Thanks for all of the positive comments.
An experience that I will not forget;
I bought the P53 Enfield rifle-musket in January 1994 and really did not realize the “possible” history of this gun until 2006 and again in 2014 following numerous emails with Bill Adams.
I had the opportunity of communicating with Joe Bilby the author of many Civil War era books---in discussing this P.53 Enfield he put me in contact with his friend Bill Adams a major sage on Confederate P.53s.
I sent Bill many photos of my P53.---- in a ‘not so short’ story this is what I learned.
(I hope that this is not too disjointed it has been put together from several different emails over a number of years.)
.58 caliber as denoted by the 24 marking on the barrel.
(If the number was 25 it would be .577 cal)
Number on top of brass butt plate tang 1121 (large engraved numbers) (this is a Confederate” control number”)
Brit regulations specified that all arms were to have a number not to exceed four digits engraved "and in no instance stamped or punched" on the butt plate, the ramrod, the bayonet socket, the bayonet scabbard stud, and the waist belt. In short, each stand of arms had all of the components numbered together. The Confederates followed the same practice at first, but then realized that it was a waste of time.
The piece is not a Brit issue as it lacks the army proof house markings - even arms bought commercially for Brit service were normally reproofed at an army proof house.
Bill suggested that early Confederate orders might have been 24 bore. He was almost positive it is Confederate, with the number on the buttplate and the 24 bore marking.
24 bore is .58 calibre, typical of many Enfields made for the American market. The Confederates did not stipulate that .577 was the regulation calibre until 1862. The federals stuck with .58.
He also advises that some Enfield’s made for the US, in 24 bore, in the early part of the war, were actually bought by the Rebels, and that might explain the bore size.
While it's difficult to positively ID anything and to determine legitimacy from a photo, the piece seems to be a CS central government purchase. 1121 is the "control number." If the ramrod is original to the piece, it will also have 1121 engraved on it near the jag head. There should have been a large serif letter in front of the butt plate tang, but the stock seems to have been scraped. On the bottom of the stock behind the trigger guard, there should be two commission broker's stamps and a JS anchor stamp. The stampings behind the trigger guards were often light. Lacking the anchor stamp, there should be either a G or an SC on the lock side of the butt stock for this particular number range.
Bill’s comment;
I found my listings of the crates that were missing from the London manifests. All of the crates are there except for #57, which seems very strange. #58 had P53's #1141-1160; #59 had 1161-1180, etc. Crates 1-7 and 58-62 came from arms merchant Wm. Grazebrook on May 1st 1861 and were marked with the G cypher. With crate #56 having been marked for Gov. Brown of Georgia and #58 having been marked G for Georgia, chances seem good that crate #57 that contained 1121 was also destined for Georgia.
The transaction is quite complicated, but there was an overlap of Georgia state funds and CS government funds in one of Maj. Anderson's large purchases. Anderson was the CS ordnance officer that was Caleb Huse's immediate supervisor, but he was also working for Gov. Brown of Georgia. Fortunately, Anderson kept a diary and he also recorded the first 2,000 of the Georgia purchases. Crate #57 having somehow been left off of the Georgia charts. Interestingly, there are two #58 crates, one listed as short rifles and the other listed as long Enfields, so there is a distinct possibility that the crate that should have been #57 was listed incorrectly. Crates #51-56 and #62-129 are on Anderson's main Georgia listing and crates 1-7 and 58-62 are on a supplemental list (these latter lists have not been published).
Crate #56 shipped aboard the Fingal contained P53's #1101 to 1120. There is then a gap to crate 62 which contained P53's 1221-1240. Those P53's were all supplied by C. W. James and originally had a letter J in front of the butt plate tang and had a letter G stamped on the lock side of the butt stock. 1121 would have been in crate #57 and if I have a listing for it, it is somewhere in the files, but was likely a James supplied piece. Interestingly, there was also a P56 rifle with control #1121 as the bayonet survived.
The single Confederate shipping manifest that lists guns by number, supplier and crate is for only Georgia Enfields. Field & Sons was one of the suppliers. The letter G in the photo you sent is a Georgia G. They are faked a lot. JS stands for John Southgate, Major Edward Anderson (Caleb Huse's "boss") recorded in his dairy that Southgate had been retained as an inspector. Those of us that read Anderson's papers kept that quiet. Steve Knott wrote an article for North-South Trader that explained the background behind the anchor and the letters. That information is also in Steve's book. Since the book came out with photos of various CS markings, the fakers have duplicated the markings and generated quite a few fakes. Any SC, Georgia or Louisiana Enfields must be viewed with suspicion.
