The Rebel Cedar Canteen: 1861-1865 – Part I

Origins; Alabama Manufacturers; Government-Run Shops; Ordnance Bureau Issues from Montgomery & Selma

By C. L. Webster

“…from our own armories and workshops we derive, in great measure, the warlike material, the ordnance and ordnance stores which are expended so profusely in the numerous and desperate engagements that rapidly succeed each other.” --- Jefferson Davis, January 1863

“We had no water to wash down our feast. The boys had drunk theirs during the fight, and my old cedar canteen had been shot away by a cannister shot, leaving me nothing but the stopper and string…” --- W. B. Smith, Co. B, 37th Georgia Infantry, 1903

“…they saw a man come out of the woods and sit upon a log beside the road twelve or fifteen rods before them. He carried a gun, a blanket, a haversack, a wooden canteen. His cap, coat, trousers were of butternut-colored cloth, and soiled.” --- William Kreutzer, 98th New York Infantry, 1878

“I forgot to say that the next day we captured those Johnnies, and that cedar canteen was a trophy of that day, and that it is the best canteen made.” --- J. T. Grimes, 12th Illinois Cavalry, 1909

Relatively little of substance has been published regarding the plebian Rebel wooden canteen in the past forty years.(1) For an inanimate object they are fairly articulate, suggesting ingenuity, straitened circumstances, and a touch of quiet desperation. They were uniquely Confederate, having no counterpart in the Federal service; as a result, Union soldiers valued them as a readily displayable manifestation of their wartime experience, a totem of a vanquished but formidable opponent. Compared to its relatively sleek Federal counterpart, the staved wood canteen seemed to belong to another, earlier era. Union veterans and post-war observers described them as “curious,” “awkward looking,” “quaint,” “clumsily constructed,” and “not put together in the best way calculated to hold water…”(2) Despite such uncharitable comments, veterans and their descendants prized them. The number of surviving canteens is somewhat surprising, given the fact that the components, made of relatively light, thin wood, are held together by nothing more than a slight bit of compression provided by two thin metal hoops and very shallow slotting on the staves. The majority of those still extant obviously saw service, enduring long exposure to the elements and less than gentle treatment in camp, on the march, and in battle. Their survival rate is a testament to durable construction and the value that owners, heirs and successors placed upon them in the post-war years, even when their provenance and basic origins were lost to time or forgotten; in the myriad house cleanings and changes of address that occur in every life, they were not relegated to the trash pit.

Southerners had less sentimentality for the canteens, at least initially; no doubt many were put to their original utilitarian purpose on post-war farms until they failed to hold water or the barn rats chewed them into oblivion; but as the years progressed, they too came to prize them as a symbol of past, trying times. Veteran artist Allen C. Redwood’s inclusion of a vignette featuring the canteen in Battles & Leaders of the Civil War and the fashioning of miniature versions for UCV reunion badges suggest as much.(3)

  While this study is not intended to serve as a technical treatise, a basic description may be useful for readers unfamiliar with the subject. Cedar seems to have been the wood of choice and appears in documents most frequently; however, other timber was occasionally utilized for the canteens - cherry, maple, cypress, even pine. (4) Consisting of two faces (sometimes lathed flat, more often slightly convex on the outer face), a spout, ten to twelve staves, two thin hoops (usually mild iron or tin) and three sling guides (tin or iron), the canteen is little more than a compressed cross-section of a small barrel, generally not exceeding 2 ⅜ inches in depth and usually from seven to 7 ½ inches in diameter. (5) The description provided above is taken almost in its entirety from Sylvia & O’Donnell’s seminal 1983 publication, Civil War Canteens and the substantive text provided therein by Mr. John Graham; their general observations regarding the canteen’s characteristics, written more than forty years ago, have been validated repeatedly.

“The Ordnance Department … for the present furnishes knapsacks, canteens and haversacks, which properly belong to camp equipage,” intoned the 1862 edition of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau’s Field Manual for the Use of Officers on Ordnance Duty.(6) The qualifying language found in the Field Manual reflects the discomfiture of Bureau officials now saddled with a category of non-ordnance-related equipments that had traditionally fallen outside their purview. In the Federal service, canteens, haversacks and knapsacks were contracted for and issued via the Quartermaster Department. For reasons now obscured, responsibility for these articles was unceremoniously shifted to the newly-formed Confederate Ordnance Bureau at the outset of the war.(7) Struggling to adequately arm her exponentially increasing new armies with small arms, artillery, ammunition, powder, and a bewildering array of other ordnance-related articles, canteens were far down the list of the Bureau’s priorities – yet the burden of what was another enormous supply responsibility had been placed upon Lt. Col. Josiah Gorgas and the officers serving under him. Surviving Bureau records reinforce the sense that these utilitarian items of issue (canteens, knapsacks, haversacks) were treated for the most part as an afterthought by the majority of arsenals and depots, a distraction from the central mission of the Bureau. As a result, documentation relating to them, already woefully incomplete, is frequently terse and disappointingly sparse. In his Introduction to Confederate Arsenals, Laboratories, and Ordnance Depots, author Dean Thomas noted, “Had I been trying to locate information about any other products [aside from small arms and small arms ammunition], I would have been sadly disappointed.”(8) While Thomas was speaking specifically of work performed within government installations, his comment holds true with respect to third-party contracts, receipts, invoices, correspondence to and from Bureau officials, and ledgers compiled by depots and arsenals.

Shouldering their new burden, Ordnance officers rapidly began to contract for tin canteens. By no later than the summer of 1861, however, a new idea had arisen: a wooden canteen could serve to supplement, perhaps even supplant, tin canteen production. Popular wisdom holds that block tin and tin plate became increasingly difficult to obtain as the war progressed and there are certainly contemporaneous accounts of severe shortages at different times and different places. Situated in Columbus, Mississippi in May 1862, Maj. W. R. Hunt, commander of the newly established Briarfield Arsenal, noted:

I am establishing a Tinners Shop for the manufacture of Canteens, and other Stores made of Tin for ordnance purposes. There is no Tin to be purchased in the Country, but I find a number of Houses covered with Tin, which may easily be replaced with other Roofs. Yet there is no one I can find who is willing to sell, even for the purpose of supplying our Army with Canteens.(9)

Despite Hunt’s predicament, sheet tin, while increasingly scarce, seems to have remained intermittently obtainable throughout the South during the war. The price exponentially increased with the passage of time, as it did for virtually every other commodity, but it remained available. As late as the summer of 1864 sheet tin roofing could still be purchased by private citizens in wartime Alabama.(10) Both contractors and ordnance tin shops continued to fabricate large quantities of cartridge box tins, tin canteens, tin sabot straps, tin fuse plugs, tin cannisters and cannister plates throughout the war. To cite but a very small number of examples, merchant Jonas C. Mills supplied Memphis and Briarfield Arsenals with 33,284 tin canteens and tens of thousands of  tin sabot straps, tin cannisters, tin cannister plates, and hundreds of sheets of tin plate over the course of February-May 1862; C. D. Yale & Co. of Richmond manufactured and delivered 6,114 tin canteens to the Richmond Arsenal in June 1862;  Atlanta Arsenal took in at least 40,189 tin canteens between the dates of 8 May – 23 August 1862 and 3 December 1862 – 7 April 1863.(11) Over the period of November-December 1863 and during three months in 1864 (January, April, & July) the tin shop at the Richmond Arsenal fabricated at least 7,693 tin canteens and 16,498 cartridge box tins.(12) On 1 April 1865, Richmond Arsenal’s Lt. Col. LeRoy Broun reported that Richmond Depot alone had issued a total of 328,977 canteens over the course of the conflict – a significant portion of which would have been tin.(13) In spite of these seemingly vast quantities, Confederate forces experienced crippling shortages of canteens from time to time. Gorgas’ Bureau, mindful of the South’s limited inventories, was receptive to the notion of substituting a less scarce resource for a finite commodity – wood for tin.

The concept of an alternative to the tin canteen was far from revolutionary. Wood water containers had been common for centuries. Within living memory they had been the norm, not the exception. Staved wooden canteens of a uniform pattern had been utilized by the U.S. Army and various State militias from the War of 1812 through at least the late 1830s.(14) While frequently made of oak and generally of slightly larger dimensions, particularly in terms of depth, many “War of 1812 Pattern” canteens are broadly similar in appearance to their Southern descendants.(15)

Who first suggested the use of a wooden canteen for Southern troops remains unclear, but the earliest recorded Confederate pattern (of what was almost certainly a staved canteen) emanates from Dalton, Georgia. On 21 September 1861, Atlanta’s Southern Confederacy published the newest installment of an ongoing travelogue (“Notes by the Way”) from a contributor known only by the pseudonym “Dirigo.” Submitted to the paper on 16 September, the writer recounted his visit to Nashville and the surrounding area:   

…made a short visit to Shelbyville, the terminus of an 8-mile branch of the N. & C. Railroad, in Bedford County…The Bucket Factory of Mr. J. H. O’Neal, a half mile from the city, is an establishment of much importance, and now the Northern bucket has been “kicked,” the enterprise will most surely be appreciated. Mr. O’Neal can easily turn off 100 buckets per day, worth from $4 to $12 per dozen. He manufactures besides, tubs, churns, lard and butter stands, and a variety of other wares, all of which are done in the best style. The most of these are made of cedar…Mr. O’Neal is about commencing the manufacture of a wooden canteen for the army. It will be made of cedar, and hold somewhat more than the ordinary tin canteen. The fact is, tin is getting rather scarce in the country, and should not be put to uses where wood may be substituted, especially when it is better and more economical. This canteen is patented by A. Fitzgerald, Esq., who has a large contract from the Government. It will no doubt soon be in general use, as it has many good qualities to recommend it besides economy.(16)

