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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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

I n the aftermath of the bloody fighting at Spotsylvania Courthouse, Lorenzo Barnhart of the 110th Ohio drew the unenviable task of burying the Federal dead. But as the area remained under fire of Confederate skirmishers, Barnhart and the other members of the Pioneer Corps had to do this grisly work at night while under fire. " It was not very dark and we calculated a grave to hold as many of our dead comrades as we could and dug the grave about 6-15 feet and laid them crosswise," Barnhart wrote. " The Confederates had stripped them of their trousers, their white underclothes could be seen in the night, that way we found them laying around over a scope of ground about half an acre. Two pioneers would carry a man into the grave lay him down and then another on top and so on until that grave was full. We covered them with earth. We buried 110 soldiers in that half acre of ground. We left many more unburied, we did not dare to undertake to get them as we wou...

While the focus of this blog has been almost exclusively on chronicling the services of Ohioans during the Civil War through their own words, once in a while it is worthwhile to look into object-based history to help further illuminate the times. Object-based history provides a different vista through which to view past events, by studying the manufacture, use, and history of the objects themselves. Today's post marks my first entry into studying the Civil War through its relics and objects. Unidentified Yankee private holding a Lorenz rifle and Colt revolver (Library of Congress) I recently acquired an Ohio-marked M1854 Austrian-made .54 caliber Lorenz rifle from a longtime Civil War collector. When I decided to purchase the rifle, I knew little beyond the fact that I had come across dozens of references to this usually well-regarded longarm in my research over the years and it was one of the more att...

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’...

F or one Ohio-born resident of New Orleans, the arrival of Admiral David Farragut’s fleet on April 25, 1862, marked a day of liberation. “Yesterday about half past 1 o’clock, the cry was raised that the Yankees were upon us,” wrote Louis M. Beyers in a letter to his mother. “I started toward the levee where the Federal vessels were said to be lying. Reaching the river, what a sight breaks upon my view. The steamboat William Morrison was one mass of flames. All the shipping was sending forth the most dense black smoke. The Mississippi , a ram which was nearly finished and which, if completed, would have demolished the whole fleet in one hour, floating slowly by with the smoke issuing from every opening and several other important like vessels in various parts of the river, all showing that the torch has been applied to them.” “Together with the thunder which came peal after peal gave a scene of the utmost grandeur. There proudly floating in the smoke and rain were the glorious old ...

A t the end of chapter 3 of Hell by the Acre , I tell the story of the military executions that took place at Murfreesboro on December 26, 1862. Three soldiers and one civilian were slated for execution that day, most famously, that of Private Asa Lewis of the 6 th Kentucky whose execution became a cause celebre within the Orphan Brigade. The story of the second soldier, Edward P. Norman of the 28 th Alabama, was also described in the book “while the final deserter from the 24 th Tennessee received a reprieve from Bragg just as he was about to be executed.” It was not until recently that I learned the story of how this Tennessean was saved at the last possible moment by the intrepid efforts of a Confederate enrolling officer. A total of three executions took place in Murfreesboro on December 26, 1862. The first was a civilian spy named Gray who was hung near the railroad depot. The military executions took place in an open field south of town where just a few weeks before Presiden...

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