The War Between the States wrought rapid and impressive change throughout the formerly agrarian South. With the coming of that conflict, factories and foundries that had long been engaged in making plows and farm tools suddenly found themselves gearing up to produce the implements of war.

In this new book many heretofore mis-attributed Confederate arms are now correctly identified as to maker, and for the first time in print Confederate purchases and issues of both Le Mat percussion carbines and double-barrel shotguns are explored. Much additional new information also is detailed, such as the alteration of obsolete Hall's rifles to carbine length at numerous Southern armories. That is amplified by a scholarly detailed text and high-quality photographs of every arm discussed, often in a disassembled state.

Confederate Carbines & Musketoons puts these arms into their proper perspective as valuable cultural and historic relics of a brave people, while at the same time exploring the social, economic, and political forces that necessitated their making.