Executive Document 99
‘Our great want to speedily crush this rebellion is guns. We have an abundance of men.’[1]
‘It is very desirable that all the guns contracted for in Europe should be sent to us as soon as possible. We need them to complete the arming of our forces and to provide for renewal.’[2]
In the aftermath of the American Civil War, its vast expense naturally led to concerns that money had been spent improperly. As a result, in 1867 the House of Representatives requested a full accounting of all arms purchased during the war so that it could check for irregularities, which it subsequently published as Executive Document 99 of the 40th Congress, Second Session. Put simply, Executive Document 99 shows us (more or less, accounting for human error and imperfect records) what the Union bought and when. As a result, when coupled with other government documents, it provides us with the ability to determine the state of Union purchasing at the point at which a Trent war would have arisen.
As with all historical research, there are some methodological issues that must be encountered and resolved before conclusions can be drawn. The first is how closely the purchase date given in the document relates to the date at which the guns would be available to the Union. The necessity to inspect weapons to ensure they were fit for service to the troops, combined with the paucity of Ordnance officers and institutional weaknesses within the department, meant that guns were sometimes delivered to the Union well before they were ready for issue to troops.[3]
In some cases, disputes over the quality of weapons meant they were not officially purchased until much later. For instance, the Ordnance department purchased 10,000 rifled muskets from George Ramsdall on the understanding they were ‘a good serviceable weapon, and much better than the Enfield.’[4] In January 1862 he reported that he was now ready to deliver, and provided a sample weapon for the Ordnance department.[5] However, when Captain Crispin inspected the sample weapon, he was disquieted to discover that it was a .715 Austrian rifle, ‘an altered arm, said to be from the model adopted for the use of gun cotton,… of an inferior grade’ worth less than half the price the Ordnance Department had agreed.[6] There was some haggling over the terms, and it was almost immediately swept up in the Holt-Owen Commission’s review of the significant contracts issued by the department. In the end, the official purchase date of 22 May 1862 was much later than the Union authorities technically received the arms.[7]
However, this inaccuracy is balanced by other inaccuracies within the document. Samuel Smith, who contracted for weapons in Europe, announced he had 4,992 rifles ready for delivery on 13 March 1862, and a further 1,132 on 27 March.[8] However – perhaps from clerical error – the purchase date is given as August 1861, well before the guns were available to the Union.[9] Under ordinary circumstances, purchase dates are much closer to the date of arrival. On 3 January 1862, John Hoey reported his deliveries of Prussian smoothbore muskets as ‘December 6, 6,620, to-day, 5,000, and next week will place in the inspector’s hands 16,000 more.’[10] The purchase dates of these guns listed in Executive Document 99 were 21 December 1861, 11 January 1862 and 11 January 1862 respectively.[11] Howland and Aspinwall managed to despatch 8,000 Enfields from England before the Queen’s Proclamation prevented any further activities; the remainder of the weapons, 9,000 in all arrived by the steamer Edinburgh in March 1862.[12] Executive Document 99 lists exactly 8,000 Enfields received to 20 December 1861, and 8,940 Enfields delivered on 9 April 1862 (with a further 240 received on 28 April 1861).[13] The conclusion, then, must be that the figures more or less reflect an accurate representation of the month-by-month position of the Union, if not the day-by-day.
It should be noted that Executive Document 99 reconciles remarkably well to the information contained in Ripley’s report of 30 June 1862:[14]
Type;Per Ripley’s report;Per Document 99;Difference
Total foreign rifles;423,276;429,689;6,413 more in Document 99
Total foreign muskets;177,690;134,970;42,720 more in report
Total British rifles;116,740;116,763;23 more in Document 99
Total British muskets;8,999;8,999;n/a
Total domestic;30,788;36,193;5,405 more in Document 99
The overall error is to understate the number of foreign weapons by 36,284, and overstate the number of domestic weapons by 5,405. The former may have been caused by muskets which Ripley considered to be adequate subsequently being discovered to have serious flaws that led to the cancellation of contracts; the latter, more simply, is because erring on the side of caution has meant foreign rifles being incorrectly counted as domestic ones. The overall error, of c.5%, is unlikely to be material in the context of this assessment.
