How did soldiers create cartridges while in the field?

[Naphtali]

Please describe, or provide a link to a description of, how soldiers in the field created cartridges for Sharps percussion cap lock breech-loaders.

[John Holland]

They didn't. All Sharps ammunition was issued in pre-made packets.
JDH

[Naphtali]

They didn't. All Sharps ammunition was issued in pre-made packets.
JDH Would I be accurate in writing that Confederate soldiers using captured Sharps rifles, and those using Confederate copies of Sharps' loaded loose bullet-and-powder?

[S.Sullivan]

The Confederate Ordnance Department provided their troops with Confederate manufactured ammo, in packets packed in wooden boxes. Spend any time digging Hallowed Ground and you will soon become familiar with Confederate made Sharps bullets. Steve Sullivan

[John Holland]

No loose powder and bullets were issued. Arsenal or Laboratory packets only.
JDH

[Jim Mayo]

Original arsenal or contract made sharps cartridge. Not to say that some soldiers didn't occasionally cast their own since there are many pistol bullet molds found in camps.

[Southron Sr.]

In actual fact, the Confederate Ordnance Department was very efficient in providing arms and ammo to the Southern armies. This was because Colonel Josiah Gorgas, head of the Ordnance Department, was a brilliant organizer and administrator. Of course, there were problems that had to be overcome. For example, Confederate fuses in their artillery shells were of inferior quality to those in Yankee shells.

The greatest failure in Confederate logistics was in the Commissary Department under an incompetent officer by the name of Northrop. In other words, Johnny Reb was well armed and well supplied with ammo-often, he just didn't have enough to eat! One of the grim jokes that went around the Army of Norther Virginia in the trenches in front of Petersburg and Richmond in the Winter of 1864/65 was" "We have a new General in the Confederate army: General Starvation."

[Ken Hansgen, 11094]

Naphtali, Well, that being said, guess you could still write, "Sharps ammo was issued in packets by the Confederate Ordnance Dept. but in a pinch it was possible for a soldier to load his weapon with a loose projectile (if he could find one of the correct caliber) and powder taken from another cartridge."

[Ron/The Old Reb]

Something that they would do if they ran out of ammunition. Would be to take cartages off of dead soldiers, both North and South. If it did not fit there musket they would shave the bullet down with a knife until it would go down the barrel and shoot it. Better than nothing.

[ThomasKavanagh]

Something that they would do if they ran out of ammunition. Would be to take cartages off of dead soldiers, both North and South. If it did not fit there musket they would shave the bullet down with a knife until it would go down the barrel and shoot it. Better than nothing.

Ummmm. Okaaay.

Exactly (or a close approximation) how did this work?

You're in ranks with your friends and relatives from Wide-Place-In-The-Road, Somewhere South of Springfield, shooting at Those Guys From Over There Who Are Over Here, who are shooting at you. You run out of ammunition. Rather than yell to your buddy/cousin for more rounds (like he's got some to spare), you break ranks, somehow get to to the nearest corpse/WIA, and grope for his cartridge box.

Wouldn’t the nearest corpse/WIA likely be one of your own such that any ammunition he had was of the same issue as yours?

(How many times during the Recent Unpleasantness did Those Guys From Over There get close enough to You and Yours that they left corpses/WIA close enough for You and Yours (they would be low on ammo too) to rifle (hah!) the boxes while under fire? Only for you to find that they had the wrong caliber?)

Let's say you’re the only one in your company with a .54 Mississippi while every one else has .577 P1853 Enfields. You run out of ammunition. You find a round. You fumble around in your pockets for your Barlow knife (it's not in your haversack, 'cause that's where your rations would be if you had any, and your backpack with your eatin' stuff is who knows where). Now you're on your knees, your musket cradled in your left arm, frantically carving at a bullet, trying to keep all the powder together (no plastic tubes).

Your sergeant (who is also your cousin, but that's another matter) sees you. You already stand out as the guy with the short musket.

Are your chances of survival better from the sergeant or from Those Guys Over There?

tk
2883v
Wheat’s Tigers

[Jim Mayo]

See the picture of what are commonly called stretchies by relic hunters who have found them. I have more that are stretched more than this one but can't find them. From the ones I have found It appears to happen when .58 cal bullets are fired from a .54 cal barrel. The bullets usually have ramrod indentions in the nose indicating the bullet didn't want to go in the smaller barrel. This bullet was dug in Petersburg and was likely shot from some CS trenches near by. Notice several things. One is the indentation made by the ramrod. It took a lot of hard ramming to leave that mark on the nose of the bullet. Notice also that this is a solid bullet. If anybody knows what type this may be please chime in. As can be seen the bullet appears to have been compressed more than normal by being shot through a barrel with a smaller bore than the bullet was designed for. If it were a minie it would probably be slightly stretched. It fits into the bore of a .54 cal M-1841 very nicely. I think this is a case of soldier experimentation or mistake in loading or both. If anyone has another theory or knows what type of bullet this was, I would like to hear it.

Also, In both armies there was an effort to equip all soldiers in a regiment with the same caliber ammunition. It made for ease of supply. It also enabled soldiers who shot their 40 or 60 rounds to obtain more from the cartridge boxes of the dead and wounded around them. There are many accounts of this happening.

