Spencer riles at the Third Battle of Winchester

[RaiderANV]

OK,,,,or Battle of Opequon fer ya'll dang ol' yankees.

Anyone know if any units had Spencer rifles? Not the carbine, the rifle.

I have one dug in the early 80's(can't remember exact year) from the battlefield. Gonna sell it & thought info on who might have had them would be neat to have.

[R. C. Hubbard Jr]

RaiderANV,
I know that at least part of the Mich. Cav. Brigade (Custer) had Spenser rifles for awhile. Not sure of the time frame but look up the 6th Mich. Cav.. I know that Custer came down cross country from the North of town.

[FlinchJerk]

Did you have the luck to dig it up yourself, or get it from the one that had the great experience of finding it? Is the general or specific find spot known? That might help pin the unit down....but battlefield debris in the woods and fields often got shuffled around for decades after the fight...37th Mass., 6th Corps, had them...

Thanks!

Dean Nelson
1st Maryland Infantry, CSA, N-SSA

[R. McAuley 3014V]

Is there any chance of your Spencer rifle having “changed” sides? By the time of this particular battle, the Spencer carbine had been in use for almost a year (since October 1863), and many of the unit's who received Spencer rifles during the first half of 1863 were subsequently rearmed with the shorter Spencer carbines. Quite a number of Spencer repeaters had also "changed" sides by this time, so you might also want to consider what Confederate units at this battle had Spencer rifles? If you know the location the rifle was found, how does that spot compare with the ambush site of Sheridan’s ambulance train by Mosby’s Rangers (43rd VA) before they became engaged with Merritt’s cavalry division? Just after this battle, the returns of the 43rd VA for November 1864 indicate that Mosby’s command had 167 Spencer rifles and carbines.

http://users.erols.com/va-udc/mosby.html

If you know the location, perhaps a map of the action may help? Use the link at bottom of page (in link below) to access the map library (at Library of Congress Geography and Map Division) and click on map to access the map viewer. You should be able to zoom into the location you found the rifle. You can use the terraserver topo map to compare locations on the battlefield to modern-day setting.
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/th ... espie.html (http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/thirdwinchester/maps/thirdwinchestergillespie.html)

http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?t ... er%7cVA%7c (http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?t=2&s=14&x=233&y=1356&z=17&w=1&qs=%7cWinchester%7cVA%7c)

Or perhaps a timeline:
http://www.nps.gov/hps/abpp/shenandoah/svs3-12.html

R. McAuley
37th GA

[Bruce Cobb 1723V]

When it was legal, I found a lot of them around the 3rd battle area of Winchester. Come in and see me at sutlers next week and we can talk.

[RaiderANV]

I'll be there

[Southron Sr.]

While Confederates did capture a good number of Spencers in the latter part of the war, they were of only limited use to them as the C.S. Ordnance Department did not have the technology to manufacture ammo for the Spencers. So, once all the captured ammo was shot up, the Spencer became useless to a Southerner.