MARCH 2012 Civil War Talk Radio Gen. Grant would be listening and so can you. impedimentsofwar.org www.centralmassroundtable.org Massachusetts Spotlight Arming the Massachusetts Volunteers Massachusetts Gov. John Andrews, a Republican, got involved in the civil war with Newburyport and the both feet and immediately. He sent several state militia companies within days of an urgent request from President Lincoln. ese men were equipped with newly-minted, Civil War smoothbore muskets. ose weapons and many others used by the soldiers from Massachusetts were the topic of our March meeting attended by over forty people. Sherman Lohnes covered the types of weapons used by the soldiers and from where they were acquired and manufactured. He also noted the soldiers’ preferences about weapons by quoting from regimental histories and the correspondence from the soldiers. Much of his information was gained from the documents found on the website Google Books where practically all the regimental histories are freely available. Sherman owns samples of the most common weapons used by the Massachusetts soldiers. ey were all on display for people to see up close and to hold. ese include: Model 1812, Altered Flintlock Musket, .58 caliber, converted to a percussion cap in the 1850s. Due to a shortage of the more modern ri�e muskets at the start of the Civil War, some Massachusetts regiments were issued outdated smoothbore muskets previously converted to percussion from stores on hand in the state’s armory. While many regiments exchanged their obsolete weapons for Spring�eld or En�eld ri�e muskets, some regiments retained smoothbore muskets as late as the Battle of Gettysburg. Model 1841 Robins & Lawrence “Mississippi” ri�e musket, .54 caliber e Volunteer, the monument to the Newburyport Civil War soldiers, was created by the artist Mrs. eo Alice Ruggles-Kitson. It was dedicated and placed at the Atkinson Common on July 4, 1902. It depicts the returning citizen-soldier after defending the Union against the slaveholders’ rebellion. is photo is from the excellent book just published by the History Press in 2012, Newburyport and the Civil War by William Hallett. Mr. Hallett spoke at the March meeting of the Civil War Round Table of Northern Worcester County which holds its meetings at the Leominster Library on the second Tuesday of each month. Our treasurer, Ed Norris, is the president. Mr. Hallett is a twelfthgeneration descendant of a �rst settler of Newbury, Nicholas Noyes. He was president of the Civil War Roundtable of New Hampshire for 10 years and is a reenactor. He lives in Newburyport with his wife, Elizabeth, where they conduct civil war walking tours of Newburyport. See another photo on next page. US Model 1861 Ri�e Musket Marked “Mass 41” with Bridesburg lock, .58 caliber. Between 1861 and 1865, 713,443 Model 1861 Ri�e Muskets were produced both at the United States Armory in Spring�eld and under contract with manufacturers throughout the North. Pattern 1853 (En�eld) .577 caliber percussion Ri�e Musket with “Tower” lockplate, marked “28th Mass. ese were made by European manufacturers under contract from the state of Massachusetts. Reaction to foreign-made arms varied. e history of the 21st Mass. Regiment noted their En�elds were “. . . a good kind but of poor quality, hastily and carelessly made, with many badly tempered cones and weak mainsprings, and for a time, until we discovered how well they would shoot, we almost wished for our old crooked barreled smooth-bores again.” Sherman Lohnes, originally from Worcester and now living in Holden, got started as a collector and Civil War historian during his high school years in the mid1970s. He currently works in Boston at the Department of Public Health and his commuting time on the train is well-spent in researching about the Civil War and the artifacts that he collects. His collection includes a smoothbore from the early 1800s to a Spencer 7-shot repeating ri�e from the 1860s. Pattern 1853 (En�eld) Ri�e Musket by Potts & Hunt marked “Mass 33” Massachusetts purchased over 22,000 En�eld pattern ri�e muskets from 1861 to 1863 to arm twenty-six different regiments through July of 1863. Most soldiers preferred the Private Augustus Wheeler, Company F, 53rd Mass. Volunteer Infantry, photographed in August, 1862, holding an altered smoothbore �intlock musket. ough at least 20 Mass. Regiments used smoothbore muskets while training or in the �eld, Wheeler likely holds a weapon supplied as a prop by the photographer to create a more martial image, as the 53rd was armed with En�elds. Newburyport Veterans on the March It was 1907 when these members of Grand Army of the