Tom,

I may have not made myself clear. I was not saying that the predominance of the M1822's were not flintlocks, as I don't know the answer to that. What I intended to say was that there were more percussion arms in use by the Confederacy early in the war than there were flintlock, of any variety.

First, you state that "Alabama`s militia stocks consisted completely of M1822 flintlocks, and was augmented by another 19,000 .69 smoothbores, some percussion-converted, when they seized the Mt. Vernon federal arsenal early in 1861."

First, what is your source for Alabama's militia stock? If your information is correct, then that number is approximately 18,000 M1822's, as that is number of arms Alabama supplied early in the war, other than those seized from the Mt. Vernon arsenal.

Second, I don't think that you intended to imply this, but again, there were *no* flintlocks in the Mt. Vernon arsenal. According to Col. Gorgas' report, there were over 17,370 unidentified percussion muskets, new and altered, but note that all were percussion. You'll also note that the Harper's Ferry rifles could have been of several models, including the .58 caliber model. From what source does your number of 19,000 come?

Using your numbers given for known flintlocks in State hands, including the number of 18,000 for Alabama, I find that the total is 129,269. This does not include an unknown number of smoothbore .69 cal. weapons totalling 79,768 about which it has not been determined how many were flintlock and how may were percussion.

Of the 129,269 which are known to be flintlock, 88,988 of them were in Virginia. That is 70%. Only 40,281 were in the remaining States of the Confederacy. Many Federal arsenals were captured, and I have not researched what was in each one, but just at Mt. Vernon almost half that number of percussion weapons was captured (nearly 20,000). In addition to the percussion arms that were in State arsenals, there were all those percussion "country rifles" that the soldiers carried into the war. And, there were arms bought by the Confederacy from private suppliers located throughout the U.S. I *assume* that these were also primarily percussion arms.

While it may be fair to say that in the Virginia theatre, flintlocks predominated on the Confederate side, I don't think that can be said for the rest of the Confederacy.