May 22 2014.
This thread dates back to 2010.
In Jan 2014 I had further communication with Bill Adams regarding this subject.
Once again the dialogue was regarding this P53.
A comment from Bill;
The sling on the P53 is a later pattern sling. The correct sling would have an adjusting buckle and would not be fastened with a thong. Correct P53 slings are quite rare.
A comment from Bill;
The bayonet pictured on the Enfield is a P58 interchangeable bayonet from Enfield and would not have been used on a Civil War Enfield. It is likely a Snider bayonet.
This JS/Anchor is NOT seen on the stock of this P53.
This is all that remains on the stock of my gun.
There is no 'G' for Georgia marking on the stock of my P53.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was the content of the dialogue.
From Bill Adams in 2014
Are there engraved numbers on this particular P53 in the photos? I can't quite make out the stamping in the stock - is it SHC? I think that I can see a letter S. Isn't this in fact the P53 with control #1121?
Yes, there are numbered Enfields without the JS Anchor stamp; a number did not have JS Anchor stamps because they were state purchases. Most of the stamps were light and scraped away when refinished. Here's the caveat: since Steve Knott's book came out last summer, there are far more SC, Georgia and Louisiana Enfields on the market than were observed over the last 50 years.
The "defarbing" stamps sold by some sutlers for reenactors include JS Anchor stamps as well as other broker's stamps and maker's roundels. The stamps were used to enhance original arms (US inspector's stamps are also offered for use on Springfields, etc.). Freshly stamped and aged Enfields have also been engraved with CS control numbers. The engraving was quite crude on the first examples and most of the numbers consisted of straight lines like 1411, but the fakers have gotten better and can now do 9's and an occasional 0. At least six fake S.C P53's with various (incorrect) sizes of letter stamps have been marketed recently.
The stock was scraped - the supplier's letter code is missing as well as the JS Anchor stamp (if it ever had one). I do not immediately have access to all of the crate shipping records (few survived). Crate #56 shipped aboard the Fingal contained P53's #1101 to 1120. There is then a gap to crate 62 which contained P53's 1221-1240. Those P53's were all supplied by C. W. James and originally had a letter J in front of the butt plate tang and had a letter G stamped on the lock side of the butt stock. 1121 would have been in crate #57 and if I have a listing for it, it is somewhere in the files, but was likely a James supplied piece. Interestingly, there was also a P56 rifle with control #1121 as the bayonet survived.
A LATER REPLY;
I found my listings of the crates that were missing from the London manifests. All of the crates are there except for #57, which seems very strange. #58 had P53's #1141-1160; #59 had 1161-1180, etc. Crates 1-7 and 58-62 came from arms merchant Wm. Grazebrook on May 1st 1861 and were marked with the G cypher. With crate #56 having been marked for Gov. Brown of Georgia and #58 having been marked G for Georgia, chances seem good that crate #57 that contained 1121 was also destined for Georgia.
The transaction is quite complicated, but there was an overlap of Georgia state funds and CS government funds in one of Maj. Anderson's large purchases. Anderson was the CS ordnance officer that was Caleb Huse's immediate supervisor, but he was also working for Gov. Brown of Georgia. Fortunately, Anderson kept a diary and he also recorded the first 2,000 of the Georgia purchases. Crate #57 having somehow been left off of the Georgia charts. Interestingly, there are two #58 crates, one listed as short rifles and the other listed as long Enfields, so there is a distinct possibility that the crate that should have been #57 was listed incorrectly. Crates #51-56 and #62-129 are on Anderson's main Georgia listing and crates 1-7 and 58-62 are on a supplemental list (these latter lists have not been published).
A drawing of the Fingal that transported the Enfields to Savannagh.
Does the stuff below look correct Bill?
The five main suppliers who sold Enfields through Archibald Hamilton to Confederate buyers Caleb Huse and Major Alexander were Bond "B", James "J", Scott & Son "S", Kerr "K", and Freed & Co. "F".
Archibald Hamilton was both the Superintendent of the London Armoury Co. and secured quantities of Enfields by private contractors for the Confederates in London and Birmingham . Hamilton was so effective, in tying up Enfield production for the Confederates, that the "US Consul in London, F.H. Morse, was highly distressed to report in Oct. 1861 that "of Enfield rifles they (Confederates) have thousands now ready for shipment, and have all the armories here at work for them. With these ( London makers) and what they are getting at Birmingham they must be receiving not far from 1500 per week."
The passage in your email seems to be from Wiley Sword and the information is both dated and was partially incorrect when written. I do not know where Sword came up with the F code standing for Freed & Co. The single Confederate shipping manifest that lists guns by number, supplier and crate is for only Georgia Enfields. Field & Sons was one of the suppliers. The letter G in the photo you sent is a Georgia G. They are faked a lot. JS stands for John Southgate, Major Edward Anderson (Caleb Huse's "boss") recorded in his dairy that Southgate had been retained as an inspector. Those of us that read Anderson's papers kept that quiet. Steve Knott wrote an article for
North-South Trader that explained the background behind the anchor and the letters. That information is also in Steve's book. Since the book came out with photos of various CS markings, the fakers have duplicated the markings and generated quite a few fakes. Any SC, Georgia or Louisiana Enfields must be viewed with suspicion.
Tim's explanation of the numbering system is correct, but while it addresses the numbers stamped into the wood on iron mounted rifles, it fails to mention the stamped numerals used on the brass butt plates of arms purchased by some states. There are also some duplications of numbers. 1121 was ready for shipment from London in August 1861 and was in the number series initially purchased by Georgia.
