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remington zouave rifle in the civil war

5K views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  Windycity 
#1 ·
Was the remington zouave used in the Civil war I heard some people say it wasn't and I was wanting to know the right answer. Thanks
 
#3 ·
From a post by Hafoc on the Firingline forum... this helps explain the Zouave history. I found it helpful.

"I'm going by memory from something I read a long time ago, so forgive me if I'm not completely accurate.

You're talking about the 1863 Remington Contract Rifle. Remington made about 12,000 of them. They were excellent rifles but for some reason they were never issued during the Civil War, or at least there isn't evidence they were. When US Civil War re-enactment started to get popular, many of the shooters used original Civil War weapons, and here the 1863 Remington rifle found its greatest popularity. Because they hadn't been issued, there were many of them still available in prime shooting condition.

Nobody seems to know why they're called the Zouave Rifle. There were units in the Civil War who called themselves Zouaves, mostly in the Union armies but also some among the Confederates. The real Zouaves were French troops recruited in North Africa.

The American Zouave units wore uniforms that approximated the French Zouave's. They had tight, fancy jackets that looked like something a circus rider might wear, matched with baggy red pants. This sort of thing didn't prove practical on the battlefield, and by the end of the war the remaining Zouave units wore the same uniforms as anyone else.

My best guess is that the 1863 Remington got named the Zouave Rifle because its blued metal and brass fittings made it flashier than the standard rifled muskets, the same way the Zouave uniform was flashier than the standard one. But again, there's no evidence the Zouave Rifle was issued to Zouave units either.

This was a rifle. Most of the Civil War shoulder arms were rifled muskets. The rifled musket had thinner barrel walls. The Zouave Rifle was built more heavily than a rifled musket, but it could handle stronger powder charges.

It was based on a model of rifle built at the Harper's Ferry arsenal, some time in the 1850s, I think.

It seems strange to me that the government would have purchased thousands of these things and sent them right to storage, while the war was still on. Would end up not issuing any of them. But the Zouave wasn't the only good weapon to suffer that fate during the Civil War"
 
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