Help identifying musket

[texaswildcat]

Dear comrades,

I have a musket that has been a family heirloom that I need help identifying. It is a smooth bore musket that is in poor condition with the chipped and broken stock. It is also percussion capped and on the butt stock plate there is our surname "Saint" crudely stamped there.

 

[Southron]

Need so better pictures...for example what is stamped on the lockplate? The breech?

The gun has been "Sporterized" by someone sawing off the forestock and then soldering some ramord pipes to the underside of the barrel. I can assure that no military organization ever issued that weapon as it is now.

After the end of The War of Northern Aggression, Uncle Sam was left with the largest store of obsolete weapons on the planet (muzzleloaders had been superseded by technically superior breechloaders.) So over the roughly next 50 years the Ordnance Department held numerous auctions where surplus arms and in large quantities, were sold for literally pennies on the dollar-usually to dealers who marked them up slightly in price and then sold them thru mail order.

Some dealers "Sporterized" the surplus muskets they had purchased, trying to make them more appealing to potential customers. So, what is the family story associated with that musket?

WE need more information and better pictures before we can give you some answers.

THANKS!!!

 

[Rebel Dave]

Going by the pics in your other thread, I would say it is an Austrian, or Belgian import. One of the many imported by both
sides during the war.

Rebel Dave

 

[johan_steele]

It's an Austrian but what model is difficult to tell from the pics.

 

[texaswildcat]

Here are some more, hopefully better pictures, I took of it. The weapon is in poor condition, in dire need of cleaning and the stock is broken.

 

[Bob Owen]

It has been converted to a single barrel shotgun after the war.

 

[johan_steele]

It's a "Potsdam" converted from Flint to Percussion originally in .71 cal IIRC. They seemed to be most heavily issued to US troops in the western theatre.

 

[texaswildcat]

The family history of this weapon is not known. All I do know is that it's been passed down through the family for generations and I do have a relative that was with the Iowa Volunteers and with Sherman in his March to the Sea, but it's a shame that we can't trace how this weapon came around.

 

[johan_steele]

By the time your ancestor was w/ Sherman's March to the Sea he would have most likely been carrying an M1861/63/64 w/ the remote chance he might have had a P53 or M1841. The weapon in the pic was obsolete before the war started but was issued out due to more men in the field than weapons to arm them. all things considered both the US & CS did a stellar job of arming their armies.

 

[Cumpston1862]

The family history of this weapon is not known. All I do know is that it's been passed down through the family for generations and I do have a relative that was with the Iowa Volunteers and with Sherman in his March to the Sea, but it's a shame that we can't trace how this weapon came around.

A quick search of the Iowa Civil War records found these soldiers with the name "Saint".

12th Iowa Infantry, Company A
Saint, Richard. Age 23. Residence Union, nativity Indiana. Enlisted Sept. 14, 1861. Mustered
Oct. 17, 1861. Deserted Aug. 16, 1862, Camp Montgomery, near Corinth, Miss

14th Iowa Infantry Company I
Saint, Henry. Age 21. Residence Salem, nativity Indiana. Enlisted Nov. 5, 1861. Mustered Nov.
5, 1861. Missing in action April 6, 1862, Shiloh, Tenn. Paroled May 24, 1862, Macon, Ga.
Mustered out Nov. 16, 1864, Davenport, Iowa.

23rd Iowa Infantry Company I
Saint, James. Age 31. Residence Lewis, nativity Ohio. Enlisted Aug. 12, 1862, as Second
Corporal. Mustered Aug. 28 1862. Promoted First Corporal Feb. 7, 1863; Fifth Sergeant April 1
1863, Second Sergeant Sept. 1, 1863. Mustered out July 26, 1865, Harrisburg, Texas.

4th Iowa Cavalry Company C
Saint, George W. (Veteran.) Age 22. Residence Salem, nativity Indiana. Enlisted Oct. 5, 1861,
as Fifth Corporal. Mustered Nov. 25, 1861. Promoted Fourth Corporal Feb. l, 1862; Third
Corporal Feb. 25, 1862; Second Corporal Sept. 1, 1862; First Corporal June 10, 1863. Reenlisted
and re-mustered Dec. 30, 1863. Wounded severely June 10, 1864, Guntown, Miss
Discharged for wounds Oct. 22, 1864, Benton Barracks, (St. Louis,) Mo.
4th Iowa Cavalry Company E
Saint, Exum R. (Veteran.) Age 22. Residence Grinnell, nativity Indiana. Enlisted Sept. 14,
1861, as First Sergeant. Mustered Nov. 23, 1861. Promoted Second Lieutenant June 24, 1862;
First Lieutenant Aug. 10, 1862; Captain Nov. 26, 1864 Mustered out Aug. 8, 1865, Atlanta, Ga.

5th Iowa Cavalry-Unassigned Recruit
SaintCleer, Timothy. Age 29. Residences Marion County, nativity Ireland. Enlisted Dec. 1,
1864. Mustered Dec. 2, 1864. No further record.

