NYC 47th regt by HIll

1st Battalion 47th Regiment

HISTORY: The 47th Regiment was created during the Civil War, in the City of Brooklyn. During the war it saw two tours of Federal service as embodied militia.

27 May - 6 June 1862, manned the famous Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, during the Peninsula Campaign

26 June - 23 July 1863, helped occupy the defenses of Washington during the Gettysburg Campaign.

The regiment remained active in the National Guard after the Civil War, and was inducted into Federal service for the Spanish-American War on 3 May 1898, being assigned to the I Corps, at Chickamauga Battlefield Park. On 15 October 1898 the 47th landed in Puerto Rico, where it performed occupation duties until 4 March 1899, when it took ship for home. When mustered out of Federal service on 31 March 1899, the 47th had served one of the longest tours on active duty of any state regiment in the war.

An American Volunteer, in a studio picture (note the painted background). Like most Volunteers he wears Uncle Sam’s standard blue wool uniform, with slouch hat, little changed from the Civil War, which proved highly unsuitable in a tropic climate. He’s using a blanket roll and a haversack for his gear, which suggests the picture was taken post-war; on enlistment most Volunteers were issued the Army’s “Merriam Pack,” which proved so clumsy and uncomfortable they promptly discarded it, as did most Regulars He is armed with a single shot Model 1873 “Trapdoor” Springfield .45 caliber black powder rifle, which was decidedly obsolete. In contrast to the Volunteers, most of the the Regulars wore cotton khaki or partially khaki uniforms (often a khaki blouse over blue woolen trousers), and toted the new Springfield .30-40 Krag-Jørgensen rifle, with a five round magazine (which had to be hand loaded), a very smooth mechanism, and smokeless powder, which the Army began issuing in the mid-1890s; the only Volunteer unit to use the Krag was the 1st Volunteer Cavalry, the “Rough Riders.”.