TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Category: Arms & Armament

  • Camp Life and Target Practice in 1862

    Bill Adams sends along a clipping from the Northampton Gazette & Courier, dated February 11, 1862, which gives a very good look a camp life in the Union army just prior to McClellan’s Peninsular campaign. It should also help dispel one of the most persistent CW myths—that many soldiers went into battle without ever even […]

  • H. L. Hunley Righted

    Follow the link and you too can see what no living person has seen—the complete Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, which has just been turned to an upright position. No way you’d get me on that thing, but I salute the brave men who went out on it. More here, with lots of photos.

  • Short Takes

    Professor J. David Hacker takes and new look at Civil War dead and concludes there was a major undercount, especially in the South. Even as Civil War history has gone through several cycles of revision, one thing has remained fixed: the number of dead. Since about 1900, historians and the general public have assumed that […]

  • Weapons of the Second Iowa?

    Frequent blog readers probably know that I and a couple of others like Joe Bilby are always trying to confirm CW battle ranges. I recently came across an account of the battle of Corinth (Oct. 3-4, 1862) that talks about it. A soldier in the 2nd Iowa wrote: The Rebel batteries silenced ours, and about […]

  • Auction News and Other Takes

    The venerable Scientific American magazine has its archives on line now, all the way back to the first issue in 1845. Normally it would cost you money to look, but for November only they have the 1845-1908 archives available for free. Unfortunately there is no universal search for these early issues altho you can search […]

  • Short Takes

    They still probably won’t take your Confederate money, but Richmond seems to be on the rise again, this time as “Startup South” and perhaps the next silicon valley. In hearing from dozens of Richmond startups, two institutions stick out as important nodes in the local innovation system. The first is Virginia Commonwealth University. As Richard […]

  • A Feast of Colts

    One of the most significant collections of CW-era Colts is up on the block, and worth a look for anyone interested in period weapons. Many of these firearms disappear into collections where they are seldom if ever seen. Field & Stream magazine has a a nice slide show with commentary on each gun and the […]