Customer Reviews

An Introduction to Civil War Small Arms

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Coates and Thomas have produced a very usable and informative work. Titling it an "introduction" is somewhat misleading. While it might only be 96 pages long, it is a very full and well illustrated 96 pages. Certainly it is not fully detailed and does not present all arms, but neither is this a superficial sampling.

The overall format is an introduction to each weapon with basic specifications, several paragraphs of text about development use and production, a photograph of the weapon, a period photograph of a soldier armed with the same, and a photo of the cartridge. This is repeated for each major weapon. There are also several other general information sections about various aspects of small arms. Of considerable use to wargamers is a section listing known weapons of MANY regiments (looks like at least 1,000.)

If this is but an introduction, I should very much like to see a complete work on the subject by these authors.

This book is extremely well organized, has clear black and white photos of the guns, sample portraits of actual soldiers with the guns and of the ammuntion. The text is concise, but clear and not technical, perfect for a beginner like me. Since buying and reading it, I've been able to quickly recognize guns I've seen in museums, without even having the book with me.

This book will give a person the basics to understand the American Civil War Small weapons. This book is broken down into chapters that talk about rifles, smoothbore muskets, rifled muskets, breach loaders, pistols, and repeaters. Also, some mention is given of specialized weapons such as the sniper weapons used at the various seige battles and plain shotguns used primarly by the Confederate Cavary.

I really enjoyed all the information on the .58 caliber Springfield rifled muskets. Listed are the '55 musket, '61 musket, '61 special contract musket, and '63 musket. Of special note is the part on the '61 special contract gives the manufacturers and lock plate examples.

This book also gives quite a bit of information on the smoothbore weapons. What is surprising is quite a few of the .75 caliber Brown Bess muskets would find use in Confederate ranks and would be in the ranks well past the Battle of Shiloh (before Yankee "donations" replaced them). What really surprised this reader was the .69 caliber Springfield smoothbore musket was not really that represented in the ranks, only around 120,000 were made. A majority weapon that would have been found in quite a few Confederate units and more than a few Union units were the .69 caliber conversions from flint to percussion. Basically, from 1861 to mid-1862 the majority weapon found on both sides was a modified version of the musket carried by Washington's Army of the Revolutionary War. Rifled muskets were not quite the majority.

Now, the book has some information on proof markings on the weapons. If a person is a Civil War Reenactor then there is not enough information here to get proper information to "defarb" (make authentic) a reproduction musket. You'll have to do more research for that and a good place to start is at a place called "cwreenactors. com".

Still this is a tight picture book. A person is given pictures of the majority of the weapons used in the American Civil War. Some production numbers are given and units that carried the particular weapons. Of particular note is the Sharps rifle did see more use than thought dispite the expense of the weapon. Second, a lot of smart soldiers bought the state-of-the-art Henry rifles (future Winchester lever action rifles; soon to be the best rifle in the world in 1873).

No fan of the American Civil War can go wrong buying this excellent introductory book. You can't go wrong and it will give you a lot of basic information.

A nice little book for those beginning to see interest in civil war firearms. Nicely orgnaized. Well written. Well illustrated. Provides a brief history on the mainly used firearms and their accouterments. Then provides basic instruction in their use.

A good book to have.

An excellent basic reference book on Civil War small arms. More complete than expected.