personalized Weapons

[Package4]

Here is an ID'd P1853 I picked up recently. The inscription is to Private George Voorhees, Company B, 124th Illinois Infantry. The stock flat is also carved with "Vicksburg" denoting his service there and the place where he likely acquired the musket. This musket is also marked on the belly of the stock with a two hexagram "L" stamps indicating this was a Confederate Louisiana purchased gun.
Unfortunately the musket was "sporterized" after its military service and as such the barrel and stock were both shortened, rear sight removed, and the bore reamed out to roughly .60 caliber.
View attachment 181087 View attachment 181088 View attachment 181089

You had this in Baltimore, with the beautiful Federal haversack and two Ids? Those were beautiful pieces.....

 

[Grayrock Volunteer]

You had this in Baltimore, with the beautiful Federal haversack and two Ids? Those were beautiful pieces.....

Yes sir, that was me. The haversack actually belongs to a friend of mine. I managed to make it home with both pieces.

 

[originalrebelyell]

I lik

Here is an ID'd P1853 I picked up recently. The inscription is to Private George Voorhees, Company B, 124th Illinois Infantry. The stock flat is also carved with "Vicksburg" denoting his service there and the place where he likely acquired the musket. This musket is also marked on the belly of the stock with a two hexagram "L" stamps indicating this was a Confederate Louisiana purchased gun.
Unfortunately the musket was "sporterized" after its military service and as such the barrel and stock were both shortened, rear sight removed, and the bore reamed out to roughly .60 caliber.
View attachment 181087 View attachment 181088 View attachment 181089

I like it I would love to find a marked gun.

 

[Package4]

Yes sir, that was me. The haversack actually belongs to a friend of mine. I managed to make it home with both pieces.

You had a great table and a fine position, I had a dealer badge (was helping a friend with a health issue set up his table) and was very interested in the haversack. As I recall there were two regiments that needed to intersect Mass and NC and I was thinking 2nd Manassas, for it to ultimately end up at South Mountain. Still interested and we can go offline.....

 

[byron ed]

The consensus was that the regulations and returns were followed and with alacrity, in the Union Army

There's definitely no consensus that the Union army, mostly volunteers and few career, would obey even petty regulations with aclarity. Let's keep that in the opinion category.

I agree there's some indications, even on tv but again not a consensus, that Union weapons weren't personalized, but let's not make more of it than that, regardless of what we want things to have been (for whatever reason).

 

[Package4]

There's definitely no consensus that the Union army, mostly volunteers and few career, would obey even petty regulations with aclarity. Let's keep that in the opinion category.

So I will come at this from a different direction:

Why don't Federal weapons and accouterments have the same frequency, size and outward facing appearance as their CS counterparts? Keep in mind that there were almost twice as many issues or stands of arms (including accouterments). NPS troop strength 1863.

What kept the Federal infantryman from marking the outward facing leather of the box sling, cartridge box flap or belt?

Wouldn't they want to do that in the case of wounding or death, so as not to be interred in an unmarked grave?

 

[Package4]

There's definitely no consensus that the Union army, mostly volunteers and few career, would obey even petty regulations with aclarity. Let's keep that in the opinion category.

I agree there's some indications, even on tv but again not a consensus, that Union weapons weren't personalized, but let's not make more of it than that, regardless of what we want things to have been (for whatever reason).

So I will come at this from a different direction:

Why don't Federal weapons and accouterments have the same frequency, size and outward facing appearance as their CS counterparts? Keep in mind that there were almost twice as many issues or stands of arms (including accouterments). NPS troop strength 1863.

What kept the Federal infantryman from marking the outward facing leather of the box sling, cartridge box flap or belt?

Wouldn't they want to do that in the case of wounding or death, so as not to be interred in an unmarked grave?

 

[originalrebelyell]

You would think maybe that would be the reason to have something personally marked.

 

[Package4]

You would think maybe that would be the reason to have something personally marked.

Exactly, but what kept the US infantryman from marking up the outward facing accouterments and to a large extant weapons? I base this on pictures and surviving examples Vs their Confederate counterparts, who seemed to not care about where they marked items.

 

[byron ed]

So I will come at this from a different direction: Why don't Federal weapons and accouterments have the same frequency, size and outward facing appearance as their CS counterparts?...What kept the Federal infantryman from marking the outward facing leather of the box sling, cartridge box flap or belt?...Wouldn't they want to do that in the case of wounding or death...

