Posted on 06/25/2003 6:14:09 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
When Virginia collector Tom Harman was tracing the history of an old Civil War musket, he found that when an old homestead stays in a family for generations, it can yield a wealth of history.
Harman of Dugspur, Virginia, a retired U.S. National Park Service police officer, first saw the firearm in early 1998. It was on display at a small Civil War museum in Newbern, Virginia. He considered it museum property and thus unavailable.
Harman's first stroke of luck came when he learned that the museum was only borrowing the gun. He got in touch with its owner, made an offer, and bought it.
He also bought its stories. All old guns have them proving them is another story.
Rewinding history, Harman started asking questions, backtracking in time until before long he was standing on the front porch of the musket's original owner, Private Eli Peterson, Confederate States of America, talking to Jerry, his great-grandson.
Later, at an overgrown family cemetery nestled on the family's 100-acre farm in Snowville, Virginia, Harman rested the rifle against Private Peterson's weathered 8é obelisk. He felt an instant connection with the old soldier.
"I placed Eli's musket next to the headstone and a feeling of complete peace came over me," Harman recalled. "I felt that if Eli could speak, he would say, `Remember me, for I fought for the cause, and I did my very best.'"
Indeed, Eli Peterson's war record indicates that he was in the thick of battle many times, but at war's end he had become a Union prisoner. Worse, he was listed as a deserter. Why would a seasoned soldier simply give up and come home?
Harman began to realize that the old musket might be hiding a wealth of information.
Officially, the rifle he carried is known as a British patent 1853 Enfield rifle-musket. Thousands of English-made rifles wound up in the hands of Confederate soldiers.
At the outbreak of the war in 1861, the Confederate government realized that it could not supply its troops with the amount and quality of arms Union soldiers had. Most all of the major gunsmiths and armories were in the North: Springfield, Sharps, Spencer, Colt, Winchester, Eli Whitney, Remington, and many others.
The South dispatched an arms buyer to Europe to make large purchases for the Confederacy. The North placed orders as well, because the 1853 Enfield rifle-musket, the standard arm of the British army, had a reputation for durability and accuracy.
During the Civil War, an estimated 900,000 Enfields were exported to America, with the Confederacy receiving about 400,000. Most were made by private contractors. The British government, wanting to maintain neutrality, referred Confederate orders to smaller companies, which made copies of the official military musket. The lock plates on these arms were generally marked "Tower" with a date and a crown. They became the war's second most common infantry weapon behind the Springfield carried by the Union army.
The South also acquired arms from France, Belgium, and Austria. It was no surprise then that Private Eli Peterson went to war carrying a foreign firearm, but getting it in his hands took some effort by the South. With arms and other goods by European makers setting sail for the South, the North placed ships in position along the East Coast to intercept European vessels laden with goods for the southern cause. Ports in Charleston, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina, were popular destinations.
The need for faster ships for blockade running became apparent, and arms shipments were soon delivered to Bermuda to be transferred to the swift penetrators of the blockade.
The British musket Eli Peterson was issued, dated 1857 on the lock plate, likely was one that successfully ran the barrier.
When the South received these largest shipments from abroad, there was no time or need to stamp them with a "CSA" or other identifying symbol of the South. Thus, North and South muskets from Great Britain appeared identical and often changed sides after battles.
John Buck of Floyd, Virginia, the man who had loaned the musket to the Newbern museum, told Harman that he had owned it for ten or 15 years after receiving it as payment for doing yard work for an elderly woman at the Peterson house. She told him that it had belonged to an ancestor who served in the Confederacy.
Its stock had been cracked in half and repaired by Buck. The musket still had its original cloth sling.
Soon after Harman became the musket's new owner, he set about investigating Eli Peterson's role in the war.
"A search of the records revealed he was a member of the Eleventh Virginia, Company F, called the Preston Guards," Harman said. "On Monday, April 22, 1861, at four p.m., a telegraph order directed his unit [about 800 men] to report to Richmond to board the boxcars at the train station." Harman said that Peterson took the oath to join the Confederacy on April 24, 1861.
Harman said that the 11th Virginia and Peterson took part in these battles: July 21, 1861, First Manassas/Bull Run (Virginia); May 5, 1862, Williamsburg (Virginia); May 31-June 1, 1862, Seven Pines (Virginia); June 25-July 1, 1862, Seven Days (Virginia); August 28-30, 1862, Second Manassas/Bull Run (Virginia); September 14, 1862, South Mountain (Maryland); September 16-18, 1862, Sharpsburg (Maryland); December 11-15, 1862, Fredericksburg (Virginia).
Harman found that on July 3, 1863, Peterson's unit was part of the ill-fated Pickett's Charge against Union forces at Gettysburg. Fortunately, Harman said, Peterson was on the extreme right flank and avoided becoming one of the 4100 casualties out of 4500 men who made the assault directly into Union guns and cannons.
The following year Peterson fought at Plymouth, North Carolina, and Drewry's Bluff, Virginia.
As 1864 drew to a close, Eli Peterson, now 41 and no doubt weary of battle, left his unit and came home to rural Snowville to his wife, Christina Jane, and the house he built for her in 1854, the year they were married.
"It is unknown when he deserted," Harman said. "Maybe in the fall months. But after three-and-a-half years of war, I can only guess he was physically and mentally broken. So he and his Enfield, which was probably also broken, made their way back to Montgomery County, Virginia."
Desertion was common on both sides. Over 100,000 Confederate soldiers left their units. Some fully intended to return after helping plant crops and seeing to the needs of their families. Others, possibly Peterson, realized victory was impossible. It was time to go home to loved ones.
"On December 25, 1864, Union forces arrested Peterson and listed him as a rebel deserter," Harman said. "They sent him to Washington, D.C., on December 27, where he took the oath [of allegiance to the U.S. government], and on January 3 to federal prison in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he stayed until the end of the war."
When Peterson was seized he was no doubt unarmed, or else the musket would have been confiscated as well. It is possible he was enjoying Christmas day with his family when federal troops surprised him. He may have fully intended to return to his unit.
Fortunately, Peterson's incarceration as a P.O.W. lasted only four months. Following the Confederate surrender in April 1865, he returned home, farmed his land, raised a family, and remained in the same house until his death in 1903 at age 80.
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.
When he returned home after four years of battle and four months in jail, Peterson was a free man. Perhaps he could now empathize with his slaves, who were cherishing their own emancipation.
Tom Harman bought an old musket and its stories. He knows he got his money's worth.
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.
"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
Ooops, my bad. Time for more coffee. Thanks.
Not necessarily. Musket generally refers to any muzzle-loading, shoulder firearm whether it was rifled or not.
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.
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