Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Civil War Weaponry 20240712

College. What you may not know about him, is he is a military historian, and he is an expert in military history, and he has published at least four books on anything from weaponry, and weaponry from the civil war and he collects a host of artifacts, which he has brought and will share with us today. He is a ph. D. And has earned his doctorate from texas christian university, what year was that im not sure. It was a while ago but he is an expert so if you get an opportunity to take a class with, them take a class with them. We are going to continue to discuss the civil war faithfully and thankfully from him, that we get to look at the aspect of weaponry and its impact on the war and without further do i will hand the class over to him. Thank you. The same for todays lecture is going to be about technology of warfare and a lot of our classes we deal with the politics of warfare and just the historical record of warfare, and a lot of it comes down to the individual who is in the field and the weapons that they were issued because thats what you need for warfare. But one thing that i found fascinating in the research is looking at early 19th century. From 1800 up to the American Civil War, from 61 to 65 and this was also a period in the United States of intense invention. The americans were incredibly creative at this time and we were really a world leader in inventing just about everything, everything from steam ships to Steam Powered factories to the telegraph and just layer after layer of invention and creativity and kind of a strange unfortunate way about you know we see a lot of the inventors started using their talents in inventing weapons. In other words there was a certain revolution in weaponry technology during the early 1800s and this is one of the factors that leads to such high casualties in the American Civil War. That you see this throughout history in repetition that it takes military leadership very often to catch up, you know military thinking and strategy and it tends to stay in the past. Technology goes ahead and then military thinking has to catch up with technology. And what we see is when we enter the American Civil War that most military thinking was still along the lines of the American Revolution in other words warfare that had happened decades earlier or even napoleon just a few years earlier and a lot of these american generals their hero was napoleon bonaparte. They thought he was the best general in the world. But they had new episodes but they were based on the planning of old weapons. So the advances in various weaponry that we see because of the American Civil War, and how that will affect how casualties happened. First of all i brought in a basic weapon of an American Revolution or sore soldier. Its actually an american copy of the french musket that was used to the time. This is the french called it a charleyville. But it is a single shot, flintlock musket. Anybody know anything about these . They are very slow to shoot. Just the weapon itself, it dictated how any battle wouldve happened. For over 250 years, from the American Civil War back. This kind of weapon dictated how about a what happened. Just because of the limitations. This weapon cant really be aimed. It is a smooth bore weapon, which means that the barrel, do we all know, do we know the makeup of one of these . Yes . No . Possibly not. Ok. The basic idea behind the flintlock musket. Im going to use my artistic genius here. What would be the basic part of the musket, the most important part . The barrel. Now you can understand why my freshman art teacher started crying. But, if you think of a barrel, it is really just a long pipe, a metal pipe, plugged up at one end. Its open at this end. This is the barrel. And what we have here is that we drill a small hole in this side. Im making a lefthand musket here. What happens is if you are going to load this, the soldier is told to laooad. They dont, a military guy, a soldier would have taken a cartridge. A cartridge was essentially a round ball like this. This is around lead ball. These could be 65 to 75 caliber. An ounce of lead. This ball itself wouldve been in a paper tube with gunpowder in it, black powder. The soldier would be told to load. He would raise the musket like this. And then this is the lock. So, you would have to take this, which is called the battery. Its very hard steel. You flip that up. We called it the cock because it looks like a roosters, head youd bite off the end of that cartridge, the paper tube. Pour a tiny bit of powder in the pan. That hole i just drew. You put powder in this pan. This flips back and holds the powder in place. You then. Drop the market like this take the rest of the powder and the ball. Drop it in. Pull out your ramrod. And that is where you get to do that. Can you imagine if someone is shooting at you while you are doing this . A long time. It is taking a long time. Imagine somebody shooting at you while you are doing this. You finish that. You are pretty much ready to go. Your officer or your sergeant says, ready. You pull it to full cock. They never said aim. They said level. You cannot aim. You would level it at the other side like that. Then pull the trigger. You have a piece of flint. This illustrates much better. This is a pistol from the same time. And this is a piece of flint, this is the steel. Like this. You saw the sparks come out. Its flint hitting the steel. That is why it is called flintlock. If you are lucky, whats going to happen next . Well, what happens next is when the gun fires, this goes forward. The sparks fall into the pan. The sparks hit the powder inside the musket and with luck, the ball, the powder will explode in the ball will go rolling out the barrel. And if youre lucky that ball might go how far . 