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Fredericksburg |
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With deep chilly nights, on December 13, 1862, the average temperature was about
20ºF. The wintry sunlight, rose at 7:17 a.m. At dawn, the fresh and nipping
air, could not pierce Today, during the month of December, the temperature in Fredericksburg is about 26ºF to 48ºF. The average precipitation is 3.30 inches of rain. It did not rain the day of the battle, but the next day there was sleeting rain. A large caliber gun was carried by foot soldiers. In 1861, the standard American shoulder arms were the .54 caliber U.S. model 1841 rifle, also called Harpers Ferry rifle, and the .58 caliber U.S. Model 1861 rifle musket, also called the Springfield rifle musket. They both weighed more than nine pounds. The bullets used for the guns were cone-shaped slugs, the Minie bullet. To load the rifle, a soldier had to tear open a paper packet of gunpowder, then pour it down the barrel, drop in the bullet, and use a ram rod to pack the powder and bullet into the gun's breech. A percussion cap was placed on the nipple, then the hammer was fully cocked and the trigger was pulled. The trigger released the hammer, which struck the percussion cap which ignited the powder, which propelled the bullet. A soldier was expected to fire three shots a minute this way. The favored shoulder arms was the U.S. Springfield Rifle and the British made enfield. The War Department in Washington purchased 1,472,614 Springfields and 428,292 Enfields. The Springfield was a short, two-banded weapon just four feet long, weighing a little over nine pounds, it combined the percussion system with the new Mini`e bullet in powerful .54 caliber. The 1841 model was adapted in a new version in 1855, and then, the bore enlarged to .58 caliber, it evolved into the Model 1861 rifle-musket which, dominated the field of Union long arms for the duration of the war. The Springfield armory in Massachusetts produced over 800,000 of them, hence it's name. Unable to keep up with the demand, however, and the War department was forced to manufacture another 900,000 of the weapons under contract with private firms.
Between 1861 and 1865, Samuel Colt, inventor of the revolver, made 75,000 Special Model .58-caliber Springfield Rifles for the War Department. Their .56-caliber Military Revolving Rifle could fire rapidly, but had a delicate mechanism and sometimes discharged several chambers at once.
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the heavy, thick luminous blue fog and mist that hid
the plains of Fredericksburg like a film of sea. By 10 o'clock, the fog had begun
to thin by draining downward, burned away by the sun, layer by upper layer, so that
the valley seemed to empty like a tub when the plug is pulled. The wind shredded
the remaining fog and drew it away. At 12 noon, the fog slowly dissipated, and by
2 p.m., the frozen plains and mud flats had given way to slush and mud.
The Springfield was the
simplest, sturdiest, most dependable and effective percussion military long arm designed.
It's 40-inch bright steel barrel was held to walnut stock by three bands spaced along
the tube. A single man could load and fire the weapon ten times in five minutes,
and put six of his bullets into a two-square-foot target 100 yards distance. Allowed
to take his time at the same distance, a man could put all ten bullets into a target
less than one foot square. At 300 yards, one could shoot all rounds inside two and
a half square feet; and at 500 yards, all rounds into a target of four square feet.
The Springfield also demonstrated awesome penetrating power with a big bullet and
sixty grains of black powder. It could punch through eleven inches of pine boards
at 100 yards, and six inches at 500 yards. In some tests, a trained man could load
and fire up to six times per minute, but that allowed no time for taking steady aim.
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