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Subject: Re: 16th OVI Company K Musket Type
Date: 17 Dec 2004 22:03:50 -0700
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Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/mVB.2ACE/206.1
Message Board Post:
From what you have in your post, they probably had original French Model 1842 .69 smoothbore muskets. The French government rifled and rebored many of these to .70 or .71 caliber and 25,000 were sold to the U.S. government by Herman Boker & Company of New York in 1861. The Ordnance Department rated them as third class weapons- serviceable but substandard.
I have run across many "French" muskets that were actually Belgian, Austrian or Prussian- they seem to come in a variety of large calibers, .69, .70., .71., .72 being common. Most soldiers had a very poor opinion of these weapons as being highly inaccurate, bulky, heavy, and hard to service in the field.
These were all antiquated guns that the Federal government snapped up in 1861 for two reasons:
1. the Union army was undergoing a huge expansion and needed any kind of weapons it could get its hands on, and
2. to prevent their sale to the Confederate States
The weapons fell out of widespread use after the first year or so of the war- it was unusual to find any regiment North or South armed with such poor weapons after 1863.
Especially a Northern unit like the 16th OVI- it being part of Grant's army on the Mississippi, it may have received newer arms a little later than their counterparts in the Armies of the Potomac and Cumberland, but I'd guess that they had gone out of use by the time of Grants Vicksburg campaign (May 1863).
The state of Ohio acquired many of these old guns (also Model 1822 U.S. smoothbores) and distributed them to the local militia units (later National Guard) in the wake of Morgan's Raid in the summer of 1863. So they saw service for most of the war in one way or another. Interestingly enough, when the 100 days men went out in May 1864, they turned in all of these old guns and were issued Springfields or Enfields- by 1864, they were considered useless even for guard duty!
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