50 yards, 100 yards. It is not going to go very far. And because, it is rattling down the barrel, it is not going to be accurate. If i were shooting towards the back of this room i might be able to hit somebody, i might not. That would be kind of discouraging. And it takes a long time. Whats going to happen if its raining will this work . Yeah. Its going to get wet on the powder. The spark wont spark. If it is raining, really humid, that might make it not work. Thats why you as a soldier are issued the bayonet the treasure musket into his fear. A spear. That is why we have that. Youve got maybe two or three shots and about on then you are trained to go at your enemy with the musket like that turned into a spear. That is typical fighting. In other words, you didnt fo llow a set of rules, the battle would not have worked, because not only does it take so long to load, a muscat like this if it went off wouldnt create a huge amount of smoke. Then if youre think you have several thousand guys fir ing at the same time you will have massive amounts of smoke. That is why we see a kind of, almost rules of war for a couple of hundred years. To make a battle work, youre going to have very inaccurate slow firing muskets. And youre going to have a lot of smoke. For this reason you have to follow certain rules. Soldiers would line up shoulder to shoulder in line and face another group of soldiers, the enemy soldiers lined up shoulder to shoulder. I might be aiming at you, but i might hit him. So, if im shooting at least im going to hit somebody. The same thing happens if you are shooting at me you might not miss me but you will hit the guy next to me. So that is why we have to be very close just to make it work. Its also why you see the soldiers are color coded. In the American Revolution what color do the british soldiers war . The red coats. What color did we wear . We wore blue. Do you know why . Very good. We got our clothes, our weapons from the french. Guess what color the french wore . In the American Civil War you see that is why we were wearing blue clothes in the American Civil War. Federal United States troops wearing blue. The hats they wore. We copied everything french. Its like french for cap. So, this is the, why people fought like that. You have to have those colors so you can see each other, you have to be close together to hit what you are going to shoot. Then we have a breakthrough in technology as we go from the 20s into the 1930s and the 1840s. One part of this breakthrough is the use of the rifled musket or rifling. Yall will be able to see this in a minute. The idea somebody figured out that if you take this barrel and cut grooves in the barrel and make them twist, in other words, the grooves twist as they go down the barrel, you will take that bullet and instead of having it rattled on down the barrel, if you make the bullet a little bit smaller than the bore, the inside of the barrel, that it will fit tightly into those grooves. Youve got this soft lead bullet. And now, ill just pass these around. Here is a round ball. Theres a bullet, the mini ball. Its shaped like what we think of as a bullet. Im doing better now. The mini ball, if you look at the base of it, it is kind of hollow. So, if you look inside, its shaped like this. Got this hollow in it. The idea is that when you fire the musket, that the power of the charge will make this spread out a little bit. Itll grab the rifling and go down that bore and it will be much, much more accurate. You could, instead of missing the person that what hundred yards, you hit what you are shooting at. As a matter of fact you can hit somebody 300 or 400 yards away. So, accuracy jumps way up. And you could fire them quickly because, instead of having the loose powder, to set it off, they invent a percussion cap. Ill pass this one around. This is the percussion cap, which ill switch to the musket im talking about. This is a model 1855 rifled musket, which wouldve been produced at an arsenal at harpers ferry, virginia at that time. This rifle has the percussion cap here. You can use a percussion cap. It uses the mini ball. That means youre loading is going to be much faster. Think of this cartridge again, this is a paper cartridge. You would take a cartridge like this. Drop it on the floor. By the way, if youre doing archaeological work you can see where people are trying to load. On old battle