Dress of some of the officers.

[Robert Braun]

George Wallace Jones, master of the diggings at Sinsinawa Mound and good friend of Col. Henry Dodge wrote:

"Capt [Lieutenant] H. L. Dodge and Adjutant Woodbridge reached my house in the night, after a hard day's ride from Dodgeville. The next morning [June 29] at daylight I gladly went off with them, accoutred as before, to accept the highest and most responsible office that I had ever expected to fill, and under him whom I had loved from my childhood.

"The next morning we started for Dodgeville on horseback. We were armed with swords, pistols and double-barrelled shot guns. I felt highly complimented and readily assented, mounted my horse, armed with my double-barrelled shotgun, my holsters and pistols and swords, and rode with them to Fort Union, General Dodge's place of residence.

"On reaching Gen. Dodge's house, he received us cordially, saying he had received an order from Gen. Henry Atkinson of the United States Army, to take command of Gen. Posey's Brigade of 1600 Illinois Volunteers."

"Col. Dodge was waiting for me to accompany him to take command of some 1,500 volunteers from Southern Illinois. He was in his buckskin, sassafras tanned, hunting shirt, and Kentucky jeans pants, just like my own."


Parish, John Carl. George Wallace Jones. Iowa Biographical Series. Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1912, pp. 118-119.

[Greg Carter]

There is one account in Whitney by an Illinois volunteer describing the officers as wearing "great coats" but not much beyond that in description.

GMC

[pshrake]

I know this is a bit off the subject, but Jones talks of shotguns. What would double barrel shot guns have looked like in 1832? Were they percussion pieces, or were they some form of flint lock design. I am well versed in shotgun makes and styles from about 1900 on but am very unfamiliar with the early history of that weapon. When were shotguns developed? if they were strictly a percussion weapon would they have been a realtively new technology for 1832?

Pete

[Greg Carter]

Pete,

As I understand it the evolution of the shotgun goes back to the early 1700's. I have seen engravings of hunters in colonial America hunting ducks with them as well. The smoothbored long gun for hunting or "fowling piece", also called a "fusil" or "fusee" was used in the American Revolution and after as well. They are recognized as a weapon by the 1821 Illinois militia laws as well.

W. B. Travis is often referred to as possessing a double-barrelled shotgun at the time of the siege of the Alamo, February-March 1836.

Don't you have a long-barreled percussion shotgun in your museum? It seems like I remember seeing one up there. I believe the LaSalle County museum has one also, percussion, with quite a long barrel.

In the Civil War era, Confederates cut down shotguns or "sawed-off" the barrel, to make them reliable for cavalry use. I have seen several specimins of this type, including one in EOG-CS.

GMC