How the Zouave could have made it South!

[Steve Weems]

The Model 1863 Remington also known as the "Zouave" was been the source of discussion in the past due to
it apparently not having been issued and with a reported reference that a few may have been surrendered
at Appomattox. Last November on a trip to the Mystic Seaport Museum they have an original schooner on
display that had been captured while running guns and other items from the North to the South. Who's to
say a few of these rifles did not make their way South by unofficial methods(by land or sea).

[Dave Fox]

Should be fascinated to see the documentation of M.1862 Remington's being toted to Appomattox by members of Lee's army...or by anyone else.

[Dave Fox]

This proposition...that M.1862 Remington rifles ("M.1862" because that's the year of the reissued contract under which they were built) arises periodically. One can find earlier threads in this forum thumping the tub. This is the first I've ever heard of Confederate usage, too; a bold expansion on a questionable postulation. This thread asserts unnamed sources supporting as fact that Lee's veterans surrendered Remingtons at Appomattox and that oddments of a Remington were found in Vicksburg earthworks. Alas, both assertions would seem to suffer from a dearth of so much as a sentilla of proof. One surely has to be from Missouri when one contemplates an anecdote that, sometime in the second half of the war, some unnamed Union officer stormed some unnamed Union arsenal with a body of men who are allowed to steal a quantity of weapons...Remingtons(?!!)...therefrom. And, since the very first delivery of M.1862 Remington rifles wasn't made until the second half of April, 1863, it stretches credulity that they were already being tossed aside at far away Vicksburg before 4 July of the same year.
Three circumstances occur to me which might shed light regarding vague, non-scholarly articles on this subject which have appeared from time-to-time. I cancelled my subscription to "North-South Trader" sometime in the early 1980s when they printed an article on some oxcart-drawn Confederate gold train lumbering blindly and pointlessly around the South, from Texas to Georgia, as I recall, arriving at places before it left others. As footnotes for for the alleged facts therein, the author cited such sources as simply "The Public Library, London, England". Second, the same magazine once published a piece on a Confederate quartermaster's insignia found at Chickamauga. It was an M.1910 Army collar disc.
Finally, at Chickamauga there was, in fact, excavated a long-buried Francis Bannerman early 20th Century copy of a C.S.A. rectangular brass belt plate. Items like these are called intrusions.

[Steve Weems]

The point of my post was not that a few Remingtons made it South( probably not) and if they did it would not have been thru violent removal
from storage. The real point is that there is at least one existing genuine captured by the U.S.Navy blockage runner from the Civil War. I
was excited to walk the deck of this old schooner as I never dreamed one still existed. I tip my hat to the Rhett Butler types who were
willing to take the risk and to the U.S. Navy for being good enough to stop them.

[RaiderANV]

Yeah,,,,,I' with you Steve. Thread went to Chit. I have a good memory and posted what I remembered in the hopes another many have seen it and recalled where dragging the article back out for inspection. Nut'n like being told you made it up. Takes all the fun out of discussions. :rolleyes:

[John Holland]

Steve, if I am understanding you correctly, you are saying: There is a Civil War Schooner on display at Mystic Seaport, and there is an example of a Model 1863 Remington Rifle, aka "Zouave", displayed onboard, and the display information claims the Remington Rifle on display is credited as having been onboard when the ship was captured during the Civil War.

Is that a correct understanding of what you are saying?

Serious question, because if that is so I wouldn't mind a trip to Mystic as I haven't been there in about 40 years!

JDH
PS - For those of you who try to PM me, don't bother as my "Inbox" fills up as fast as I empty it. Email me direct: jh44ny (at) verizon.net.

[Dave Fox]

It's a certainty northern manufactures made the trip through the blockade, by land or sea, during the war. Too many Confederate jackets are festooned with New England made buttons to deny it. Weapons, too, made the trip...cases of Colt revolvers were rowed south across the Potomac. I'll be so bold as to state, however, no such weapons as M.1862 Remington rifles, which were accounted-for in federal arsenals from 1863 (year the first Remingtons were delivered) to 1865, made the trip.
And being a veteran of an American war when an American actress felt the liberty to man an enemy antiaircraft gun shooting down American pilots between photo sessions, I have a tad less admiration than perhaps others do for American traitors, be they Mystic ship owners (if the ship was U.S. registered) or Jane Fonda.

[Lou Lou Lou]

" Last November on a trip to the Mystic Seaport Museum they have an original schooner on
display that had been captured while running guns and other items from the North to the South. Who's to
say a few of these rifles did not make their way South by unofficial methods(by land or sea). "

He is not saying specifically that one is on display, but positing that it could have happened. Steve? Which is it?

