"Featuring guns photographed by Dennis Adler from the Mike Clark/Collector's Firearms Collection; the Dr. Joseph A. Murphy Collection; and the Dennis LeVett Collection, with additional photography provided by the Rock Island Auction Company Archives."

Challenges the longstanding view that the rifle musket revolutionized warfare during the Civil War, arguing instead that its actual impact was real but limited and specialized.

"It is absolutely unique--without question the most fascinating Civil War novel I have ever read." Professor James M. McPherson Pultizer Prize-winning BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM January 1864--General Robert E. Lee faces defeat. The Army of Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equpped. Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower. Then, Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle: Its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking--and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantitites to the Confederates. The name of the weapon is the AK-47.... Selected by the Science Fiction Book Club A Main Selection of the Military Book Club

A detailed, photographically illustrated examination of the production and use of firearms in the North and the South during the years of the Civil War

This monograph examines the specific markings found on British Pattern 1853 rifle-muskets and short rifle derivatives purchased by the Confederacy. Viewer (inspector) cartouches, supplier logos, property marks, and inventory control numbers used by the War Department and the states of Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, and South Carolina are all covered. Specifics include: - Over 60 color photos of Confederate Enfields and related markings. - 32 color scans of significant purchase and shipping documents ? most published here for the first time. - Detailed information on the meaning and location of all known Confederate marks: JS-Anchor, Anchor-S, Circle-CH1, Oval-IC, Crown-SHC, Star-TC, furnishers? letters, inventory numbers, and GA, NC, & SC property marks. - New information on the state purchasing agents of GA, NC, LA, & SC. - Rare identified Enfield of a Confederate soldier killed in action at Gettysburg.

Throughout his life, Atlanta resident George W. Wray Jr. (1936–2004) built a collection of more than six hundred of the rarest Confederate artifacts including not just firearms and edged weapons but also flags, uniforms, and accoutrements. Today, Wray’s collection forms an integral part of the Atlanta History Center’s holdings of some eleven thousand Civil War artifacts. Confederate Odyssey tells the story of the Civil War through the Wray Collection. Analyzing the collection as material evidence, Gordon L. Jones demonstrates how a slave-based economy on the cusp of industrialization attempted to fight an industrial war. The broad range of the collection includes many rare or one-of-a-kind objects, such as a patent model and early inventions by gun maker George W. Morse, the bloodstained coat of a seventeen-year-old South Carolina soldier, battle flags made of cloth imported from England, and arms made in Georgia, the heart of the Confederacy’s burgeoning military-industrial complex. As Civil War history, Confederate Odyssey benefits from the study of material remains as it bridges the domains of professional scholars and amateur collectors such as Wray. The book tells of the stories, significance, and context of these artifacts to general readers and Civil War buffs alike. The Wray Collection is more than a gathering of relics; it is a tale of historical truths revealed in small details.