Supplying The Confederacy  "The Rebel Field Artillery"

Supplies to the Confederate field artillery during the Civil War were never as organized or uniform as that of the cavalry of infantry. This was partially due to a lack of uniformity in the equipment specified for single batteries and to the inequality in the number of men in a company; company size in a four-gun battery could vary from 45 to 100 men.  The tendency of the Confederate government in Richmond to accept all bodies volunteering for a particular branch of service contributed to unequal proportions between the branches.

It was extremely rare at any period during the war to find a Confederate artillery battery with uniform equipment. When the war began, the only foundry for casting cannon was at the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, VA. With the exception of a battery of Blakely guns imported by South Carolina, and a single battery of six 10-pounder Parrotts, there were few rifled field pieces south of the Potomac. In 1861, before the blockade became stringent, Whitwirth guns were brought from abroad, but that supply was soon stopped. Southern artillerists were compelled to accept whatever equipment their government was able to furnish- anything from a six-pounder gun to a 24-pounder howitzer.

Some ordinance stores had been secured when the Confederate government seized coastal guns and forts in the beginning weeks of the war, but as the war progressed, Rebels had to look to their opponents for weapons. A visit to Confederate artillery camps during the later years of the Civil War would have revealed that most of the three-inch rifles, the Napoleons, and the Parrott guns had originally been property of "Uncle Sam", captured in battle. A Rebel prisoner being marched past a supply of Union artillery commented to one of his captors, "I swear, Mister, you all has got most as many of these here U.S. guns as we'uns has". It has been estimated by Confederate ordnance officers that two-thirds of the artillery in the South was captured from the Union.

Fascinating Fact:  At Antietam, the heavy losses to Confederate artillery- in horses, caissons, and guns- strongly influenced Gen. Robert E. Lee's decision not to renew the battle the morning of September 18, 1862.


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