Civil War Muskets

Civil War Soldiers Make Camp in Brick

Corn cooked on a rudimentary barbecue burrowed into the ground at the Havens Homestead plot off Herbertsville Road as soldiers from the 61st New York Union Regiment made camp for the weekend. A faint smell of gunpowder permeated the air as the soldiers patrolled the grounds.

The annual Civil War encampment in Brick is different from more well-known re-enactments in that there are no battles or pre-defined outcomes. The soldiers, who came from as close as Barnegat Township and as far as central Pennsylvania, use encampment events to simulate wartime life between battles, when soldiers honed their skills, maintained their weapons and lived life in the outdoors.

"This is what a basic camp would have looked like," said Jerry Kennedy, of Barnegat, one of the men playing the part of a soldier.

Kennedy was carrying a Civil War era Springfield rifled musket, one of the common weapons used by Union soldiers. Anthony Trusso, of Union, was carrying a nearly-identical Enfield rifled musket.

"We had a lot of Springfields, but we didn't have enough," said Kennedy. "So we bought [Enfield] rifles from England. They fire the same bullets and have the same basic design."

Kennedy and Trusso fired off a few shots, both explaining how Civil War soldiers were trained to fire three rounds per minute from the muskets, which are barrel-fed and are accurate to about 400 yards. The rifles were mainly used to target lines of opposing troops from a distance.

The soldiers make an appearance in Brick each summer, said Jane Fabach, president of the Brick Historical Society, which sponsored the encampment. They've been coming for nine years, she said.

"You see the same people every year," Fabach said. "They do marching, show how they cook their food, and they stay overnight."

The Historical Society used the encampment as a community event as well, Fabach said. Members of the group sold hot dogs, corn and cold drinks, and provided tours of the on-site museum. The group is considering expanding the encampment into a community pig roast next year, Fabach said.

The encampment will continue through Sunday. Tours are being given from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Saluting Fallen Comrades: Duxbury G.A.R. Muskets « Duxbury in the ...

Among the most interesting of the artifacts in our “Duxbury in the Civil War” exhibit are a set of five muskets that were in the collection of the Duxbury Grand Army of the Republic “William Wadsworth” Post 165. They are nickel plated Springfield rifled muskets, Norris and Clement contract, some Model 1863 and some Model 1864. They are handsome artifacts and evoke strong images of local boys carrying such weapons on the battlefield.

The Springfield musket was the most common weapon used by the Union infantry during the Civil War. More than 1.5 million muskets were produced by the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts and their various contractors during the Civil War. The second most common weapon among Federal troops was the British-made Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled musket. Although the Enfield was arguably a more reliable weapon, according to many regimental histories, the soldiers preferred the Springfield. This had partly to due with a “made in the USA” sentiment but also because interchangeable parts to repair Springfields were easily obtainable.

When one examines the Springfields in our collection, it is almost impossible to keep from speculating as to what service these weapons might have seen. Were they fired on the battlefield? If so, who bore them into the fight? Did those soldiers make it out unscathed? Where were they carried? Were these weapons on the field at Gettysburg? Spotsylvania? Petersburg? Unfortunately, we can’t know for certain whether these weapons were used at all during the war. It seems probable that they were surplus munitions and might never have seen action.

Leaving aside any possibility of their use on the battlefield, we know precisely what these weapons were used for after the war…and that use alone renders them significant artifacts. The muskets were released from the U.S. Army and either sold or donated to the Duxbury Grand Army of the Republic post. And here in Duxbury, these muskets fired off many a round (blank rounds though they may have been) over the decades following the Civil War.

The Grand Army of the Republic was the fraternal organization formed for veterans of the Civil War. The Duxbury post was formed in 1885. For many decades, well into the 1920s, Duxbury Civil War veterans participated in Memorial Day observances and other civic events. On Memorial Days, they fired salutes in front of the Civil War monument in Mayflower Cemetery to their fallen comrades using the set of muskets now on display at the King Caesar House.

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