There are lots of persons involved in digging up information and sharing it, but there are others that skew the context a bit. Be particularly wary of statements to the effect that only 5, 7, 9, or 16 of a particular arm are known to exist. Have you noticed that none of the persons making those statements has explained how that information was compiled? "A well known authority has been compiling a list of Confederate numbers for decades..." Can anyone make a definitive statement that he positively knows that only a specific number of a certain weapon still survives? A clique of collectors and dealers have set themselves up as the source of information pertaining to Confederate arms in general, but they do not contact many collectors that have examples of the arms. One dealer constantly mentions a "database" of Confederate Enfields, but fails to consider that there may be other listings of Confederate purchased arms that he and his source have never seen. All of the information in the various postings is in Steve Knott's book, but Steve did not have an agenda other than sharing information. He is not a dealer or an investor for profit and doesn't have a need to polish his ego or reputation. The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, aka the OR's, are available on line for free through several sources. The fellows that make the marvellous discoveries that they then post fail to realize that researchers found the same material in hard copy long ago. Much of the Enfield story can be gleaned from several British studies that are not readily available.
Papers containing some Enfield material are available from English sources on microfilm for anyone that has $1600 to spend on the films. The James H. Burton papers are at YaleUniversity and can be copied for a fee. There's plenty of information available, including the McRae papers - all is takes is money. In the meanwhile, there is still plenty of free information, but some of that is not reliable unless it comes directly from the OR's or other reputable sources. Many CS Enfields were captured and went into federal service. Some of those numbers are available to researchers that physically go to the National Archives. Are those Enfields Confederate? It's a complicated field of study.
Your theories about numbers, etc. are close to the mark, but miss a few details. The reason that I think that 1121 was a G purchase is because the stock has been scraped down enough for the G to have been removed along with the contractor's name that was originally on the belly of the stock and the supplier's code or the CH1 stamp that would have been in front of the butt plate tang. Even if there was no G present on the stock, the other markings would have been there and were scraped away. There would also have been two other stamps in the wood indicating a commission broker and/or inspector or other information. None of the stamps are present on your stock. Both SC and Georgia also had stamped numbers on the butt plates of some Enfields in certain number ranges. Some arms were state marked, but did not have state numbers; some arms were state marked with government numbers; many arms that went to states and the central government were not numbered. The lock dates must agree with certain numbers and stock markings. This isn't anything that can be easily condensed into a few pages or a ten minute study. States other than GA and SC used numbers. You will save a lot of time by getting one of Steve's books that will give an overview of the whole process. Going on the internet and gathering opinions and theories will not necessarily produce valid information and the pieces pictured on the internet are not necessarily legitimate examples. Not only are there many spuriously engraved and stamped pieces on web sites; there are also Enfields that have excavated butt plates affixed or butt plates that were brought up from ship wrecks. One advanced collector has done a scientific study of the engraving styles in various number series and has hundreds of magnified photos of both real and fake butt plate engraving.
I have removed checkering from stocks and they looked normal afterwards. The secret is using a cabinet scraper or glass and not sandpaper. The supplier's stamps on the combs were often quite deep and yet many have been completely scraped away. I recently purchased an S.C and JS Anchor marked P53 that I first looked at 20+ years ago. The owner did not know that the mark was important and sometime in the last 6 years he decided to scrape the stock down and wire wheel the metal. Only the S. remains in the stock and all other marks are gone. Very few correct slings for the P53 turn up. I have seen several on DC diamond Canadian Snider conversions. Apparently the original slings were kept with them. Collectors in the US have been duped into believing that the Martini & Lee-Enfield & SMLE slings were P53 slings.
A drawing of the Fingal that transported the Enfields to Savannah.
#1121 was ready for shipment from London in August 1861 and was in the number series initially purchased by Georgia.
As I (Bill) mentioned in a previous email, crate 57 with Enfields #1121-1140 is missing from the manifest of arms ready to be shipped from London. 1121 may have been on the Fingal as 7520 Enfields were aboard the Fingal when it arrived in Savannah.