[Ron/The Old Reb]

First they did not use Daddy Barlows they used Buck knifes, much better steel. I did not say that they did this in the heat of battle. But in a book written a by a Confederate solider after the war that I have a reprint of. I have several of these reprints and I can not recall witch one it is. He writes about how they had no ammunition and went around and picked up the ammunition off the dead Union and their own men. An did just that, they whittled the bullets down until they would fit their muskets.

[Tom Magno, 9269V]

See the picture of what are commonly called stretchies by relic hunters who have found them. I have more that are stretched more than this one but can't find them. From the ones I have found It appears to happen when .58 cal bullets are fired from a .54 cal barrel. The bullets usually have ramrod indentions in the nose indicating the bullet didn't want to go in the smaller barrel. This bullet was dug in Petersburg and was likely shot from some CS trenches near by. Notice several things. One is the indentation made by the ramrod. It took a lot of hard ramming to leave that mark on the nose of the bullet. Notice also that this is a solid bullet. If anybody knows what type this may be please chime in. As can be seen the bullet appears to have been compressed more than normal by being shot through a barrel with a smaller bore than the bullet was designed for. If it were a minie it would probably be slightly stretched. It fits into the bore of a .54 cal M-1841 very nicely. I think this is a case of soldier experimentation or mistake in loading or both. If anyone has another theory or knows what type of bullet this was, I would like to hear it.

Also, In both armies there was an effort to equip all soldiers in a regiment with the same caliber ammunition. It made for ease of supply. It also enabled soldiers who shot their 40 or 60 rounds to obtain more from the cartridge boxes of the dead and wounded around them. There are many accounts of this happening.

Hard to believe that the photo is of an actual fired round. It has the engraving from the rifling alright, most likely from being oversized on loading, but there is no indication whatsoever that it ever impacted anything - the nose is pristine. These were swaged, pure lead bullets - soft. If it hit anything at all it would be dented, misshapen, etc. Most likely it was pushed out from the breech after the gun was found to be loaded (breech plug removed), maybe even years after the fact. If it is authentic, it sure looks like the 'magic bullet'.

[Jim Mayo]

Hard to believe that the photo is of an actual fired round. It has the engraving from the rifling alright, most likely from being oversized on loading, but there is no indication whatsoever that it ever impacted anything - the nose is pristine. These were swaged, pure lead bullets - soft. If it hit anything at all it would be dented, misshapen, etc. Most likely it was pushed out from the breech after the gun was found to be loaded (breech plug removed), maybe even years after the fact. If it is authentic, it sure looks like the 'magic bullet'.

Bullet was found between the US and CS trenches in Petersburg. The trenches were very close in this area and many bullets (in the hundreds) came from the immediate vicinity where this one was found. Very few drops. Most were very deformed but a very few were found with rifleing marks and no or very noticeable deformaty. There were some camps later on close to this area so I supposed it could have been unloaded, kept and later dropped from a pocket. Too bad relics can't talk.

[Dave Fox]

Maybe in the American Revolution. Heck, maybe by the Viet Cong. But I'm from Missouri on anyone with a Sharps carbine carving bullets to fit. Sure, soldiers did carve bullets into everything from chess pieces and tiny cannon to representation of male members. But to opine they loaded and fired such from breechloading carbines appears speculation of the "if they could have, they would have" school.

[Ron/The Old Reb]

The writer did not say that they shot them from breach loaders. I assumed that he was referring to muzzle loaders. But why couldn't they shoot them out of a Sharps. Look how some skirmishers load there Sharps without a carthage. Why couldn't they take a 58 Cal Minnie shave it down a little pour loose power in the chamber close the action and fire it. If you were out of ammunition and someone is trying to kill you, I think you become desperate and would try anything. Just like Jim's photo. Think how long it took that soldier to pound that bullet down the barrel just to get one shot off.

[rachbobo]

Could be that some wise ass with too much time on his hands decided to pull a joke.
Hey Sarge look at this. I pounded these bullets through the barrel to make them long and skinny.
I'm gunna scatter them around and in a hunnert years or so some Ark Key Ologist will go crazy trying to figure out what they are.
Of course the Sarge would find some detail to put him on.

Bill Cheek
Cockade Rifles

[Naphtali]

Since I don't think Charlie Hahn supplied his cardboard tubes to ammunition loading facilities, please describe how these Civil War-era Sharps cartridges were assembled, including what their tubes were made of and how their basis material was rendered into a tube.

[Ron/The Old Reb]

The case of linen ( or paper ) was roled on a former and pasted. After it had dried a small, square picece of of very thin paper was pushed through the case to one end and pasted also. A charged of sixty grains of powder was placed in the case, the bullet was glued in, and the case was then 'chocked" around the ball to make sure it was secure.
Page 29
Ready Aim Fire!
Small Arms Ammunition in the Battle of Gettysburg
By Dean S. Thomas

Hope this answers your question.

Ron

[Dave Fox]

Comrade Ron: this thread did start with the query: how did troops in the field prepare their own Sharps ammunition. Carving big bullets into smaller ones was a hypothesis, which is all it is. As to reducing .54 bullets to fit a Sharps, at least in my M.1863 carbine ('64 production), .54 minies already do fit and are, if anything, undersize.

[Ron/The Old Reb]

Dave

I realized that after I posted it. But i was to lazy to re-edit it again . I was thinking Sharps were 52 Cal. I have two Sharps, I should know better.