Battle of Antietam Page

The Rohrbach Bridge at Antietam (Image by Phil Spaugy) 














Among the Wounded at Antietam (15th Massachusetts)




















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Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

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       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true ...
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Days of Constant Vigilance and Fighting: The 8th Texas Cavalry and the Opening of the Stones River Campaign

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G eneral John Wharton’s cavalry brigade, tasked with guarding the left flank of the Army of Tennessee’s position in middle Tennessee, saw plenty of action in the opening days of the Stones River campaign as remembered by Chaplain Robert F. Bunting of the 8 th Texas Cavalry. “The old year, freighted with momentous events, is numbered with the mighty past,” he wrote to the editor of the Houston Tri-Weekly Telegraph . “It’s blended hopes and fears, its mingled sighs and tears, its victories and defeats are all among things that were. 1863 has been born amid the stirring scenes which will have a prominent record in history. The second battle of Murfreesboro has been fought, a glorious triumph has followed our arms and the sounds of victory were sounding forth along the lines of the Army of Tennessee. That brilliant achievement was the last legacy which the departing year could give to our bleeding country.” In this excerpt from Chaplain Bunting’s lengthy account of the campaign, he de...
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Arming the Union: Federal Contract Model 1861 Springfield Rifle Muskets

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A t the outset of the Civil War, the Federal government ran into a serious issue when the Confederacy occupied Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, the home of one of the nation’s two armories, and carted the gun making equipment off to Richmond, Virginia. This left just the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts as the sole government-operated entity to produce longarms for the Union army.           But it quickly became apparent that production at Springfield would have to be supplemented, so the War Department pursued two tracks to increase the weapons supply. Agents were dispatched to Europe to purchase suitable weapons from England, France, Austria, Belgium, and Prussia. Over time, these agents acquired hundreds of thousands of European arms of different designs and origins that equipped Federal regiments in the first years of the war.           In the meantime, operations at the Springfiel...
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Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

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     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on t...
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The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

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     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on se...
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With a Yell and a Charge: Captain Morton’s Artillery Charge at Brice’s Crossroads

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A mong the more extraordinary incidents of the Battle of Crossroads was the artillery charge by Captain John W. Morton and his battery. The 21-year-old, General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s chief of artillery, recalled the charge in a letter to his father a few days after the engagement.           “About 1 o’clock, everything, artillery and all, was ordered to charge,” he noted. “Our line moved promptly with a deafening shout and hail of bullets and balls which told terribly upon the enemy which broke their lines and put them in perfect confusion and rout. I charged with the batteries nine times. Once I had two pieces a little in advance of the others and with them in a charge was 20 or 30 yards in advance of our line when we drove the enemy. Just before we captured their wagons, they made a desperate stand and with their reserves concentrated, charged our right flank which gave way and fell back upon the two right pieces of my battery. The en...
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Grant's Bodyguard: An Illinois Trooper at Fort Donelson

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Continuing on last week's theme of brushes with the legends of the Civil War, this week's post features a letter from Illinois trooper Private George M. Bradley of Co. A, 4th Illinois Volunteer Cavalry. Bradley, a native of Akron, Ohio, enlisted September 26, 1861 in the 4th Illinois Cavalry and served three years as a Private, mustering out November 3, 1864.  Perhaps one of the most noteworthy things about his service was the time he spent as a bodyguard for General Ulysses S. Grant during the Battle of Fort Donelson in February 1862. Interestingly, Bradley joined up with the 2nd Iowa Infantry on February 15, 1862 and participated in their celebrated attack that broke the Confederate right and precipitated the surrender of the fort on the following day. The charge of the 2nd Iowa will be the feature of my next blog post as I have a number of accounts from Ohioans who participated as members of the 2nd Iowa. Bradley's letter saw print in the March 13, 1862 issue of the...
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Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

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     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of h...
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Arming the Empire State: Arms Issues to New York Infantry Regiments in 1861

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     During the Civil War, the state of New York provided more than 400,000 men to the Union army, the highest number of soldiers of any state, and as can be imagined, the task of arming those hundreds of thousands of volunteers was a very difficult one. At the outbreak of hostilities, the state militia numbered 19,000 men but the state possessed only about 8,000 long arms nearly all of which were utilized to arm the eleven militia regiments which left the state in the earliest days of the war. The state dispatched an agent to England on April 24 th to purchase 25,000 Enfield pattern rifle muskets but upon his arrival, he found those weapons hard to find as Confederate agents had already been busy buying up the stock. Eventually, he was able to secure 19,000 Enfields at a cost of $335,000; these weapons arrived in bits and pieces over the next several months and were issued out soon after their arrival to newly formed regiments.  A perusal of the adjutant general’...
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The Storm of Blood That is Sure to Reign: At Antietam with the 2nd North Carolina

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       In part 3 of this series, Lieutenant John Calvin Gorman of the 2 nd North Carolina describes his participation in the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. General George B. Anderson’s all-North Carolina brigade consisting of the 2 nd , 4 th , 14 th , and 30 th regiments took a position along the Sunken Road that morning and fought for hours against repeated Federal assaults. The casualties were horrific, as Gorman’s regiment lost two-thirds of the 300 men that marched into battle that day, and Gorman himself was wounded twice, once in the head and a second time in the foot. The combat in this sector of the field was incredibly violent and intense. “The air is full of lead, and many are shot as they are aiming at the enemy, and the groans of the wounded are heard amid the roar of musketry,” Gorman remembered. “Colonel Charles Tew was killed about 11 o’clock, a Minie ball penetrating his brain. It is certain death to leave the road wounded as the balls ...
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