Archibald Fitzgerald was a man of both considerable means and energy. Possessing real property with an estimated value of $16,000 and a personal estate of $36,300 in 1860, Fitzgerald’s net worth was more than ten times that of the average white adult Southerner.(17) Approximately forty-six years old at the outbreak of hostilities, the native Tennessean had previously been a merchant in Floyd County, Georgia. By 1860 he had relocated to Dalton; with ample funds now at hand he identified himself as a farmer and Baptist minister. Whatever his other abilities may have been, Fitzgerald remained a businessman, promptly securing a sizeable contract with the Ordnance Bureau shortly after the battle of First Manassas. Fitzgerald corresponded directly with Josiah Gorgas and Maj. Smith Stansbury regarding equipments to be furnished, and the central Ordnance Bureau at Richmond made remittances to the merchant for his deliveries.(18) Surviving documentation shows Fitzgerald shipping thousands of sets of infantry accoutrements and knapsacks from Dalton to Richmond, Augusta, and Fort Smith, Arkansas throughout the months of August –  November, 1861.(19) Fitzgerald’s output included other articles; on 14 October, less than a month after his name was referenced as the inventor of a wooden canteen pattern, the merchant’s Dalton agent dispatched 4,500 tin canteens to Ordnance officers at Fort Smith.(20)

At some point – perhaps August of 1861 – Fitzgerald contacted Shelbyville mill owner J. H. O’Neal concerning the manufacture of his proposed wood canteen. Records indicate O’Neal subsequently fabricated a great many cedar buckets on behalf of both the Ordnance Bureau and the Quartermaster Department, but no documentation has survived, if any existed, regarding the making of Fitzgerald’s canteen.(21) That Fitzgerald did not obtain a patent is apparent from a review of the annual reports of the Confederate Patent Office for the period 1861-1864 and additional data contained in surviving Patent Office ledgers for 1865.(22) He may have instead filed a “caveat” with the Patent Office – a procedure whereby an inventor, wishing to secure additional time in which to perfect his design, “could file in the patent office a caveat setting forth the design and purpose thereof, and its principal and distinguishing characteristics, and praying protection of his right till he shall have matured his invention.”(23) This is speculative, as a descriptive list of the caveats filed with Commissioner of Patents Rufus Rhodes was lost and/or destroyed at the war’s close. The merchant would have certainly corresponded with the Ordnance Bureau prior to scheduling production of a cedar canteen. Unfortunately, the Bureau’s “Letters Sent” copybooks maintained in Richmond for the years 1861 and the first ten months of 1862 have not survived; the extant “Letters Received” copybooks cover an even more restricted timeframe: March 1864 – January 1865. These invaluable ledgers were presumably destroyed, along with so many other records, in the fires and tumult of April 1865.(24)

Fitzgerald may have presented his canteen pattern to other manufacturers in Tennessee, as well as Georgia and Alabama. The preservation of history, particularly the minutiae that fills in the broad narrative, is often a matter of happenstance. Such is the case with a brief 1900 interview conducted by an unknown Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal reporter with Confederate veteran Bennett Young. In the prelude to a major Confederate veterans’ reunion to be held in Louisville later that year, the Courier-Journal met with the fifty-seven-year-old Young, famous for his leadership role in the October 1864 St. Alban’s raid, now a successful Kentucky attorney, author, and businessman. The subject of the local interest article was a war-time cedar canteen in the possession of Young, but the veteran went further afield in his story to the reporter. Speaking of the carvings frequently found on wooden canteens, Young related the following:

…The “U.S.” felt covered canteen was hard to put a record on, but it was different with the original cedar canteen made for the Confederates, first at the Penitentiary at Nashville, and subsequently at Cartersville, Ga…(25)

As recounted, Fitzgerald had communicated with O’Neal, whose Shelbyville manufactory was located approximately sixty miles south of Nashville. As early as May 1861 the Nashville Union & American reported on operations at Nashville’s State Penitentiary: “there are 200 men at work on army equipage, consisting of haversacks, cap pouches, remodeling bayonet scabbards, gun hammers, camp chests and tool chests” in addition to army wagons and footwear.(26) By September 1861 additional shops had been established in the Penitentiary, as noted by Atlanta’s Southern Confederacy:

The first room I entered was the cabinet shop and bucket factory. The red cedar abounds in this part of the country, and a great number of buckets, tubs and other wares are constantly being manufactured here…(27)

The disappointingly small number of surviving invoices found in the files of W. H. Johnson, Agent for the State Penitentiary, show cartridges, water buckets, and hundreds of pairs of shoes and boots being turned over to the Ordnance Bureau and the Quartermaster Department, but no canteens are referenced.(28) A ledger of Nashville Arsenal’s receipts for the period of 15 September through 27 December 1861 exists; amongst the myriad of articles received, including thousands of haversacks and knapsacks, canteens are conspicuously absent.(29) If they were recorded separately or the arsenal simply had not contracted for them remains a mystery. Cartersville, referenced by Young as a “subsequent” location for wood canteen manufacture, likewise remains unverified. Having said that, the town was a mere fifty-three miles south of Dalton on the Western & Atlantic Railroad. The absence of documentation does not diminish the possibility that Young was correct in his very specific recollections.

Whatever the case may be, it is beyond the realm of coincidence that, within approximately three months of the Southern Confederacy’s 21  September 1861 “Notes by the Way” article, the first documented wooden canteens were being received by the Montgomery Ordnance Depot. These cedar canteens, the earliest yet known to be supplied to a Confederate ordnance facility, are found in the files of Merritt Burns & Co., a fledgling enterprise based in Selma, Alabama. In his early thirties, Merritt Burns, formerly of North Carolina, had quickly established himself after moving to Selma in the mid 1850s.(30) A stationer, secretary of the Merchants Exchange Company, and an agent for the Aetna Insurance Company, the young businessman established “Merritt Burns & Co.” at some point in 1861 – presumably “for the purpose of getting contracts with the Government ….”(31) The company’s earliest surviving invoice to Montgomery Depot - 452 canteens priced at ninety cents per canteen, inclusive of a strap - is dated 26 December 1861.(32)  While the canteens recorded within the 26 December document are not specifically identified as “cedar” or “wood,” every one of the remaining ten invoices within the Merritt Burns & Co. file (including the next delivery, dated 26 January 1862) specify “cedar canteens,” and at the same price, thus strongly suggesting that the earliest invoice likewise represents cedar canteens.(33) Given an initial recorded receipt date of December 1861, it is reasonable to presume that Burns made contact with Capt. Charles G. Wagner (commander of the Montgomery Depot) in the autumn of 1861, and that the notion of manufacturing the article must have arisen even earlier. Corroborating evidence supports the idea that the Selma-based entrepreneur obtained his canteen pattern from Fitzgerald. In addition to his various business affiliations, Burns also served as the agent of Selma’s Baptist Bible & Book Depository and additionally maintained commercial connections with Dalton, eventually relocating to that city in 1862.(34) Archibald Fitzgerald’s status as a prominent Baptist minister, his location in Dalton, and his early commercial interactions with the Ordnance Bureau strongly suggest that he communicated with Burns in relation to manufacturing canteens and provided the entrepreneur with a pattern for the same.

Merritt Burns & Co. commenced the production of significant quantities of cedar canteens. Over the course of December 1861 – September 1862, the company is known to have successfully delivered the following quantities of wood canteens, first to Montgomery Depot, then subsequently to Selma:

December 26, 1861:  452  (Montgomery)
January 26, 1862:   1,325  (Montgomery)
February 7, 1862:       616  (Montgomery)
March 27, 1862:      3,059  (Montgomery)
May 19, 1862:          8,069 (Montgomery)
June 5, 1862:           3,080  (Montgomery)
June 20, 1862:           828  (Montgomery)
July 11, 1862:          3,509  (Selma)
August 7, 1862:      2,073  (Selma)
August 23, 1862:     2,207(35)Selma)
September 4, 1862:   480  (Selma)
Total:                      25,698(36)

The shift from deliveries to Montgomery is unexplained; it may reflect an effort to mitigate the freight costs incurred in shipping from the company’s Selma manufactory to Montgomery.  Between 15 May 1862 and 2 January 1863, the company intermittently ran the following advertisement in the Daily Selma Reporter:

WANTED!
100 Cords of Cedar!

We will pay $10 per Cord, delivered at our Shop in Selma, or $8 per Cord delivered on the Cars on either of our Railroads. The Cedar must be green, clear of knots, and sound. Any size from 6 inches in diameter to two feet. It must be in the round stick, NOT SPLIT.

MERRITT BURNS & CO.(37)

Given the fact that Merritt Burns & Co. ran its “100 Cords of Cedar!” advertisement in the Selma paper through at least early January 1863, it is highly probable that the eleven invoices found in the company’s files represent only a fraction of its actual deliveries. Burns and his family relocated to Dalton in summer 1862, appointing businessman James D. Monk as his agent “to attend to the Canteen factory … ”(38) The entrepreneur found new business with the Quartermaster Department in Georgia, manufacturing sheet iron box stoves; he likewise served for a time as a private in the “Dalton Machine Guards,” a local defense company primarily made up of the employees and principals of various manufactories in the area.(39) It is unknown how long Merritt Burns’ “Canteen Factory” continued in Selma beyond the close of January 1863.

The operations of yet another Alabama wood canteen maker, R. W. Sharp, partially overlapped the known timespan of Merritt Burns’ canteen manufacturing enterprise. Sharp owned a lumber mill at Greenville, Alabama and additionally maintained a business office in Montgomery.(40) Existing documentation suggests that Sharp entered into a contract for cedar canteens with Major Wagner at the Montgomery Depot at least as early as the spring of 1862. Surviving invoices show the following wood canteens delivered by Sharp to Wagner over the course April-October 1862, with an additional small delivery in late July 1863: 

4/21/62:      1,197 (Montgomery)
5/19/62:      3,705 (Montgomery)
6/28/62:         708 (Montgomery)
8/23/62:      5,162 (Montgomery)
9/13/62:      2,857 (Montgomery)
10/10/62:    1,448 (Montgomery)
7/25/63:         310 (Montgomery)
Total:         15,837 (41)

As will be demonstrated in a subsequent section, the merchant likewise furnished wood canteen components to Wagner throughout 1863-1864. Unlike Merritt Burns & Co., Sharp apparently made deliveries only to Montgomery. In the post-war years Sharp’s holdings increased and diversified; he acquired real estate in the capitol city, operated a cotton gin and flour mill, and expanded his sawmill operations to include finished products such as sashes, doors, and shutters. Apart from his commercial activities the merchant found time to hold high Masonic office and served as a city Alderman. When he announced his candidacy for Mayor against incumbent W. S. Reese in 1887, the Montgomery Advertiser ran the following acerbic commentary:

MR. SHARP, THE WORKING MAN.
He Worked Out of the War and Made
Canteens that Would not Hold Water nor Whisky 

Yesterday morning an ADVERTISER reporter met an old ex-Confederate officer and had a little talk with him. Pretty soon the conversation turned to the present political situation in the city, and the officer said:

 Mr. Sharp calls himself a working man, and puts himself forward as a workingman’s candidate for Mayor. I remember that he used to be a workingman. He worked himself out of the Confederate service and stayed out until the war was over, notwithstanding that he is a native of the South.

