The Cook & Brothers Shotgun Bayonet

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As everyone knows, when the CW broke out the South was woefully short of military grade weapons. The immediate solution was soldiers bring their long guns and shotguns with them. As early as August of 1861 the shotguns long term use was foreseen; Captain of Ordnance Wm. R. Hunt wrote to the Secretary of War from Memphis, recommending that contracts be let for 10,000 sword bayonets for double barreled shotguns. Nearly a year later Hunt wrote to Secretary of War J. P. Benjamin, “Colonel Forrest, the most efficient cavalry officer in this department, informs me that the double barrel shotgun is the best gun with which the cavalry can be armed.”
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Arming cavalry with shotguns was one thing but infantry needed a bayonet. In order to fit a bayonet to a shotgun the maker needed the shotgun in order to affix the bayonet lug to the shotgun in order for the bayonet to fit it.

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Cook & Brother of New Orleans provided many of these. Below is a receipt from Cook & Brothers that received 12 shotguns from Co. M, Chalmette Regiment and the invoice from Cook & Brothers for the work.

C&B received.jpg

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The Cook & Brothers bayonet is hard to find but a Cook & Brothers shotgun bayonet is VERY Rare. They are not makers marked but the C&B bayonet is easily recognized by the pattern and serial #.

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You can find many CW era photos of Confederate soldiers with a shotgun but finding one with a bayonet is impossible. Hopefully we can get @Lanyard Puller to chime in.

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For some reason, I identify the Cook Bros. bayonet as being made in Mobile, AL Is there any truth to this?
No as their factory was in New Orleans until April 1862 when the fall of New Orleans was imminent. The were able to get their equipment out of the city and up the Miss river and established their factory in Athens Ga.
 
No as their factory was in New Orleans until April 1862 when the fall of New Orleans was imminent. The were able to get their equipment out of the city and up the Miss river and established their factory in Athens Ga.
The reason for my thinking - I have a friend in Ohio who collects CW guns like me...He had a Cook Bayonet with J. Conning of Mobile. Would this just be one of a kind? It seems as the shotgun as well had Mobile on it. I don't remember the details but he sold it for quite a sum a few years back.
 
Really interesting, but I would think a bayonet on a shotgun would only be useful when they were fighting dismounted. Fighting dismounted, the shotgun would likely not be the weapon of choice. Am I wrong?
Probably not the weapon of choice, but in a pinch it's all moot anyway.
 
As everyone knows, when the CW broke out the South was woefully short of military grade weapons. The immediate solution was soldiers bring their long guns and shotguns with them. As early as August of 1861 the shotguns long term use was foreseen; Captain of Ordnance Wm. R. Hunt wrote to the Secretary of War from Memphis, recommending that contracts be let for 10,000 sword bayonets for double barreled shotguns. Nearly a year later Hunt wrote to Secretary of War J. P. Benjamin, “Colonel Forrest, the most efficient cavalry officer in this department, informs me that the double barrel shotgun is the best gun with which the cavalry can be armed.”
View attachment 341466

Arming cavalry with shotguns was one thing but infantry needed a bayonet. In order to fit a bayonet to a shotgun the maker needed the shotgun in order to affix the bayonet lug to the shotgun in order for the bayonet to fit it.

View attachment 341467

Cook & Brother of New Orleans provided many of these. Below is a receipt from Cook & Brothers that received 12 shotguns from Co. M, Chalmette Regiment and the invoice from Cook & Brothers for the work.

View attachment 341468
View attachment 341469

The Cook & Brothers bayonet is hard to find but a Cook & Brothers shotgun bayonet is VERY Rare. They are not makers marked but the C&B bayonet is easily recognized by the pattern and serial #.

View attachment 341470
View attachment 341471
View attachment 341472

You can find many CW era photos of Confederate soldiers with a shotgun but finding one with a bayonet is impossible. Hopefully we can get @Lanyard Puller to chime in.

View attachment 341473
Thank you. This gives me a good reason to start binging on pawn shops once again. Here in the south I doubt many people have a clue as to the significance of this piece.
 
