Black Powder in War

I am not too sure about the "sterile bullet" theory, but the target's clothes and skin certainly aren't. See references to Napoleonic wars officers putting on a clean silk shirt before battle. It gave them the best chance against wound fever.
Until antibiotics were well distributed after WWII, any penetrating wound would be life threatening. That is why the "mouseguns" were viable crime deterrents. Their "stopping power" was psychological, you did not want to be shot with anything. You might crush the idiot who popped you with a peashooter and then expire of peritonitis a few days later.
 
I have an old book that is a history of the Civil War printed in the late 1800s and it summarizes the casualties of each battle campaign. Let's say in one campaign 15,000 men were killed. There were 5000 dead from battle wounds, 5000 men listed as died from pneumonia and there'd be 5000 listed as died from diarrhea. It was pretty consistent that the causes of death were evenly distributed between battle, pneumonia, and diarrhea showing 2:1 disease being the most likely killer.
 
If anything, the fire and brimstone of a black powder explosion is likely to sterilize a bullet.
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I seriously doubt this sterilization theory.

I routinely shoot bullets into my bullet bucket - a 5 gallon bucket full of chipped rubber mulch with a few sheets of sheet metal in the bottom of the bucket. This lets me recover and re-use the lead.

Recovered bullets are filthy and still have traces of lube on them, and they often end up with bits of the mulch pinched into the lead and melded into the bullet.

Period Lube was a 3:1 or 8:1 beeswax: tallow mixture, and these bullets had been packed in paper bundles and then crates for who knows how long in all kinds of weather.

Even if the bullet was sterile from a living organism point of view when it left the barrel, it was filthy with powder residue and lube, and when it hit you it took all that along with bits of dirty clothing and skin into the wound.

Steve
 
There are photos in the medical library at the University of Florida of Civil War surgeons going about their grisly business with a lit cigar chomped between their teeth. Louis Pasteur was at first considered a bit eccentric with his ideas of microscopic things causing disease and infection. Even washing ones hands before surgery was considered at best silly, and at worst a waste of valuable time.
 
In amputation cases the pneumonia was often caused by pyemia, a particularly nasty staph infection that would quickly spread throughout the body, causing abscesses, particularly in the lungs.

Civil War sutures were often, due to field expediency, horse hair taken right from the mane or tail of a horse and not washed or sterilized.
 
The act of firing a bullet in no way sterilises it, and this has been proved by firing anthrax-contaminated bullets into animals (see Louis LaGarde, Gunshot Injuries [1916])
 
It's well known that soldiers in the Civil War would urinate or pour water from their canteens down the barrel of their musket. They would also use rocks or a nearby tree of fencepost to help force the round down the barrel. There were also plenty of soldiers who just dropped their rifle and picked up another. If a regiment was firing enough to completely foul their guns then there would almost always be plenty of rifles from dead and wounded.
 
It's well known that soldiers in the Civil War would urinate or pour water from their canteens down the barrel of their musket.
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Doubtful. Any kind of moisture in the barrel would wet the powder of the next load effectively leaving them armed with clubs. By all means, pee in your muzzle loader, load it up and try to fire it. Also, how many fellas do you think pulled out their "family parts" to pi$$ in/on their guns in the middle of a battle? Some might have poured canteen water on the outside of the barrel to cool them down during extended fights, but pouring water/urine into the barrel would be pretty stupid.
 
Most of the discussion here has concerned the American Civil War. But the truth is that the CW was, in many senses, an anomaly when it comes to muzzleloaders in battle. It was one of those historic intersections of old tactics and new weapons.
It was the first major conflict in which the gun truly became the dominant weapon in the hands of the infantry.

Prior to the general issue of rifled-muskets and the minie ball, armies still adhered to age old tactics and fighting formations that would have been familiar to soldiers in the late 1600s.
So for most of the history of black powder, armies simply did not exchange long and repeated volleys of gunfire.
 
Doubtful. Any kind of moisture in the barrel would wet the powder of the next load effectively leaving them armed with clubs. By all means, pee in your muzzle loader, load it up and try to fire it. Also, how many fellas do you think pulled out their "family parts" to pi$$ in/on their guns in the middle of a battle? Some might have poured canteen water on the outside of the barrel to cool them down during extended fights, but pouring water/urine into the barrel would be pretty stupid.
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Not only that but methinks it would be difficult to pee down a barrel while lying down under fire.
 
I have seen references to "washing their guns" during a lull in the action.
I don't think anybody meant to wet clean his musket with whatever aqueous fluid while under fire.
 
Not only that but methinks it would be difficult to pee down a barrel while lying down under fire.
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From what I understand, in the early parts of the war, lying down was considerered cowardly .... even after Antietam, the guys calling the shots still believed that "fighting spirit" was what won battles ...... it was how they were educated: every military organization is steeped in tradition, and those with the power to make changes are not those who are asked to "stand and deliver" - using tactics totally inappropriate to the weaponry of the time. These guys had seen their favorite tactics work fine for them against Mexico (Never mind that the Mexicans in 1848 were armed with smoothbore muskets not much different than those the Red coats toted in 1812 ....) ..... they had stood firm under fire, why couldn't their troops do so now?
 
"From what I understand, in the early parts of the war, lying down was considerered cowardly"

Sounds reminiscent of the attitude of the British general orders issued to, IIRC, the First Battle of the Somme.

Order came out that any man doing anything other than standing tall and walking straight ahead towards the German trenches would be court martialed.
 
Order came out that any man doing anything other than standing tall and walking straight ahead towards the German trenches would be court martialed.
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Organizational inertia at it's ghoulish worst.
 
That changed pretty quick for the most part.
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The aformentioned Institutional Inertia, Short enlistments, the Butchers Bill, diseases, all worked against changes ..... "Experienced Combat Veteran with enough pull to change things" was a rare bird.
 
And let's not forget the "Williams Cleaning Bullet" - the stubby mini with the zinc disc designed to scrape fouling out when fired. Each "Arsenal Pack" of 10 cartridges included three cartridges with the Williams bullet as well as 13 percussion caps rolled in paper. The Williams cartridges were a different colored paper. Many of the soldiers believed these "cleaning bullets" made the rifled musket kick harder so they were "accidentally dropped" or discarded.
 
And let's not forget the "Williams Cleaning Bullet" - the stubby mini with the zinc disc designed to scrape fouling out when fired. Each "Arsenal Pack" of 10 cartridges included three cartridges with the Williams bullet as well as 13 percussion caps rolled in paper. The Williams cartridges were a different colored paper. Many of the soldiers believed these "cleaning bullets" made the rifled musket kick harder so they were "accidentally dropped" or discarded.
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In the beginning they were one in ten, then three in ten and towards the end they were six in ten with eleven caps. There was no standardization for color of the cartridge paper for cleaner bullets. Colors ranged from red to blue to green to off white to tan like the standard cartridges. Indeed many if not most were tan and pretty much indistinguishable from standard cartridges.
 
Found this statement by Confederate soldier Jim Hall in 31st VA Infantry by John M. Ashcraft, Jr., page 86:

"I fired over fifty rounds during the engagement and my shoulder is very sore from the rebounding of the gun."
 
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