He managed to get a contract and made cedar canteens for the Confederate soldiers. I also remember that the canteens were poor specimens and wouldn’t hold water nor whisky. Many a poor soldier who had to depend on one of Mr. Sharp’s canteens narrowly escaped perishing from thirst and meeting a death more horrible than ever came to a man on the battlefield. But Mr. Sharp was a workingman and had to stay at home while others fought the good fight. How will that compare with the war record of his opponent, who is before the people as the Democratic candidate? (42)

A week later the Greenville Advocate gleefully added its own embellishment to the Advertiser’s story, asserting that Sharp’s wooden canteens “would not hold either water, Sorghum, or whiskey.” (43)

Additional entrepreneurs assisted in keeping Montgomery and Selma supplied with wood canteens. Amongst them was merchant Jasper S. Gonzales. A self-described “refugee from Pensacola” and long-time acquaintance of Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory, Gonzales played an active role in Florida prior to the May 1862 Federal occupation of Pensacola.(44) In summer 1861 he provided drayage and served as a guide for a train of Quartermaster stores from Warrington, Florida to Hollywood, Alabama; in April and May of 1862, “under instructions from Lt. Col. J. Gorgas,” he collected and delivered lead to the Naval Storekeeper at Pensacola. For reasons that are not clear, Gonzales’ Florida lead-gathering activities on behalf of the Ordnance Bureau were paid for by Captain Wagner at Montgomery.(45) After the fall of Pensacola the merchant relocated to Mobile, where he sold harness and a variety of other goods to the Quartermaster Department. On 30 August 1862, Gonzales entered into a contract for 8,000 cedar canteens with Ordnance officer Major Smith Stansbury, based in Richmond.(46) While the underlying agreement has not been located, Gonzales not only fulfilled but exceeded his contractual quota, delivering the following known quantities to the Montgomery Depot:

November 5, 1862:    1,404 (Montgomery)
November 22, 1862:  2,644 (Montgomery)
December 29, 1862:   4,777 (Montgomery)
Total:                           8,825(47)

Within one year’s time – 26 December 1861 through 29 December 1862 – Montgomery and Selma had taken in at least 50,050 wooden canteens from three known manufacturers. Given the incomplete nature of the surviving records, the actual number may have been significantly higher.

There were other makers of the wood canteen in Alabama; time and further research may provide additional detail. In a lengthy 1933 obituary for local Confederate veteran Jacob Marshall, the Selma Times Journal recounted that “Mr. Marshall’s stepfather, Mr. Berg, was engaged in making cedar canteens for the Confederate army at his mill here, and with the entry of Gen. Wilson the mill was burned.”(48) In his early thirties during the war, Pennsylvania-born William Berg identified his occupation as “Master Carpenter” in the 1860 Federal census. In 1861 and 1862 he ran advertisements in the Daily Selma Reporter promoting his carpentry business.(49) Berg had likewise established a planing mill near the city in 1856.(50) Partially corroborating Marshall’s 1933 obituary, the 1879 publication Selma; Her Institutions & Her Men noted that “the army of invasion in 1865 burnt [Berg’s mill] to the ground …”(51) Records exist for Berg’s provision of lumber for the defenses around Selma, the manufacture of cots, and the construction of several nitre sheds on behalf of the Nitre & Mining Bureau, but no invoices have survived for cedar canteens.(52) Berg may have served as a subcontractor to another vendor; alternatively, the records of this segment of his business were quite likely destroyed, as were virtually the entirety of Selma Arsenal’s records.

Additional canteen workshops were preserved only in local memory. Dr. Peter Brannon, long-time Director of Alabama’s Department of Archives & History, authored a state-focused history column in the Montgomery Advertiser from 1931 to 1950. In a meandering 1948 article generally discussing war production in Alabama and Georgia, Brannon briefly recalled a “cedar canteen factory” situated on Uchee Creek in Russell County, Alabama.(53) Born in Russell County in 1882, Brannon’s knowledge of the canteen works was possibly based on local lore he had heard in his youth.(54) As a young man he was surrounded by the detritus of war; several local families employed rusted “Joe Brown” pikes as gardening implements; one friend utilized a “bridle cutter” pike to prune back sweet potato vines.(55)

Both Selma Depot and the Montgomery Depot were subsequently raised to the elevated distinction of “Arsenal.” Selma achieved that status in October 1862; Montgomery in early 1863.(56) The latter facility, however, produced no small arms ammunition, did only limited casting work, and maintained no laboratory. As a result, the responsibility for focusing on and developing “Class 7” resources (infantry accoutrements, small arms tools, haversacks, canteens, and knapsacks) may have devolved by default upon Wagner, who maintained his position as commander at Montgomery throughout the war. Conversely, the criticality of operations at Selma only increased as the war dragged on. “The importance of Selma to the Confederacy can hardly be overestimated,” a former resident of the city noted in the spring of 1864:

As a shipping point for iron, coal, ammunition and commissariat stores, it is one of the most important in the South. As a manufacturing depot for ammunition, shot, shell, cannon, powder, canteens and clothing, it is of vast importance…Besides the large Government works at Selma, there are a number of smaller establishments, got up by wealthy men for the purpose of getting contracts with the Government, thereby keeping out of the army themselves …(57)

The writer’s inclusion of the lowly canteen amongst the predominant (and inarguably more important) output of the city’s manufacturing capabilities – small arms ammunition, shot, shell, powder & cannon – is noteworthy; it is not unreasonable to conclude that such a mundane article of issue would not have come to the writer’s mind save for the prevalence of canteen production in and around Selma. Separated by roughly fifty-six miles of road and 98 miles by river, the Ordnance facilities at Montgomery and Selma and the private manufactories in both cities shared a close relationship insofar as canteen production was concerned.(58)

Government-Made Cedar Canteens

As with so many other arsenals and depots, the National Archives’ exhaustive Guide to the Archives of the Government of the Confederate States of America entry with respect to Selma is bleakly straightforward: “No records of this arsenal have been found.”(59) Despite the total loss of the facility’s compiled records, scattered invoices, correspondence, and isolated reports may occasionally be pieced together to tell a story. Surviving invoices found in the National Archives’ “Citizen Files” and data taken from contemporaneous Alabama newspapers indicate that, six months following the first known receipt of wooden canteens from Merritt Burns & Co. in Montgomery, Ordnance Bureau officials (apparently Capt. James L. White) initiated plans to construct a Government-run workshop in Selma for the manufacture of the canteens.

By Circular dated 6 August 1862, Josiah Gorgas admonished arsenals and depots across the Confederacy to “make every exertion to increase your supplies of Ordnance Stores, especially harness, Infantry accoutrements, haversacks and canteens, by contract and preferably by fabrication.”(60) Such efforts were already underway in Alabama. In early June 1862 civilian Ordnance Bureau Agent W. S. Foster undertook at least four trips, ostensibly on behalf of the Mount Vernon Arsenal. Foster, soon to be appointed to the position of “Master Carpenter” at the Selma Depot, subsequently sought reimbursement of his travel expenses on or about 16 June.(61) The actual beneficiary of the agent’s work was almost certainly Selma, rather than Mount Vernon, as Capt. White had been directed to establish a new Ordnance depot in Selma as early as 20 May 1862.(62) Machinery and tools at Mount Vernon were already in the process of being removed and freighted north. According to his invoice, the agent traveled twice to Mobile to purchase tools and machinery. On the third trip described in Foster’s June invoice, the agent sought traveling expenses incurred in going “from Mount Vernon Arsenal to Selma and back to obtain information in regard to making canteens …”(63) Foster’s final invoiced expense was a journey to Montgomery. The purpose of the trip to the State capitol and back is not explained, but it is tempting to speculate. By this date Montgomery was already established as the primary depot for the receipt and issuance of cedar canteens, and at least one significant manufactory had been established there.  

Selma’s Master Carpenter made additional trips to Montgomery and Uniontown in July 1862, his point of departure and return now identified as Selma. Approximately five weeks after Foster’s journey to “obtain information in regard to making canteens,” Captain White ran the following advertisement in the 24 July 1862, edition of the Daily Selma Reporter:

WANTED.
FOR THE ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, CONFEDERATE STATES ---

One hundred and fifty thousand feet of CEDAR LUMBER. Orders will be given for quantities to suit the parties desiring to furnish it. For bills of dimensions and other information, apply to:

Captain J. L. WHITE
Commanding Ordnance Depot
Selma(64)

Cedar (commonly identified as juniper) is not among the twelve types of timber listed in Chapter 14 of the C.S. Ordnance Manual as being suitable for traditional ordnance use. The Manual identifies each type of wood approved for use and its specific applications. By way of example, white poplar, white ash, and basswood were deemed appropriate for cartridge blocks, sabots and rammer staves; white oak for gun carriages; black gum for sponge and rammer heads; black walnut for small arm stocks and ammunition chests; white pine for arms chests and packing boxes.(65) While Confederate ordnance officials were frequently compelled to substitute certain materials, there is no known use of cedar for artillery or small arms purposes, save perhaps staved cedar buckets. While surviving wooden Confederate artillery sabots are rare, subject matter experts queried in the preparation of this study failed to recall any examples of cedar being utilized for sabots. Given these facts, the cedar timber sought by the Selma Depot in July 1862 was most probably intended for the fabrication of wooden canteens.

