Farrier versus blacksmith

[Kurtlg]

I have a great great uncle who served in the 3rd Michigan cavalry. His "rank in" is listed as a farrier but his "rank out" is listed as blacksmith. I know a farrier shoed horses but would a blacksmith be a more or lesser skilled position ?

 

[Dan Kohli]

My impression is that it's not a skill difference, and more of a job difference.

 

[PatW]

Well there is a skill difference. A farrier is a person skilled in fitting horse shoes onto a horse and the care of horses' feet.

A blacksmith is primarily a maker of tools: hammers, plowshares, sycthes, axes, saws and so on. I went to a living history park and the guy playing the part of the blacksmith was adamant on how blacksmith and farrier were very different things. Often the apprentices did the scut work of making nails and horse shoes.

I would think in small towns that only supported one person - the two skills would merge into one person and the more challenging tool production would come from elsewhere.

I would think on the march in the army, since there were piles of horses around, most of the work would be around care of horses. I mean, why would the army have a guy making plow shares and sycthes?

 

[Rhea Cole]

A farrier & a blacksmith are masters of very different crafts.

Starting with bar stock, a farrier was expected to shoe 8 work horses / day. Union farriers used pre manufactured shoes. This was a strategic advantage.

How Horseshoes Helped Win the Civil War

While Scotsman Henry Burden was a prolific inventor and industrialist who played a major role in the Civil War, his vital contributions are generally unknown. Many of his inventions helped the North, but the design and perfection of a horseshoe-making machine was his most important one. As a...

www.americanfarriers.com

A farrier's craft was far more than just sizing & nailing on shoes. They have a deep understanding of equine anatomy. A hoof has to be rasped down very carefully.

All manner of physical problems can be addressed or created by shoeing. Properly addressing the needs of individual horses & mules is the difference between a sound animal & one that can be permanently crippled.

Granddaughter & master smith Ellen Durkan of Iron maiden Forge. , Rutherford County Blacksmith Association.

Blacksmiths work iron. Few, if any of them know anything about the farrier's craft.

Out in the country or frontier the local smithy was likely a hybrid operation. All manner of ironwork was routine. Either the master smith or one of his journeymen would have also been farriers.

Note: My blacksmithing mentor was also a farrier. He shod show horses & breeding stock worth hundreds of thousands. He made it crystal clear that farriers & blacksmithing crafts only have a very small overlap.

 

[JerryD]

A farrier & a blacksmith are masters of very different crafts.

Starting with bar stock, a farrier was expected to shoe 8 work horses / day. Union farriers used pre manufactured shoes. This was a strategic advantage.

How Horseshoes Helped Win the Civil War

While Scotsman Henry Burden was a prolific inventor and industrialist who played a major role in the Civil War, his vital contributions are generally unknown. Many of his inventions helped the North, but the design and perfection of a horseshoe-making machine was his most important one. As a...

www.americanfarriers.com

A farrier's craft was far more than just sizing & nailing on shoes. They have a deep understanding of equine anatomy. A hoof has to be rasped down very carefully.

All manner of physical problems can be addressed or created by shoeing. Properly addressing the needs of individual horses & mules is the difference between a sound animal & one that can be permanently crippled.

View attachment 506621
Granddaughter & master smith Ellen Durkan of Iron maiden Forge. , Rutherford County Blacksmith Association.

Blacksmiths work iron. Few, if any of them know anything about the farrier's craft.

Out in the country or frontier the local smithy was likely a hybrid operation. All manner of ironwork was routine. Either the master smith or one of his journeymen would have also been farriers.

Note: My blacksmithing mentor was also a farrier. He shod show horses & breeding stock worth hundreds of thousands. He made it crystal clear that farriers & blacksmithing crafts only have a very small overlap.

Seconding this. I have a good buddy that is a farrier and while he does have basic blacksmith skills, I suspect he would say his knowledge of equine anatomy and how to treat various hoof related diseases is what separates a good farrier from merely adequate one. Completely different skill set.

 

[Rhea Cole]

In this volume of'The Cavalry' from the 1910 'Ten Volume Photographic History of the Civil War' is a unique depiction of the U.S. remount system. I don't know of another.

There are several group shots of farriers who shod thousands of horses. The CSA had nothing like this.

The photographic history of the Civil War : in ten volumes : Miller, Francis Trevelyan, 1877-1959 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Thousand of scenes photographed 1861-65, with text by many special authorities--Added t.p

archive.org