Republic Post 49 marched through Market Square during the annual Yankee Homecoming parade. Most of the vets were in their late �fties or sixties. “Spring�eld” ri�e musket to foreign made arms such as En�elds. A common concern was that many of the Pattern 1853 ri�e muskets built by British contractors were not made with interchangeable parts as US arms beginning with the M1842 smoothbore percussion musket, and the Model 1855, 1861 and 1863 ri�e muskets. Model 1863 Massachusetts Contract Ri�e Musket by Samuel Norris & W.T. Clement Marked “WLI” is percussion musket was ordered as the demand for arms throughout the north exceeded the capacity of the Spring�eld Armory. A total of 13,000 muskets were delivered to Massachusetts by this contractor at an average price of $18.73 per musket (about $450 in today’s dollars). e “WLI” stamped into the stock of this ri�e musket may indicate that it was issued to the Worcester Light Infantry, as Governor Andrew based his request for funding in 1863 on the need for arms for the Massachusetts militia. Spencer Model 1860 Army Ri�e. is ri�e used a seven-shot magazine and was manufactured in Boston during the Civil War. Massachusetts contracted with Spencer for 2,000 of these ri�es, but the federal government requested that Massachusetts turn over delivery of those arms to the Ordnance Department for use by the Union Army. ough relatively few cartridge arms were used during the Civil War – there was great concern that the ammunition would be used to rapidly and availability and supply was limited – the repeating ri�e, with its self-contained metallic cartridge ammunition, changed how future wars would be fought. e muskets and ri�es from Sherman Lohnes’s collection that were on display. Big civil war Encampment coming to Worcester Scott Bears announced that a large Civil War reenactment will be taking place this summer at Worcester’s Green Hill Park. Plans call for 500 people depicting infantry, cavalry and artillery. Scott is in the process of making a documentary �lm about civil war reenactors in New England. His involvement started with the encampment last year in Rutland. ere will also be a military Scott Bears reception and ball. After two years in office, and two years of war, Governor Andrew faced a new arms criSherman Lohnes is standing with sis in 1863. Since the war began, the state had a Model 1841 Robins & Lawrence purchased over 20,000 En�eld ri�e muskets, “Mississippi” Ri�e Marked “51 and received an additional 2,700 En�eld, 8,100 Mass.” It is a single shot .54 caliber Spring�eld and 3,600 Austrian ri�e muskets from percussion ri�e manufactured under the US Ordnance Department. Still, the Govercontract for the U.S. government. nor warned in his inaugural address on January ough Massachusetts had several 9, 1863, less than 100 ri�es and “hardly enough thousand M1851 ri�es available early smoothbore muskets to arm a single regiment” in the war, Governor Andrew and his staff chose not to issue these ri�es to were on hand at the state arsenal. e Governor Mass. Regiments, with the exception asked the legislature to authorize the purchase of of �ank companies of the 21st Mass. 15,000 “�rst class arms” of domestic manufacas most of these ri�es lacked bayonets. ture, as by 1863 he had apparently arrived at the opinion that “Spring�eld ri�es are unquestionably In 1862 the state contracted with A.J. Drake to have 1,839 M1841 ri�es superior to any of foreign make which can be im- altered to accept a socket bayonet. ported at equal cost.” Subsequently, M1841 ri�es were At the Battle of Balls Bluff on October 21, issued to two nine-month regiments, th 1861, the 15 Massachusetts, had a nearly 400 ca- the 46th and the 51st Mass. sualties – killed, wounded, captured or missing. In e 51st was recruited in Worcester County in the fall of 1862. ey searching for someone to blame, the soldiers said served in North Carolina until June, it was their lack of proper weapons. ey blamed 1863, then guarded Confederate their smoothbore muskets as being inadequate. prisoners captured at Gettysburg and However, before the regiment made a paniced retreat down the bluff they were able to �re off a dev- was in pursuit of Gen. R.E. Lee’s army. astating volley at the 18th MisNext Meeting - April 25, 7 PM, sissippi in�icting 50 casualties. Holden Senior Center In re�lling the ranks shortly thereafter the recruiting postTom Army, “Civil War Engineering” ers that were posted in the Roundtable Question:“Could the Civil War have county made special note that been prevented?” [and as Pres. David Nyman joked, the regiment is “now armed “avoided all these CWRT meetings.”] with the ri�ed musket.”