At this month’s meeting of the Tennessee Firearms Association we had James Kay from The Battle of Nashville Preservation Society give a presentation on civil war arms, and a bit of history on the Battle of Nashville. I’m not an antique gun guy, but it was pretty neat. One thing I did not know before last night was that Union troops had cartridge firing repeaters by the end of the war. The other thing I didn’t know was that rifles shooting Minie balls had effective ranges out past 900 yds. Mr. Kay told a story of a General who’s last words were “He can’t possible hit us from that distance.”
I used to carry a Derringer as a backup gun. People laughed at me, until I showed them the round it fired:
I kid, I kid. That’s from a siege gun that could hit a barn door at 1600 yards.
The top one in the picture below is (IIRC) a Springfield that was converted from flint-lock to percussion. The bottom one is a cavalryman’s carbine of some sort. Again, I’m not an antique gun guy
And the obligatory JayG bait:
ZOMG! Bayonets at the Golden Corral! EVERYBODY PANIC!
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The carbine is Burnside and the other gun is a 1795 Springfield musket. The general was John Sedgwick who was killed by a Confederate sniper at Spotsylvania Court House.