Those are all reasonable questions, I like the different direction. No longer "what they did was..." but "there's indications what they did was..."

Interesting thread.

 

[ApeUnit]

Original Model 1853 British Enfield Rifle belonging to Pvt. Richard Shepherd of Company D, 2nd Maryland Infantry

 

[Specster]

I've seen where people have engraved their initials on the butt of their stocks plus the battles they were at and their unit but I believe this was done post-war.

Not so sure...Ive heard the ACW for the soldier described as months of boredom punctuated by hours of terror...soldiers had time to kill in those months.....not unlike whalers carving scrimshaw

 

[Don Dixon]

I found an interesting item in the O.R. Captain L. Jaquelin Smith was inspecting Confederate units in Florida. On 27 January 1864 he inspected the 6th Battalion Florida Infantry, writing "....the arms in fine order; many of the guns I, however, observed had the names of the men cut on the stocks of the guns. I called the attention of the senior captain in charge of this battalion to the fact that cutting the gun-stock, &c., is an abuse of public arms, and hence a punishable affair." (O.R. I, 31/1, 587)

Regards,
Don Dixon

 

[Craig L Barry]

I found an interesting item in the O.R. Captain L. Jaquelin Smith was inspecting Confederate units in Florida. On 27 January 1864 he inspected the 6th Battalion Florida Infantry, writing "....the arms in fine order; many of the guns I, however, observed had the names of the men cut on the stocks of the guns. I called the attention of the senior captain in charge of this battalion to the fact that cutting the gun-stock, &c., is an abuse of public arms, and hence a punishable affair." (O.R. I, 31/1, 587)

Regards,
Don Dixon

Well, to the government the soldier is primarily the mechanism used to fire the weapon in the battle line, and the weapon was government property subject to being reissued if the soldier was injured or mustered out. There is a reference to a wounded soldier that wanted to keep his equipment, particularly his rifle-musket but it was taken from him when he was carted off in an ambulance and when he returned it had been reissued. I can't find the citation though.

 

[Legion Para]

 

[Tin cup]

This is a Mississippi Rifle that has M Maning C 39 GA scratched on the patch box. Margeman Manning was in Company C. 39th Georgia Vol. Inf. CSA. This Rifle is in the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society in Dalton Georgia. On January 23, 1859 Harriett Evelyn Thornton married Margeman (Marge) Manning.

In 1861 Harriett and Margeman Manning had one child, a daughter Julia Elizabeth Manning who was born March 16, 1861 near Dalton, Whitfield County, Georgia. On March 10, 1862 at Dalton, Georgia (on the same day, at the same place as Harriett's younger brother, Alexander N. Thornton) he enlisted in the Confederate Army. He was a Sergeant in Company C., 39th Regiment, Georgia Infantry.
Family tradition has it that he (Manning) was "killed in the Civil War"...which is not quite correct. He was taken prisoner at Vicksburg on July 4, 1863 (as was Alexander N. Thornton) and probably signed the same oath of allegiance to the United States.
However, he did bear arms against the United States once more for he was captured again, this time at Jonesboro, Georgia in September 1864. Jonesboro is south of Atlanta and fell to Sherman's troops soon after Atlanta was captured.

Julia Manning remembered seeing her father when she was about 4 years old. The soldiers were passing by and her mother pointed her father out to her. 1864 Margeman was first sent back into captured Atlanta, to the "Department of Cumberland" hospital that was set up there for the wounded.
The records show that he was 24 years old and had "got a cannonball in the left leg." From Atlanta he was sent to the General Field Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. On November 24, 1864 he was sent to a military prison in Louisville, Kentucky. 1865

Finally Margeman was moved to "Camp Douglas, Illinois" near Chicago, where he died on March 21, 1865, from chronic diarrhea. He was buried in Block 3 of the Chicago City Cemetery.

Kevin Dally

 

[Story]

I found an interesting item in the O.R. Captain L. Jaquelin Smith was inspecting Confederate units in Florida. On 27 January 1864 he inspected the 6th Battalion Florida Infantry, writing "....the arms in fine order; many of the guns I, however, observed had the names of the men cut on the stocks of the guns. I called the attention of the senior captain in charge of this battalion to the fact that cutting the gun-stock, &c., is an abuse of public arms, and hence a punishable affair." (O.R. I, 31/1, 587)

Regards,
Don Dixon

Captain Smith sounds like one of those fellows who were so uptight they'd excrete diamonds.
Bend those dog tags! No ice cream for your desert!