On 9 September 1862, Selma Depot was invoiced for a large lot of shop equipment and fittings furnished by C. J. McRae & Co.(66) The company provided ten pounds of Babbit metal, 2,461 pounds of iron castings, iron shafting, two saw arbors, and two “Canteen Lathes.”(67) The firm additionally charged $304.30 for “turning, boring, finishing and fitting up pullies, flanges, shafting, collar bolts, counter shafting, pins, set screws &c” and making patterns for the same. The total invoice of $649.65 was paid by Captain White the same day it was submitted. The intended location of the saw arbors, “Canteen Lathes” and other equipment is not specified, nor is the site of the fitting-up work identified. Given that no additional freight expenses were invoiced, it is probable that the equipment was installed on or near the grounds of the burgeoning Selma Depot. Records indicate that White leased an existing sawmill just across the Alabama River “for Arsenal purposes”; materials were being ferried to the mill from the Arsenal in March of 1863 by Foster.(68) This leased mill may have been the location of McRae & Co.’s equipment installation. The documentation presented above strongly suggests that Captain White had established a functioning, government-run wood canteen shop in Selma by autumn 1862. 

Montgomery was likewise occupied with the establishment of a depot-based canteen manufactory in summer and fall 1862. “I have, under instructions from the Chief of Ordnance, established a Government Workshop in connection with this post,” Major Wagner informed Lt. Col. Hypolite Oladowski in a report dated 7 July 1862. According to Wagner, Montgomery’s Government shops were to include the following facilities:

…. an armory for the repairing and altering of small arms and making Miss. Rifles from barrels by parties engaged in that business; and for the manufacture of canteens, haversacks, knapsacks and gun carriages and indeed every thing we can possibly compass…

 ******

The canteen department will be in operation in three weeks; and I then expect to turn out from 3,000 to 5,000 per week, if I am successful in procuring men for the business.

I am manufacturing 600 haversacks per day now, and have a contract for 500 canteens per week …(69)

Corroborating evidence indicates that Wagner’s summer 1862 “canteen department” was intended for the manufacture of cedar canteens. Other installations such as Atlanta, Richmond, and Charleston set up tin shops where quantities of tin canteens were intermittently made, and Montgomery is known to have issued tin canteens.(70) Having said that, Ordnance Bureau tin shops never focused exclusively on canteens. No other arsenal or depot (save Selma) is known to have established a permanent “canteen department.” Further, “3,000 to 5,000 per week” would have required an enormous and readily available supply of raw material. No ordnance installation ever systematically fabricated tin canteens in numbers even faintly approaching 1,000 per week, much less a projected 3,000-5,000.(71) Sheet tin was available, but not, upon information and belief, in such relatively massive quantities. Conversely, cedar timber was abundant and accessible. As will be discussed, when Richmond Arsenal subsequently requested the assistance of Selma and Montgomery in filling a massive requisition for the Army of Northern Virginia, wooden, not tin, canteens were specifically sought.

In addition to start-to-finish manufacturing operations, Montgomery Arsenal also began to assemble cedar canteens from contractor-supplied components no later than the winter of 1862-1863. As previously referenced, R. W. Sharp of Montgomery had supplied Wagner with at least 15,527 finished cedar canteens in the approximate six-month span of April 21 – October 10, 1862, with an additional, isolated delivery of 310 canteens in July 1863. Beginning at least as early as December 1862, “Mr. Sharp, the Working Man” commenced the delivery of large quantities of unassembled canteen components to Montgomery:

Presuming that all the delivered canteen faces were utilized, Sharp’s recorded deliveries of components would have resulted in the fabrication of an additional 38,301 cedar canteens at Montgomery Arsenal’s canteen shop. The language and terminology found in the summary of Sharp’s invoices set forth above have not been modified. Canteen faces are variously referred to as “canteen heads,” “cedar heads” and “head pieces.” Spouts are termed “canteen mouths” and “gum mouth pieces.” The sweetgum tree, the wood of which was apparently used by Sharp for his spouts, is found throughout the Southeast. The “rolling machine” delivered is not further described. Certain, relatively simple forms of rolling machines were utilized to bend sheet metal (or strips of sheet metal) into arcs or circles, a useful operation in preparing canteen hoops. Given the modest purchase price of $40.00, the rolling machine was most probably of this type. The papers / cards of iron rivets would have each contained multiple small soft iron rivets, utilized in joining the ends of the hoops. The two thin iron or tinned hoops would have been rolled, cut, riveted, and fitted over the stave ends. In the world of barrel-making, a cooper would have utilized a “hoop driver” to progressively tap the hoops into position. Given the light nature of the materials being used and the fact that the hoops would be driven on just over the edge of the staves, a hammer or wooden mallet might have sufficed.

Wagner undoubtedly had a compelling reason for contracting for unassembled canteen components, but the actual rationale remains a mystery. The provision of pre-cut pieces from contractors such as Sharp must have been intended to supplement ongoing manufacturing operations at the Arsenal, which significantly increased as the war progressed.  The decision cannot have been made for purposes of economy. For his April - May 1862 deliveries Sharp had charged seventy-five cents per canteen; prices dropped to fifty cents from June through October 1862, then increased back to seventy-five cents for the last recorded invoice for finished canteens in July 1863. Conversely, Merritt Burns  had charged ninety cents for its canteens between December 1861 and March 1862 (this higher price included the provision of a thirty-five cent canteen strap), then dropped its price to fifty-five cents (per canteen with no strap) on invoices between May-September 1862. Jasper Gonzales’ contract with the Richmond Arsenal for delivery of 8,000+ wood canteens to Montgomery in November-December 1862 set a price of seventy-five cents per canteen. Juxtaposed against these costs for a finished product are the prices Sharp charged for individual components. Per the merchant’s December 1862 invoice, Wagner paid 12 ½ cents per canteen head, six cents per spout, and eight cents per stave. Assuming eleven staves per canteen, the grand total for a canteen made of Sharp’s component parts – excluding the hoops and sling guides and the labor of assembling the canteen – would have been $1.19 in December 1862. Using Sharp’s pre-cut pieces, the price per canteen thus increased by at least 40 percent within a very short span of time. Despite such cost increases, the manufacturer continued to deliver components to Montgomery Arsenal’s shop until at least 31 March 1864.

Known Wood Canteen Issues from Montgomery & Selma

The old phrase, “He has hit rock bottom and commenced to dig” came to mind several times in the course of preparing this study, but particularly here. Attempting to trace where Alabama’s wooden canteens were sent after leaving Selma and Montgomery is, for the most part, an exercise in futility. Nothing remotely approaching a complete picture may currently be drawn. The difficulty not only lies in the loss and destruction of the underlying documents. In those records that did manage to escape obliteration, Ordnance Bureau officials more often than not failed to differentiate between “cedar” or “wooden” canteens and tin canteens. Such a “failure” is understandable. The vast majority of Ordnance officers cared not that a canteen was tin or wood, only that it was a canteen and presumably held water. Out of hundreds of Corps, Division and Brigade Ordnance returns examined over years of study, very few specify the specific type of canteen carried or issued. Certain arsenals and depots did make a distinction in their reports of receipts and issues, but this is the rare exception to the rule.

As with Selma, the ledgers and account books maintained by the Montgomery Arsenal have disappeared into the ether (or more probably, the flames); what remains of four years’ worth of concerted activity is found in individual service records and the surviving account books of other installations. Out of what may have been hundreds (if not thousands) of shipments of wood canteens over the course of more than three years, Wagner’s compiled service records contain documentation for a mere six: eighty-one shipped to a company commander in Pensacola on 31 March 1862; 3,918 sent to Oladowski at Corinth between 8 April – 17 May 1862; 1,000 sent to ordnance officer Capt. W. H. Warren at Verona, Mississippi, on 11 July 1862; 1,805 shipped to Oladowski at Tupelo on the same date; 1,620 sent to ordnance officer Capt. Henry Myers at Mobile on 15 May 1863.(74) Conversely, James L. White’s service records and those of Selma’s military storekeepers contain not even a mention of the article. 

As noted, Montgomery shipped wooden canteens to Corinth and the battered Army of the Mississippi following the battle of Shiloh. Records of the Ordnance Depot at Corinth, under the supervision of Assistant Military Storekeeper W. H. McMain, reflect the “fits and starts,” piecemeal nature of supply at this relatively early point in the war. In many ways the Army of the Mississippi resembled the Southern forces that had fought eight months earlier at First Manassas; Braxton Bragg described it as a “heterogeneous mass in which there was more enthusiasm than discipline, more capacity than knowledge, and more valor than instructions.”(75) Southern casualties at Shiloh have been estimated to have been as high as 12,000.(75) In the weeks following the engagement, the bloodied Florida Battalion and the Confederate Guards Response Battalion, having endured exhausting marches and the reality of battle, dutifully turned in to Corinth’s Ordnance Depot the cumbersome impedimenta of early war enthusiasm: a collection of dirks, daggers, Bowie knives, and pocket pistols.(76) McMain carefully recorded the character of the personal weapons deposited with him, including sixteen and eighteen-inch knives.(78) Despite an ever-increasing number of modern small arms, a polyglot array of weapons were still to be found in the ranks.(79) Alongside the Enfield rifles already in the hands of certain units, flintlock muskets, Belgian rifles, Hall’s rifles, Mississippi rifles and a wide variety of smoothbores were being utilized; country and “Tennessee” rifles were being rebored to .54 caliber by the depot’s armorer at Holly Springs.(80) While a significant number of captured arms had been taken on the battlefield, flintlock muskets were still being issued to the 14th Arkansas as late as May 1862, and the 31st Mississippi received musket flints and flintlock cartridges that same month – weeks after the engagement at Shiloh.(81)

Whether the result of a failure in planning, a lack of manufacturing resources, or a combination of both, certain articles remained unavailable to the Army of the Mississippi for extended periods of time. McMain’s account books reflect extremely few receipts from arsenals or depots for canteens and no issues of the same, tin or otherwise, from 27 March through 13 April 1862.(82) Bearing in mind the size of the post-Shiloh army at Corinth – approximately 45,000 men – this deficit constituted a crisis. Corinth’s surviving ledgers begin in late March; based upon the evidence discussed below, the canteen shortage had been chronic for a much longer duration. The same records show a stream of damaged accoutrements, small arms and ammunition continuously turned in to the Ordnance Depot for replacement following Shiloh; canteens are conspicuously absent. The marked absence of canteens from the lists of returned equipments and accoutrements must indicate that, damaged or not, canteens could not be easily replaced and were retained by those who had them; alternatively, there were none to turn in. In early April 1862 Gen. William Hardee’s Division was in dire need of canteens, the shortage of which was already so critical in the army that they could only be issued “by a special order” on the Grenada Ordnance Depot.(83) Despite a directive from General Beauregard, Maj. W. R. Hunt, temporarily commanding the Ordnance facility at Grenada, insisted upon receipt of an additional order acknowledging that the requisition could only be filled “to the exclusion of all others,” i.e., if Grenada met the directive it would be unable to fill any other canteen requisitions.(84)  Desperate, Hardee was induced to make a private purchase of 2,500 tin canteens from the New Orleans firm of Bostick & Seymour.(85) The canteens arrived in Corinth in April, “piled loose in the car,” with no accompanying documentation; they were subsequently issued to other units, to the extreme consternation of Hardee.(86) Earlier that month, boxes of infantry accoutrements likewise intended for Hardee’s Division were unceremoniously piled on a siding near the Mobile & Ohio, unguarded and exposed to the elements until McMain rescued them.(87) A reading of Corinth’s surviving Ordnance records reflects a supply system strained to its breaking point.

