Arms at Camp Allegheny?

Comment

Comment by Bob Denton on June 9, 2009 at 9:07pm

Hi Shawn,

Ya know, someone privated me from the AC Forum with the same question.

All evidence we have suggests that soldiers did muster in with weapons brought from home, but how long this could be sustained was another thing altogether. The problem was ammo. Hunting rifles tended to be slow to load, and had non-standard ball and bullet sizes. Shotguns had similar problems, although they will eventually become popular among the cavalry and artillery (at least sawed-off ones), and saw some use in the trenches around Petersburg as well.

Now military flintlocks (i.e. .69 cal.) were certainly used, but they had been mostly converted to percussion. Virginia issued thousands of these converters to their militia, as well as the extremely accurate 2-band enfield rifles for the flank companies.

I'd say, we should probably encourage the use of .69 cal converters, other smoothbores, and of course the Harpers Ferry rifled-muskets. 2 band Enfields and Mississipis are OK as well. I would discourage the use of shotguns and hunting rifles. But a few flintlocks...hmmmmm...that would be intersting!

Bob D.