"Army Ammo For Target Practice & The Buffalo Hunt"

[PJ Hardtack]

In the current issue of "Man At Arms" Magazine, there is an article of interest by Charles Pate.

Many of us have read time and again that the US Army handed out ammunition gratis to the buffalo hunters. It is one of those myths accepted as gospel because it is so often repeated. Pate has done his research and can find no evidence to support this perpetuated misinformation.
In fact, the Army was going through a severe period of fiscal restraint, and soldiers were restricted to ten rounds per month for each soldier, later increased to fifteen. The expenditure of any additional ammo was billed to the Officer who authorized it to be issued. Even obsolete ammo was considered too valuable to be handed out indiscriminately to civilians.

He refutes the claim by Frank Mayer that he was given "... free ammunition, all you could use, all you wanted; more than you needed. All you had to do was apply at any Army frontier post and say you were short of ammunition, and plenty would be given you. I received thousands of rounds this way."  From - "The Buffalo Harvest" by F. Mayer and Charles Roth

Considering that the 45-70 was not introduced until 1873 and not in quantity production until 1874, carbines not issued until mid-1874 and rifles not until November, Mayer's claim that "1874 was my big year on the range; after that I slid done to nothingness." sounds hollow.
Pate say - "It is in my opinion, very unlikely that 45-70 cartridges would even have been available to give Mr. Mayer had the Army been willing to do so."

It appears that - "Mayer was an embellisher, looking for attention, and after he died, Charles Roth really embellished with some clever research to make some money off a story. It was easy to be right about things, when all the witnesses who lived it were dead and not around."

[Pitspitr]

I didn't remember him saying that the Government gave him .45-70. I guess I always thought he had received .50-70.

[Ranch 13]

Mayer said that "IF " you could show that you had a 50-70 and that you were in real need of ammunition, and IF the post you were at had any 50-70 around the commanding officer MIGHT give you a few rounds.
 He went on to say that if he got any of the 50-70 , he pulled the bullets and remelted those ,and used the powder to trade off to someone else as the governments powder was prett bad stuff. But if the commanding officer was wise to that sort of goings on he would refuse the issuing of a box of cartridge.
 

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[PJ Hardtack]

I don't know which reference you're quoting, but in the article I mention and in Seller's book, there is no "If", just a straight statement. And as Pate pointed out, ALL ammo was regarded as precious, even if obsolete; far too expensive for an Officer to sign out and give away.

Mayer's memory in 1930 was obviously fading, witnessed by his erroneous reporting of the cost of his Sharps 45-120-550, a rifle that didn't hit the market until the buffalo were virtually wiped out. His name isn't even mentioned in contemporary accounts and doesn't come up until the 1920s when the old timers were dying off.

In any case, I'm merely the messenger. Read the article or not. What I do if I have an issue with something in a publication is write a letter to the author or the editor. I'm sure that if you have evidence to the contrary, Charles Pate and 'Man At Arms' magazine would like to hear from you.

[Trailrider]

Most probably the ammo was .50-70. As was stated the Army limited .45-70 ammo used for target practice. What Charlie Pate said about the limit being 10 rounds per man per month (and later 15) may have been true after 1876.  I have, somewhere in my most cluttered archives, a General Order (either from the Ordnance Dept. or from the Dept of the Platte), prior to this setting the limit at 3 rounds per man per month!  IIRC, this was prior to the 1876 Big Horn & Yellowstone Expedition, of which Gen. Crook commanded the main column, with Gen'l's Terry (Custer as strike force commander) and Col. Gibbon, the other two columns.

But note: there were on hand at Sidney Barracks, Nebraska, in 1875-'76, over 50,000 rounds of .50-70 ammo, and five (5) Sharps Carbines, cal. .50-70, charged to Co. G, 3rd Cav.  The Sharps carbines were brought to Sidney by Co. G, when they transferred from Ft. D.A. Russell (now F.E. Warren AFB), in 1874, along with their new Trapdoor Springfield carbines, cal. 45! These carbines were apparently used for target practice, and for arming the civilian employees of the Quartermaster Dept., who were in the field with the troops.  These included teamsters, packers, scouts & intrepreters, if they didn't have their own arms. In at least one instance, it is believed (with a preponderance of the evidence) that one civilian teamster, one Henry Pell, purchased one of the Sharps carbines, and carved his name in the stock.  (Had he "lost" or stolen the carbine, it is highly unlikely that he would have carved up government property or autographed a stolen weapon.  Unfortunately, records of the purchase have not been found, in spite of over forty years of research.)

