th and 6th Regiments US Coloured Cavalry
Raised in Kentucky in October 1864, they served with the 1st Division, District of Kentucky, Department of Ohio later Department of Arkansas and mustered out March 1866. By August 1863 an estimated 37,000 Negroes were serving in the Union Army, and some 180,000 had served by the close of the war. These troops formed the nucleus for the additional regular negro units authorized in July 1866, two of cavalry and four of infantry. These two cavalry units were the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry who won...
Enlisted Men
The regulation coat was the same grey double-breasted tunic or frock as for the infantry, with all trim in yellow. The skirt extended to halfway between the hip and the knee seven buttons in each row, the distance between the rows 4 inches at the top and 3 inches at the bottom stand-up collar to rise no higher than would allow the head to turn freely, to hook in front at the bottom and slope back at 30 degrees on each side. The cuffs were 2J inches deep at the upper seam, to button with two...
Organization
BOTH sides raised Indian regiments at least 5,500 redskin cavalrymen were recruited by the Confederacy, and around 4,000 served in the Union infantry. The South recruited Indians much earlier than the North, promising the creation of an all-Indian nation in what is now Oklahoma. Many of the Indian tribes in this area were originally Southern, owning negro slaves, and had been deported West by the Federal Government with an escort of the army now fighting the Confederacy. Leading figure in the...
Cords and Tassels
The Regulations specified the cords and tassels for infantry and artillery regiments, but no similar details appear to have been issued for the cavalry. This did not mean that cavalry commanders did not use them on their flags, presumably they did but to their own design. OVERLEAF FEDERAL CAVALRY PERSONAL AND DESIGNATING FLAGS T 2nd Personal Flag, General G. A. Custer, October 1863-June 1864, 2nd Michigan Brigade, 3rd Division, Army of the Potomac. Red over blue silk field painted sabres with...
Vandenberg Volleygun Various calibres 85 to 451 barrels
General O. Vendenberg designed a new system of 'artillery' using up to 451 barrel clusters firing musket balls in unison, but his idea met with only limited success. A screw-type breech held cartridges in individual chambers and slid into a key-way. Copper sleeves were forced into a counter-bored chamber for a gas-tight seal when the breech was screwed into the rear of the barrels. A centre charge fired by a percussion cap set off a whole volley or sections of barrels could be blocked off and...
Officers Mvs
Officers used the McClellan saddle, but often non-regulation outfits were used. Flat or English saddles were often used, as were Grimsley and Jennifers or artillery-type saddles, General U. S. Grant favouring this type. Over the saddle officers were supposed to wear the shabraque, dark blue, with a 1-inch gold edging lace as for mounted Infantry Officers. Under-housings, ie, the straps, were also blue. Officers also had a black leather valise bag, 16 inches long and 5-6 inches in diameter, worn...
NonCommissioned Officers Horse Furniture
The most important piece of equipment was, of course, the saddle. This was RIGHT Confederate Cavalry from an old print showing from left to right cavalry genera with white plume in hat cavalryman in almost regulation dress except for kepi. Trousers are dark blue which is unusual. Note method of carrying sabre hilt forward strapped under saddle holsters and girth strap. Also the carbine is on a strap over the back rather than on the usual sling and hook cavalryman m slouch hat in place of kepi...
NonCommissioned Officers Personal Equipment
The trooper and NCOs wore a heavy 3-inch wide black leather carbine sling about 60 inches long across the left shoulder. The sling buckled at the back with a large brass two-tongued buckle at one end and a brass belt tip held in place with rivets at the other. To hold the carbine on the belt, sliding loosely, was a three-piece swivel consisting of a loop and polished steel snap hook, which attached to a carrying ring or bar set in the left side of the carbine in the small of the stock. The...
Billinghurst Requa Battery Gun 0 58 calibre 25 barrels
Built late in 1861 by the Billinghurst Company of Rochester, New York, this gun had 25 barrels mounted flat on a light metal platform on a two-wheel carriage. The sliding breech was operated by a lever and the barrels were loaded by light steel cartridges with an ignition hole in the oval base held in special clips for quick loading. When the gun was loaded, a channel behind the cartridges was filled with powder, which was ignited by a percussion cap struck by a hammer firing all barrels...
Agar Machinegun 058 calibre singlebarrelled
This gun was also known as the 'Coffee Mill' gun because the cartridges were fed down a hopper shaped like an old-fashioned coffee grinder. Officially it was the Union Repeating Gun. The manufacturers described it as 'an army in 6 feet square'. The rate of fire was 120 rounds per minute. The gun was mounted on a two-wheeled carriage similar to that of the normal artillery piece, except that two equipment boxes were fixed one on either side of the axle. In order to reduce the danger of...
M1860 M1861 M1882 and M1864 Burnside Carbine
55,567 were purchased, most supplied by the Burnside Rifle Company the designer being General A. Burnside. The carbine was -54 calibre length 39J inches overall, barrel 21 inches and fired, by percussion cap, a perforated brass cartridge shaped almost like an ice-cream cone. The double trigger guard pressed together and was lowered to rotate the breech block and chamber into a vertical position to take the tapered case of the cartridge, the old cartridge being extracted by hand. Barrel was...
Officers
The regulation coat was a dark blue frock coat, the skirts reaching from two-thirds to three-quarters down between hip and knee. This coat was single-breasted for Captains and Lieutenants, ie. Company Officers, and RIGHT CAVALRY JACKETS AND COATS U.S. REGULATION SHELL JACKET A The yellow or orange on earlier issues braid trim is clearly shown around the collar, cuffs, back seams, front and bottom of the jacket. The position of the collar braid can also be seen, and the two small belt bolsters...
Williams Machinegun 1pounder 1 barrel 125 to 1 57 calibre
This Confederate 'secret weapon' was invented by Captain Williams of Covington, Kentucky. The single barrel was 4 feet long, made of iron, and mounted on a light one-horse double-shafted mountain howitzer-type carriage. Rate of fire was 60-65 rounds per minute, with a range of up to 2,000 yards. The piece was manned by a crew of three. One fed self-consuming paper cartridges into the breech from above by hand. The second placed percussion caps on to a nipple on the left-hand side of the...
Officers 1
The Regulations called for the same uniform for regimental officers as for the men with appropriate rank distinctions on sleeves, collar and kepi. The trouser stripe was 1 inches wide yellow cloth. Waist sashes were yellow. General officers had the same coat but with buttons in pairs and dark blue The many volunteer regiments raised were usually uniformed and equipped like the regulars. However, many volunteer and especially militia units were given special uniforms when raised and these are...
Union Badges
The Corps Badges described in the Infantry volume were not worn by the cavalry but two units had special badges of their own, worn on the hat or kepi. Sheridan's Cavalry Corps had a white probably silver for officers sunburst with squared ends to the rays and a dark blue oval centre with crossed sabres in yellow or gold. Wilson's Cavalry Corps had a gold carbine with a red swallow-tailed guidon hanging points down from a tasselled gold cord on the guidon gold crossed sabres see illustration on...
M1859 and M1863 Sharps Carbine
80,512 of these single-shot breech-loading single-action carbines were issued. The two models were essentially the same, -52 and -50 calibre respectively. Both had a rate of fire of eight rounds per minute with self-consuming linen cartridges weight 7J lb length 21 -inch barrel, 374 inches overall. The breech block was dropped to open the chamber by levering the trigger guard down. Percussion was from disc primer or percussion caps. Early models were brass trimmed, later ones iron, with the...