 

[texaswildcat]

That's interesting. We were able to trace that Thompson Palmer of Iowa is my GGGrandfather, but curious to know if there are anyone else that served.

 

[Cumpston1862]

That's interesting. We were able to trace that Thompson Palmer of Iowa is my GGGrandfather, but curious to know if there are anyone else that served.

25th Iowa Infantry
COMPANY "A"
Palmer, David J. Age 22. Residence Washington, nativity Pennsylvania. Appointed Captain
July 28, 1862. Mustered Sept. 27, 1862. Wounded slightly Jan. 11, 1863, Arkansas Post, Ark.
Promoted Lieutenant Colonel June 9,18 63. Wounded Nov. 27, 1863, Ringgold, Ga. Mustered
out June 6, 1865, Washington, D. C. See Company C, Eighth Infantry.
Palmer, Thompson. Age 22. Residence Washington, nativity Pennsylvania, Enlisted March 31,
1864. Mustered April 15, 1864. Transferred to Company F, Fourth Infantry, May 30, 1865

Twins...or at least cousins!?

 

[Southron]

Yep, when the 20th Corps dropped by the farm here in Middle Georgia, in November of 1864 [at the time the place belonged to my Great-Great Grandfather, James Denham] they burned the town of Denhamville, the slave cabins and generally created mayhem.

After the Yankees left, Joseph Addison Turner (a neighbor) came by here and found an Enfield Rifle in one of the abandoned camps along with a bunch of letters from one of the wives of one of the soldiers. Why a soldier would leave his rifle is a mystery.

Turner also commented in a newspaper article he wrote that it looked like a snowstorm had occurred around the Main House (General Slocum stayed in my house) because the Yankees had broken open all the bales of cotton and used the cotton as bedding to sleep on. The wind had done the rest.

 

[kevikens]

I think the musket is a Suhl, a Prussian musket circa 1849, .71 caliber smooth bore with fixed rear sight. I have one in better shape that was issued to the Philadelphia City Guard, a militia outfit that was mobilized just once in the late summer of 1862 but never saw combat. Mine was originally issued to the German Federal Navy and has the anchor cartouche in two places.

 

[texaswildcat]

Is there anyway you can post pictures of your musket for comparison, Kevikens?

 

[rob63]

Interesting that of the 8 soldiers listed from those Iowa regiments not a single one of them was born in Iowa! It has been mentioned in other threads how we don't realize just how mobile people really were back then.

 

[frankconrad]

Iowa had been a state only 15 years when war broke out. Much of Iowa was not open to settlement until about 1850.
One reason that if you look at the cemeterys, there are Civil War Veterans from every major battles East and West and most of the smaller battles is that so many veterans of other states came to Iowa for cheap land and military service helped with homesteading.
Other than two Regiments sent East to help Shirden in the Valley, and the ones Sherman took to the Sea, and the Carolinas there were no Iowa Regiments in the East.

 

[Tilden123]

This musket may have belonged to one of the members of the Saint family that I research.

Exum Saint mustered in at Grinell, IA. He was living in Jasper Co., IA before the Civil War. Capt. of Co. E. He was the arresting officer of Confederacy Vice President, Alexander H. Stephens at Crawfordville, GA, May 11, 1865. When he entered training at Fort Harlan, Henry Co., IA it is likely that he recruited George W. Saint, a 2nd Cousin, Once Remove. George live 2 miles from Camp Harlan.

George W. Saint was wounded at the battle of Brice Crossroad, Guntown, MS and mustered out Oct. 22, 1864 at Benton Barricks, St. Louis, MO.

Joseph G. Bilby's book Civil War firearms : their historical background and tactical use says that the 4th IA Calvary "got a mix of revolvers and imported Austrian infantry rifle-muskets", p. 131.

The musket could have easily belonged to either of these Saint family members.

Leslie W. Saint

 

[Craig L Barry]

Maybe, but it's not an Austrian infantry "rifle musket." That usually means the M54 "Lorenz" in the context Joe Bilby would have been using there.

 

[Tilden123]

Thank you Craig for the information on the M54 "Lorenz".

The other members of the Saint family that enlisted in IA are:

Richard Saint, brother of George W. Saint and 2nd Cousin, Once removed of Exum Saint, Enlisted in the in the 12th IA infantry from Union, IA where two of his other brothers lived. Deserted at Corinth, MS Aug 16, 1862. He reenlisted as Richard P. Saint in the 123rd IN infantry, Cloverdale, IN, Mar. 17, 1864.

Henry Saint, nephew of George W. and Richard Saint, 14th IA infantry, captured at Battle of Shiloh.

I don't know the weapons they used. Maybe Craig could help out on this.

I don't know about James Saint of the 23rd IA infantry. From a different Saint family.

So would any of the Saint enlistees from IA have crossed paths with Thompson or David J. Palmer? Did the army routinely collect unused arms and send them to companies that needed them? Or is there some other explanation? Lot's of unanswered questions.

Leslie W. Saint