From: KARLIN@BNLCL6.BNL.GOV (P.L. Cowan)
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa
Subject: Re: smoothbores, foriegn soldiers and enlistments
Summary: See subject.
Keywords: Smoothbores, Rifled muskets, Dr. Mary Walker, Gettysburg.
Date: 3 Sep 92 16:44:28 GMT
Reply-To: COWAN@ANL.GOV
Organization: BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.23

In <BtxHDu.E1H@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> tbarnes@silver.ucs.indiana.edu writes:
: To add my .02 cents (Union) to several threads, I am posting several
: factoids I remember from various things I have read.

Thanks for an informative post. I'll see your $.02 and raise you $.02 8^).

: 
: Smoothbores - Many units were issued with really crummy weapons at the
: start of the war, especially in the North, where more troops were being
: raised, where militia companies were scarcer and where U.S. arsenals
: were less well equipped. (It is a point of debate as to whether
: pro-secession government officials in the waning days of the Buchanann
: administration stripped Northern arsenals of their guns and sent them
: South in anticipation of a war.) 

Despite the fact that Sec. of War John B. Floyd was suspected of
stockpiling weapons in the South, at the beginning of the war about 90%
of CSA soldiers were armed with smoothbores. by the end of Chancellorsville,
Jacksons men had been able to scavenge enough Springfields and Enfields so
that afterward his ordinance officer need to supply only .58 caliber
bullets (to what became Ewell's Second Corps). At Gettysburg, not all
CSA corps were as well equipped as Ewell's but a good estimate is that
only 10% of the total still had smoothbores. Some regiments were
intentionally armed with smoothbores because buckshot was very effective 
at close range. (Especially for those who couldn't *AIM* well 8^) ).

Longstreet stated that at Gettysburg the entire AotP was armed with
Enfields and Springfields, but Union reports indicate that only about
2/3 were.

My favorite story concerning smoothbores is one told by Bruce Catton.
The 13th Penna. Reserves (known as the "Bucktails") were initially
given large-caliber smoothbores which had been retro-fitted with rifled
inserts which brought the caliber down to the .58 range. These
bastardized rifles had a heck of a recoil due to gas escaping between
the insert and the original smoothbore. An anonymous private in the
Bucktails (who were recruited from my native Allegheny Mountains of Pa.
I must point out, *BEAMING* with pride) discovered that a silver dime
rammed into the insert made a perfect gasket between the insert and the
original musket bore, reducing the recoil and vastly improving accuracy.
The Bucktails quickly won reputations as marksmen, and later were one of
the first units (along with Regular US Sharpshooters and virtually all 
cavalry units) to be equipped with Sharps breach loaders.

: Some units started out armed with only Pikes! 

I have not read reports of any units (on either side) actually fighting
with pikes, but a certain T.J. Jackson did order thousands of pikes made
for his Army of the Shenandoah. They sat in Confederate warehouses,
unused through the end of the war.

: [lots of good stuff deleted]
:    Many cavalrymen also liked shotguns (with the butt and/or barrel cut
: off) as a close in weapon in melee . I guess the trick was to not hit
: your friends with it.
: 

Stuart complained prior to Gettysburg (after Brandy Station) that his
cavalry was armed with only pistols, (some revolvers) and sabers. (I may
be wrong but I think pistols were smoothbore throughout the war,
because accuracy meant little and smoothbores were easier to load.)
Buford's two cavalry brigades, on the other hand, were surprisingly
effective against Heth's CSA infantry division at G'burg due to their
breach-loading carbines, and Custer's old regiment of Michigan cavalry
(the 5th?) was reported to have used repeating carbines against Stuart's
men in the fight around Wolf Hill.

: Foriegners - I read in a book of traditional Irish songs that 50% of the
: union army and 30% of the CSA army were Irish. I am very skeptical
: though. I can believe that 50% of the Army of the Potomac could have
: been of Irish DESCENT, but I don't buy those numbers as they stand.

