Wayne,

As Bell Wiley noted in his landmark book "The Life of Johnny Reb", while many Confederate enlisted men who rushed to the colors in 1861 possibly brought along a pistol, Bowie knife or other sidearm, "a few months' soldiering sufficed, as a rule, to convince the ordinary infantryman that a rifle (or musket) was the only kind of weapon he needed." Wiley concluded that as the volunteer became a veteran he generally sloughed off the pistol and Bowie knife along with all other excess baggage.

With this in mind, if any Confederate soldier was inclined at first to bring along a tomahawk or hand ax as a secondary weapon, he likely soon disposed of it along the side of the road during his first extended march.

Mike