sites you can tell the soldiers that were really nervous, because you would find a battle line, they dropped cartridges. They were being shot at. And you can find mini balls, where they drop them in perfect shape. The soldier would grab this cartridge. Put it in a musket like that but you still use your ramrod but it is fast. [clinging] a lot of the times the guy would stick it in the dirt like this. So it would be faster the next time. Pull this back. You put the percussion cap on and you can fire. The thing about it is you can hit someone 100 yards away and accurately. This is what led to a lot of the casualties in the civil war, guys got way too close. There was no way to miss. You see thousands of soldiers getting killed in a single battle. Tens of thousands of soldiers getting killed in a single battle. This is one of the reasons why we see that casualties. The one thing about this particular rifle, though, and it Shows Technology that was too far ahead of its time. The rifle itself has an invention on it that was made to make the percussion cap even obsolete. You see what is going on in there. This is a roll of caps. These caps, they are like toy cap guns. When you cock, it pulls the cap forward. Its automatically priming itself. What is the problem with this . What happens when you run out . Very often that was a problem. The soldiers could not find caps. But also they got wet sometimes. Another problem is it is a little bit more complicated than using just the cap. Again, a lot of the soldiers are strayed off the farm, they have had almost no, almost no experience with real machinery. It got them confuse. So, the soldiers in the ordinance officers figured out maybe this is too complicated. They could still use the cap, but you see an attempt to make these more, more efficient. So, it was a pretty decent idea in practicality it did not work. If you got any questions at all, feel free to ask. Going to the idea of ideas that didnt work. This is, does this look different from that last one . This was an attempt to make a soldiers weapon that you did not have to use a ramrod with. It was meant to be what we called a breach loading musket. And the idea is actually, they equipped it with a a bolt. If you do it right, you pull it back like a modern weapon. You take your cartridge, you put it in there. You close the bolt. And then it still need the percussion cap. Guess where . It is on the bottom. So, this was what, this is how this one was made. Again, you take your percussion cap and put it there. What is the problem with that . It could fall out. We notice that early. Its a great idea. It just confused soldiers, and was not all that practical. Only about of thousand of these were made. It was a great experiment. In practicality, it does not work. Another great idea that doesnt work. Do you see anything odd about this . What is strange about this . Its got two hammers. The idea behind this was an inventor whose brother had been killed out in the west fighting native americans in a battle thought that american explorers should have had more shots in their guns. So, he creates a two shot musket. Where you put two cartridges in the barrel, and then with luck, you have, both hammers cock. One trigger fires one hammer. Shoots the front cartridge. The next trigger shoots the back cartridge. And youve got two shots in one barrel. How successful do you think this was . No. But it was a great idea. Sometimes great ideas get pushed out into the field and not tested. I think the biggest jump in technology we see in the civil war as far as firearms, it would not be for infantry. As you know about the military you have three fields, at least three branches. You have artillery, you have infantry, you have cavalry. The infantry guys pretty much had these kind of weapons. They were trying to keep it simple. We do see, however, with the calvary there was much more innovation with calvary. These are the soldiers on horses. They wanted shorter weapons that could be easily used while on a horse. And you also wanted weapons that could be fired rapidly. And loaded easily. So this is where we see most of the innovation or the useful innovation. So, i brought several cavalry weapons here, which were invented by individuals and each one has its own advantages and disadvantages. First one i pick up, does that look a little bit neater. This was a burnside carving. Itcarbine. It was invented by a famous civil war general by the name of burnside. Guess what style we have . Sideburns. The term sideburns. The term sideburns comes from general burnside who had magnificent sideburns. So, he was famous for that. But he invents this carbine. He was a terrible general. And he was a terrible businessman. He got cheated out of his patents. But it is a brilliant concept. The burnside carbine, has the rifle barrel, it is short, easy to carry on your horse. It has got a ring, so you do not lose it. And to fire it, instead of using a ramrod, you press this lever and this drops open. So you have the entire inside of this exposed. Thats easy. You do not have to ram things. You do that. And it use is a metallic