1st & 2nd echelon maintenace and repair of Civil War arm

[gjkershul]

While tearing down one of my Colt clones today it came to my attention how many small and fragile parts there are.
Did troopers in the field completely strip their revolvers for cleaning?
What happened when they lost or broke parts in field?
Where were smalls arms sent for 2nd echelon repair when they became unserviceable?
Any thoughts on these questions or research direction would be appreciated.

[Mike McDaniel]

Normally, you didn't do detail-stripping of the guns in the field. You might do so between campaigns. Any repairs were handled by unit-level or rear area armorers.

[riflepit]

Can't speak for pistols but on what was McIlwain Hill in Petersburg there was a line of rifle pits that were occupied by both sides (at different times). These pits contained many rifle sears, main springs and other lock parts. There were enough that it seems like every pit must have had someone taking apart a lock and losing parts. Other than an occasional recovery of musket parts in other locations someone other than the front line troops must have been repairing broken guns.

[Don Dixon]

The Federal ordnance instructions recognized the problem of maintaining imported and non-standard small arms. Regiments equipped with any muskets, rifles, or carbines other than the Springfield rifle musket Model 1855-64 were authorized to detail from the ranks a “competent and skillful mechanic” to act as regimental armorer. The armorer was supposed to be equipped with a set of armorer’s tools and spare parts for the weapons with which the regiment was armed. For each day the armorer worked repairing the regiment’s arms, he was entitled to an additional payment of forty cents. In an army that paid its enlisted soldiers $13 per month, this was a significant premium.

Regards,
Don Dixon
2881V

[Southron Sr.]

You have posed a very good question. I am assuming that for arms repair, the Confederacy pretty well followed the same arms repair policies as the Union, because the C.S. War Department reprinted the U.S. Army's Ordnance Manual almost literally, word for word.

Based on my research (and I ahve spent a lot of time dragging thru some of the microfilm records in the National Archives and the original documents found in the Georgia State Archives in the Adjutant General's records.)

At the beginning of the war, at least here in GEorgia, army volunteers were paid an extra "bounty" if they enlisted bringing a rifle or shotgun with them into the service. Theoretically, that arm would remain theirs and they would have the use of it during their service.

Also, at least Georgia sent agents throughout the state asking farmers, citizens to donate their arms to the state. In some cases, they were paid for these arms.

In Georgia this "arms crisis" spurred the state into not importing arms from abroad (for example, the Enfields that came in on the "Fingal" into Savannah Harbor,) but also the establishment of the Georgia Armory to produce rifles at the State Penitentiary in Milledgeville.

(By the way, the Georgia Armory was converted into a cotton card factory in 1863 because the C.S. Ordnance Department had taken over the responsibility of providing arms to the army.Most books written on Confederate Ordnance only speculate as to why arms production ceased at the Georgia Armory-but I actually found a newspaper article in a 1863 Milledgeville newspaper (in the State Archives) announcing that the armory was being converted into a cotton card factory!)

Confederate records also mention that a lot of these civilian arms were sent to the Atlanta Arsenal for repair. Doubtless, some of these arms were turned in by the troops as more modern military arms were acquired by importation, domestic manufacture or capture.

I think that the main point to keep in mind is that as these civilian arms were non-interchangable and usually handmade, only a skilled gunsmith in some rear-echelon facility (with the appropriate tools) could repair them. I sincerely doubt that any of these arms were repaired in the field.

On another note, especially in the Eastern Theater where the C.S. army retained the posession of a battlefield, the C.S. Ordnance Department had a special branch that scavanged the battlefields (within a few hours or days after the battle)where litterally any military equipment, Union or Confederate, broken or not was retreived and sent to the Richmond Armory for repair and re-issue.

One other comment-I have seen references that in the pre-war South almost every crossroads or town had a blacksmith or a blacksmith/gunsmith. Apparently, most of these blacksmiths were skilled enough to make minor repairs on rifles, pistols and shotguns while others were so skilled, they made complete arms on order or for sale to their customers. I am sure many of these individuals went into military service at during the war and carried their gun repair skills with them into the army.

One last note, according to the original documents I have seen, what today we call a "long rifle" or a "Pennslyvania or Kentucky Rifle" was usually called a "Country Rifle."

Hope this helps!