Related threads

 
As everyone knows, when the CW broke out the South was woefully short of military grade weapons. The immediate solution was soldiers bring their long guns and shotguns with them. As early as August of 1861 the shotguns long term use was foreseen; Captain of Ordnance Wm. R. Hunt wrote to the Secretary of War from Memphis, recommending that contracts be let for 10,000 sword bayonets for double barreled shotguns. Nearly a year later Hunt wrote to Secretary of War J. P. Benjamin, “Colonel Forrest, the most efficient cavalry officer in this department, informs me that the double barrel shotgun is the best gun with which the cavalry can be armed.”
View attachment 341466

Arming cavalry with shotguns was one thing but infantry needed a bayonet. In order to fit a bayonet to a shotgun the maker needed the shotgun in order to affix the bayonet lug to the shotgun in order for the bayonet to fit it.

View attachment 341467

Cook & Brother of New Orleans provided many of these. Below is a receipt from Cook & Brothers that received 12 shotguns from Co. M, Chalmette Regiment and the invoice from Cook & Brothers for the work.

View attachment 341468
View attachment 341469

The Cook & Brothers bayonet is hard to find but a Cook & Brothers shotgun bayonet is VERY Rare. They are not makers marked but the C&B bayonet is easily recognized by the pattern and serial #.

View attachment 341470
View attachment 341471
View attachment 341472

You can find many CW era photos of Confederate soldiers with a shotgun but finding one with a bayonet is impossible. Hopefully we can get @Lanyard Puller to chime in.

View attachment 341473
Great information-

I attached a photo of a couple bayonets in my collection - one is a Cook and Brother shotgun bayonet that has been shortened down to a “fighting knife” and the other is a Bowie bayonet possibly made by C&B in New Orleans.

I’ve been working on a book about the Cook Brothers for several years.

Major Ferdinand Cook was killed at Goose Pond, SC near Savannah in December 1864. After the war, his older brother Francis may have moved back to New York and made manhole covers.

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The reason for my thinking - I have a friend in Ohio who collects CW guns like me...He had a Cook Bayonet with J. Conning of Mobile. Would this just be one of a kind? It seems as the shotgun as well had Mobile on it. I don't remember the details but he sold it for quite a sum a few years back.

after escaping New Orleans, the Cook Brothers ser up shop in Alabama for a few months before moving on to Athens, GA, where they were in operation by Christmas 1862. Here’s a pic of the house Ferdinand Cook bought in Athens for $15,000
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After the war, his older brother Francis may have moved back to New York and made manhole covers.

Okay, that sounds banal. Did Francis live in NYC before the war? If he lived there after the war, making manhole covers, he must have been in contact with Union soldiers that went into the pipe fitting industry. Walt Whitman's brother, just can't think of his name at the moment, was a pipe inspector.
 
Okay, that sounds banal. Did Francis live in NYC before the war? If he lived there after the war, making manhole covers, he must have been in contact with Union soldiers that went into the pipe fitting industry. Walt Whitman's brother, just can't think of his name at the moment, was a pipe inspector.
Ferdinand W.C. Cook was born on July 23, 1823 Harry Cook and Ann Bradwin Wright Cook. He was baptized William Charles Ferdinand Cook in St. Mary’s Church, Islington, London. At the age of 9, Ferdinand emigrated to America with his father and older brothers Henry (18) and Theodore (16), on board the ship Ontario. The ship arrived in New York City on April 17, 1833, about 3 months shy of Ferdinand’s tenth birthday. Murphy & Madaus note that Ferdinand Cook was 16 when he reached America, but this is not correct, and it is possible that they used the census records for brother Theodore to establish that age. In 1834, the rest of the family, including his mother Ann and brothers Arthur (15), Francis (13) and Frederick (5) immigrated to America as well and joined the Cook family in New York. It was in New York that Ferdinand, Francis and Frederick received their training in metal work and engineering, as all three worked for the "Novelty Iron Works" (formerly Stillman & Co), which was a large and well established engineering and industrial manufacturing company in the city. Along with their education, this on-the-job training gave all of them a real knowledge and skill with the engineering and manufacturing of heavy industrial equipment, foundry work, castings, and military armaments; the top-quality workmanship that Novelty Iron Works was known for in New York. While he was employed at Novelty Iron Works Ferdinand visited New Orleans in the early part of the 1840s, functioning as a sales agent for the customers of the company in that region. These were mostly businesses in the sugar and cotton industry. The allure of New Orleans must have been great, as Ferdinand moved there in 1845 and in 1849 married a local woman, Mary Jane Wilcox. In 1852 Ferdinand’s younger brother Frederick joined him in New Orleans and by 1855 his brother Francis had as well. The threesome established the Belleville Iron Works in Algiers, LA where they concentrated on manufacturing large-scale industrial machinery and agricultural equipment. This type of industrial engineering and manufacturing was practically unknown in the south, which had relied for decades upon northern manufactures for their machinery. The Cooks even dabbled in the manufacture of small arms and artillery, and as early as May of 1856 they had corresponded with US Secretary of War Jefferson Davis about the possibility of establishing a national foundry for the manufacture of canon and arms in New Orleans. While he was making his own business successful, Ferdinand remained a sales agent for the Novelty Iron Works, but by had 1861 resigned from that position. Brothers Ferdinand and Francis also spun off their small arms portion of the Bellville Works sometime in late 1860 or early 1861, establishing the Nashua Iron Company for the production of arms. This company was established on Canal Street in New Orleans proper, across the Mississippi River from their Algiers factory.
 
