Discussion The Firearms Knowledge Base of the Civil War Soldier

Don Dixon

Sergeant
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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? :smile:

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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The West Point trained officers with experience in the US/Mexican war were thinned out very fast. Experienced soldiers tended to stay in their units and their experience was generally not available to new regiments.
 
There are fundamental reasons why the events of the war depended heavily on the professional naval vessels, the trained artillery batteries, and the experienced and well equipped US cavalry units.
 
The fighting in WV, and MO, and the massing of troops along the Ohio River started with a few weeks of Fort Sumter. Neither government was willing to make their citizens into professional soldiers before they were sent into combat.
 
@Don Dixon That was very interesting. The issue with cleaning muskets is one I don't believe I have seen discussed before. Thank you very much!

John
 
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?
I expected to see a simply question such as:
Did the Confederates have a better advantage because of their training and use of firearms before the War?

Let me give an example from my experience.
When I went to the 4-week ROTC summer camp—which was designed to test and train you and expise you to military life— we spent a day at the indoor range learning to shoot the Air Force officer’s sidearm: the Smith & Wesson revolver.
I roomed with 2 Southern boys and one was from Louisiana and did all types of hunting and fishing. One cadet at the range was a rather diminutive guy from New York and had never fired a gun. The instructor took time with him ti show him how to safely handle the pistol and sight it. We returned in the afternoon to fire the pistol on the range to qualify.
I expected to score high and hoped to get a perfect score. When we had to fire 8 shots in a time limit (30? seconds), I list time— forgetting the S&W rotated backwards. The Louisiana good ole boy score was only average. The New York boy scored 1 shot below Perfect.
My take away is that some hunters pick up bad habits. I also bet the hunter was good at duck hunting with a shot gun and bringing down a deer with a scoped rifle but he never properly fired a small handgun.
 
I expected to see a simply question such as:
Did the Confederates have a better advantage because of their training and use of firearms before the War?

Let me give an example from my experience.
When I went to the 4-week ROTC summer camp—which was designed to test and train you and expise you to military life— we spent a day at the indoor range learning to shoot the Air Force officer’s sidearm: the Smith & Wesson revolver.
I roomed with 2 Southern boys and one was from Louisiana and did all types of hunting and fishing. One cadet at the range was a rather diminutive guy from New York and had never fired a gun. The instructor took time with him ti show him how to safely handle the pistol and sight it. We returned in the afternoon to fire the pistol on the range to qualify.
I expected to score high and hoped to get a perfect score. When we had to fire 8 shots in a time limit (30? seconds), I list time— forgetting the S&W rotated backwards. The Louisiana good ole boy score was only average. The New York boy scored 1 shot below Perfect.
My take away is that some hunters pick up bad habits. I also bet the hunter was good at duck hunting with a shot gun and bringing down a deer with a scoped rifle but he never properly fired a small handgun.

My experience as a military and law enforcement firearms instructor was that if you gave me a group of women and a group of men, at the end of the day the women shot better. They generally had more limited experience and they would listen to you and try to apply what you taught them. They didn't confuse possession of a penis and testicles with an ability to shoot.

Regards,
Don Dixon
 
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? :smile:

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
Thank you for providing that information.
 
I recently finished "The little war of private Post" about his journey's to Cuba and back during the 1898 war and he mentioned that even then the arms used for guard duty were miserably maintained compared to their personal weapons. He was a New York man and wrote and very interesting book of that era.

Per the ammo, did the Southerners have the special blue cleaning rounds that were to be fired @ every seven rounds to clean the bores like the Unions troops used? My Minnie balls measure @ .54" and I can get 8-10 rounds down range before needing a cleaning in my repop Enfield copy.

Per which soldiers were better at war, I think that depends. Hunters know fieldcraft which is different than firearms skills. Those folks have often been chosen for patrols, scouts and snipers because they were just better in the woods. Firearms skills are just a small subset of that training and the vast majority were trained to fire by rote and cadence, not learned skills.
 
They generally had more limited experience and they would listen to you and try to apply what you taught them.
I find this true when helping them research their WW2 Veteran. The guys dont ask the simple questions which would make them look dumb. Whereas, I have fun helping inquisitive ladies.
 
My experience as a military and law enforcement firearms instructor was that if you gave me a group of women and a group of men, at the end of the day the women shot better. They generally had more limited experience and they would listen to you and try to apply what you taught them. They didn't confuse possession of a penis and testicles with an ability to shoot.

Regards,
Don Dixon
I was for some years an NRA-certified handgun instructor and I taught my wife and several female friends to shoot (I shot competitively for about ten years). I agree. I also think in some ways women may be more focused on small motor control (which works with trigger work and grip); not sure but it seemed that way. Most women also seemed more patient and not focused so much on the end result but, rather, on steady improvement.

If one gets into a gun fight with my wife one best be really quick and make your first shot count 'cause you ain't gonna get a second chance.
 
To add to the first hand knowledge of women and firearms. With my first wife I purchased a Makarov pistol for home defense. It was known to be reliable and a good belly gun. To make her more comfortable firing a handgun (she never had) we went out to the local SD gun range aka prairie dog town. I taught her how to relax and aim and then gave her a full magazine so she might get used to the sound and feel of recoil. I told her to shoot at a nearby prairie dog mound, about 20-25 yards distant. I also told her to not worry about hitting anything. She dutifully emptied the magazine and said she felt better about the pistol. I opted to go take a look at the mound... 5 dead prairie dogs. Frankly, that was better shooting than I could ever have done with that pistol and it was her first time ever firing a handgun... and she was a native born Texican.

I had a friend in HS who had a serious flinch issue and was frightened of the muzzle blast from a 22 LR. Nothing I did helped until I stumbled across a different motivation. I told her to imagine the X ring was the face of a particular individual she had real reason to hate. Like a light switch she went from all over the paper to one of the finest marksmen I've ever had the privilege of knowing.

The men of the ACW were not so different as those of today, it takes someone being willing to learn and it takes practice to become effective with a rifle.
 
A great football coach teaches fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals, no matter how skilled their players think they already are.
 
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