One more minor observation should be made at this stage. It has often been assumed, including by the author, that the 14,336 ‘army rifles with bayonet’ are Springfields. In fact, only 9,960 are ‘United States Rifles, .58’; 1,763 are varieties of the M1841, listed as ‘long range rifles,’ ‘Harpers Ferry rifles,’ ‘Yaeger rifles,’ ‘Mississippi rifles,’ and ‘rifles with sabre bayonet,’ with 9 of these having been converted to the Merrill breech-loading mechanism. A further 2,332 are American built versions of the Enfield, long and short, and 280 are ‘United States Rifles, altered to Maynard, .69’.[15] This is yet more proof, if proof were still needed, that domestic industry was nowhere near producing a regular supply of basic and standardised infantry weapons, let alone having the capacity to turn out millions of breech-loaders.
The only other significant methodological issue are the judgemental categories, where Executive Document 99 lists only blocks of purchases. Fortunately, there are only three of these: arms purchased from Herman Boker and Company, weapons bought by George L. Schuyler on his mission to Europe, and the purchases of the US representative in Belgium Henry S. Sanford. In order to present an accurate and full picture of the Union’s monthly resources, we should also allocate the production at the Springfield armoury to the domestic total.
Hermann Boker and Co. supplied 188,054 weapons to the Union by 10 June 1862, of a wide range of qualities.[16] Fortunately, the official attention necessitated by this variable quality makes it possible to reconstruct the number of weapons arrived at a number of key stages. For instance, we know that on 7 November 1861 5,440 .69 rifled muskets had arrived.[17] By 13 February 1862, this had risen to 61,485, of which 25,376 were good Austrian weapons between .54 and .58, 17,839 were ‘abandoned Austrian models’ altered from smoothbore flintlocks, and 17,349 were Prussian and French .69-.71 rifles, ‘open to grave and serious objection as superior military weapons’.[18] We also know that, “Prior to March 3, 1862, 81,770 rifled muskets had been placed under the control of the Ordnance department by Messrs. H Boker and Co.”[19] Based on these three key points, we can allocate 20,495 weapons per month for November, December and January; 20,285 for February; and 35,428 per month for March, April and May.
Equally fortunately, the details of Schuyler’s purchases are laid out in reasonable detail. Though the department had a habit of calling all good weapons ‘Enfields,’ this is not an insoluble problem. The October steamer, the Arago, carried 12,000 Dresden rifles; the City of Washington, sailing on 6 November, carried a further 12,955.[20] The Fulton, of November 12, carried 20,000 ‘Prussian’ (actually Austrian) rifles, and the Hamburg steamer of the 17th another 30,000.[21] The 10,000 ‘Enfields’ of unknown origin sent in October are presumably Austrian, as are the 10,000 additional ‘Enfields’ due to arrive before the end of December, but the 15,000 November Enfields seem to have been British given Schuyler’s overall pattern of purchases.[22] The last of Schuyler’s weapons arrived by the Bavaria, sailing at the end of March, but in the interest of fairness we will assume that most of the remainder actually arrived earlier than this.[23] Based on this, and allowing for the time needed for ships to arrive in America, we can allocate his purchases as follows:
Month;Dresden rifles;Austrian rifles;Enfield rifles;Vincennes rifles
November;24,955;10,000;0;0
December;0;50,000;15,000;0
January;0;10,000;0;0
February;2,021;48;04,558
April;79;0;0;0
The Sanford mission provides much less detail on when purchases were made, and the issue is complicated by the fact that Sanford was also the main conduit through which Boker and Co. purchases were made. As such, when he claims to have ’40,000 guns to be shipped in ten days… The gun business with my credits just received I shall probably close myself, stop the steamer which sails from Antwerp the 14th, and put them on board of her,’ it is unclear whether these guns were listed under Boker or Sanford.[24]
Balance suggests that Sanford’s purchases were made ‘
A la fin de 1861, en pleine crise du Trent… en un peu plus de deux mois’.[25] In an attempt to ship 35,000 arms to the Union without scrutiny, Sanford attempted to false-flag the British steamer
Melita under Belgian colours- a project which the British consul at Antwerp and the Belgian government were prepared to scuttle.[26] It also seems that Sanford sent 24,000 weapons by the steamer of 24th December.[27] These theoretical despatches of c.59,000 weapons compare remarkably closely to the 56,012 purchases assigned to him by Executive Document 99. If so, it is highly likely none would be available to the Union army in the event of a Trent war. However, we will be substantially more favourable than this, and assume that Sanford shipped his purchases in three equal deliveries which arrived with the Union in November, December and January.
