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قراءة كتاب A Refutation of the Charges Made against the Confederate States of America of Having Authorized the Use of Explosive and Poisoned Musket and Rifle Balls during the Late Civil War of 1861-65
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A Refutation of the Charges Made against the Confederate States of America of Having Authorized the Use of Explosive and Poisoned Musket and Rifle Balls during the Late Civil War of 1861-65
the position taken in this paper.
It would be disingenuous in me if I failed to notice the fact that a charge somewhat similar to that which begins this article was made by a correspondent in the Scientific American for September 6th, 1862, volume VII, page 151, as follows:
Recently it was my privilege to examine, in the hands of a man just from Fortress Monroe, an explosive bullet, such as was used by the Rebels in the six days' battle. It is conical in shape, about one inch long, made of lead, and consists of two parts—viz: a solid head piece and a cylindrical chamber, which are united together by a screw. From the point of the bullet projects a little rod, which passes down through a small hole in the head piece into the chamber below, where it was connected with a percussion cap. The chamber contains about a tablespoonful of powder. You can readily perceive that if the bullet should encounter a bone or other hard substance when entering a man's body, it will explode and thereby produce a fatal wound.
F. J. C.
Philadelphia, August 23, 1862.
In the Patent Office Report (United States) for 1863-4 will be found a shell exactly corresponding to this one:
No. 39,593—Joseph Nottingham Smith, New York, N. Y.—Improvement in Elongated Projectile for Firearms—Patent dated August 18, 1863.
It consists of an elongated cylinder having a charge chamber in its rear portion, which contains powder for propulsion. The point is a pointed axical bolt, whose rear is furnished with a percussion cap, to be exploded by the forward motion of a striker on the concussion of the projectile.
Not having seen this ball, I cannot certainly identify it with the ball mentioned by F. J. C., but it is evidently the same.
The inference is very natural that if these several projectiles, patented by the United States Patent Office, as the invention of Northern men, during the war, and used by the United States armies, were ever used by the Confederates, it was only as captured ammunition. It was hardly possible, at any reasonable cost, to run them through the blockade to the South.
In conclusion, it may be well to draw attention to Mr. Lossing's intimation in the note quoted at the beginning of this paper, that the men of the South were forced into the Confederate ranks against their will, while those of the North were volunteers. Does Mr. Lossing purposely forget the United States drafts made to fill up the depleted regiments in the field, and especially the draft of May, 1863, two months before the battle of Gettysburg, and the riots that occurred in New York city as the result of that draft? Does he purposely forget that the United States established recruiting offices in Europe to procure men for her armies?
It may be questioned whether as a historian Mr. Lossing is deserving even the notice of a novice in history; for, while he is known to be a voluminous writer of American history, he is also known to be a writer of many and great inaccuracies. A writer who has allowed himself to be so easily imposed upon as in his ready acceptance as true history of the Morgan Jones Welsh Indian fraud (American Historical Record, I, 250); who makes such glaring historical mistakes as his statement that General Braddock was defeated and killed at the "battle of the Great Meadows" (History of the Revolutionary War), and that Captain John Smith, the Virginia explorer, had explored the Susquehanna river as far north as the Wyoming Valley (Harper's Magazine, November, 1860), and who draws so largely on his imagination, and is so much controlled by his prejudices in his "History of the Civil War," cannot be considered an entirely trustworthy historian. But because Mr. Lossing's histories have flooded the North, and are largely