From the photos, it appears that 1121 was cleaned and the stock was scraped at some point. Given the number and the Birmingham proofs, it was probably made by C. W. James. One must be very careful when using numbers as a CS identifier because the British government also used numbers as did organizations and companies, so the fact that an Enfield has a number on the butt plate does not automatically make it Confederate (although some dealers have sold British numbered items as Confederate). Perhaps 40-50% of the "Confederate" Enfields that have entered the market in the last six months are not what they are represented to be. Fake JS anchor stamps are available and someone in Tennessee has engraved a lot of butt plates.
Yes, G is for Georgia. There are many variants of the G stamp that have been applied to Enfields in recent times. The large size G stamp often was light to begin with and cleaning, scraping, and sanding over the years removes the traces of the letter.
As I mentioned in a previous email, crate 57 with Enfields #1121-1140 is missing from the manifest of arms ready to be shipped from London. Note that Tim's description contains "probabilities" and suppositions. 1121
mayhave been on the Fingal as 7520 Enfields were aboard the Fingal when it arrived in Savannah.
The Georgia arms aboard the Fingal did not go to Georgia; they were sent to the Army of Tennessee. I may have records that list crate #57, but I don't have time to look for them at present. Attached is a copy of the Ordnance Dept. letter relevant to the Fingal's cargo. There are tens of thousands of CS records in the National Archives and digging through them and making copies is time consuming and headache-generating. I once got an email from a collector who stated the number on his Enfield then asked if I could tell him what vessel the Enfield arrived on, what port it arrived at, and the name of the captain of the blockade runner. Only so many records are available, yet there is still a wealth of information in surviving documents.
24 bore is .58 calibre, typical of many Enfields made for the American market. The Confederates did not stipulate that .577 was the regulation calibre until 1862. The federals stuck with .58. Ramrods, butt plates, bayonets, and bayonet frogs were all numbered together as a "stand" of arms. That followed British regulation. The bayonets and ramrods were not readily interchangeable and therefore all of the components were numbered together.
There are lots of persons involved in digging up information and sharing it, but there are others that skew the context a bit. Be particularly wary of statements to the effect that only 5, 7, 9, or 16 of a particular arm are known to exist. Have you noticed that none of the persons making those statements has explained how that information was compiled? "A well known authority has been compiling a list of Confederate numbers for decades..." Can anyone make a definitive statement that he positively knows that only a specific number of a certain weapon still survives? A clique of collectors and dealers have set themselves up as the source of information pertaining to Confederate arms in general, but they do not contact many collectors that have examples of the arms. One dealer constantly mentions a "database" of Confederate Enfields, but fails to consider that there may be other listings of Confederate purchased arms that he and his source have never seen. All of the information in the various postings is in Steve Knott's book, but Steve did not have an agenda other than sharing information. He is not a dealer or an investor for profit and doesn't have a need to polish his ego or reputation. The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, aka the OR's, are available on line for free through several sources. The fellows that make the marvelous discoveries that they then post fail to realize that researchers found the same material in hard copy long ago. Much of the Enfield story can be gleaned from several British studies that are not readily available.
Papers containing some Enfield material are available from English sources on microfilm for anyone that has $1600 to spend on the films. The James H. Burton papers are at YaleUniversity and can be copied for a fee. There's plenty of information available, including the McRae papers - all is takes is money. In the meanwhile, there is still plenty of free information, but some of that is not reliable unless it comes directly from the OR's or other reputable sources. Many CS Enfields were captured and went into federal service. Some of those numbers are available to researchers that physically go to the National Archives. Are those Enfields Confederate? It's a complicated field of study.
Your theories about numbers, etc. are close to the mark, but miss a few details. The reason that I think that 1121 was a G purchase is because the stock has been scraped down enough for the G to have been removed along with the contractor's name that was originally on the belly of the stock and the supplier's code or the CH1 stamp that would have been in front of the butt plate tang. Even if there was no G present on the stock, the other markings would have been there and were scraped away. There would also have been two other stamps in the wood indicating a commission broker and/or inspector or other information. None of the stamps are present on your stock. Both SC and Georgia also had stamped numbers on the butt plates of some Enfields in certain number ranges. Some arms were state marked, but did not have state numbers; some arms were state marked with government numbers; many arms that went to states and the central government were not numbered. The lock dates must agree with certain numbers and stock markings. This isn't anything that can be easily condensed into a few pages or a ten minute study. States other than GA and SC used numbers. You will save a lot of time by getting one of Steve's books that will give an overview of the whole process. Going on the internet and gathering opinions and theories will not necessarily produce valid information and the pieces pictured on the internet are not necessarily legitimate examples. Not only are there many spuriously engraved and stamped pieces on web sites; there are also Enfields that have excavated butt plates affixed or butt plates that were brought up from ship wrecks. One advanced collector has done a scientific study of the engraving styles in various number series and has hundreds of magnified photos of both real and fake butt plate engraving.
I have removed checkering from stocks and they looked normal afterwards. The secret is using a cabinet scraper or glass and not sandpaper. The supplier's stamps on the combs were often quite deep and yet many have been completely scraped away. I recently purchased an S.C and JS Anchor marked P53 that I first looked at 20+ years ago. The owner did not know that the mark was important and sometime in the last 6 years he decided to scrape the stock down and wire wheel the metal. Only the S. remains in the stock and all other marks are gone. Very few correct slings for the P53 turn up. I have seen several on DC diamond Canadian Snider conversions. Apparently the original slings were kept with them. Collectors in the US have been duped into believing that the Martini & Lee-Enfield & SMLE slings were P53 slings.
David