Guns of the (Confederate) Grunt: 1863
The Confederate States of America only existed for less than half a decade, but the arms of the men who served in her defense were some of the most interesting carried by any soldiers on this continent. Why? Because the majority of them came from Europe, although were often of native design. With that, let us look at the arms that a Confederate grunt would typically carry in 1863, 150-years ago, in their fight against a much better equipped Union army.
As the seceding power, the Confederate states during the 1861-65 Civil War were compelled to use a dizzying array or arms to equip their fledgling armed forces. Dozens of US Army forts and installations were located in the Southern states and, in most cases, their inventory of arms made it into Confederate hands. Also each state owned their own militia’s arms, however these often included many ‘obsolete’ guns that could have been found fifty or even a hundred years earlier. With limited ‘standard issue’ arms at their disposal, personal weapons, brought to war by those Johnny Rebs marching off in homespun uniforms, made a huge appearance in battle.
With that in mind, the Confederate government started buying weapons whereever they could
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