Montgomery came to the Army’s relief with an initial delivery of 3,122 cedar canteens, arriving in Corinth on 13 April via two shipments received that day.(88) Briarfield Arsenal thereafter delivered 7,274 (possibly cedar) canteens on 22 April, followed by an additional 1,567 from Augusta Arsenal on 26 April and 3,000 from Grenada, Mississippi on 1 May.(89) These deliveries – totaling 14,963 - were still inadequate to meet the Army’s needs. “We are much in need of canteens – send all you can,” telegraphed Beauregard’s Chief of Ordnance, Hypolite Oladowski, in a 15 May message copied to Mobile, Columbus, Grenada, Atlanta, Augusta, Charleston, Savannah, and Montgomery.(90) Wagner was able to dispatch an additional 2,513 cedar canteens to Corinth, being turned over to Assistant Quartermaster Capt. J. L. Calhoun for transport on 17 May 1862, two days following Oladowski’s telegram.(91)

Comprehensive records for Corinth end in mid-May, with the imminent evacuation of the town by Beauregard’s army. Post-war tales provide interesting context for at least one wooden canteen issued there. In May 1862, Company I of the 32d Tennessee Infantry “drew a round of  cedar canteens” while encamped at Corinth.(92) While “laying flat on my belly in camp,” H. B. Morgan carved his name and regiment upon the face of his newly-issued canteen, thereafter carrying it through the battles of Perryville, Murfreesboro and Chickamauga.(93) At Missionary Ridge, Morgan’s canteen was lost, then subsequently retrieved by a soldier of the 7th Ohio Infantry and brought home as a souvenir. As the result of a post-war letter published in the Confederate Veteran and a follow-on chain of correspondence, the canteen was returned to Morgan in 1898.(94)

Additional material to generally gauge the breadth of Alabama’s issues may be found within the isolated records of a handful of arsenals and depots. Among the 2,857 surviving discrete C.S. Government account books and document compilations housed within the National Archives is a fifty-four page ledger entitled “Abstract of Ordnance and Ordnance Stores Received at Enterprise, Miss. and Selma, Ala. from Army Officers during the First Quarter of 1863.”(95) The concluding page of the ledger reveals that the “Abstract” is actually a Return of ordnance and ordnance stores held in Briarfield Arsenal as of 30 September 1862, signed and approved by Capt. J. T. Trezevant, then serving as commander of the arsenal.(96) Briarfield Depot (later “Arsenal”) was established at Columbus, Mississippi, in spring 1862 in response to the fall of Forts Henry & Donelson, the evacuation of Nashville, and the imminent threat to the city of Memphis.(97) The ordnance stores, equipment, and personnel at Memphis Arsenal were laboriously conveyed south down the Mobile & Ohio to Columbus. Subsequently designated “Briarfield,” the arsenal quickly became a critical source of supply for the Army of the Mississippi and the Army of the West. Briarfield, in turn, was eventually threatened, and its stores and machinery were shipped to Selma over the winter of 1862-1863.(98)

Trezevant’s Return was used as an inventory of ordnance and ordnance stores shipped upon Briarfield’s closure, first to Enterprise, Mississippi, then ultimately to Selma. Consisting of approximately 1,100 distinct items of issue, raw materials, and arsenal equipment, the Return gives some sense of the magnitude of the operations at Columbus. Trezevant’s inventory reflects that, as of 30 September 1862, Briarfield Arsenal held 15,698 cedar canteens and 1,668 tin canteens in its storehouses.(99) In the absence of contrary evidence, the cedar canteens are presumed to have initially been received by Briarfield from Montgomery and/or Selma.

A record of “Stores Purchased, Received and Issued” for Atlanta Arsenal covers the period of 8 May – 23 August 1862.(100) Spanning 759 pages, the account encompasses the second quarter of 1862 and documents Atlanta’s receipt and issuance of approximately 1,400 different categories of ordnance, ordnance stores, materials, tools, and the like.(101) During this time period Atlanta took in 30,671 tin canteens and 4,396 “wood” canteens.(102) The arsenal had received 4,216 wooden canteens from Montgomery on 21 August. The remainder – a paltry 180 - were received from two Georgia-based wood canteen contractors, both of which will be discussed in Part II of this study. It is noteworthy that the Military Storekeeper or clerk who prepared Atlanta’s second quarter accounts took the time to record received canteens in either a “tin” or “wood” column. Interestingly, of the total 35,067 canteens received by Atlanta, 23,357 – more than sixty percent – were either shipped from other Government installations or fabricated at the Arsenal. In addition to the receipts from other ordnance facilities and in-house fabrication, Atlanta was receiving canteens, both wood and tin, from a total of six contractors.(103)

As the war entered its third spring, Alabama continued to be the focal point for cedar canteen production. On 25 March 1863, Richmond Armory’s constantly harried Superintendent, W. S. Downer, penned a message to both Montgomery and Selma. “A requisition has been made in the Department for 30,000 wooden canteens for Genl. Lee’s Army, to be supplied within a short time,” Downer wrote. “Will you please inform me how many we can rely on from your Post, and within what time they can be supplied?”(104)

Richmond’s 25 March message has been well addressed in various articles and publications; what inevitably fails to be discussed, however, is Major Wagner’s response, dated March 30, 1863:

Your letter of the 25th inst. is at hand. I will send you 6,000 canteens as soon as they can be got ready for shipment and will send you 2,500 per week thereafter.(105)

Wagner’s prompt and confident reply to Downer was apparently well-founded; documentation suggests that both Selma and Montgomery cooperated in quickly filling Richmond’s massive requisition. Special messenger F. S. Moses left Selma Arsenal for Richmond with fifty-nine boxes of canteens, five cases of guns, and other articles on 24 April 1863; the canteens were specifically designated for delivery to Downer.(106) On 27 April 1863, Atlanta Arsenal recorded the in-transit shipment of forty-two boxes of canteens from West Point, Georgia to Chattanooga via rail.(107) West Point was directly linked to Montgomery via the Montgomery & West Point Rail Road; from Chattanooga, the East Tennessee & Georgia, East Tennessee & Virginia and Virginia & Tennessee railroads fed into shorter lines leading to Richmond.(108) While conjectural, the referenced forty-two boxes of canteens may have been part of the Selma/Montgomery response to Richmond’s 25 March request. More certain are the sixty boxes of canteens shipped from Montgomery, expressly bound for Richmond Arsenal, which passed through Atlanta on 29 April 1863, and an additional twenty-three boxes of canteens destined for Richmond from Montgomery that were logged in by Atlanta Arsenal on 23 May.(109)  While the records are fragmentary, the Army of Northern Virginia was thus provisioned with a significant quantity of Alabama-manufactured wood canteens in time for the summer campaigns of 1863; indeed, a portion of  Wagner’s and White’s shipments may have been in the hands of Lee’s Ordnance officers in time for the early May engagements at Chancellorsville.

The somewhat unusual phrasing of Downer’s 25 March query – “how many can we rely on from your Post” – is most probably an indirect reference to the Bureau-run wood canteen shops both White and Wagner had established. Wagner’s subsequent 30 March pledge to ship 2,500 canteens per week is equally significant; the notion that Montgomery and/or Selma’s contract deliveries would have ever approached 2,500 per week borders on the impossible. Again, the evidence strongly supports the theory that both arsenals had established functioning wooden canteen manufactories; further, that as of spring 1863 these shops were capable of producing substantial numbers of cedar canteens on short notice.

Wooden canteens continued to be issued from Alabama long after Richmond’s request for 30,000 had been fulfilled. The Demopolis Ordnance Depot, located in western Alabama, served as a major forwarding point of supply and was heavily supported by Montgomery Arsenal. The Depot kept Joseph E. Johnston’s forces provisioned while he campaigned in Mississippi, re-armed and re-equipped thousands of returning Vicksburg veterans after the expiration of their paroles in the autumn of 1863, and met the requisitions of brigades and divisions in the Army of Tennessee well into 1864. Fragments of Demopolis Depot records are found in the compiled service records of Assistant Military Store Keeper Henry K. Fisher, who was sent in May 1863 from Jackson, Mississippi to assist with operations there.(110) Between May 1st and 4 August 1863, Montgomery Arsenal supplied Demopolis with 3,150 sets of infantry accoutrements, 619 saddles, 5,760 knapsacks, 9,000 haversacks, 100 horse collars, 480 pairs of spurs, 721 moss saddle blankets, 3,484 cedar canteens, and 5,000 “canteens,” among other articles.(111) The 5,000 Montgomery-supplied “canteens” may have been cedar as well; Fisher was not consistent with the descriptive terms he utilized in his returns.

