My e-mail address is jayfinis@cablelynx.com. Thanks, AS I said this is interesting because of the makers name and the fact it was made in Pine Bluff.

As you suggest this weapon may well have been a personal weapon. There were a lot of that in May to august of 1862 because of the lack of arms west of the Mississippi because of General Van Dorn policy when he left to go to Mississippi in April 1862 and took everything not nailed down and somethings that were with him. Hindman had a particular problem with obtaining new arms with which to equip a new fighting force in Arkansas. One brigade of new recruits and veterans at White Sulphur Springs in August '62 could only report that their total arms for that brigade were 20 shotguns and 2,000 rounds of ammunition for them, for close to 1,000 men.

As we know many of the adhoc partisan companies that sprang up in Arkansas in early 1862 did equipe themselves with the hunting rifles and shotguns. Particularly those companies along the White River. That is why I mentioned the 26th Ark. being sent to Fort Hndman at DeVal's Bluff during the critical period in the summer of 1862. One of the misconseption of the arming these early Arkansas regiments is that all of the companies in a certain regiment were armed at the same time and with the same weapons type. This thought is incorrect. This is the reason why the request for Pikes. To arm those companies, which did not have weapons, with at least defensive weapons.

It was also quite common to arm the two companies on the flanks (Usually Companies A & B) with rifles while all other companies in the given regiments would be armed with the more common smoothbore muskets. The purpose of this was to keep the enemy at a distance and from swing arond the flanks of a regiment to attack the regiment. The pikes would have served much the same function as the smooth bore muskets or shotguns. Of course this caused logistical problems to provide different types of ammuntion within a single regiment.

AS for the process of converting these civilian weapons to military us, it generally was quite simple. There was actually very little modification to the weapons if any at all. Usually this process involved converting a flintlock weapon to the more reliable precussion cap system preferably the larger military musket caps rather than the smaller pistol or rifle percussion caps. The musket cap was preferred for larger bore weapons because it was a "Hotter" ignitions system and therefore more reliable for such weapons as a 12 Gauge shotgun.

While Flintlocks were used early in the War and were in the Arsenals and in general use among the civilian population and the Militias, they were considered as obsolete and generally discarded or converted at the first oppurtunity because of their unreliablity in foul weather and difficulity with the flints.

I know this is long winded, You are probably aware of this. But I hope that it might given someone else a better idea of what was taking place in Arkansas and throughout the southern states to build an army from the ground up.