[Phil Spaugy, 3475V]

My two cents -

From "American Military Shoulder Arms, Volume III," by George Moller, page 419 - ....."all 10,000 Remington Rifles were still in storage at the Watervielet Arsenal as late as May, 15th, 1866. They were sold on August 8, 1907 from the New York Arms Agency to Francis Bannerman for $0.54 each., including the bayonets."

From "United States Military Small Arms, by Reilly, page 56 ..."In spite of the extraordinary quality of these arms, there is every indication that none were ever issued, and in all probability never left storage."

From "Civil War Guns" by Edwards, page 196....."Actual issue of the special Remington is not properly documented at the writing [1962]. A suspiciously large number of seem to have found there way to the shops of Leige in the post war trade, there to become bored smooth for shop and shipped to Africa or to South America at prices cheaper than junk guns cost to make. [Note - might one of these guns, so modified for "trade' be the one on display at Mystic Seaport? It would be interesting to see if it was bored smooth.] Like so many others of the special or limited issue weapons ordered in the first days of the war, they may have serve their time out reposing quietly in their arms chests, awaiting a call to duty that never came."

Remember that Edwards wrote the above in 1962, and in the 52 years since, nothing has come to light to defiantly prove that the M1863 ever was issued, in any quantity, North or South.

..and much the same info is included in "Rifle of the US Army, by McAulay, among other works on Civil War Arms

Now if someone can show me a scholarly source equal to those above that shows the any of the M1863 Remington Rifles were issued, or by some mysterious means made their way south, please feel free to share.

Without a doubt, the above is a fine rifle, but no matter how hard one wishes so, they just did not see action in the ACW / War of the Rebellion, or War Between the States.

[Dave Fox]

If the "could have, would have, did" progression of proof of an undocumented historical assertion appeals, marvel at the queen mother: the "www.authentic-campaigner.com" thread of some years ago on the subject of 100,000+ armed black combat soldiers alleged to have served in the Confederate army.

[Jim Brady Knap's Battery]

Mythology is a wonderful thing.

Jim Brady
2249V
Knap's Battery

[Steve Weems]

Steve, if I am understanding you correctly, you are saying: There is a Civil War Schooner on display at Mystic Seaport, and there is an example of a Model 1863 Remington Rifle, aka "Zouave", displayed onboard, and the display information claims the Remington Rifle on display is credited as having been onboard when the ship was captured during the Civil War.

Is that a correct understanding of what you are saying?

Serious question, because if that is so I wouldn't mind a trip to Mystic as I haven't been there in about 40 years!

JDH
PS - For those of you who try to PM me, don't bother as my "Inbox" fills up as fast as I empty it. Email me direct: jh44ny (at) verizon.net.

John--Only the blockade runner is at Mystic Seaport--it had a long history and ened up a yacht for a wealthy family that donated it to the museum
many years ago- My mention of the rifles was only my weak attempt at ironic humor which I thought would be ignored or joked about. The
sign at the vessel only mentioned guns and other articles being run thru the blockade with no other discription--the museum is only interested
in preserving and documenting American wooden ships and thier ship building technioques. Sorry for any confusion I may have created!!!

[hobbler]

Cheese and crackers. If a rifle was available for shipment via war profiteering why does anyone doubt that some got shipped?
Really, what do you think was the motive? Money or providing documentation of high crimes? ;)

[Dave Fox]

Comrade Hobbler: you historical insight... I like it! With this new scholarly tool, WW II history can be rethought. Patton had a four battalions of Tiger tanks in the Ardennes (I think I saw it on History Channel), Japan was able to drop an A-bomb on Brooklyn (I read it somewhere in a gun magazine), and Jews were actually exterminating Germans at Dachau (from an Iranian newspaper). As to the Civil War, the possibilities are endless: Confederate money must have bought McClellan off during the Peninsular Campaign (I vaguely recall this from a SUV meeting in the 1970s), young John D. Rockefeller probably paid Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation so he'd have a source of cheap labor (The Rev. Al sharpton said so on MSNBC I think), and I've long suspected Braxton Bragg was a transvestite (there's that disturbing tintype of my wife's great-great grandmother). Why stop at Remington rifles?

[Ron/The Old Reb]

You should ask Rick on Pawn Stars. He knows everything about everything. At least he thinks he does and if he dosn't he has a buddy that dose.:confused:

[Southron Sr.]

First of all, there is absolutely no question that there was a "clandestine trade network" between the North and South during the Civil War. Matter of fact, both the Davis and the Lincoln Administrations seemed to turn a blind eye towards it. This trade involved cotton, medicines, cloth and other items but I sincerely doubt any items directly out of U.S. Army Ordnance warehouses went South in this trade.

However, there is a Confederate rifle that could easily be mistaken for a Zouave, the Georgia Armory Rifle.

The Georgia Armory Rifles manufactured in the State Penitentiary in Milledgeville, Georgia between 1862 and 1863 were essentially identical, using a Mississippi Rifle type lock and barrel.