I also doubt this. Significant Irish immigration was a relatively
recent phenomenon (not to be confused with Scotch-Irish) and I believe
most Irish Americans at the time were first generation. There were
Irish regiments and at least one "Irish Brigade" (which fought
famously in the Wheatfield at G'burg) but I think these were
exceptional. 

I believe that German immigrants were more common in the Union Army.
Howard's 11th Corps was largely German. Many of the "Germans" were
residents of Missouri, New York and Pa., but the US embassies in the
various German states also recruited foreign nationals extensively, and
paid for their boat trip (plus a bounty).

:    I know of at least one Russian officer who served as a commander with
: the AotP (Turgin?, Turchin?). Appearantly he had been cashiered from the
: Russian army and had emigrated.
: 

A quick check of my references turned up nothing on such a general in
the AotP, but there were generals who had served in the French Army (de
Trobriand and Kearny of the 3rd Corps come quickly to mind). McDowell
and McClellan (no d) had both been attached to the French Army as
observers. Conversly, the Comte de Paris was an observer with the AotP.

: Women - There was a woman (whose name I can't remember, of course) who
: served as a surgeon with the AotP. [stuff deleted]
: After the war she was awarded
: the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism in tending the wounded
: under fire. She is the only woman so honored in U.S. history.

As mentioned previously, the MoH was given out relatively freely in the
ACW. Dr. Mary Walker (working without pay) began service in the
Washington hospitals (presumably connected with the AotP), but then
began working nearer the fighting. She eventually was captured by the
CSA in Tennessee, and later was exchanged. She pushed continuously for
an officer's commission since male surgeons were all officers. Finally
after the War, Pres. Johnson instructed Sec. War Stanton to do
*SOMETHING*, so he gave her a MoH. In 1916 Congress decided to raise
the standards for the MoH and rescinded many (if not most) MoH's awarded
in the ACW (for less-than-exceptional heroism), including hers. She
refused to return it, and visited Congress frequently thereafter (she
was in her 80's) to have it officially reinstated. On one such visit she
fell down the capitol steps, receiving injuries that ultimately led to
her death. In the 1970's Congress voted to restore her medal
posthumously, so she is now officially the only woman recipient.

:    Then of course there is Florence Nightingale and many other women who
: acted as nurses, often in terribly dangerous conditions (from disease,
: not bullets).
: 

Aren't you thinking of either Clara Barton or Dorthea Dix? Florence
Nightingale was in the Crimean War.

: Enlistments - I do not know how replacements were integrated into
: existing regiments. The impression I get is that there was little formal
: attempt made to organize a "repple depple" on either side. I have read
: that the politics of the time made it more politically sound to
: commission a VIP and let him raise a new regiment than to recruit
: replacements for existing regiments. That way state governors got to
: give away commissions as political favors and presumably looked good
: because their state had raised yet another regiment. 

I don't think there was much replenishment of depleted regiments in the
Union Army until the draft in 1863. Some veteran regiments were merged
to keep their strength reasonable. After the war Sherman said the
business of replacing rather than replenishing depleted regiments was
one of the the biggest mistakes of the Union Army during the war.

: [more good stuff gone]
:     On both sides, out of a nominal TO & E strength of about 1000 men
: when the regiment was raised, perhaps 700 survived training and camp
: life (disease killed more men than bullets) to get into the field.
: This green regiment was quickly reduced to about 500 - 300 men.

The 9-month regiments from New Hampshire (13th, 14th and 16th) at G'burg
(sorry that all my examples come from one battle, but you can tell where
my interests lie) which had seen no previous action were frequently
confused with a full brigade by the veterans.

: 
: Hope you enjoy,
: 

I did! Hope you do the same.

: Tom 



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P. L. Cowan     Please send replies, comments etc. (no flames thank you) to 
COWAN@ANL.GOV   (I'm posting this from a friend's account)

     "I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall 
adopt new views so fast as they appear to be true views." 
  -  A. Lincoln, Letter to the Editor, New York Tribune, August 22, 1862

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