cartridge. In other words not made of paper that can get messed up in the rain. It has got a brass or copper holder for the powder. So, the powder is in a copper back. It is got a bullet in the front. To load it, you place it right here and then push this forward. You still have to use the percussion cap, but it is much faster to use. It works in the rain and you can fire probably about five to ten more rounds in the same time that it takes to fire two rounds or one round really. So, a big breakthrough. Not to be outdone another inventor named smith invents his own carbine. And this is, sguess what its called . A smith carbine. Brilliant idea. If you want to load this, you press a button. It pops open. It uses a cartridge like this. It was made out of the lead bullet with the rubber, hard rubber cartridge in the back that fits right in there. And you close it and you are ready to go. It also needs the percussion cap. This is a good example of looking down the barrel and actually seeing it. This is called the sharps carbine. One of the most popular carbines use in the American Civil War. Its nice, light, handy. To load it you use cloth, linen or something made out of animal skin. To load it you pull that down and you put your cartridge right there. There is a razor blade in the back of this. You are ready to go like a scar trimmer. It also uses the percussion cap. This was one of the most popular guns used in the civil war again, some of the longer ones were used by sharpshooters for sniping. After the civil war this become one of the most popular types of weapon use for buffalo hunting in the west. It became a very popular weapon through the entire 1800s. So, this is the famous sharps carbine. The most revolutionary carbine was this carbine. This was invented by a man named christopher spencer. And spencer came up with several brilliant ideas. One of which was a new cartridge. His cartridge was totally selfcontained, pretty much like a modern cartridge. It looks like a giant. 22 his cartridge was a standard lead mini ball. But totally selfcontained. It has the powder in this copper case. And, instead of having a percussion cap for priming, it has the rim going around the base of the cartridge. You dont need a percussion cap. Its a huge jump. If that was not a jump enough, to load it, he and then invents some magazine, it goes in the back of the carbine. This magazine hold seven cartridges. If you have a spencer carbine, and if you are in a battle, a fight, the soldiers would typically have the thing loaded with this magazine like that. They wouldve had seven magazines in a pouch or a box attached to their saddle. To fire it, all you had to do was load it, do it, cock it, fire it. You can shoot dozens of shots within a very brief time. It was incredibly effective. Does the army adopt it . Why would the army not adopt it . It is simple, very efficient, super wellmade. But why would they not adopt it . It wasnt that expensive but it was expensive to shoot. The army, the guys looking at it, thought soldiers would waste too much ammunition. It is too easy to shoot. Were not going to buy this gun for the army. That makes sense, doesnt it . Spencer was one of those guys who does not give up. Spencer takes one of his carbines. Hes frustrated and goes directly to the white house and gets a meeting with Abraham Lincoln. In a famous story, he and Abraham Lincoln go out on the white house grounds and Abraham Lincoln gets to test fire one of these himself. As soon as he does this, Abraham Lincoln orders his generals, you are accepting this rifle. It took really a president ial order to take one of these for us to adopt this. So this is the famous spencer carbine. Works wonderfully. As soon as lincoln was dead, the army took back all of the spencer carbines, put a device on and turn them into single shot carbines. They were still worried about the money. Going back to the calvary, we see another jump in technology. Before the civil war if you had a pistol, this is probably what it looks like, single shot. You notice it is also shaped like a club, works great with one shot and then you can bonk someone with the end. An american inventor by the name of samuel cold, he invents a revolver while sailing around and he comes up with the idea of a revolver. It is a percussion weapon. It is a cylinder with six cartridges like this. It has a piece of light skin or paper. You take your cartridge, put it in the front of your cylinder, this is a ramrod, you put your percussion cap on it and so in that effect, you have six cartridges. To fire it, all you have cock it and pull the trigger. It is a big jump from having a single shot 286 shot pistol to a six shot pistol to a single shot pistol. It takes a while to load it. You load it in advance. You consider calvary, you have a massive amount of shots with the carbine and we have seen outside of greensboro it was a confederate position of local soldiers who had conventional muskets like this and they were facing a much smaller calvary unit and you could tell this tiny calvary held off much larger infantry because the calvary soldiers had revolvers