If I wanted a "typical" Civil War battlefield long gun, what would it be?

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“A three-man crew at an 1861 demonstration of the “Requa Battery” in New York City fired the weapons at the rate of seven volleys, or 175 shots, per minute. In one Army test the gun’s rate of fire reached 225 shots in one minute and 15 seconds. Billinghurst and Requa claimed an “effective range of 1,200 yards,” and Army and Navy records appear to have verified that claim.

Captain Albert G. Mack, a Rochester associate of Requa who encouraged the development of the Requa Battery, wanted to be the first to deploy one in combat. In the summer of 1862, Mack raised the 18th Independent Battery, New York Light Artillery. Captain Mack intended that his “Rochester Rifle Battery” be equipped with Requa guns, a “Rochester invention.” Another Rochester unit, Captain J. Warren Barnes’ 26th Independent Battery, used Requa guns as a recruiting enticement. Both batteries were sent to the Department of the Gulf, but the Requas were sparingly used at best. The 18th’s guns were shipped south without ammunition or spare magazines, and Mack’s gunners ended up servicing 20-pounder Parrott rifled cannons.

Brigadier General William F. Barry, a hard-to-please Regular Artillery officer, tested the Requa in January 1863 and found it “extremely serviceable.” Requa guns were also used by Brig. Gen. Quincy Gillmore in Charleston, S.C. He obtained five for field testing, and they were manned by crews from the 3rd New Hampshire, 39th Illinois and 9th Maine Infantry regiments. During the siege of Battery Wagner on Morris Island, the guns were used to suppress enemy sharpshooters, cover advancing trench lines and, on at least one occasion, in support of an infantry attack by the 24th Massachusetts. A Confederate defender maintained that the Requa guns gave “very little trouble,” but a Federal officer reported that they were “used against the enemy’s sharpshooters and working parties, apparently with good effect”.”



Or the....
Grenade!: The Little-Known Weapon of the Civil War
By Joseph G. Bilby

It was akin to shooting fish in a barrel. The Hoosiers of the 45th Illinois were pinned down in a crater that June 25, 1862, the result of a Union mine used in an attempt to blow up a section of the Rebel works at Vicksburg. The Federal attack had faltered in the reeking pit, and the Confederates had taken the opportunity to hurl ad hoc hand grenades, modified artillery shells, down up the helpless Yankees. A Union officer reported that “the enemy…with their hand-grenades render it difficult for our working parties to remain in the crater at all. The wounds inflicted by those missiles are frightful.”

While artillery shells were pressed into service during that incident, there were several varieties of Civil War grenades made specifically for their purpose. Some had an almost cartoonish appearance, with fins for aerodynamics and plungers for detonating. Others looked like deadly bocce balls. But though the grenades used by the Blue and the Gray were far from perfect—some were as dangerous to the thrower as they were to the intended target—a variety of improvised and purpose-built grenades were hurled and used in combat in numerous battles.

Grenades had been used in battle for hundreds of years before the Civil War, and were well known to the military men of the 1860s. In his 1861 Military Dictionary, Colonel Henry Lee Scott described a grenade as “small shell about 2-inches in diameter, which, being set on fire by means of a short fuze and cast among the enemy’s troops causes great damage by its explosion.” For troops attacking fortifications, Scott recommended the use of “blindages,” a French term for armored shields, as protection from grenades.“

The war in order by year by major battle

http://www.historynet.com/civil-war
 
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“When the American Civil War broke out in April 1861, neither the North (about 360,000 small arms) nor the South (about 240,000) had enough weapons to fight a major war.[1] Stockpiles of rifles and handguns carried by individual soldiers were limited. As the war escalated those arms stockpiles were quickly diminished.[2] Soldiers were often forced to use older smooth bore and flintlock muskets, which had been considered to be obsolete, simply because the newer rifles were not available in sufficient quantities. Many soldiers were forced to use their own personal hunting rifles, which were typically Kentucky or Pennsylvania type rifles. These rifles, while more accurate than smoothbore muskets, had been designed for hunting, and fired less deadly smaller caliber ammunition.