I’ve had a lot of trouble tracking Francis down after the war - I even communicated with a Cook descendant from up north to see if he could help figure out what happened. I’m not sure it is the right Francis Cook who made manholes, but it seems pretty likely.

As they were escaping New Orleans, someone bribed a Yankee sentry $20 in gold to let their steamer, Newsboy, through.

Francis got a pardon from President Johnson exactly one year after his brother was killed. The US government sued him over the armory he and his brother built in Athens, and then Ferdinand’s widow sued him in 1869. I tried to get a copy of the lawsuit as it’s supposedly in the old records at the Athens Clarke County courthouse, but as yet I’ve not had any luck finding it. One worker at the courthouse was kind enough to tell me that there was “some flooding a few years back and a lot of old stuff got throwed out”. Ugh.

The Cook brothers made a chair out of several rifle stocks and gave it to Alexander Stephens, probably because they were trying to get his help in obtaining skilled workers and materiel, but the helpful worker at his house in Crawfordville told me she thinks someone “dropped a cannonball on it”. Ugh again!

Another interesting tidbit- Ferdinand’s wife’s brother, John Wesley Wilcox of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans, may have placed the last cannon at the battle of Appomattox and was about to fire before a confederate yelled “stop! We have surrendered!” John Wesley went to Athens after surrender and while there a young lady (a refugee from Charleston) offered to sew buttons on his coat, as the Yankees had stolen them all. After she had finished he thanked her and left, went down the road a ways, stopped, and then went back “and married that pretty girl.” They were married for more than 50 years. John Wesley Wilcox’s son was the first rear admiral ever lost at sea during WWII.

At the battle of Honey Hill, SC, Cook’s battalion defended against the 54th Massachusetts (of Glory fame) - one of the last confederate victories of the war. A soldier in the 55th Mass said something along the lines of “the musketry at Fort Wagner was fearful, but I never heard the rebel yell louder than at Honey Hill.” these battleworks are really well preserved - I got permission from the city (who now owns the land) to go exploring. The trenches are still really deep - during the battle, young confederate soldiers who were too short to fire over the parapet would team up- one kid got on all fours and the other would stand on his back, take a shot at the Yankees, and then they’d switch.

My ggg grandfather was 16 and fought with Cook’s battalion - he learned of the surrender in Raleigh NC while on a long march transporting Yankee prisoners.
 
Really interesting, but I would think a bayonet on a shotgun would only be useful when they were fighting dismounted. Fighting dismounted, the shotgun would likely not be the weapon of choice. Am I wrong?
I ask, why wouldn't it be? For the time, 2 barrels vs 1. And a powerful buck and ball round or buckshot at close range is nothing to turn your nose up to. I figure that's why the trench gun was a shotgun, up close and personal in close quarters. Add a bayonet to that and I think it's a self evident option. What could be some cons to its use?
 
I ask, why wouldn't it be? For the time, 2 barrels vs 1. And a powerful buck and ball round or buckshot at close range is nothing to turn your nose up to. I figure that's why the trench gun was a shotgun, up close and personal in close quarters. Add a bayonet to that and I think it's a self evident option. What could be some cons to its use?
I agree, after all, what is a smoothbore musket but a shotgun used to fire round ball anyway?
 
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