Additional sources, admittedly far from complete, suggest the persistent presence of the wooden canteen in the Army of Tennessee. A considerable number were captured and/or traded with the enemy both before and after the debacle at Missionary Ridge.(112) The city of Atlanta fell to Sherman in early September 1864. In anticipation of its evacuation, Military Storekeeper John Ansley and Arsenal commander Lt. Col. Moses H. Wright managed to successfully rescue a significant portion of the ordnance stores warehoused in the city. Substantial quantities of stores were shipped from Atlanta to Augusta Arsenal in the third quarter of 1864. Amongst the salvaged inventory of the Atlanta Arsenal were 4,820 tin and 1,638 wood canteens.(113)

Late-war quality control problems are documented. Leaking water had been the bogeyman of wooden water vessels since time immemorial. In 1812, Great Britain’s Monthly Magazine noted the propensity of staved casks and barrels to

[fall] to pieces in very dry weather if left empty. This evil was felt to a very great extent in the article of canteens, made for the army, though got up with the utmost dexterity. Thousands required re-making on account of shrinkage, long before they were worn out, sometimes before they could be used.(114)

Half a century later, the South’s version of the staved canteen experienced similar defects. Canteens of questionable workmanship, perhaps hurriedly constructed of green timber, became enough of a source of complaint that the Ordnance Bureau was compelled to take official notice. “The attention of Officers commanding Arsenals is again called to the necessity of rigid inspection of Wooden Canteens, receiving none and issuing none that are not well made and of well seasoned wood,” Gorgas informed his subordinates in a 3 May 1864 Circular.(115) The fact that the Chief of Ordnance was compelled to again address the matter indicates that the problem (“canteens that would not hold water nor whisky,” per the Montgomery Advertiser) had arisen more than once. The source or sources of the defective canteens were not specifically identified. It is interesting to note that the wooden canteen’s tin counterpart likewise suffered criticism. In March 1864 a board of survey convened by Cleburne’s Division rejected 316 of 540 tin canteens received from Atlanta Arsenal on the grounds that “the canteens were never properly finished, as some had scarcely enough solder on them to hold the parts together…”(116)

Despite these issues, wooden canteen production in Alabama continued as the war drew to a close. On 11 January 1865, Lt. Col. John R. Waddy, Chief of Ordnance for Beauregard’s Division of the West, was ordered to visit and report upon the capabilities of the ordnance facilities still operating within the rapidly shrinking confines of the Western Cis-Mississippi.(117) Over the course of ten days Waddy managed to personally inspect the arsenals at Augusta, Macon, Columbus (Georgia), Selma, and Montgomery, as well as facilities at Mobile. Montgomery Arsenal, situated near the depot of the Montgomery & West Point Railroad, appears to have been the final installation visited by Beauregard’s Chief of Ordnance before his return to Division headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina. In what was certainly the last report of its kind, on 21 January 1865 Waddy submitted his findings to the Division’s Assistant Adjutant General, Col. George W. Brent. The concluding page of Waddy’s eleven-page report contains a brief but extremely valuable description of operations at Montgomery:

The “Montgomery Arsenal.” Maj. C. G. Wagner, P.A.C.S. turns out but a limited amount of work as compared with the other Arsenals visited by me. Its commanding officer reports its capacity as being as follows.

(500 to 700) From five to seven hundred small arms repaired per month according to repairs necessary.

(6) Six setts six-horse harness                  per month
(1,000) one thousand Infantry accoutrements                 “  
(3,000) three thousand Haversacks                          “
(8,000) eight thousand Cedar Canteens                         “

There is also a Foundry attached to this Arsenal of a capacity of Thirty tons of iron per week. The Arsenal Commander is instructed to send to Columbus Geo. for storage and distribution all work turned out as soon as finished.(118)

A fair reading of Waddy’s report strongly suggests that the numbers provided by Wagner were grounded upon actual production figures. A monthly output of 8,000 canteens roughly comports with Wagner’s prior pledge to Major Downer – made in the distant days of March 1863 – that the Arsenal could furnish 2,500 cedar canteens per week.(119) As previously discussed, Montgomery appears to have honored that projection. Assuming an ideal sustained weekly production rate of 2,000, Montgomery Arsenal could have potentially manufactured approximately 160,000 cedar canteens between 1 June 1863 and 31 January 1865 - a somewhat astounding figure. Assuming arguendo that manpower issues, material shortages and/or mechanical failures impacted operations and that only half the intended production rate was achieved during this twenty-month period, 80,000 cedar canteens would nevertheless constitute a significant contribution to the war effort. These estimates do not include the large quantities produced between December 1861 – May 1863 (at a bare minimum 80,000+, taking into account known contract deliveries of at least 50,050 between 26 December 1861 through 29 December 1862, and Wagner’s pledge of 30,000 to Downer on 30 March 1863 [6,000 to be shipped more or less immediately, with 2,500 per week thereafter].) (120)

It is interesting to note the absence of any mention of cedar canteens in that portion of Waddy’s 21 January 1865 report pertaining to Selma Arsenal. While conjectural, Selma’s canteen manufactory may have been relocated to Montgomery by this point in time; alternatively, canteen production may have been deemed unworthy of mention amidst the increasingly critical products being fabricated at Selma at this late date, including but not limited to the heavy projectiles, small arms cartridges, gun carriages, and gun powder noted by Beauregard’s Chief of Ordnance.(121)

Within three and a half months of Lt. Col. Waddy’s report, all the ordnance installations inspected by that officer had been captured. Selma Arsenal was burned on 2 April 1865, following the fall of that city to the forces commanded by Maj. Gen. James H. Wilson. Federal troops thereafter entered Montgomery on 12 April and promptly destroyed the entirety of Wagner’s Arsenal, but not before a few mementos were obtained.(122) “David McAnney has in his possession an old wooden canteen used in the Rebel Army,” reported the 4 December 1892 edition of the Atlantic City Sunday Press. “He secured it when his regiment was burning a captured arsenal at Montgomery, Ala., during the late war.”(123)

Alabama’s cedar canteens were sent both East and West by the carload, but the absence of documentation has left voids in the historical record that cannot readily be filled. “Souvenir” wooden canteens were captured by the hundreds, if not thousands, following the surrender of the Vicksburg and Port Hudson garrisons in July 1863 and the subsequent fall of Spanish Fort, Fort Blakely and the defenses at Mobile in April 1865. Despite this, no records have been unearthed which would illuminate how or where Pemberton’s, Gardner’s, or Liddell’s forces were supplied with such large quantities of the article. In the absence of contrary evidence, it is most probable that the ultimate source was, again, Montgomery and/or Selma.(124)

Iron-bound, stopperless, dry;
Empty, except for the air;
Found when the troops had gone by –
Now with the curios rare.
Borne through the thick of the fray,
Close to a brave heart, I ween!
Where is the soldier today?
This was a soldier’s canteen.(125)

Part II of this study will include an investigation into the belated, limited role of Frederick J. Gardner in staved canteen design and the doubtful historicity of the commonly used appellation “Gardner pattern;” additional manufacturers of the wooden canteen will likewise be addressed, as well as post-war recollections relevant to the subject and various technical aspects pertaining to their manufacture.

Acknowledgements. The author thanks Joe L. Walker, J. R. “Butch” Myers, and Robert A. Serio for their perpetually keen insight, depth of knowledge, and friendly counsel.

Notes.

1.   Notable exceptions include John Graham, “Confederate Wood Drum Canteens,” North South Trader’s Civil War, 16, No. 2 (1992); Shannon Pritchard, “Canteen Time Capsule,” North South Trader’s Civil War, 37, No. 1 (Jan-Feb 2013); and Shannon Pritchard, Collecting the Confederacy (New York: Savas Beatie 2005.) This study is purposefully limited to the staved “barrel” version of the wood canteen. Entrepreneurs such as Nathan Nuckolls of Alabama and Missourian David W. Hughes independently invented and fabricated wood canteens that were markedly different from the staved version that vastly predominated. Judging from a post-war description, Hughes’ canteen (fabricated in the Memphis Ordnance shops) was apparently quite similar to the Nuckolls pattern (see Allen County Herald (Humboldt, KS), 15 August 1905, https://newspapers.com (accessed 16 October 2020.) Nuckolls took the time to patent his design. Both Nuckolls and Hughes reportedly fabricated several thousand of their unique canteens. Despite these production numbers, they remain decided anomalies when compared against the overwhelming prevalence of the “classic” staved canteen.

2.    Sun-Journal (Lewiston, ME), 7 February 1919, https://newspapers.com (accessed 9 April 2024); Journal & Tribune (Knoxville, TN), 7 September 1895, https://newspapers.com (accessed 9 April 2024); Herald (Oskaloosa, IA), 10 February  1887, https://newspapers.com (accessed 26 March 2024); Tekemah Journal (Tekemah, NE), 15 August 1895, https://newspapers.com (accessed 8  April 2024 ); Daily Village Record (West Chester, PA), 7 September 1892, https://newspapers.com (accessed 9 April 2024.) Except as otherwise noted, all newspapers subsequently cited herein were accessed via https://newspapers.com.

3.   Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), 14 January 1900 (accessed 10 March 2023.) According to the article, entitled “A Canteen with a History,” a miniature version of the wooden canteen was to be used as a badge at the 1900 Louisville Sons of Confederate Veterans reunion. Ultimately, only a small illustration of the canteen (accompanied by a portrait of Lee and other decorative devices) was incorporated onto the celluloid badge.

4.   The descriptive terms “cedar”, “wood,” “wooden” and “staved” have been used interchangeably in this study. Despite occasionally encountered assertions to the contrary, the majority of surviving C. S. wood canteens are indeed fabricated of cedar.

5.   Stephen W. Sylvia, & Michael J., O’Donnell, Civil War Canteens (Orange, VA: Moss Publications, 1983); see generally 6- 46.

6. Field Manual for the Use of Officers on Ordnance Duty (Richmond: Ritchie & Dunnavant, 1862; reprint, Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 1984), 144 (emphasis supplied.)

7. C. L. Webster III, Entrepot: Government Imports into the Confederate States (Roseville, MN: Edinborough Press, 2010), 264.

8. Dean S. Thomas, Confederate Arsenals, Laboratories, and Ordnance Depots (Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 2014), ix.

9. Hunt W. R., Compiled Service Records (CSR) of Confederate Soldiers who Served in Organizations Raised Directly by the Confederate Government (National Archives Microfilm Publication 258, Reel 111), War Department Collection of Confederate Records, Record Group (RG) 109, National Archives Building, as quoted in Confederate Arsenals, Laboratories, and Ordnance Depots, 212.