In April 1861, Virginia militia commanded by Stonewall Jackson occupied the town of Harper's Ferry, Virginia (later West Virginia) and seized the Federal arsenal there. The arsenal boasted state-of-the-art machine tools for manufacturing firearms and the Confederates managed to dismantle all of the equipment and transport it by rail to Richmond, where it became central to the Confederate war effort.

At the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, US Regular Army regiments had Model 1855 Springfield rifles and some companies also had Model 1841 "Mississippi" rifles, however most soldiers in both armies had smoothbore muskets, primarily the Model 1842 musket or percussion-converted Model 1816/1822 musket (as well as some muskets still using the original flintlock mechanism). The only soldiers at First Bull Run who may have had foreign muskets were Wade Hampton's Hampton Legion, as he had ordered Enfield rifles from England to arm it with, however it is unclear if any reached his troops in time for the battle. Late in the year, the first shipments of European muskets began arriving, which included a wide range of weapons ranging from the modern (Model 1853 Enfield rifles) to antiquated ones from the Napoleonic Wars (Model 1809 Potsdam muskets). By early 1862, the first significant deliveries of Model 1861 Springfields began. The regular army received first pick of weapons, followed by the Army of the Potomac. Other Union armies were considered lower priority for receiving the latest and best equipment. Until 1863 however, Enfield rifles were far more common than Springfields.

At the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, the Union armies were fairly well equipped with .58 caliber rifles, however smoothbores were still common along with assorted European muskets such as the M1854 Austrian Lorenz Rifle and Belgian Liege rifles. The Confederates were much worse off, being armed with mostly smoothbore muskets, including some flintlocks, and even shotguns and hunting rifles. Some regiments did however have Enfield and Lorenz rifles. It was reported that during the fighting at the Hornet's Nest, some Confederates threw away their flintlock muskets and re-armed themselves with Enfield rifles dropped by Union soldiers.

During the Peninsula Campaign, the Army of the Potomac was more than 50% armed with Enfield and Springfield rifles, while the Army of Northern Virginia may have been using close to 40% smoothbore muskets. This may account for the lopsided casualty figures in the Seven Days Battles (15,000 Union casualties versus 20,000 Confederates). By the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, the Army of the Potomac had mostly phased out smoothbore muskets aside from the Irish Brigade, which by choice continued using Model 1842 muskets into 1864. However, ordnance reports show that 40 regiments in the Army of the Potomac still carried .69 caliber muskets at Gettysburg and some as late as the Overland Campaign.

The Army of Northern Virginia steadily acquired modern weapons through battlefield pickups, however its chief of ordnance Edward Porter Alexander reported that the Battle of Gettysburg was the first engagement in which the army had no smoothbore muskets. Enfield and Springfield rifles were the primary infantry arms in the Army of Northern Virginia during the second half of the war, along with some Confederate clones of the Springfield such as the Richmond rifle.

In the Western theater, Union armies still carried a significant number of smoothbore muskets into 1863, during the Vicksburg Campaign, Ulysses Grant's Army of Tennessee had numerous "mule guns" and "pumpkin slingers" (nicknames for inferior shoulder arms). These included a high percentage of Liege rifles and M1809 Potsdam muskets, as well as M1822 and 1842 muskets converted for percussion and often rifling in addition to the "first class" weapons such as the M1861 Springfield. The Army of the Cumberland had a similar situation, and not until the second half of 1863 did the Western armies become uniformly equipped with .58 caliber rifles.

The Confederate armies in the West were much worse off; almost half the Army of the Tennessee still had smoothbore muskets at the Battle of Stones River at the end of 1862. By the start of the Atlanta Campaign in spring 1864, the Army of the Tennessee mostly had rifles, although perhaps 15% of its soldiers continued using smoothbore muskets and a few regiments still had them as late as the Battle of Franklin. The Vicksburg garrison by comparison was well-equipped with Enfield rifles at a time when Grant's army still had a high percentage of second class muskets. After the fall of the city in July 1863, Grant's troops were able to rearm themselves with captured rifles.