The only real difference between the Zouave and the Georgia Armory Rifle is that the Georgia Armory Rifle uses a brass, Enfield type of trigger-guard and flat, brass barrel bands similar to the ones found on the M1855 Harpers Ferry Rifles. The Zouave uses slightly different barrel bands that have a slightly convex exterior.

The brass patchbox in the stock of the Georgia Armory Rifle was copied directly from the M1855 HF Rifle, so a Georgia Armory Rifle could be easily mistaken for a Zouave at a glance. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO QUESTION that Georgia Armory Rifles saw combat as they were issued to a Georgia unit that was part of the hard fighting Confederate Army of Tennessee.

IF ANY GEORGIA ARMORY RIFLES were surrendered, they were not surrendered at Appomattox, but in North Carolina when Joe Johnson surrendered the Army of Tennessee to General Sherman.

Murphy and Madaus didn't give the full story of the Georgia Armory Rifles in their classic work: Confederate Rifles and Muskets. They speculate WHY the Georgia Armory Rifles went out of production in 1863. I spent several months off and on in the Georgia State Archives and I found the answer in an 1863 edition of a Milledgeville newspaper:

Georgia's Governor Joe Brown ordered the rifles to be taken out of production so the armory could be converted into a Cotton Card factory! Georgia had a crushing war debt and the idea was that the state would sell cotton cards to the ladies of the state so they could use them to produce homespun cloth to clothe their families and their men in the armies.

Another factor was that by 1863 the well run Confederate Ordnance Department was providing Georgia troops in both the ANV and AOT and other Confederate armies with all the arms and ammunition they needed.

An enterprising Italian manufacturer producing Zouaves could EASILY make a replica "Georgia Armory Rifle" by simply changing the trigger guard, barrel bands and a few other items and have a replica of a Confederate "Zouave" that saw a lot of combat!

[Maillemaker]

It probably goes without saying to hard-core history reenactment buffs, but to folks not so versed in the game, basically speculation does not get you very far.

If you are interested in actually re-creating a period of time, the way it is usually done is through documentation that definitively documents the equipment. And usually the idea is to portray the "common", not the unusual.

For example, most folks are familiar with the leopard-skin trousers in Echoes of Glory. Thus such pants are documented. But this does not mean that it was common nor should be portrayed as common.

Speculation is sometimes useful and even necessary when researching historical subjects but the general rule of thumb is documentation, documentation, documentation.

Two common mantras are: "Lack of evidence is not evidence", and "If they had it they would have used it - but they didn't have it."

Steve

[R. McAuley 3014V]

Here is a link to the schooner in question and its history, as it is known. The Coasting Schooner "AUSTRALIA" (built 1862 as the "Ella Alida" at Great South Bay, Long Island; sold to British interests and renamed "Alma", the schooner later ran aground near Darien, GA and was captured):

http://www.mysticseaport.org/locations/vessels/australia-coasting-schooner/

As nice is it was of the folks at Mystic Seaport to provide the schooner's history, maybe we were expecting too much for them to get it right. It appears there were perhaps two vessels bearing this name or one very lucky crew:

http://www.historycentral.com/navy/cwnavalhistory/May1863.html

"U.S.S. Perry, Acting Master William D. Urann, captured blockade running schooner Alma, bound from Bermuda to Beaufort, South Carolina, with cargo of salt and liquor."


http://www.coastalguide.com/civilwar/1863-04-09p1-1863AprJun.shtml
(http://www.coastalguide.com/civilwar/1863-04-09p1-1863AprJun.shtml)
"5/2/1863: USS Perry captured blockade running schooner Alma, bound from Bermuda to Beaufort, South Carolina, with cargo of salt and liquor."


http://www.nytimes.com/1863/05/17/news/bermuda-opening-house-assembly-governor-s-address-blockade-runners.html
(http://www.nytimes.com/1863/05/17/news/bermuda-opening-house-assembly-governor-s-address-blockade-runners.html)
The New York Times (May 17, 1863):

"We find the following notices of the movements of the blockade runners in the Bermuda journals:

The schooner Alma, of these Islands, which sailed hence for Beaufort, N.C., with a cargo of sa[???]t, put back on Thursday last, much injured and having lost sails, &c. Encountered heavy weather till the 22d inst., at which time being off Hatteras experienced a severe gale which continued four days, during which the Alma was thrown on her beam-ends, had her sails split and fore gaff broken. The damage sustained being so extensive, the Captain was compelled to bear up for the nearest port."


Michael Embree (2006) Bismarck’s First War: The Campaign of Schleswig and Jutland 1864 (page 273-74): "The ship Alma, taken off Jasmund, by the corvette Thor, April 14th [1864], was sent to Copenhagen (released)."