like this and you could tell both happening because you can see these cartridges left on the ground. You could see how effective the massive firepower coming. That reminds me that colt, even a great inventor held back invention for decades because of his patent price. He patented this and nobody else really use it unless they bought the patent or infringed on the patent. A much better pistol came out during the same time which was this one. This was a remington revolver, the secondmost used pistol in the civil war. It is much heavier made, feels much more solid and it can be loaded much faster. Again, it works the same, but you caulk to this and all you have to do to load it, you can replace the cylinder. It is a little bit heavy. It you put the caps on the back, load it from the front and some of these calvary soldiers were carrying a bunch. It would be like loading it in a magazine. You have much more shots than otherwise. I think so we can have a little bit of questions, i will show one thing i find interesting in that the ability to manufacture modern equipment during the civil war. Theres a difference between what was issued to the south and what was issued to the north. When the civil war started, the north already had good resources that they had developed in their factories. It was not like that here in the south. This was agriculture. We did not have the manufacturing skills in the south to match the north and you could see that in some of the weapons that were produced at the time. Also, in the beginning of the civil war, very few arsenals and not that many resources to create weapons. One of the first weapons produced by southern arsenals, this is called a pike or a spear, so early confederate soldiers were issued spears to use. Not really a good idea, was it . They did not last. They were using something as primitive as that and decided to copy union weapons. Here is the basic calvary sabre. Made in massachusetts, beautiful weather, beautiful workmanship. Makes a nice ring. You could see it is beautifully made, beautifully balanced, it is dated, inspected, this went through an intense inspection program. It is sharp enough, but one thing they found out is very quickly it is almost like you had to have a stored stored because it was part of your ego, but you would probably never use it. It got to the point where you almost have to have a sort, but they did not get use that much. This is a good example of a federal sword, beautiful quality. It on the other hand, this sort was made in North Carolina at about the same time. Do you see any differences . Very simple, very crude looking. The blade is dark, but the blade is not as wellbalanced, not as well made, no markings on it, but if you look at the scabbard, you can see a scene on it. It are this was not good at it, so the stuff made in the south not as good and not of quality. We will have a sword fight in a few minutes. Another example is a federally made musket, beautiful. You can look at it, beautiful workmanship, inspected multiple times, beautifully made. The problem in the south was just not have the manufacturing capabilities. They tried to copy federal designs. This was made in richmond, virginia. This is a confederate musket which is a copy of the federal musket. You can see it is a darker, not as good a shape, but you can see this mechanism here and the confederate version, they did not know how to make that and so it is a little bit cruder. Biggest example locally, there were multiple rifle making shops here in Guilford County and one of them was off of 85. There was a confederate rifle factory and they were doing a great job of making muskets, but i found the paperwork for this musket here in town. Im finding in the paperwork that have been working and working. They had a big order of muskets ready to go, but muskets need springs. The have stuff thats Something Like Three Springs and it wont work without them. Here, we had one in Guilford County that could actually make good springs. What was the problem who made springs for this factory . He was really good friends with a local moonshiner. He would disappear for weeks at a time. They would have everything ready to go because of one guy. That held up production. Those another one of the issues. Any questions at this point . Between the first full run with the change in weapons, is there a shift in battle tactic . Have you found the proximity was further away from soldiers or did they realize we have the better weapons, we will come out better for it . Sadly, no, not really. You would think. You see some changes, but for the most part, it doesnt seem to have registered. You see casualties towards the end, these groups of soldiers marching in and then getting mowed down. It shows after the war, they turned it back into a single shot. What are the big bullets . These are artillery shells are they also show a jump in technology. This is what you would have seen during the revolutionary war. This is a cannonball from Guilford County. Basically, it is just a big iron ball. If it hits you, it is going to make a mess, but it has to hit you. That is