Late in the war, repeating five and seven shot Spencer and Henry rifles became available to Union troops, mostly cavalry regiments; by the start of the Overland Campaign, the Army of the Potomac's cavalry had virtually standardized on Spencer rifles. Repeater rifles were never a widespread weapon among infantry, although Union regiments used them at the Battle of Franklin to devastating effect. A few repeater rifles were acquired by the Confederates through battlefield pickups, but lack of ammunition made them largely useless.

To combat the arms shortage, the Union and Confederacy both had imported large quantities of rifles from Europe, with each side buying whatever they could get. The relatively poor South only bought 50,000 by August 1862, while the North bought 726,000.[1]Accordingly, during the first two years of the war soldiers from both sides used a wide variety of rifles, including many that were over 50 years old and were considered obsolete. At the same time, Northern rifle and gun manufacturers such as Sharps, Colt, Remington, and the United States armory at Springfield, Massachusetts quickly increased their production of rifles; Springfield alone increased its annual output from 20,000 to 200,000. The North was thus able to supply its own small arms needs while the South had to continue to rely on foreign sources, eventually purchasing 580,000 rifles.


Commonly used infantry arms

  • Model 1816/1822 Springfield (.69 caliber): Originally a flintlock musket, most of them been converted to percussion by the time of the Civil War, making them largely indistinguishable from the Model 1842 musket. Commonly used in the first year of the war, especially by Confederate troops.
  • Model 1841 Mississippi Rifle (.54 caliber): This weapon first gained fame and its unofficial name of "Mississippi Rifle" when Colonel (and future Confederate president) Jefferson Davisled a Mississippi regiment armed with them in the Mexican War. Fairly common in the first year and a half of the war, Confederates continued using them to the end of the war. Many of the existing stock of M1841 rifles by the time of the Civil War had been modified to accept a .58 caliber round.
  • Model 1842 Springfield (.69 caliber): The last smoothbore musket adopted by the US Army. Several hundred thousand of these were stocked in various state and Federal arsenals in 1861 and they became one of the most widely used infantry arms in the first year and a half of the war. Some were rifled and fitted with rifle rear sights, but these conversions were neither very reliable or well-performing. The rifle-converted Model 1842 was much less common than the standard musket. The Palmetto Arsenal in Charleston, South Carolinaproduced its own version of the M1842 musket with brass rather than iron fittings. These were issued to South Carolina regiments and militia, and production continued until Charleston was captured by Union troops in February 1865.
  • Model 1854 Lorenz Rifle (.54 caliber): The Lorenz Rifle was the Austrian army's standard infantry weapon at the time of the Civil War. Large amounts of them were purchased by both Union and Confederate agents in late 1861-early 1862. Quality was widely variable, and they saw use in most major battles from Shiloh onward. Lorenz rifles were often bored out to accommodate .58 caliber rounds.
  • Model 1855 Springfield Rifle (.58 caliber): The first musket adopted by the US Army to use the Minie ball system, the regular army had been fully equipped with them by 1861. A fair number were used by Confederates either from captured stockpiles or battlefield pickups. The M1855 rifle had a complicated, unreliable, and expensive tape primer system that was eventually deleted to create the M1861 Springfield rifle, and many M1855s were modified to use a standard percussion cap.
  • Model 1861 Springfield Rifle (.58 caliber): Widely considered the gold standard of Civil War infantry weapons, the M1861 Springfield did not begin significant production until the end of 1861, with deliveries reaching Union regiments early in 1862. The Army of the Potomac was mostly equipped with .58 caliber rifles by late 1862 but the Western armies were slower to upgrade. Confederate troops acquired thousands of M1861 Springfields through battlefield pickups and clones were produced in Richmond and at Fayetteville, Georgia.
  • Model 1809 Potsdam Musket (.70 caliber): Several thousand obsolete Prussian M1809 and M1839 smoothbore muskets were purchased by US government agents in late 1861-early 1862 (the Confederates do not seem to have purchased any Prussian muskets). The M1809 was originally a flintlock musket, however most had since been converted to percussion. Potsdam muskets were mostly distributed to the Western armies and were rare in the Eastern theater. It was not popular due to its size, weight, and sharp recoil when fired, and ammunition was difficult to obtain since it could not easily accommodate the .69 caliber cartridges used by US model muskets. Many Potsdam muskets were issued to militia, used for training, or kept in storage rather than issued to front line troops.
  • Model 1853 Enfield Rifle (.577 caliber): The British M1853 Enfield rifle was imported in large quantities by both the US and CSA and became one of the staples of Civil War infantry, and it saw use in almost every significant engagement of the war from Fort Donelson onward. Both two and three band versions were produced, the latter being vastly more common.”
The balance of this with pictures and list of arms is at
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifles_in_the_American_Civil_War
 
