Shotguns and bayonets of the CW

[Butternut86]

I was wondering if anyone has any info on bayonets for shotguns during the civil war. I have seen pictures of a few bayonets online and would like to research more about them


*single barrel shotguns with sword bayonets

* double barrel shotguns with sword bayonets

* double barrel shotguns with socket bayonets

[John Gross]

I wrote an article for North-South Trader's Civil War (Volume 33 No. 4 2008) titled "Good Arms in the Hands of Brave Men": Shotguns in the Civil War.

I didn't discuss bayonets much because a) it was not the focus of my article, and b) there's not much information available about them to discuss. I did offer the following comment though.

In August of 1861, Captain of Ordnance William Richardson Hunt wrote to General Leonidas Polk “I would also respectfully recommend that contracts be made for 25,000 sword bayonets for Mississippi rifles and 10,000 for double-barreled shotguns.” Due to the extreme rarity of such shotguns or their loose bayonets on the collectors market, it is unlikely that a large contract of this nature was fulfilled. Mr. Norm Flayderman states that in his fifty years of experience he has only encountered two such genuine bayonets. He also quotes William Albaugh as saying that “Among the rarest of Confederate items, but not necessarily the most desirable, [are] the bayonets made to fit double-barrel shotguns or fowling pieces.”

A couple of issues after my article was published there was a "supplement" to my article written by another author about a shotgun/bayonet combination discovered at a Civil War show, but I forget the details.

From what I remember, Mr. Flayderman's book The Bowie Knife: Unsheathing an American Legend, has some information about shotgun bayonets. Also John Murphy's work Confederate Carbines and Musketoons (revised and updated edition).

Keep in mind that a bayonet (or bayonet stud) on a shotgun does not automatically make if "Confederate". The French made a double-barrel fitted with a bayonet (the Model 1850 and 1861 Double Fusil), and there were sporting applications for such an arrangement as well. I'm not sure exactly what that application would have been, but possibly to give the coupe-de-grace to a wounded animal, or maybe stop a charging rabbit if you ran out of ammunition :shock:

Mr. Flayderman had such a bayonet for sale a few years back (for a double-barrel) and DID NOT list it, nor price it, as "Confederate". From what I remember it had a relatively short blade.

John Gross