Don Dixon
Sergeant
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2008
- Location
- Fairfax, VA, USA
Sorry but unless someone provides period correspondence or data that shows that the lack of knowledge of basic firearms use was widespread through either army or both, I don't buy it. And we're not talking about soldiers in the heat of battle who can't reload a fouled barrel or soldiers who fail to reload their rifles or load multiple charges under the same conditions.
The thread Did the Southern men fight better than the Northern men? has gotten long, and has gone somewhat off target. Therefore I thought that I would start this one.
By early 1863 the Confederate Ordnance Bureau had a problem. It was receiving numbers of complaints from the field that the bullets in its cartridges' didn't fit the barrels of the soldiers' rifle muskets. To an extent this was true. Two years into the war the Ordnance Bureau didn't have a uniform set of weights and measures at its arsenals and ammunition laboratories. When ammunition manufactured at the laboratories with moulds, swages, and gauges manufactured and provided by the Ordnance Bureau was checked at Richmond it was found that some of it didn't meet standard. The Bureau then launched into an effort to standardize. In mid-1863 it finally found a set of U.S. standard weights and measures in Montgomery, AL, and copied them, but never fully resolved the problem. Thus, the parts of its "plowshares" didn't necessarily fit together properly.
In time the Confederate ordnance establishment recognized that it also had a maintenance and inspection problem. On 1 June 1863 1LT J. Wilcox Brown submitted a report on weapons he had inspected in Richmond; presumably weapons associated with the Army of Northern Virginia. In his 2 June endorsement of the report, COL Broun , commander of the Richmond Arsenal, wrote “It will be seen by the enclosed report that the ball is sufficiently small for the gun when clean, in good order, but if it is deemed necessary to furnish a ball for guns when foul, in bad order, as it seems the guns in the army are, those of a requisite diameter will be supplied upon your order.” LT Dinwiddie wrote to Broun on 5 June regarding inadequate maintenance and inspection “I know from observation…when rigid company inspections are so rare, the cry will continue to be that the balls lodge in the gun.” [emphasis in original] (Brown and Broun to Gorgas, 1 and 2 June 1863; Dinwiddie to Broun, 5 June 1863; cited at Thomas, Round Ball to Rimfire, IV, 86-8)
On 11 June 1863 BG Gorgas sent a circular to the ordnance officers in the field directing something that should have been inherently obvious. “Please procure an order requiring commanding officers of infantry companies to have the interior of the barrels of Rifles & Muskets rigidly inspected and kept clean. It is believed that the complaints against Cartridges are mainly to ‘foul barrels’ and not to the size of the ball.” In response to Gorgas’ circular, GEN Lee directed on 15 June, during the Gettysburg Campaign, that inspectors in the Army of Northern Virginia look specifically to this issue and report their observations, and that the inspection should be made “habitual.” It had taken the Confederate Army two years of war to realize that the bores of its firearms should be kept clean, and that the arms should be inspected to ensure that its soldiers were doing so. [emphasis in original] (Cited in Thomas, Round Ball to Rimfire, IV, 90)
Realizing that his efforts to ensure that bullets were sized small enough to fit the Confederate Army’s shoulder arms had been in error, Gorgas wrote to Mallet on 6 July 1863:
“The size of the Enfield and rifle musket ball must be determined without further delay. The balls made accurately to the moulds and guages [sic.] lately issued are I have decided too small for efficient use in arms of precision. I request therefore that you will cause new guages [sic.] and moulds to be prepared making the Enfield balls (with two grooves for lubrication) .565. It will be better however to measure from the standard guage [sic.] plug distributed from the armory here [Richmond], and to make the windage of the balls, as compared with the plug .013 (thirteen thousandths). That plug measured .578 and will therefore give a windage of .015 in our [Richmond] rifle musket, .012 to the Enfield.
“By distributing cherries carefully prepared the moulds [previously] distributed could be enlarged I suppose.” (Gorgas to Mallet, 6 July 1863, RG109, C IV, V38, NARA)
Efforts to ensure that the Confederate Army kept its shoulder arms clean were ineffectual, however. By mid-1864 the Confederate Army had developed a standard, printed inspection report format for its inspectors general, and a body of these inspection reports for 1864-5 has been preserved at the National Archives. Given the mythology of the Southern soldier as a gaunt, ragged man who maintained his weapon with meticulous care, one of the things which I found interesting in the reports was the number of occasions in which units’ arms were characterized by the inspecting officers as being “dirty.” Black powder fouling in muzzle loading arms is a particular problem because it makes them difficult to load and because the corrosive properties of fouling will render weapons unserviceable in short order. Keeping equipment serviceable requires constant supervision of troops by a unit’s noncommissioned officers and officers. Ill-trained, incompetent, or unmotivated NCOs and officers are either not equipped to provide such supervision or are unprepared to do so and the condition of a unit’s equipment is a clear sign of the competence of its leadership. (Inspection Reports and Related Records Received by the Inspection Branch in the Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General’s Office (RG 109.7.1) (Microfilm M935), 1864-5 passim.)
The above indicates that, in general, the soldiers of the Confederate Army did not know how to properly maintain their arms, and their officers and NCOs didn't have the knowledge base to properly instruct them how to do so or to properly supervise their efforts. Since we all know that the southern farm boys knew so much more about guns than the Yankees, what does that say about the skill set of the Federal Army?
For a brief response, I trust the citations are adequate. I have much more detailed information in the draft of my book.
Regards,
Don Dixon
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