Reenacting was mentioned.

Reenactors should select what unit they wish to interpret and then research what firearms were carried at what point in time. From that, determne the firearm appropriate for the unit. It would be out of place to carry a Spencer rifle among a unit mostly equipped with 1842 smoothbore muskets. Some units later in the war did carry mixed arms and Wilder's Mounted Lightning Brigade is an excellent example.

Requa guns were mentioned and were present on Morris Island. The biggest threat to the Confederate sharpshooters at long range were the Parrott Guns that shot the Confederates' protective sandbags to pieces. That was very demoralizing. At closer range (500 yards or less) Capt. Richard Ela's ad-hoc Springfield armed sharpshooter unit gave as good as it got. The Confederate Whitworth Sharpshooters lost their ballistic advantage at that closer range.
 
I can throw in a bit more light....

Both sides had a desperate shortage of arms. The Confederates got their foreign purchasing organized first, and operated in a coordinated manner. Which meant they got the Birmingham small arms makers on contract for Enfield muskets. The Federals wound up with what they could find. This would eventually include Enfields seized by the Navy and more Enfields the Confederates could not pay for.

WRT the Lorentz, there was a major problem...the Federals issued the wrong size ammunition. The Lorentz was closer to .55 caliber than .54, and when fed the smaller round accuracy suffered. The Austrians, who were using a paper-patched Wilkinson-type compression bullet, got excellent accuracy. It didn't help that the Austrians graduated the rear sight in "schritt" - paces. Not yards or even meters.
 
The vast majority of Henry rifles used during the Civil War were private purchases using re-enlistment bonuses. The Western Gunboat Fleet even used some. Mostly purchased by Illinois and Missouri units.
A Washington D.C. cavalry unit was about the only soldiers issued the Henry. It was the first “assault” rifle
 
Both sides had a desperate shortage of arms. The Confederates got their foreign purchasing organized first, and operated in a coordinated manner. Which meant they got the Birmingham small arms makers on contract for Enfield muskets. The Federals wound up with what they could find. This would eventually include Enfields seized by the Navy and more Enfields the Confederates could not pay for.
The rival purchasing commissions were at war with each other, much like the troops on the battlefield. The Confederates, led by Caleb Huse, were trying to get their hands on anything that could shoot, to make up for the Confederacy's shortcomings in industrial base. The Federals, led by Marcellus Hartley, had a broader mandate. Not only were they to obtain usable weapons, but they were to try to preclude the Confederates from getting any. Therefore the Federals ended up buying thousands of weapons -- even junk guns -- that they knew they couldn't use. Some just stayed in warehouses in Europe, and that suited the Federals just fine. There was also a game of espionage being played. The Federal purchasing agents were trying to find out how and when the Confederate purchases were to be shipped, so that they could be intercepted by the Union Navy. Of course, this whole purchasing frenzy was a windfall for the Europeans. It allowed them to convert their obsolescent guns into cash, needed for the next round of rearmament with breechloaders. (Before and after the war, Hartley was a principal in the firm of Schuyler, Hartley, and Graham, which made a mint selling all those surplus guns and other military equipment. Today, that would be considered a clear conflict of interest.)

A note on the production of Enfields: The British were late getting into interchangeable parts. Gunmaking in England was a cottage industry. Numerous small shops, in Birmingham and elsewhere, made batches of parts, which were shipped to the Tower and other armories for final assembly. Needless to say, there was a lot of hand fitting involved, and little interchangeability. The first truly interchangeable Enfields were made by the London Armoury Company, a private enterprise, and it used tooling imported from America. (The standard U.S. musket was fully interchangeable going back to the M1842 smoothbore.)
 