Allocation of the weapons from Springfield Armoury can be made using a number of key figures. In FY1861, the armoury produced 13,803 weapons; in FY1862, 102,410; between the outbreak of the war and the end of June 1862, 190,810.[28] The armoury’s capacity as at December 1862 was 200,000 weapons per year, or 16,667 per month.[29] Assuming a steady rate of increase in capacity from August 1861, when Dyer took charge of the armoury and began expansion, to June 1862, we arrive at the following allocation:[30]
Month;Weapons
April - July;1850 per month
August;2,416
September;3,332
October;4,813
November;6,295
December;7,777
January;9,259
February;10,740
March;12,222
April;13,704
May;15,185
June;16,667
When all these sources are put together, the following picture emerges.
Month;Domestic;British rifles;British muskets;Continental rifles;Continental muskets
April 1861;1,850;0;0;0;0
May 1861;1,850;0;0;0;0
June 1861;1,972;0;0;0;0
July 1861;1,850;1,094;0;0;0
August 1861;7,415;2,260;8,999;13,405;7,698
September 1861;7,082;8,400;0;1,739;4,000
October 1861;7,193;7,348;0;9,927;0
November 1861;9,651;20,535;0;72,987;23,460
December 1861;11,319;28,742;0;93,559;19,579
January 1862;12,272;1,623;0;45,406;33,547
February 1862;14,092;5,465;0;36,594;
March 1862;12,222;5,901;0;47,587;0
April 1862;14,244;13,400;0;43,563;20,000
May 1862;25,004;7,617;0;54,697;25,000
June 1862;17,987;14,378;0;10,225;1,686
Grand Total;146,003;116,763;8,999;429,689;134,970
In graph form, as provided in the attachment, the dependence on foreign supply appears even more stark.
Foreign deliveries tailed off during the Trent, but subsequently recovered. Even after the instruction to raise no further regiments, the Union still needed vast quantities of weapons to replace inadequate arms issued to troops through dire necessity, not to mention adequate weapons rendered unusable through inexperience in weapons care and handling.[31] The overall picture confirms all previous observations about the dependence on foreign weapons of the Union war machine in the first few years of the war.
The data provided also enables us to calculate a projected shortfall in the event of a war, based on the Union’s federal stocks of arms as at 30 June 1862.[32] This projection given here will provide a worst-case scenario, based on the assumption that the blockade and cessation of trade is 100% effective and the ending of British barrel imports completely shuts down Springfield Armoury. Others, however, are free to make their own alternative projections based on the evidence provided.[33]
Month;British arms;Continental arms;Springfield arms;Total shortfall
January 1862;1,623;78,953;9,259;89,835
February 1862;5,465;36,594;10,740;52,799
March 1862;5,901;47,587;12,222;65,710
April 1862;13,400;63,563;13,704;90,667
May 1862;7,617;79,697;15,185;102,499
June 1862;14,378;11,911;16,667;42,956
Total;48,384;318,305;77,777;444,466
As the federal arsenals contained 335,896 weapons on 30 June 1862, this suggests a deficit of 108,570 weapons over the first six months of the Trent War. Moreover, Ripley was clear at the start of June that ‘the number now on hand of good rifled arms, both American and foreign, for issue to troops in service is about 94,000.’[34] Counting only British and Springfield weapons as ‘good rifled arms,’ the loss of the 95,116 weapons purchased and produced between January and May would have wiped out this surplus entirely. When the supply of Austrian Lorenz rifles is added to this, it is clear that the federal government would have been running close to empty, if not beyond, within a few months of the outbreak of war.
As the seven states dealt with in a previous article had 64,530 arsenal and militia weapons available in January 1862, it is possible that this deficit could have been met by dredging the country for weapons. It would not have allowed them to increase the overall troop deployment, meaning the Union would have to fight two enemies with the same size of force that was insufficient to overcome one. However, emptying the arsenals and disarming the militia might have enabled them to maintain their historical troop level, by replacing weapons which broke or were lost.
However, even if it were possible to maintain the Union’s overall deployment level for 1862, this does not bode well for the coming year. Despite success in more minor theatres, the Union spent most of 1862 having its invasions of the South turned back before being invaded in turn. To suggest that the Union could perform better in a larger war with fewer soldiers carrying worse weapons, with a backdrop of greater financial instability, is to stretch credibility beyond its limits.
