Product Description

The three-day battle of Gettysburg has probably been the subject of more books and articles than any other comparable event. Surprisingly, until this work, no one has analyzed the firearms and other individual soldier's weapons used at Gettysburg in any great detail. The battle was a watershed, with military weapons technologies representing the past, present, and future--sabers, smoothbores, rifles, and breechloaders--in action alongside each other, providing a unique opportunity to compare performance and use, as well as determining how particular weapons and their deployment affected the outcome and course of the battle.

Small Arms at Gettysburg: Infantry and Cavalry Weapons in America's Greatest Battle covers all of the individual soldier's weapons--muskets, rifle-muskets, carbines, repeaters, sharpshooter arms, revolvers, and swords--providing a detailed examination of their history and development, technology, capabilities, and use on the field at Gettysburg. Here we learn that the smoothbore musket, although beloved by some who carried it, sang its swan song, the rifle-musket began to come into its own, and the repeating rifle, although tactically mishandled, gave a glimpse of future promise. This is the story of the weapons and men who carried them into battle during three days in July 1863.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #541069 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

About the Author
Joseph G. Bilby served as a lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1966-1967. He is a columnist for Civil War News, assistant curator at the National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey, and is author of A Revolution in Arms: A History of the First Repeating Rifles, also available from Westholme.

Customer Reviews

An Excellent New Civil War Book
"Small Arms at Gettysburg: Infantry and Cavalry Weapons in America's Greatest Battle" should be of value to anyone seriously interested in the nature of fighting at Gettysburg in particular or the American Civil War in general. The author examines the numerous types of firearms used by both the Union and Confederate armies at Gettysburg, cavalry as well as infantry. The development history of these weapons is covered, as well as how they were actually used on the battlefield.

Although the greatest space is devoted to rifle-muskets (as well it should be, since rifle-muskets by far were the most common shoulder arms used at Gettysburg), smoothbore muskets and breechloading rifles and carbines and revolvers are also described as well. An item of especial interest to me was the author's detailed discussion of the "buck-and-ball" ammunition commonly used in smoothbores (and, as is made clear, a good many smoothbores remained in the soldiers' hands at the time of the battle), the most detailed description of this ammunition type I have ever seen: usually, it is mentioned only in passing, almost as a curiosity rather than a significant piece of military technology, but in "Small Arms at Gettysburg" the history and employment of "buck-and-ball" is given its due attention for the first time.

The writing is vivid, yet detailed. If you are a serious student of the military side of the American Civil War, this is a volume that belongs on your bookshelf.

Small Arms at Gettysburg
Although the Battle of Gettysburg has been extensively studied, there are relatively few full-length treatments of the types of arms used in the conflict. Joseph Bilby's "Small Arms at Gettysburg: Infantry and Cavalry Weapons in America's Greatest Battle" (2008) offers a detailed discussion of the carbines, single-shot rifles,repeating rifles, smoothbores, sabres, and handguns that were used at Gettysburg. Bilby has written extensively on Civil War weaponry. He has also written regimental histories of Irish units during the Civil War.

In places, Bilby's book is technical and presupposes considerable background knowledge in the reader about Civil War arms. He discusses the history and technological development of the various types of small weapons (that is not including artillery) that found their way to Gettysburg. He also provides fascinating information about the companies and individuals that developed the weapons. But when it comes to explaining the manner in which each weapon worked and how, for example, one model of carbine differed from another, he is frequently difficult to follow. Bilby assumes that any reader interested in this book will have a more than elementary familiarity with firearms. Diagrams of selected weapons showing how they were loaded and how they operated together with some simple preliminary information would have been useful.

In addition to the technical information on the weapons, Bilby discusses the way the arms were used, developed, and tested during the Civil War. His discussion of these matters is insightful and clear even for those readers without much background in arms. He addresses subjects that are frequently overlooked -- such as the lack of training in marksmanship provided to most soldiers by both Union and Confederate armies before marching the troops off to battle. Bilby offers a perceptive discussion of the difference between smoothbores and rifles and considers carefully the alleged changes that the more advanced weaponry brought to the conduct of the war. This information is valuable in understanding the conflict.

Most of Bilby's study concerns the use of the weapons he describes at Gettysburg. Here again, his analysis is useful. I learned a great deal from his discussion of the encounter between Buford's cavalry and Heth's infantry which opened the first day of the battle in which the union troops used single shot carbines. Bilby considers the effectiveness of these weapons and measures them against other factors -- such as Heth's delay in pressing the cavalry units at the outset -- in assessing the outcome of the first day of the battle. I learned a great deal as well about the cavalry fighting on July 3 at Runnell farm (East Cavalry Field)where the Union troops in fact used repeating rifles and where handguns and sabres played a major role. Bilby views this third day cavalry fight as the harbinger of modern weaponry. Bilby also has much to say about the use of smoothbores at Gettysburg, about the circumstances in which they were effective (particularly in helping to repel Pickett's charge in its final stages) and about the different kinds of ammunition they could fire. He offers an excellent discussion of sharpshooters on both sides and of the types of weapons they employed. He is critical of accounts that overemphasize the role of sharpshooters from Devil's Den during the third day of the battle -- in contrast to a treatment of this subject I heard during a recent battlefield tour. And, of course, he spends a great deal of time with the single shot rifle. The models made by either Springfield or Enfield predominated during the conflict and signaled beyond doubt the obsolescence of the smoothbores.

This is not an appropriate book with which to begin a study of the Battle of Gettysburg due to the technical nature of much of the subject matter. For those with a solid grounding in the battle, especially for readers with an understanding of firearms, this book will be valuable. An understanding of the deadly weapons the soldiers carried and their use is important to understanding the conflict. As Bilby recognizes, the greatest value of the study lies in illuminating the work of the soldiers themselves, the dangers they faced, their suffering, and their heroism.

Robin Friedman

An excellent book for the advancing student of Gettysburg
This book is well-written, informative, and a real treasure for those with a serious (i.e., have already read five-plus books on the topic) interest in the American Civil War. Ignorant of firearms and their development, I found
the author's detailed treatment of the topic to be both appropriate and highly useful.

His treatment of cavalry action on the first and third days is especially
well done, and his considered conclusions regarding the development and use of weaponry are insightful.

This one stays in my library - as soon as I get it back from my brother-in-law, who owns a gun shop...