Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

T he military record of Lieutenant Colonel Hypolite Oladowski, the long serving chief of ordnance of the Army of Tennessee, totals more than 800 pages in length. Most of the file consists of correspondence between Oladowski and Josiah Gorgas in Richmond, or ordnance depot and arsenal commanders in the western Confederacy. Buried amongst the mundane business of supplying arms among supply shortages, battle losses, and the carelessness of the troops there are just a few reports giving broader details of what types of arms the Army of Tennessee carried throughout its storied career.           The following two reports, both dating from the spring of 1864 and predating the opening of the Atlanta campaign, list both the types of artillery utilized and the small arms carried by the infantry and cavalry. The reports do not call out arms by specific type but calibers are given by which we can make the following broad assumptions:

S erving as a corporal in the ranks of Co. E of the 6 th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Pulaski W. Fuller opened a lengthy correspondence with the Vermont Standard newspaper in March of 1862, determined to provide his kinfolk with a description of the war as it was being fought in the West. As the fighting drew to a close on the afternoon of April 7, 1862, Fuller observed that “we now began to realize how dreadful was the work in which we had been engaged. For miles the woods were strewn with wounded, the dying, and the dead. The Rebels fled so precipitately as to laves thousands of their wounded and dead on the field. Never before did I realize the wickedness of war. Here were no breastworks or fortifications of any kind. Men stood and deliberately shot each other down as they would the most common game.” Two of Corporal Fuller’s letters to the Vermont Standard describing Shiloh and its aftermath are reproduced below.

An unidentified Confederate holding a Mississippi rifle at the photographer's studio in Corinth, Mississippi. Mississippi rifles were a common arm of Johnston's army in mid-1863.  A fter serving on the staff of General William J. Hardee as chief ordnance officer for more than a year, in July 1863, Major James M. Kennard reported for duty in his home state of Mississippi (he was a native of Port Gibson), joining the staff of Lieutenant General Joseph E. Johnston as his chief ordnance officer. Writing from Morton, Mississippi on August 17, 1863, he crafted the following report detailing the arms utilized by the troops under Johnston’s command which provides some insights into the remarkable array of weaponry carried by this army at the midpoint of the war. The document, titled “Statement of Arms in Gen. J.E. Johnston’s Command, including those at Demopolis,” resides as page 60 of Major Kennard’s military file hosted by Fold3.   At Demopolis [Alabama] .69 caliber percussi...

B y the end of the Civil War, the 45 th Pennsylvania could point to a war record that marked them as one of the most traveled regiments in the U.S. Army. Organized at Camp Curtin near Harrisburg in October 1861, the regiment was assigned to first to duty on the South Carolina coast, fighting at James Island and Secessionville in June 1862. Transported north to join General John Pope’s Army of Virginia shortly thereafter, the regiment became part of the Army of the Potomac and fought at both South Mountain and Antietam in September and later at Fredericksburg in December.           The following spring, the 9 th Corps was dispatched to the western theater, first to Kentucky, and shortly thereafter to the Mississippi River to support Grant’s campaign against Vicksburg. Our correspondent, a soldier in Co. I labeling himself as “Young America,” picks up the story in mid-June 1863 at Memphis, Tennessee as the Pennsylvanians are about to depart...

.69 caliber "buck and ball" ammunition was the most common type carried by the troops of Hardee's Corps in the summer of 1862, comprising 77% of the long arms carried by the troops of Patton Anderson's Division, and roughly 61% of Wood's division. A s I have been gathering material for an upcoming study of the Kentucky Campaign of 1862, I was delighted to discover the following a pair of reports detailing the arms carried by the troops of General William J. Hardee's corps in the summer of 1862. The first of these reports concerns the arms carried by Brigadier General J. Patton Anderson's division. Assembled by Major James M. Kennard, chief of ordnance on the staff of Major General William J. Hardee, the ‘Consolidated Return of Arms of the 2 nd Division, Left Wing, Army of Mississippi’ details the weapons carried by each of the four brigades of the division. While it does not call out specific arms issues of each regiment (I would love to have that deta...

“I have learned that I am reported killed which has given me a great deal of uneasiness,” reported Captain James Archbald of the 132 nd Pennsylvania to a friend in Scranton after the Battle of Antietam. His regiment, thrust into action for the first time during the fighting near the Sunken Lane, lost heavily and what Archbald saw on the battlefield haunted his dreams that night.           “The adjutant and I lay close together but I could not sleep as I still heard the terrific cannonading or the whizzing of bullets through the corn, so affected was my imagination,” he continued. “In my sleep the battle was partially forgotten as I as so much exhausted. Still, I awoke several times to find I had been dreaming of that fearful struggle.”           Captain Archbald’s description of Antietam first saw publication in the October 4, 1862, edition of the Carbondale Advance .