"% of rifled muskets a Shiloh?" Topic

For both armies. I assume the union had more of them. But was it common at this point in the west?
Are there any clear info on who had and who hadn't them?

Maybe check boardgamegeek and see if there are any images of the countersheets for the old SPI game "Bloody Shiloh". R = rifled muskets and M = smoothbore muskets.

See this link for info on the Confederate regiments:

link

Wow, thanks, that was far more specific than I had hoped to find.

Check out "this bloody field" on wargame vault by historic imagination (Brad Butkovich). It includes a full order of battle and who is armed with what. and scenarios.
All of his scenario books are excellent.

+1 Extrabio.

Thanks

B

I would be reluctant to trust any information from board games especially old SPI games. At Origins 4 many years ago I debated SPI about inaccuracies in their Terrible Swift Sword game. The had the Iron Brigade armed with smoothbore muskets, of which they had none.

The had Doubleday's division entering at a different road contrary to Doubleday's account from his own book. There where more which I can't even remember, but it was poorly researched.

Given the nature of the close and wooded terrain at Shiloh in which fire fights were mostly at close range a rifled musket would be no better than a smoothbore

Kim

Great link Extrabio.

Kim, That's interestingly weird.

Too bad the author of the link in Extrabio's post doesn't know how to properly spell the military formation of several divisions -- Corps.

But he sure has done a heck of an amount of research. Kudos to him for that.

Jim

The writer of the post cited by Extrabio is Tom Arliskas, author of Cadet Gray and Butternut Brown: Notes on Confederate Uniforms (2006). He also posted the same question (with the same spelling error) over on the Authentic Campaigner website. That thread might have some further information not found on the Shiloh Discussion Group site.

link

It's great that you never stop learning but I'm genuinely surprised that the word "flintlock" occurs so many times in that Regimental list!

I have no idea how many flintlock weapons went into the fields. However I have read in different sources about how at the outset of the ACW the Confederate armories (and I also assume those in the U.S.) was refitting flintlock muskets for percussion caps so they would have weapons to issue the troops.

Also, interesting that the 1819 Hall rifle was seen as very inferior to the rifled muskets. It's a breechloading rifle. You'd think that was a good thing.

As they say – The devil is always in the details.

B

You read time after time about flintlock use, in general histories of the War and are like "Oh" and just carry on reading. It's really a heads up when you see some detailed research.

I'm assuming that some of this is to do with Confederate Western Armies being at the back of the Line for equipment. Not to mention Shiloh being fought only a week before the War's first anniversary, that probably had a lot to do with it too!

I'm not sure that smoothbore vs rifled made much of a difference in the thick woods of Shiloh. Even late in the war, the troops still tended to fire at smoothbore musket ranges.

I'm not gonna go on a rant about the supposed advantages of the rifled musket.
I've done that many times. But yes it's superiority is overstated by a lot. Except for rifling it had all the same disadvantages as smoothbore (who's inaccuracy is often overstated too)