Confederate Musket Tells an Intriguing Tale

Maine Antique Digest ^ | June 2003 | Robert Kyle

[okie_10]

Bump for an interesting story.

[Sam Cree]

That's a cool story.

I recently saw an antique store in the Quarter, New Orleans, that specialized in old guns like that, had lots of them, from various places. It would be cool to own one.

[azhenfud]

Bump and a ping

[Corin Stormhands]

Cool. Newbern and Floyd are not far from where I grew up.

[SamKeck]

Perhaps he could now empathize with his slaves, who were cherishing their own emancipation.

Where in hell does that article say that Peterson was a slave-owner? Sounds like the guy was more or less just a small farmer who joined up because most of the other people in his area did, and then served as a ground-pounder through most of the major eastern theater actions.

Most of the members of the Army of Northern Virginia were not slave-owners, and I very much doubt that Mr. Peterson was either.

[azhenfud]

Here:

"Jerry Peterson, Eli's great-grandson, lives on the property today with his wife, where they take care of his elderly mother, Eli Peterson's granddaughter. In the distance is a primitive frame house where Peterson's slaves lived before their master went off to war."

I almost did the same thing, in fact - I had the flame ready to post when finally I saw it.

Regards,
Az

[Sam Cree]

Figured it must have been over in your neck of the woods, since I don't know those places.

[SamKeck]

I almost did the same thing, in fact - I had the flame ready to post when finally I saw it.

Ooops, my bad. Time for more coffee. Thanks.

[azhenfud]

"Time for more coffee."

Okay, I'll buy. LOL!

[Verginius Rufus]

Floyd County was cut off from Montgomery County in 1831 and named for Governor John Floyd, who received South Carolina's electoral votes in the 1832 election for opposing Andrew Jackson's efforts to coerce South Carolina. His son, John B. Floyd, was Secretary of War in the Buchanan Administration and later a Confederate general (best known for his role at Fort Donelson). This part of Virginia didn't have a lot of slaves and was later an enclave of support for the Republican Party.

[SiliconValleyGuy]

ping

[mass55th]

The article says the guy was a Private. Don't you think if he owned slaves, he'd have had enough money to buy himself an officer's position or at least a rank higher than private?

[Wisconsin]

Aren't the terms rifle and musket contradictory?

[jim_trent]

I remember once buying an old (very poor shape) Colt Army/Navy in 41 Long Colt caliber. There were two small notch marks on the bottom of the handle (the steel part). But, lots of guns have notches.

When I removed the grips for a thorough cleaning, there was a name, date, and a city scratched inside the grips. The date was shortly after the gun was produced. So far, so good. I did some more research and found out that the name belonged to a foreman at a silver mine in that city at that time. That makes me wonder if the notches were real.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Great story. Survived Pickett's charge, wow. How could this musket have its original clothe sling, 146 yrs old?

Mr. Peterson fought in so many famous battles what a tale he must have had to tell.

[justshutupandtakeit]

You must mean "by opposing Andrew Jackson's upholding of the constitution even in South Carolina."

[Non-Sequitur]

Aren't the terms rifle and musket contradictory?

Not necessarily. Musket generally refers to any muzzle-loading, shoulder firearm whether it was rifled or not.

[SamKeck]

The article says the guy was a Private. Don't you think if he owned slaves, he'd have had enough money to buy himself an officer's position or at least a rank higher than private?

That's an interesting question. My speculation would be that, if Peterson's farm was indeed only 100 acres (as indicated in the article) at the time he joined up in the local militia, his farm sure wasn't the biggest in the area and therefore he didn't need a whole lot of slaves to help him work it. At a measly 100 acres, a cotton growing Tara-type agribusiness it weren't.

Also, because the article indicates that, as a small farmer, Peterson was militarily involved at the local level even before First Manassas, he probably didn't have the cash money needed to support the raising and funding of his own personal unit, which became a fairly common practice,at least in the war's early stages. Besides, in that early period, a lot of Confederate militia units were made up of folks who all knew one another by virtue of the fact that they all grew up and/or resided in a particular area. Many local units were formed and began drilling at the urging of the radical secessionists after the election of Mr. Lincoln and the action at Fort Sumpter. Maybe Peterson's was one of them. Anyway, at that point, most folks on both sides didn't expect the confict to last any more than six months, maximum.

As to the service weapon, I'd think it likely that his Enfield probably wasn't the first and/or only piece that he carried during the course of the war, though it's probably safe to assume that he had it during the Drewry's Bluff campaign in 1864.

[Shooter 2.5]

This is the simple answer:

The shape of the firearm makes it a Musket. Since it had rifling, the proper name for it is a Rifled Musket.