10. Eufaula Express (Eufaula, AL), 11 July1864 (accessed 10 March 2023.)

11. Yale, Charles D., Confederate Papers Relating to Citizens or Business Firms (hereinafter referred to as the “Citizen Files”), (National Archives Microfilm Publication 346, Reel 1150); War Department Collection of Confederate Records, Record Group 109, National Archives Building (hereinafter referred to as “RG 109, NAB.”) While annotations of individual records containing searchable keywords have been posted to fold3.com, they are incomplete and have not been relied upon in the preparation of this paper. The author has wended his way through the better part of the War Department’s “Citizen Files” compilation, file by file, over the course of approximately eight years. See also Ordnance Department: Record of Stores Purchased, Received and Issued, Nashville, Tennessee and Atlanta Arsenal, Georgia, 1861-1862, Chapter IV, Vol. 19; RG 109, NAB.; and Ordnance Department – Records of Receipts and Deliveries of Ordnance Stores – December 1862 – April 1863, Chapter IV, Vol. 115; RG 109, NAB. The second account book (Chapter IV, Vol. 115) is more informal and was apparently intended as “back-up” ledger. While no location is provided and the creator is not identified, it is clearly an account book of the Atlanta Arsenal.

12. Smith, W. N., Compiled Service Records of Confederate General and Staff Officers and Nonregimental Enlisted Men, National Archives Microfilm Publication 331 (hereinafter referred to as "NARA CSR M331"), Reel 232.

13. Richmond Enquirer, 1 April 1865, as cited by Josiah Gorgas, “Notes on the Ordnance Department of the Confederate Government,” Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XII, Jan-Feb 1884, 81. It is striking to note that the cited April 1, 1865 edition of the Richmond Enquirer, obviously in Gorgas' possession when he wrote the article, cannot be located within the holdings of the Library of Congress or other repositories holding extensive war-time runs of the paper.

14. Mike O’Donnell, U.S. Army & Militia Canteens (Alexandria, VA: O’Donnell Publications, 2008) pp. 53-63.

15. Ibid; see particularly Canteen Nos. 057, 062, 063, 065, 066.

16. Southern Confederacy (Atlanta, GA), 21 September 1861 (italics original to the article) (accessed 16 October 2020.)

17. Arnold Axelrod, Armies South, Armies North (Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot, 2017), 39.

18. Fitzgerald, Archibald, Citizen Files, M346, Reel 306.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. O’Neal & Osborne, Citizen Files, M346, Reel 758.

22. Jackson H. Knight, Confederate Invention: The Story of the Confederate States Patent Office and Its Inventors (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011). Knight’s outstanding study contains a consolidated listing of all known patents granted (Appendix III.)

23. Ibid., 38, citing the May 1861 Act establishing the C.S. Patent Office. 

24. See generally Record Books of Executive, Legislative and Judicial Offices of the Confederate Government, RG 109, NAB. Richmond’s Ordnance Bureau letter copybooks for the late-war period survived, at least in part.

25. Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), 14 January 1900 (accessed 10 March 2023.)

26. Nashville Union & American, 19 May 1861 (accessed 11 April 2024.)

27. Southern Confederacy (Atlanta, GA), 21 September 1861 (accessed 16 October 2020.)

28. Johnson, W. H., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 514.

29. Ordnance Department: Record of Stores Purchased, Received and Issued, Nashville, Tennessee and Atlanta, Georgia, 1861-1862, Chapter IV, Vol. 19; RG 109, NAB. A mere five canteens are recorded as having been received per the ledger. Having said that, the files of J. W. Wilson record the delivery of approximately 10,000 tin canteens to Nashville Arsenal in August of 1861. See Wilson, J. W., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 1125.

30. Dalton Daily Citizen, 17 October 2014, https://www.dailycitizen.news (accessed 5 November 2020.)

31. Chicago Tribune, 8 April 1864 (accessed 1 March 2019.)

32. Merritt Burres and Co., Citizen Files, M436, Reel 680. In classic Citizen Files fashion, the surname “Burns” was incorrectly transcribed by U.S. War Department clerks as “Burres;” to further complicate matters, the documents were filed under “M,” rather than by the “B” surname. At least one additional canteen-related document is found in yet another file: “Burns, M. and Co.”

33. The higher price initially charged by Merritt Burns (ninety cents) reflects the inclusion of a canteen strap, priced at thirty-five cents. Burns’ subsequent August 1862 invoice breaks out the costs: fifty-five cents per canteen, thirty-five cents per strap. 

34. While still apparently residing in Selma, Burns began serving as President of the Bank of Whitfield, a Dalton institution, as early as June 1862. The Bank, which had acquired an unsavory reputation while under prior management, placed classified advertisements in several 1862 editions of the Daily Selma Reporter.

35. See Merritt Burres and Co., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 680.

36. Ibid.

37. See for example The Daily Selma Reporter, 15 August 1862 (accessed 1 March 2019); the advertisement ran at least twenty-one times.

38. Burns, M. and Co., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 124.

39.  Dalton Daily Citizen, 17 October 2014 (accessed 5 November 2020); see also Citizen Files, Burns, M. and Co., M346, Reel 124.

40. Montgomery Weekly Post, 10 July 1861 (accessed 19 January 2020.)

41. Sharp, R.W., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 922.

42. Montgomery Advertiser, 27 April 1887 (accessed 1 March 2019.)

43. Greenville Advocate, May 4, 1887 (accessed 1 March 2019.)

44. Gonzales, Jasper, Citizen Files, M346, Reel 360.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid; the contract with Richmond as well as its date and basic terms are cited in each of Gonzales’ canteen invoices.

47. Ibid.

48. Selma Times Journal, 7 March 1933 (accessed 16 October 2020.)

49. Daily Selma Reporter, 12 August 1860; 01 June 1861 (accessed 16 October 2020.)

50. John Hardy, Selma; Her Institutions & Her Men (Selma: Times Book & Job Office, 1879), 119.

51. Ibid.

52. Berg, William, Citizen Files, M346, Reel 60.

53. Montgomery Advertiser, 10 October 1948 (accessed 01 March 2019.)

54. In Brannon’s article the location of the factory is given as “Uncle Creek,” almost certainly a typographical error. The manufactory in question may have been that of Nathaniel Nuckolls, who invented and fabricated a variant wooden canteen in Russell County.

55. Ibid.

56. Thomas, Confederate Arsenals, Laboratories, and Ordnance Depots 1,088; Wagner, Charles G., NARA CSR M331, Reel 256.

57. Chicago Tribune, 8 April 1864 (accessed 1 March 2019.)

58. “…no good road connected [Montgomery] to Selma nor was there a rail connection to the west linking Selma and the capitol city. The Alabama River was the route of choice for travel between the two…There were few [cities] in the South as convenient for shipping by way of the rivers as were the key Alabama cities of Montgomery, Selma and Mobile.” William E. Lockridge, Selma, Alabama as a Center of Manufacturing, Transportation, Shipbuilding and Logistics During the War of Northern Aggression, 1861-1865 (Mint Hill, NC: 2007), 16-17.

59. Henry Putney Beers, The Confederacy: A Guide to the Archives of the Government of the Confederate States of America (Washington, D.C.: National Archives Trust Board, 1986), 232. Beers’ entry for Montgomery Arsenal (as well as numerous other Ordnance installations) is identical.

60. Ordnance Department – Orders & Circulars Received, August 1861 – September 1862, Chapter IV, Vol. 140; RG 109, NAB (emphasis supplied.)

61. Foster, W. S., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 318; as to Foster’s position as Master Carpenter at the newly-established Selma Depot, see Confederate Payrolls, Pl101 56-A, Pl101 56-B, Payrolls 13323 (July 1862) & 13319 (August 1862), RG 109, NAB. Paid an impressive $5.00 per day, Turner supervised the work of eleven carpenters and five turners as of August 1862.

62. Confederate Arsenals, Laboratories, and Ordnance Depots, p. 1,084.

63. Ibid.

64. Daily Selma Reporter, 24 July 1862 (accessed 5 August 2019.)

65. The Ordnance Manual for the Use of the Officers of the Confederate States Army (Richmond: Ordnance Office, 1862), 389-390.

66.  McRae, C. J. & Co., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 621.

67.  Ibid.

68.  Foster was still engaged in purchasing machinery for Selma Arsenal in July 1863. He remained associated with the Arsenal as late as the spring of 1864.

69. Wagner, C. G., NARA CSR M331, Reel 256. Additional records potentially connected to Wagner's commencement of cedar canteen manufacturing operations have been identified. In June 1862 Montgomery Depot rented the machine shop and premises of the Montgomery Lumber Company; the lease continued at least through September 1st of that year (see Jones, Samuel G., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 526.) In July 1862 Wagner bought large quantities of rubber and leather belting, iron and copper rivets, and 240 pounds of hoop iron from L. F. Bronnum, all of which had ready application in the fabrication of wooden canteens. (See Bronnum, L. F., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 100.)

70. Ibid. In addition to the tin canteens found in Wagner's records, see also Riley, W. P., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 866 for a substantial tin canteen delivery to Montgomery in September 1861.

71. By way of example, Richmond Arsenal’s tin shop was able to fabricate only 7,693 tin canteens and 16,498 cartridge box tins over a period of roughly five months; Atlanta Arsenal’s tin shop made 2,579 tin canteens over roughly three months (December 31, 1862 – March 24, 1863.) See Smith, W. N., NARA CSR M331, Reel 232; see also Ordnance Department – Records of Receipts and Deliveries of Ordnance Stores – December 1862 – April 1863, Chapter IV, Vol. 115; RG 109, NAB.

72. Sharp, R.W., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 922. The December 1862 date is an estimate. The year “1862” is written at the top the top of the invoice; Sharp was paid in January 1863. The designation “papers” is based upon the abbreviation “Pa.” appearing before both rivet entries. Needles, pins, tacks and small rivets were frequently sold on “papers,” typically a piece of cardstock or heavy paper upon which a quantity of the given item was affixed. For yet one of many other examples, see the “papers” of tacks carried in the inventory of the Atlanta Arsenal (Ordnance Department – Records of Receipts and Deliveries of Ordnance Stores – December 1862 – April 1863, Chapter IV, Vol. 115; RG 109, NAB.)

