1860's Shotguns

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I've read the CSA Cavalry used shotguns because they were cheaper and the South had limited manufacturing ability and often soldiers had to bring their own guns.
What specific models of shotguns were used?
Were they percussion cap or flintlock?
Muzzleloaders or break action?
 
Specific models? The idea was bring what you have. Any make or model.
Percussion was pretty well standard for the past 20-30 years.
Muzzleloaders. I guess some rich guy might have one of them there Frenchified pinfires but that would be an extreme rarity.
 
American cavalry (including the Confederates) generally fought as dragoons (ride to the battle, and then fight dismounted). In that scenario, shotgun-armed troops would be at a distinct disadvantage compared to those armed with any kind of rifled carbine. The shotguns would lack the range. I think shotguns would have been phased out rather quickly.
 
Probably, but some outfits stayed with smoothbore muskets for a good while.
Yes, the advantage of the smoothbore muskets is that they could be loaded with "buck and ball" which would be devastating in massed fire out to 100 yds. or so. Shotguns would be limited to buckshot (or smaller) and wouldn't have the barrel strength of muskets. The modern shotgun slug hadn't been invented yet.
 
Shotgunners were shooting "punkin balls" long before the Foster slug.
I read an account of Mountain Men with double shotguns, muzzles filed in an attempt to regulate them for ball.

Did the CSA? I will ask a reenactor I know, he is an instructor in period and unit authenticity.

Talked to my source. He said shotguns were quite common. That Memphis Armory did a regular business putting bayonet lugs on ex-civilian shotguns. That the CSA ammo makers produced buckshot and buck and ball paper cartridges stamped "shotgun". The Third Tennessee Cavalry was shotgun armed... except for the company raised by a gun club, who brought their Maynards along.
 
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Shotgunners were shooting "punkin balls" long before the Foster slug.
I read an account of Mountain Men with double shotguns, muzzles filed in an attempt to regulate them for ball.

Did the CSA? I will ask a reenactor I know, he is an instructor in period and unit authenticity.

Talked to my source. He said shotguns were quite common. That Memphis Armory did a regular business putting bayonet lugs on ex-civilian shotguns. That the CSA ammo makers produced buckshot and buck and ball paper cartridges stamped "shotgun". The Third Tennessee Cavalry was shotgun armed... except for the company raised by a gun club, who brought their Maynards along.
I've seen pictures of confederates armed with double barrels, and I was wondering about what exactly they were using.
Thank you for the Maynard name, that is the type of info I am looking for. (plus the maynard is a cool lookin gun:)
 
Sure, I just don't know them.
Few if any were ancestors of familiar post war companies and there were a lot of imports.
My friend cited a book on the subject of foreign weapons in the Civil War and had a chapter devoted to shotguns.
I used to have a reprint of a pre-war catalog that showed a wide assortment of shotguns as well as other guns and gear useful to the frontiersman, but that is long gone.
 
Sure, I just don't know them.
Few if any were ancestors of familiar post war companies and there were a lot of imports.
My friend cited a book on the subject of foreign weapons in the Civil War and had a chapter devoted to shotguns.
I used to have a reprint of a pre-war catalog that showed a wide assortment of shotguns as well as other guns and gear useful to the frontiersman, but that is long gone.
Dang, that is the info I am looking for
 
CS units used shotguns but seldom by choice, usually simply bringing with them guns that they had at home. Many were sawn off and bayonet lugs fitted. The shotgun was (and is) a short range weapon, usually employed by horsemen in a meeting engagement. The shotgun was more likely to be used by irregular forces than by regular troops.

At short range (arms length), the shotgun was as effective as a carbine, but obviously second to a repeating carbine when more than one shot was needed. I can recall no shotguns imported in the CW era specifically for military purposes by either side. Both sides wanted military weapons, though the CS was more in a position of having to use whatever was available. .

Jim
 
There is an excellent new book available - "Confederate and Southern Agent-Marked Shotguns", which should answer any questions about their use in the War of Northern Aggression.

PRD1 - mhb- MIke
 
Shotguns used by CS soldiers would have been mostly sporting guns; such arms would have been brought from home by the new troops, or donated to the cause by other private parties. Look for British makers like Manton, Westley Richards and the like. I'm not aware of any makers being contracted to produce shotguns for the war effort.
 
The Missouri partisan rangers carried shotguns but they were irregulars. There was a unit, (company I believe..?) of Union troops that carried smoothbore muskets but those, technically, would not be "shotguns".
 
Forgive me for replying to an old thread, but just today learned of a fairly new book that would help anyone seriously interested in the topic of Confederate shotguns in the Civil War. The title is Confederate & Southern Agent Marked Shotguns by Russ A. Pritchard, Jr and John W. Ashworth, Jr. Just thought someone might be interested.
 
I've seen pictures of confederates armed with double barrels, and I was wondering about what exactly they were using.
Be careful interpreting period photographs. Photographers kept prop guns in their studios, to supply a "martial" look when soldier clients came in for photographs. Notice that many soldiers had revolvers and/or Bowie knives thrust haphazardly in their belts? Those were supplied by the photographers. Matthew Brady even kept muskets in his wagon, to pose with the dead that he photographed on the battlefields. (He also was not adverse to moving the dead into more "picturesque" positions -- or using live models to pretend to be "dead.") My point is that the guns you see in pictures are not necessarily the guns that were actually used. (William Frassanito has done excellent work analyzing -- and debunking --Civil War photographs. See for example his book Gettysburg, A Journey in Time.)
 
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