There is also some information that enlisted personnel could purchase "surplus" ammunition at something like 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 cents per round for hunting and foraging.  Again, this is likely to have been .50-70 ammo, not .45-70.  Many of the buffalo "runners" used .50-1-1/2" Sharps Straight rifles, either Sharps or Remington Rolling Blocks. This was Sharps designation for the .50-70.

[Ranch 13]

You can read the excerpts from Mayers book on PBS's website, under the American West Series.

[PJ Hardtack]

From the article:

"Regarding the use of obsolete arms and ammunition ... it took more than a year of letters up and down the chain of command and a specific decision by the Secretary of War to allow the 'reasonable' expenditure of obsolete ammunition by civilian employees of the QM Department.
In making the recommendation, General Benet added - "... it should be under such stringent regulations that the responsible officer could at all times be held accountable that the ammunition is used only for protection and not wasted for hunting purposes, target practice, or in any other way not authorized as legitimate."

Doesn't sound like he was authorizing the wholesale distribution of Army ammunition, surplus or otherwise. Note the reference to "hunting" and "target practice" as wasteful of ammunition.

"So it is fairly clear that even obsolete 50-70 ammunition was considered valuable property, had to be accounted for, and could not be used to get around the limitations on target practice."   Charles Pate

Pate is a serious historian and meticulous researcher. The endnotes of his article list 19 research documents and their sources. His reputation and that of the publishing magazine are at stake when he publishes. He was unable to find any DOCUMENTED references to the mass issuance of Army ammunition to buffalo hunters.

[Coal Creek Griff]

Here's a quote from Mayer's book:

Don't understand that any official action was taken in Washington and directives sent out to kill all the buff on the plains. Nothing like that happened. What did happen was that army officers in charge of plains operations encouraged the slaughter of buffalo in every possible way. Part of this encouragement was of a practical nature that we runners appreciated. It consisted of ammunition, free ammunition, all you could use, all you wanted, more than you needed. All you had to do to get it was apply at any frontier army post and say you were short of ammunition, and plenty would be given you. I received thousands of rounds this way. It was in .45-70 caliber, but we broke it up, remelted the lead, and some runners used government powder. I didn't. I was a stickler for the best, and used imported English powder which I will be describing to you in a little while. I had no trouble trading my government powder for things I wanted -- tobacco, bacon, flour, and other things.


It is found here: http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/five/buffalo.htm

CC Griff

[PJ Hardtack]

Yes, and as Charles Pate has pointed out, Mayer was an "embellisher" (author/historian term for liar) and his 'ghost writer' Charles Roth was a celebrity seeking journalist. This is not the stuff of painstaking historical research. Merely because something is repeated a number of times by people too lazy to do the research does not make it fact.

Look - I say again, I am only the messenger. It would appear that Pate has gored some sacred cow (and me by association), making himself a heretic by promulgating researched, documented facts as opposed to hearsay based on the recollections of a senile old fraud whose statements need to be regarded as suspect.

If you have researched government documents to the contrary, you need to bring them to light to counter Pate's findings.

[Coal Creek Griff]

You have certainly not offended me.  I simply provided the quote to refresh everyone's memory.  I tend to accept the modern research, although I welcome lively discussion.

Thanks for bringing this article to our attention!

CC Griff

[PJ Hardtack]

CCG

I'm always leery of 'revisionist' history, where someone with an axe to grind rocks the boat for political reasons or some other agenda.
But one of the advantages available to modern historians is the access provided to all sorts of files and documents hitherto unknown to all but a few. This provides insights on unanswered questions.

When you remember that history is most often written by the victors, a lot of accounts written shortly after the events will have a bias that will not withstand later scrutiny from a more objective stance. Things once accepted as fact become myths.

As for the article in question, I'm already looking forward to the next issue to see what kind of response it generates. Like you, the editor of 'Man At Arms" (Stewart Mowbray) welcomes "lively discussion".