TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Might even be stolen U.S. gold from the Federal Mint.

Archer wrote that he also spoke with a journalist who had done extensive research on a Civil War-era group called the Knights of the Golden Circle. The KGC, Archer wrote, was a secret society of Confederate sympathizers that had purportedly “buried secret caches of weapons, coins, and gold and silver bullion, much of which was stolen from robberies of banks, trains carrying payroll of the Union Army during the Civil War and from northern army military posts, in southern, western and northern states.”

Archer said that a turtle carving found on a rock near the proposed dig site was “very likely … a KGC marker for that site.”

Archer wasn’t able to confirm the U.S. Mint had actually missed any expected shipments of gold because the Mint did not have records for the Civil War period, the affidavit said.

Or maybe not.

Seems like I’ve seen this movie before somewhere. Three guys are after it—one’s Good, one’s Bad, and the other one’s, well, Ugly.

Everyone probably knows what a revolver is, but do you know which one is the biggest? The S&W 29, beloved of Dirty Harry? The Colt Walker? Naah, not even close. It was Pate’s revolving cannon. Not a hand cannon, mind you, but a real one on a carriage.

Each ball for the revolving cannon weighed 4lbs or 28000gr!  The cannon was as close to a scaled-up percussion revolver as one could get.  It utilized a 5-shot cylinder, a striker that would impact a percussion cap, and, to improve velocity and safety by reducing gas leakage, was also a gas-sealed design!  One could seal the cylinder to the barrel via the usage of a screw lever.  A separate lever would rotate the cylinder, which was held in place for firing via a hefty spring-loaded mechanism.

Apparently only two examples of Pate’s cannon were made, and one burst during testing. The other, however, seems to have been used during the Petersburg campaign in 1864-65.

Speaking of cannon, the local news has an item on the finding of a live projectile on the Monocacy battlefield.

“The unexploded military ordnance was determined to be a live cannonball round used during the Civil War. Bomb technicians conducted diagnostics and determined the fusing mechanism was still intact,” a statement reads.

The local bomb squad disposed of it in a nearby quarry.

These old cannon balls are not safe unless they are solid shot. If you find one don’t assume it’s safe because it’s old. In fact, it may be even more dangerous. Fortunately finding things like this in this country is rare, not at all like the “iron harvest” in France and Belgium.

Some time ago (in 2006) I wrote a post about John Jacob and his unusual rifle. In it I said that Lorenzo Barber, the “Fighting Parson” of the 1st U.S.S.S., used a Jacob rifle because he is mentioned as having a double-barrel rifle with one barrel loaded with buckshot and the other with a bullet. This was just an assumption on my part, and it looks like an erroneous one.

Reader Art Ruitberg contacted me about the reference I used for that statement, and I had to admit that I did not have one for the specific make of gun. Ruitberg suggested that it might have been a “combo” gun made locally in New York state. A combo gun was both rifle and shotgun Some had the rifle barrel directly over the shotgun barrel, some had them side by side. All were muzzle loaders. This made for a versatile gun both for hunting and the battlefield, but one that was rather heavy. Several New York gunmakers built them to order, so it seems more likely that Barber used one of these rather than an imported (and very expensive) Jacob. Barber himself describes it as “my double barrelled rifle, containing a bullet in one barrel and nine buck-shot in the other” but gives no more details.

Period examples of this kind of gun come up for auction now and then. A recent one was this Lewis Hepburn combo gun, which sports a .45 caliber rifle barrel over a 12 gauge shotgun barrel. Operating out of Colton, New York, Hepburn (1858-1908) made his own rifles, then later worked for Remington, where he designed the famed Hepburn target rifle.

So I have revised my opinion about Barber’s gun. It was most likely a New York-made combo gun.

Combo guns remain popular today. The one you most often see is the Savage Model 24, and over and under combination that comes in a variety of calibers. In Central Europe many hunters use a drilling—a three barrel gun with two side by side shotgun barrels over a rifle barrel.

Special thanks to Kramer Auction Service in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, for permission to use the photos.

Cap and Ball is at it again, this time to answer a question that often comes up about Civil War rifles. Did the addition of a bayonet have any effect on accuracy? He also has some commentary on the use of bayonets during the war.

We often hear that Sam Colt invented the revolver, and that he got the idea during a transatlantic crossing in the 1840s while watching the helmsman turn the ship’s wheel. In truth, however, the revolver goes back much farther than that. The first one we actually have belonged to one Georg von Reichwein and dates all the way back to 1597. It’s more accurate to say that Colt designed the first practical mass-produced revolver. Guns like that of von Reichwein were hand made and available only to rich people and the nobility.

Amputation of wounded limbs was not new but reached somewhat of a high point in the Civil War. The Minie ball, in particular, was notorious for shattering bone. Doctors soon found that trying to save a limb was counterproductive—it almost always became infected and the patient died. We have all seen gruesome photos of severed arms and legs piled up next to a field hospital, sometimes higher than the roof.

An upcoming auction has a very nice example of a Civil War era amputation kit (and it’s not cheap) that shows what a typical surgeon would have used.

Although we think of Civil War medicine as primitive (and it was by today’s standards), medical practice made huge strides during the war. At he conflict’s beginning, for instance, the death rate for hospitals hovered around 50%, when the were available. By war’s end the figure had been reduced to 6-8% on both sides.

UPDATE: Speaking of interesting things at auctions, I came across this. It’s a wooden scale model of the C.S.S. Tennessee of Mobile Bay fame. Don’t know what I would do with it and don’t have space to display it, but the cool factor is hard to beat.

Cap and Ball, whom we have met before, has a very informative post on four Civil War revolvers—the Colt, the Remington, Starr, and Adams. He shows how each worked and which worked best. He also shows the paper cartridges they fired and how to make them. Quite interesting if you want to know the details of how all this worked.

UPDATE: Cap and Ball has another video exclusively on the Adams, which was a very advanced firearm for its time, having the first real combination single/double action. He goes into some detail about how this worked.

A look at the people who buy all those statues people have been tearing down.

The leaders of Newton Falls have declared their town a “sanctuary city” for unwanted statuary.

“History is a big part of this community’s identity – you can still dig up arrowheads in the fields – and we have acres of parks,” said Lynch. “Buying statues would be an expensive proposition. But by taking them from municipalities that would only put them into storerooms, we ­provide a good alternative.”

It is refreshing to see someone who actually values history.

There are also individuals collecting discarded statues for reasons unknown. According to Fox News, when the city of Dallas didn’t know what to do with a tribute to Robert E. Lee, Lone Star Auctioneers put the Confederate general’s bronze likeness on the block – and it sold for $1.43 million. The buyer was identified only as LawDude. The auction house did not return calls for comment.