Civil War Impression

[Marshall91212]

Hello all,

I am very new to the site and am hoping it will become a valuable resource to my development of blacksmithing. I have recently begun research on the American Civil War blacksmith. I am not looking at the military impression, but rather a civilian impression. I already have a good working man impression, but would like to make a whole new impression for a typical blacksmith of the time. If there are any resources you could point me to that would be greatly appreciated!

[Charles R. Stevens]

"The Cival War Blacksmith" by David Einhorn (my spelling sucks but he is a member of IFI. 

[Marshall91212]

Thank you. I will definitely take a look! 

 

[notownkid]

That is a great book and there are a couple others as well, (can't remember their names at the moment) best to get all of them on the subject and read them all to get a well rounded picture of the subject.  Never have too much info.

[ThomasPowers]

If you are going civilian then you need to look at that time period in general; don't forget that thousands of blacksmiths worked in factories back then and VERY FEW WORKED PORTABLE SETUPS.  You need to decide what type of smith you want to be as a starter and what type of shop. 

[David Einhorn]

There are a number of books written by people of various backgrounds about their life and experiences during the War Between the States.  The publisher is Time Life Books and the series is described as the "Collector's Library of the Civil War" under various book titles.   To my knowledge, none of the books in this series was written by a blacksmith, however you can get an idea of the life, issues and living conditions of both soldiers and civilians from reading their perspectives.