What weapons did NC Regiments use during the Civil War?

Answer 1

Eventually most NC troops were armed with the standard .577 caliber Enfield rifled musket. This was a single shot, muzzle-loading rifled weapon which used percussion caps to ignite the charge in the breech. This was a British design, and many were obtained from Britain. Others were manufactured in the Confederacy. There were several armories in North Carolina, at Asheville, Charlotte and Fayetteville. The Asheville armory produced Enfield rifles but apparently only made around 3200 of them. (There are only two known surviving examples, which are priceless. One is at Bennett Place in Durham in the state museum.)

In an emergency the .577 caliber Enfield could be used with captured .58 caliber Yankee ammunition, made for the standard northern rifled musket, the Springfield. This got progressively more difficult to load with each firing as black powder residue accumulated in the barrel.

For sidearms southerners preferred the Model 1835 Colt "Navy" pistol, in .36 caliber. These were of course unobtainable during the war except by capture. Confederates used whatever weapons they happened to have at the war's beginning, or what could be captured. Swords were also mostly of prewar US manufacture, though sword smiths did go into business in New Orleans, Memphis and Richmond. Any examples of those wartime swords made in the south are extremely scarce and valuable today.

Many soldiers went off to war with a big knife, usually called a Bowie knife though not much resembling the usual pattern of a Bowie knife, made by the local blacksmith.

I say most soldiers were "eventually" armed with the Enfield rifle because this actually took several years. The southern states were initially responsible for arming the troops they raised. Confederate commercial agents scoured Europe competing to buy anything available in the way of military arms. Each soldier required a "stand of arms", which included not just a shoulder arm of some sort, but also a bayonet to fit it, and a cartridge box and cap pouch, the latter two items to be worn on the belt. Many a Rebel soldier went to war with an ancient Austrian or Belgian rifle. Supplying the troops with ammunition for all these various types of rifles was a continual headache. Many more southern troops could have been raised in 1861 than actually were put into the field, but thousands of eager volunteers had to be sent home because there were no arms for them.

Firearms were in such short supply in 1861 that some troops were actually sent to war with a pike - a long wooden spear, just like their medieval ancestors. Others went off with whatever small caliber squirrel rifles or shotguns they had at home when the war started.

The experience of the 29th Regiment of North Carolina Troops might be taken as illustrative. This was an infantry regiment, raised in the mountains. They trained for about two months, mostly in "drill" (marching and battlefield formations) before making their way to Raleigh. There, they were given their first uniforms and arms. Company A was given the Mississippi Rifle, an excellent piece from an 1841 design, in .44 caliber. But there were only enough of these for the single company and the other nine companies were given the US Model 1812 musket. This was the one type of shoulder arm available in any numbers in the south when the war started. Most of the Federal armories and forts captured by southerners at the war's beginning yielded these old weapons. It had been the standard US Army weapon until the mid-1850s, when it was replaced by the Springfield. Originally they were flintlocks, though many had been converted to percussion locks and fired with percussion caps. It was a smoothbore musket, with no rifling inside the barrel, and thus highly inaccurate beyond fifty yards. It was usually loaded with "buck and ball". The paper cartridges issued the troops contained the standard .75 caliber, one ounce ball for the 1812 musket, and in front of that three large buckshot were placed, to give an effect like a giant shotgun when fired. It was not until 1863 that all ten companies of the 29th NC were equipped with Enfield rifles.