one of the other changes are in the American Civil War. They made the jump to shells. The big jump, you had explosives inside of this and a very complex the use and these would explode. You can time it and you can fire this at troops and up to five seconds delay and when it got to where you wanted to explode, chunks would break off and this was much more deadly. Heres one. This was found at bull run these battles typically had two names. The south name the battle after the local town and the north named it after the local body of water, so the first battle in the south was called manassas and the north it was called bull run because of bull run creek. In this was an artillery shell that weighed 10 pounds. This came out of a rifled artillery piece, so it could go much further, so the cannon near firing this, this would go much further, much more accurately and make much deadlier than anything you would have seen in the revolutionary war. It is heavy, isnt it . Basically, articles of clothing, again what you would have been wearing in july. This is what people war at the time. Wool, jacket. Noticed there are some initials. In the day . Im old enough, they were issued to me and i just kept them. This is part of my profession. I have been doing this for years. Some of these have been personalized by soldiers 30 dont see it as much, but in the south this was captured by a southern soldier. A lot of times in the military, you spend time board, and so you will see things like that. This one over here, you can see a lot of the guys personalized their muskets and what else do you do when you get bored . Here is a bullet a weight for a fishing line. That is exactly, you would see that quite often. Somebody else . Hard. Recall better . They kick the more you fire it. That was another issue i didnt mention. You dont really see something that would lower the kick. There were not want to do that, that takes away range, but it does demonstrate problems with the musket. Black powder is dirty. If you fire a black powder weapon, it leaves a lot of crud. Every time you fire a black power musket, it leaves a residue on the rifle which means it gets harder and harder to load it, so you have to really ran that down and so that was one of the problems. These things kick and, they kicked more when it was harder to load them. Again, if you want to come up afterwards, i have some bullets that you can actually see where the soldier really had to ram it. You see the impression because the guy had to really cram it down. That was a good question. Anyone else . Wool coats. From hiking and traveling . More soldiers died of disease and other problems to when you are looking at casualties, you see almost no casualties from say the bayonet. If you are a civil war soldier, what do you use your bayonet for more than anything else . Sticking it in the ground. It made a nice candleholder. You see quite a few wounds from the rifle, but the soldiers are in camp. This is the idea of pregerms and things like that. Any disease like measles. This theory is a big killer. I have seen issues with heatstroke because i do not see how people could have fought in weather. In gettysburg, it is the middle of july. You are wearing that, woolen pants and an almost useless woolen cap. The leather soles and shoes would have been uncomfortable. The soles were not sewed on. Low capacity campaign. You would have seen people dropping from heatstroke. In your mind, is gettysburg still considered the major turning point for the you see it as being Something Else . I would say it would be the big turning point. I know some would disagree. Gettysburg was a move by the confederacy to try to get a major victory and his biggest purpose would be to bring in European Health to the south. A lot of the leadership were really counting on bringing in france, england to go against the United States and one of my Research Topics was a french nobleman who was hoping to bring france and on the side of the better see. What these european powers were looking for was to see if the south had a chance to winning. It would have been a great victory on northern soil. It might have persuaded some foreign powers to recognize the confederacy as an independent government, but that fell through. It was a little bit delusional or very delusional, but that was i think that really was the turning point. Anybody else . If anyone wants to come down, if you have never held a musket, heres your chance. It prepared for your second exam next week. If you would like to come and look at the weapons, we will hang out and let you touch and see what he brought. I have articles of clothing. What they wouldve been wearing in july. If you are in the union artillery. This is what people wore at the time. Wool, jacket. This and they wouldve been boarding up hot. , . , some of these have been personalized by soldiers 30 dont see it as much, but in the south this was captured by a southern soldier. A lot of times in the military, you spend time board, and so you will see things like that. This one over here, you can see a lot of the guys personalized their muskets and what