GDG- Captured CS infantry weapon inventory?

James Cameron cameron2 at optonline.net
Thu Sep 27 20:36:16 CDT 2007


<< I am trying to get some info on infantry weapons carried by CS units. 
While
info on Union units is available in detail, CS info seems harder to find. 
Most
 of the sources I have are early war and likely not valid for Gettysburg. As
a possible work around, I was wondering if anyone had ever seen an inventory
of  the infantry arms picked up after the battle? This would at least give a
general  distribution of types carried.  Pointers to more specific sources
would  also be appreciated. Thanks for any suggestions.

-Jim Weaver  >>

The only complete Confederate record I've seen is the May 1863 Ordnance 
return for McLaws' division.  It gives a complete breakdown of small arms in 
the hands of the troops, by brigade and regiment.  Primarily .58 
Springfields and .577 Enfields, some .69 smoothbores and .54 Mississippi 
rifles, plus a few odds and ends.  The GNMP library has a copy.

The Union OR contain some mentions here and there of small arms recovered 
during the battle.  Lt. Edie, Acting Chief Ordnance Officer, AOP, provided a 
return of ordnance and ordnance stores recovered from the field and shipped 
to the Washington Arsenal.  Unfortunately, there's no breakdown of the small 
arms by type, just "muskets", and there's no way to know which or how many 
were Confederate or Union.

The 1st Corps ordnance officer, Lt. Rosengarten, did arms "captured from the 
enemy" in his report, listing:
Springfield rifled muskets:    174
Enfield rifled muskets:       2,402
Austrian rifled muskets:          64
English rifled muskets:            26
Harpers Ferry smoothbore:   212
Various:                                  80

Of course, given tht both sides used Springfields and Enfields, one might 
wonder how he was certain all these were captured Confederate weapons, and 
didn't include at least some Union weapons.

Jim Cameron




More information about the Gettysburg mailing list