73. Sharp, R.W., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 922.

74. Wagner, C.G., NARA CSR M331, Reel 256. It is interesting to note that Wagner acted as both Commander and Military Storekeeper at Montgomery throughout the war, a somewhat unusual situation. No other commissioned officers are known to have been assigned to the installation. Wagner requested assistance in the fall of 1862, but whether aid was forthcoming is uncertain. Civilian clerks were employed, as was the case at other Ordnance Bureau installations; by way of example, William C. Rugely briefly served as a Clerk at the Montgomery Depot in May 1862 and thereafter made numerous trips as a Special Messenger for Wagner to Corinth, Atlanta and elsewhere. See Rugely, William C., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 891.

75. O. Edward Cunningham, Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862 (New York: Savas Beatie LLC, 2007), 101, citing Braxton Bragg, “Albert Sydney Johnston,” Mrs. Mason Barret Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University.

76. Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, p. 376.

77. Ordnance Department – Record of Ordnance and Ordnance Stores Issued, Ordnance Depot, Corinth, Mississippi, February – May 1862, Chapter IV, Vol. 123; RG 109, NAB.

78. Ibid.

79. Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862, p. 99; see also Chapter IV, Vol. 123; RG 109 for the bewildering variety of small arms received, issued, and repaired by the Corinth Depot. 

80. Ordnance Department – Record of Ordnance and Ordnance Stores Issued, Ordnance Depot, Corinth, Mississippi, February – May 1862, Chapter IV, Vol. 123, RG 109, NAB.

81. Ibid. It is a common misconception that, despite an initial paucity of “modern” percussion small arms, the Ordnance Bureau had successfully addressed the issue no later than the summer of 1862. Contravening such a conclusion is the experience of six companies of the 1st Alabama Infantry, who thwarted repeated Federal assaults at Port Hudson on May 27, 1863, armed with smoothbore flintlock muskets. See Lawrence Lee Hewitt, Port Hudson: Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), 144, 167.

82. Ordnance Department – Record of Ordnance and Ordnance Stores Issued, Ordnance Depot, Corinth, Mississippi, February – May 1862, Chapter IV, Vol. 123, RG 109, NAB.

83. Hardee, W. J., NARA CSR M331, Reel 117.

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid. See also Bostick & Seymour, Citizen Files, M346, Reel 82. Headquarted on New Orleans’ Market Street, the company furnished more than 49,000 tin canteens to various State entities and the Ordnance Bureau in the span of a year (April 1861 – April 1862.) Hardee’s order on the company was placed on about April 18, 1862 and the canteens were shipped via Jackson, MS shortly before the fall of New Orleans.

86. Ordnance Dept. – Letters & Telegrams Sent by W. H. McMain, Military Storekeeper of Ordnance, April 1862 – June 1864, Chapter IV, Vol. 25; RG 109, NAB.

87. Ibid.

88. Ordnance Department – Record of Ordnance and Ordnance Stores Issued, Ordnance Depot, Corinth, Mississippi, February – May 1862, Chapter IV, Vol. 123; RG 109, NAB.

89. Ibid.

90. Ordnance Dept. – Letters & Telegrams Sent by W. H. McMain, Military Storekeeper of Ordnance, April 1862 – June 1864, Chapter IV, Vol. 25; RG 109, NAB.

91. Wagner, C. G., NARA CSR M331, Reel 256. Judging from surviving documentation, the Army of Northern Virginia was likewise threatened by an existing or imminent shortage of canteens in the spring of 1863. On 04 March 1863, Richmond Armory was directed to more than double the number of canteens it received per month from outside sources (whether from other Ordnance facilities or contractors) from 2,000 to 5,000. See Downer, William S., NARA CSR M331, Reel 78. As discussed at a later point in this study, some three weeks later (25 March 1863) Richmond sought the assistance of both Montgomery and Selma Arsenals in satisfying Gorgas’ directive. See Note 104, infra.

92. Daily Arkansas Gazette, 17 April 1898 (accessed 1 March 2019.)

93. Ibid.

94. Ibid.

95. Ordnance Department – Abstract of Ordnance & Ordnance Stores Received at Enterprise, Mississippi, and Selma, Alabama 1863, Chapter IV, Vol. 149; RG 109, NAB.

96. Ibid.

97.  Confederate Arsenals, Laboratories, and Ordnance Depots, p. 206. During roughly the same time period Nashville Arsenal was relocated to Atlanta.

98. Ibid., pp. 230-231.

99. Ordnance Department – Abstract of Ordnance & Ordnance Stores Received at Enterprise, Mississippi, and Selma, Alabama 1863, Chapter IV, Vol. 149; RG 109, NAB. To provide at least some context, Briarfield Arsenal likewise held 12,537 haversacks, 13,842 knapsacks, 1,594 percussion muskets, 298 shotguns and a virtual mountain of other items of issue.

100. Ordnance Department: Record of Stores Purchased, Received and Issued, Nashville, Tennessee and Atlanta Arsenal, Georgia, 1861-1862, Chapter IV, Vol. 19; RG 109, NAB.

101. Ibid. Amongst the more unusual of the 1,000+ articles in Atlanta Arsenal’s warehouses were a number of pikes with accompanying scabbards, two gross of brass carriage knobs (presumably for cap pouches), various “iron bullets,” and several “Templar swords.” The pikes and Templar swords were originally sent to Atlanta by Charleston Arsenal. Subsequent records indicate the pikes were eventually shipped to Jackson, Mississippi.

102. Ibid.

103. Ibid.

104. Letter Copybook, Richmond Arsenal, Chapter V, Vol. 90; RG 109, NAB.

105. Wagner, C. G., NARA CSR M331, Reel 256.

106. Moses, S. F., Citizen Files, M346, Reel 719. 

107. Ordnance Department --- Moving Reports of Ordnance Stores Arrived at and Passed Through Atlanta, Georgia, March 1863 – June 1864, Chapter IV, Vol. 87; RG 109, NAB.

108. Robert C. Black, The Railroads of the Confederacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952); while Black’s work was seminal, Mr. David Bright’s encyclopedic “Confederate Railroads” (csa-railroads.com) is an astounding resource.

109. Ibid.

110. Fisher, H., NARA CSR M331, Reel 93; see also Entrepot: Government Imports into the Confederate States, pp. 258-260.

111. Fisher, H., NARA CSR M331, Reel 93.

112. Civil War Canteens (Orange, VA: Moss Publications, 1983); see generally pp. 6- 46.

113. Records of Confederate Ordnance Establishments at Augusta, Georgia, Pl101 331 et seq.; RG 109, NAB. Many readers will be familiar with the story of Hood’s destruction of twenty-eight carloads of ammunition upon the evacuation of Atlanta and the resultant massive explosion. Despite the loss, Atlanta Arsenal managed to ship out some portion of its ordnance stores successfully, freighting box cars of material to the care of Major Isadore P. Girardey, Military Storekeeper at Augusta Arsenal. Atlanta’s shipment consisted of tens of thousands of articles, filling page upon page of Girardey’s ledger book. The disorganized nature of the itemized articles suggests the stores were thrown pell-mell into the cars at Atlanta and inventoried at Augusta as they were unloaded. Amongst the cedar canteens were at least 21,401 cartridge boxes, 17,707 bayonet scabbards, 2,004 belt plates, 1,387 sabers, 12,551 cartridge box tins, 275 sponges and rammers, monkey wrenches, powder horns, paint brushes, paint cans, sword knots, tarred twine, saddle staples and hundreds of other different kinds of enumerated articles.  

114. Monthly Magazine or British Register, Vol. XXXIV, “Part II for 1812,” p. 139, https://googlebooks.com (accessed 4 April 2024.) 

115. See Circular No. 40, Records of the Confederate Ordnance Department, Pl101 39; RG 109, NAB.

116. Smith, Robert D., NARA CSR M331, Reel 274. While shipped to the Army of Tennessee from Atlanta Arsenal, the defective tin canteens apparently originated from the Columbus Arsenal.

117. See 21 January 1865 report, George William Brent Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University (https://repository.duke.edu/dc/brentgeorgewilliampapers-000847111/secst0306.) Waddy’s report provides a brief but nevertheless remarkable 11th hour view into late-war Ordnance Bureau operations at the arsenal level. While the Ordnance Bureau had periodically undertaken such inspections and issued similar (albeit more detailed) surveys for the use of Richmond, no such reports for 1865 are known to have survived. The report is all the more unique given the rapidly deteriorating condition of what remained of the Confederate-held lower South. Savannah had fallen to Sherman on December 20th, and Charleston would be evacuated on 17 February 1865, less than a month after Waddy’s return there from his January inspection tour of the arsenals.

118. Ibid.

119. Wagner, C. G., NARA CSR M331, Reel 256.

120. It is striking that Wagner's estimate of weekly production capabilities remained at 2,000 as late as January 1865, only slightly diminished from the 2,500 per week projected in March of 1863. The only reasonable conclusion that may be drawn is that, in the midst of chronic (and almost universal) manpower and material shortages, Montgomery Arsenal managed to retain the requisite labor and materials necessary to maintain a surprisingly high rate of canteen production.

121. George William Brent Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

122. William Warren Rogers, Confederate Home Front: Montgomery During the Civil War (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1999), p. 149.

123. Atlantic City Sunday Press / The Sunday Gazette, 4 December 1892 (accessed 10 May 2020.) Surviving wood canteens in relatively pristine condition, evidently unissued, surface from time to time. One such example was brought home by a member of 9th Minnesota Infantry, which occupied both Montgomery and Selma in late April 1865.

124. Additional evidence of the continuing presence of wood canteens in the late-war period is found in the 2012 Washington, Georgia discovery of a number of such canteens in their original shipping crate. Author Shannon Pritchard makes a compelling case that the canteens were shipped to Washington no earlier than February 1865. See Shannon Pritchard, “Canteen Time Capsule,” North South Trader’s Civil War, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Jan-Feb 2013).

125. Leavenworth Times, 31 December 1908 (accessed 16 October 2020.) The poem was written by A. Hildreth after viewing “an old wooden canteen which had been found during the Civil War just after Confederate troops passed by…”

Concluding note: An earlier version of this article, now superseded, was previously published in Military Collector & Historian, Vol 76, No. 3 (Fall 2024.)