else do you do when you get bored . Here is a bullet they carved it into a weight for a fishing line. That is exactly, you would see that quite often. Somebody else . Hard. Recall better . They kick the more you fire it. That was another issue i didnt mention. You dont really see something that would lower the kick. They would not want to do that, that takes away range, but it does demonstrate problems with the musket. Black powder is dirty. If you fire a black powder weapon, it leaves a lot of crud. Every time you fire a black power musket, it leaves a residue on the rifle which means it gets harder and harder to load it, so you have to really ran that down and so that was one of the problems. These things kick and, they kicked more when it was harder to load them. Again, if you want to come up afterwards, i have some bullets that you can actually see where the soldier really had to ram it. You see the impression because the guy had to really cram it down. That was a good question. Anyone else . I know you showed us the wool coat that they wore during batters during the battles, were there anything from puncture wounds, or heatstroke or you know any problems they had from hiking or traveling . That was a great question thank, you more soldiers died from disease and you know bullets, and when you are looking at casualties uc almost no casualties from lets say the bayonet because during the revolutionary war you have to get close to use it. But youre not going to get close enough together got to use it. If you are a civil war soldier, what do you use your bayonet for more than anything else. You stick it in the ground and you put a candle in, it it makes a lovely candle holder. Thats what they would use it for. Ive looked at all sorts of casualties, and you rarely see wounds from a bayonet. You rarely see wounds from a sword. You couldnt get close enough. You see quite a few wounds or the biggest one, it comes from the rifle musket. But the soldiers are in camp, and the idea of preacher ms. Its before that so the big] killer wouldve been things like, you know any kind of disease, like measles could kill people then. But you see dysentery being a big killer, and typhoid being a big killer. But again ive seen issues of heatstroke, because i do not see how people could have fought in weather at that time. Like at gettysburg, in the middle of the summer. Its an early july. And to me its just phenomenal, and this is summer weight. Its also winter wait. But a soldier wouldve been wearing really long johns, flannel long johns. With a shirt and that coat, and you couldnt leave it unbuttoned. It had to be buttoned it was part of the uniform. So you are wearing that, and you wouldve been wearing well in pants. And almost, useless one cap so yeah the evidence and issues by the way, leather soles and the shoes would have been, hideously uncomfortable. And the seoul was they were pegged on with a little pegs the shoe sole. But yes there is evidence, but you wouldve seen the soldiers, and you know they were often dying of thirst. They have a low capacity canteen. You saw people dropping from heatstroke. Since this is nationally televised i want to ask you the Million Dollar question, in your research is gettysburg still considered the major turning point, or do you see it as you know being Something Else another set of circumstances . I would say, it would be the big turning point i know some people would disagree but gettysburg, was a desperate move by confederacy, robert e. Lee, to try to get a major victory, on Northern Home soil. And his biggest purpose for that would have been to bring in, european help to the south. A lot of people in the south, a lot of leadership in the south, were really counting on bringing in france, and england to the side of the south, to go against the United States. And, one of my Research Topics was a french nobleman, who right up until the very end in 1965, was still trying to be bringing france in on the side of the confederacy. What the european, powers were looking for was to see if the self had a chance of winning. Or at least coming up with a negotiated truce. So that is what le was doing. It wouldve been a great victory, on northern soil, and it might have persuaded some foreign powers, to at least recognize the confederacy as an independent government. But that fell through. It was a little bit delusional i, think or very delusional but that was the big goal and once he lost that, the work goes on there are many battles afterwards, but i think that was the turning point. Anybody else . Any other questions . And if anyone wants to come down, and enjoy and take a look and if youve never held a musket here is your chance. Lets get a hand to the professor. Again, be prepared for your second exam coming up next week, and thank you for being here if you like to come back ill come back down and look at the weapons, you can hang out for a little while and you can touch and see what he brought thank you so much. Patrick charles is a former marine, now Senior Historian for the u. S. Air force, and the author of the book armed in america a history of gun