“at [First] Manassas, over thirty-five thousand Union troops went into battle, armed primarily with aging smoothbores. Their final assault up Henry Hill came within mere yards of carrying the day and breaking the back of Confederate resistance. That final gallant charge, however, was shredded by the concentrated volleys of Stonewall Jackson’s men, armed primarily with newly issued Enfield Rifles that could kill at four hundred yards and were murderous at a hundred yards or less, a range at – William Forstchen, Bill Fawcett, It Seemed like a Good Idea: A Compendium of Great Historical Fiascoes (1988)
hands as early as July 1861? Lacking the ability to produce their own infantry arms in sufficient quantity to meet their needs, the Confederacy sent agents to Europe to procure the best infantry arms that could be found. Caleb Huse’s initial efforts resulted in the purchase of 3,500 rifles from London gun-making firms in April 1861.
According to Stephen C. Tucker in A Short History of the Civil War at Sea, these were loaded on the 700-ton steamer Bermuda. On April 22, 1861, the Bermuda steamed from Falmouth and ran the Union blockade via Nassau, arriving in Savannah, Ga., on September 18, 1861. The majority of these rifles were “London guns, Barnett marked.” The rest (1,200) were manufactured by the London Armoury Co. These were the first Enfield rifles to reach Confederate soil since the start of the war. Ruling out time travel, it is doubtful that very many of those Enfield rifles could have been in use by General Jackson’s brigade for the fighting at Henry Hill two months earlier in July 1861.
If not Enfield rifles, what were General Jackson’s troops issued early in the war? Well, it appears they received a variety of muskets, just like most other infantry units. In May which the smoothbores of the Union were still all but useless.”
he passages highlighted beg further discussion beginning with “…armed primarily with newly issued Enfield Rifles.” How could that possibly be correct? How many Enfields were in Confederate 1861, the 4th Virginia Infantry, Co. H (Rockbridge Grays) left Lexington, Va., for Harper’s Ferry with borrowed muskets from the Virginia Military Institute. These weapons were M1851 Springfield Cadet smoothbore muskets, a scaleddown version of the U.S. Model 1842. By September 1861, the Grays still had them as the Commonwealth of Virginia asked for the return of VMI’s weapons, prompting General Jackson to respond to the Governor’s office stating, “I regret to say that Capt. Updike’s company (Rockbridge Grays) has not returned the cadet muskets and I fear that I will be unable to forward them to the VMI until in their place can be supplied other percussion muskets.”
In case that might be deemed an isolated incident, it has been noted that the Shenandoah Sharpshooters, Company K, 33rd Virginia, were initially issued outdated flintlock muskets. No doubt, the men in that company felt the Rockbridge Grays were lucky, since at least they had percussion muskets and not the less reliable flintlock smoothbore muskets. On May 26, 1862, one of the Liberty Hall Volunteers, 4th Virginia Co. I, wrote home that he was carrying a “Belgian musket,” most likely an imported smoothbore converted to percussion. Various accounts also documented that most of Jackson’s men were not fully armed with imported Enfield rifles before 1863.
The variety of muskets early in the war as noted above is, if not all inclusive, exactly what you would expect. Were there