The Confederates rated the Enfields of all types in three catagories. One group could not be considered interchangeable even with in the shipped and issued lot. The next were guns that while an individual lot may interchange, might not interchange with the next or previous lot of the same manufacturer and finally guns such as the LAC which were fully interchangeable. Some said that even the excellent Greener made Enfield fell into the middle group. Pretty, finely finished, including trigger jobs and hand cut checkering and still only interchangeable with in a lot.....unless some factory tool wore out mid way through and things got reset......

Many of the Volunteer Rifles that were supposedly 1853 service rifles made in small shops for individual and volunteer unit private purchase were shall we say unique? Odd barrel lengths and bayonet attachments, oddly shaped stocks and sling swivels, non standard hammers. Most were likely excellent guns in and of them selves, but an armorer's night mare. Britains Volunteer rifle corps was in the process of out right banning rifles that did not fully meet then current standards and so the CSA was picking up those older Volunteer rilfes in drips and drabs.

I believe Whitney made a fairly true knock off of the Enfield 1853 and some were made at what remained of the Windsor plant (those folks made EVERYTHING that went bang before the bankruptcy, actually caused by the British cancelation of an 1853 Enfield rifle order when the Crimean War ended) just before the ACW got going and I believe all available there were purchased by the US.

-kBob
 
The 1861 models made by Colt and 2 other manufacturers were "Special Model 1861's" and were quite different from the normal 1861's. They were a hybrid. Some of the internal lock parts were like those of Enfields, and some external features, like the shape of the hammer and the clamping bands (also Enfield features), presaged those of the M1863 Springfield. The reason for these differences is unclear. There is some speculation that these manufacturers got their tooling from the firm of Robbins & Lawrence, which had previously supplied machinery to the London Armoury Co. for use in making the interchangeable Enfield. Anyway, Colt had enough clout with the government so that it was allowed variation from the official specifications.

I too have one of the Colt "Signature Series" reproductions of the Special Model 1861. Colt advertised these has being a continuation of the original production, and not strictly a reproduction, but in reality they were assembled from parts imported from Italy. So what we have are Italian reproductions, but with Colt markings -- even Sam Colt's signature is on the trigger guard, a decidedly unoriginal feature. Nevertheless, these "Signature Series" guns have become quite desirable and expensive, even rivaling originals in value.

Very interesting! My beef with my Colt is the rear sight and front sight are not in the same plane. The cant is such the rifle shoots to the left by at least two feet at 50 yards! . After having owned and examined enough replica blackpowder firearms, it is evident that the manufacturer's never expected anyone to actually hit what they are aiming at. :fire: Next replica blackpowder firearm you examine, look to see if the front sight is perpendicular to the bore, or at an angle.
 
Very interesting! My beef with my Colt is the rear sight and front sight are not in the same plane. The cant is such the rifle shoots to the left by at least two feet at 50 yards! . After having owned and examined enough replica blackpowder firearms, it is evident that the manufacturer's never expected anyone to actually hit what they are aiming at. :fire: Next replica blackpowder firearm you examine, look to see if the front sight is perpendicular to the bore, or at an angle.
The Italians can make a good gun...but not at the prices many people want to pay. You can't cheap out on precision machine work.
 
I love my 72 cal. Potsdam sighted smoothbore at 25 and 50 yrds it is a tac driver. they are all originals and can be found at a reasonable price. less than most repro's of other muskets.
 
Depends on the time period and the unit you want to replicate
in the early months of the war many soldiers brought their own from home so could of been anything
then the Harpers ferry was used
then the 1857 smith and 1859 /1863 Sharps
I like the Smith but sold it a while back. Should of sold my sharps
and of course the other rifles mentioned above
 
Early in the war said:
THIS. Lots of smoothbore muskets were used in the war, and given the level of training a lot of the troops received, were just as lethal as a Minie-launching rifle.
 
