This was sent to me a few years ago by Tom Ezell and I thought I would pass it along.

Virgil

"In terms of the number manufactured, M1822s outnumber the M1842s by approximately 4 to 1. (Approximately 900,000 M1822s to some 250,000 '42s)

In the Federal arsenals in January, 1861, the Ordnance Dept. had 22,821 M1855 rifle-muskets, 12,508 .58 caliber M1855 and M1841 short rifles, 42,011 .54 cal. M1841 short rifles, and 499,554 .69 caliber muskets. (The M1861 Springfield was first approved to gear up to start manufacture on Feb. 20, 1861, and didn’t begin to reach the field in appreciable numbers until the first few months of 1862)

In the Confederate States, here’s what they had available at the beginning of the war in the summer of 1861:

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.

Arkansas: 9,600 weapons of all sorts, only 1,300 of which were percussion ignition (900 M1855 rifle-muskets, 250 M1842s and 150 M1841s). 5,600 of the remainder were flintlock M1822s, and about 2,700 flintlock .54 cal Hall’s rifles. In August, 1863, some 30% of ammunition production at the Little Rock Arsenal was still for .69 caliber flintlocks, indicating these weapons were still in the field in appreciable quantities.

Georgia owned 1,225 M1855 rifle-muskets, and 25,780 M1822s, mostly flintlocks, as of April 1861.

Tennessee: 8,761 .69 caliber muskets, all but 280 of which were flintlocks. 700 M1855 rifle- muskets. Tennessee regiments were still packing .69 smoothbores in the trenches in front of Atlanta in 1864.

Louisiana: 35,194 .69 cal percussion muskets, 8283 flintlock M1822s.

Mississippi started the war with 5,500 flintlock M1822s. Period. According to Peter Cozzen’s campaign history of Murfreesboro, half the 44th Mississippi charged at Stones River with nothing more than sticks and clubs. The other half carried muskets so decrepit that the soldiers carried the hammers in their pockets when not actually in combat, to keep from losing them.

South Carolina had 6,000 of its own “Palmetto” muskets, contracted copies of the M1842, and continued manufacture of these through the war. In addition to the Palmetto guns, there were approximately 11,000 other .69 caliber smoothbores in arsenals around the state.

Virginia owned 57,069 3-banded muskets in 1861, of which 53,988 were flintlocks. After an exhaustive search, an additional 35,000 muskets -all flintlocks- were scrounged from around the state. In October 1861, 44,172 flintlocks were still in the hands of troops in the field.

Texas and Florida had no state arsenals, and were in even worse straits than their sister states in equipping the troops.

Hope this helps…

Tom