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[1] Simon Cameron, secretary of war, to Hon. William L. Dayton, US minister in Paris, 12 November 1861; United States War Department,
The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, Series 3 Vol. 1 (1899), p.630 [
link]
[2] Thomas A Scott, assistant secretary of war, to Hon. H.S. Sanford, US minister to Belgium, 23 December 1861;
War of the Rebellion series 3 vol. 1, p. 756 [
link]
[3] Carl L Davis,
Arming the Union: Small Arms in the Union Army (Port Washington, London: 1973), pp.14-37
[4] Simon Cameron to General Ripley, 25 July 1861, in Stuart C. Mowbray and Jennifer Heroux (eds.),
Civil War Arms Makers and their Contracts: A facsimile reprint of the Report by the Commission on Ordnance and Ordnance Stores, 1862 (Lincoln, RI, 1998), p.31
[5] G.W. Ramsdall to General Ripley, 13 January 1862, in Mowbray and Heroux,
Arms Makers p.32
[6] S. Crispin to General J.W. Ripley, 26 January 1862; ibid, pp.33-4
[7] Stuart Mowbray (ed.),
Civil War Arms Purchases and Deliveries (Lincoln, RI, 2000), p.919
[8] Samuel B. Smith to Hon. J. Holt, Hon. Robert Dale Owen, 18 March 1862 and 27 March 1862, in Mowbray and Heroux,
Arms Makers, pp.201-2
[9] Mowbray,
Purchases and Deliveries p.942
[10] John Hoey to Hon. George Ashman, 3 January 1862, in Mowbray and Heroux,
Arms Makers p.53
[11] Mowbray,
Purchases and Deliveries p.761
[12] Howland and Aspinwall to Brigadier General JW Ripley, 13 January 1862, in Mowbray and Heroux,
Arms Makers p.244; Howland and Aspinwall to Major PV Hagner, 26 March 1862, in Mowbray and Heroux,
Arms Makers p.245
[13] Mowbray,
Purchases and Deliveries p.756
[14] United States War Department,
The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies, Series 3 Vol. 2 (1899), p. 855 [
link]
[15] This leaves one unclassified gun, purchased from Howland and Aspinwall and listed as ‘Whitney rifle’: Mowbray,
Purchases and Deliveries p.756
[16] Evidence of Major P.V. Hagner, 10 June 1862, in Mowbray and Heroux,
Arms Makers p.91
[17] Major P.V. Hagner to General JW Ripley, 13 November 1861; ibid, p.73
[18] Captain S. Crispin to General J.W. Ripley, 13 February 1862; ibid, p.76
[19] Major P.V. Hagner to Hon. E Stanton, 14 March 1862; ibid, p.80
[20] Thomas A. Scott to George L. Schuyler, 21 October 1861,
War of the Rebellion series 3 vol. 1 p.581 [
link]; Thomas A. Scott to Brig. Gen. James W. Ripley 18 November 1861,
War of the Rebellion series 3 vol. 1 p.656 [
link]
[21] Thomas A. Scott to Brig. Gen. James W. Ripley 18 November 1861,
War of the Rebellion series 3 vol. 1 p.656 [
link]
[22] Simon Cameron, to Hon. Salmon P. Chase, 24 October 1861,
War of the Rebellion series 3 vol. 1 p.595 [
link]
[23] George L. Schuyler to Hon. Edwin M Stanton, 30 March 1862,
War of the Rebellion series 3 vol. 1 p.955 [
link]
[24] H.S. Sanford to Hon. William H. Seward, 12 November 1861,
War of the Rebellion Series 3 vol. 1 p.631 [
link]
[25] Francis Balance,
La Belgique et la guerre de sécession, 1861-1865: étude diplomatique (Paris, 1979), vol. 1 p.162
[26] Balance,
Belgique vol. 1 pp. 248-9. The
Melita was a former Cunarder, part-exchanged with P. Denny of Greenock; it sailed from Greenock to Antwerp on 3 January 1862 (
Morning Post, 6 January 1862 p.7)
[27] John Hoey to Hon. George Ashman, 3 January 1862, in Mowbray and Heroux,
Arms Makers p.53
[28] Felicia Johnson Deyrup,
Arms makers of the Connecticut Valley: A regional study of the economic development of the small arms industry, 1798-1870, (Northampton MA, 1948) p.182;
War of the rebellion, series 3 vol. 2, p.855 [
link]
[29] Memorandum of Brigadier General James W. Ripley,
War of the rebellion, series 3 vol. 2, p.852 [
link]
[30] Davis,
Arming the Union pp.69-70
[31] L Thomas, Adjutant General, General Order No. 105, 3 December 1861:
War of the rebellion, series 3 vol. 1 p. 418 [
link]
[32] James W. Ripley to Hon. E.M. Stanton, 21 November 1862,
War of the rebellion, series 3 vol. 2 p.858 [
link]
[33] They may choose simultaneously to take the more probable scenario for Sanford's purchases by removing them entirely.
[34] James W. Ripley to Hon. E.M. Stanton, 7 June 1862,
War of the rebellion, series 3 vol. 2 p.113 [
link]