"ACW Artillery carriage and limber color questions" Topic

Howdy y'all! Did Union and Confederate artilley units paint their gun carriages and limbers a distinctive color? If they did was their a standard color? Though this may have been the case with the Federals, I don't think the Confeds would quite as organised in procurement system for standardization. Or were the carriages and limbers not painted at all and left unfinished? If unfinished what was the majority wood tone used?
I will be painting some field pieces and limber teams for a friend. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance and Salut y'all!

Bruce the Texas Grognard

Union gun carriages and limbers were painted a color almost identical to modern US Army olive drab. Union wagons were painted light blue. The Confederates had loads of captured Union equipment, so their colors were probably pretty similar.

This question seems to come up like clockwork every 4 weeks. :)

This seems to be a monthly topic now!

Allen

So that means more people are discovering the joys of collecting ACW figs, right?

lol not necessarily….

All artillery was painted green right up until the war started, as that was the standard color for US artillery.

Once the war started … the practice continued by regulation for the north, and by default for the south. So unless a gunworks ran out of the proper green paint, green was the color used by both sides.

And I am told that the color green you find on cannons in national battlefields today is the same green color used back then on those same cannons.

I've read (don't recall where) that the Confederacy imported some ordnance and limbers from England that were painted Royal Artillery grey. Don't know how long they would have stayed grey, though.

Green/Olive Drab is specified in the 1863 CS Ordnance Manual. Well actually the paint formula which comes out that color. The Whitworth in the frequently printed photo looks to be on a darker carriage than British grey. Maybe someone knows the carriage color for the imported Austrian guns!