Only see one mention of the "Richmond Rifle"... I didn't see the Two Band 1858 Enfield .577 (.58) mentioned... sometimes referred to as the Naval or Calvary rifle Musket. I'm a Fan of Pedersoli in the Long Guns.
 
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I have not seen mention the 1858 2 Band Enfield rifled musket, sometimes referred to as the Naval or Artillery Model?
 
Very interesting! My beef with my Colt is the rear sight and front sight are not in the same plane. The cant is such the rifle shoots to the left by at least two feet at 50 yards! . After having owned and examined enough replica blackpowder firearms, it is evident that the manufacturer's never expected anyone to actually hit what they are aiming at. :fire: Next replica blackpowder firearm you examine, look to see if the front sight is perpendicular to the bore, or at an angle.
The remedy for this is fairly simple: remove and re-solder the front sight in the correct position. Use a MAPP torch and real silver solder with the proper flux (the solder and flux come in a kit).

I had to do this for the bayonet lug on my otherwise excellent M1842 by Armi Sport (Chiappa). The bayonet lug was misplaced by enough that the bayonet would not mount. (The sight on this gun is on the front band.) I removed the barrel from the stock and heated up the bayonet lug with the MAPP torch until it fell off. Then I coated the area with flux and clamped the lug in the correct place. Then heated the parts to glowing red and flowed silver solder into the joint. Let cool and removed the clamp. (The fact that these guns are "Armory Bright" means that you don't have to worry about messing up the bluing. Just use fine emery cloth to remove the excess flux, solder, and discoloration.)
 
1861, 1863, 1864 Springfield Rifle Musket.
Enfield 3 band
Lorenz
 
Very interesting! My beef with my Colt is the rear sight and front sight are not in the same plane. The cant is such the rifle shoots to the left by at least two feet at 50 yards! . After having owned and examined enough replica blackpowder firearms, it is evident that the manufacturer's never expected anyone to actually hit what they are aiming at. :fire: Next replica blackpowder firearm you examine, look to see if the front sight is perpendicular to the bore, or at an angle.

For the first couple of years during the Civil War both sides used Napoleonic tactic as the officers on both side sides had been taught them at West Point. It was simply mass men together and fire away at the other side without aiming your rifle just point your smoothbore rifle at the enemy line and shoot. A lot of the guns had no rear sight. Reload speed was stressed rather than accuracy. The mine ball and rifling changed the game and it took a few years for the commanders to realize this and come up with new tactics to use rather than the ones they had been taught. This is one of the reasons for the slaughter during the Civil War. I lost 2 GGG great uncles during the war.
 
The biggest difference in casualties between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War was the introduction of rifled bores. I can tell you from personal experience that the difference in groups between the Brown Bess and a Springfield 1861 at 100 yards is startling.
 
The biggest difference in casualties between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War was the introduction of rifled bores. I can tell you from personal experience that the difference in groups between the Brown Bess and a Springfield 1861 at 100 yards is startling.

Three major changes one of which includes rifling. The other is the minie ball that gave the average soldier long range accuracy that only riflemen once enjoyed. Speed of a musket and range of a rifle. The third is the ignition system with the percussion caps.

Of course, progress would not be denied and the metallic cartridge was available, breechloaders for both metallic and linen cartridges and finally, repeaters.
 
There was another factor...want of cavalry. Both sides lacked enough cavalry to exploit a victory. They could win a battle with infantry and artillery, but you need cavalry to follow up and shatter enemy cohesion and morale. Which meant that the Great Unpleasantness Between the States was a war of attrition.
 
Best of luck on that...

Seriously, a British-made Parker Hale Enfield is outstanding (I shoot a '58 myself), but they haven't been made in ages. I'd either go Pedersoli, or head over to the N-SSA bulletin board and pick up something on the used market.
 
Few Civil War battles where cavalry could have made a difference in pursuit of a defeated foe is First Manassas. Chickamagua is another, but the Cavalry would have to bypass Thomas who was gallantly fighting as rearguard for Rosecrans' defeated men. Chattanooga is a maybe if Union cavalry could have swept up Missionary Ridge to pursue Bragg's defeated men. Nashville is another one.

Civil War armies were rarely driven into a headlong retreat.
 
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