National Archives Patent Drawings
During the American Civil War, the trials and tribulations of soldiers sparked many enterprising individuals to submit various patent applications. The U.S. Patent Office awarded more than 19,000 patents during the war. (The Confederate Patent Office granted less than 300.) Ranging from new artificial limb designs (see image) to improved ambulances; enhancements in weaponry, efforts to combine various accouterments, and even a simple pencil; inventors busied themselves submitting designs. Thanks to the National Archives – see database: Utility Patent Drawings, 1837–1911, Record Group 241 at https:// catalog.archives.gov/searchwithin/305888 – researchers can view several wartime patents
from over 92,000 digitized images. Try date searches (1861, 1862, etc.) to narrow results.
The following images offer a sampling of the work found within this database.
success in researching the American Civil War!
Patent for an artificial arm.
Improvement to Gatling gun.
Spend time searching through this collection and continued
Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author, lecturer, and instructor, who remains a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, and the Georgia Association of Historians. Readers may contact him at mkscdr11@gmail.com or request speaking engagements at www.civilwarhistorian. net. Follow Michael on Facebook, www.facebook.com/ michael.k.shaffer, and Twitter @ michaelkshaffer.
Ambulance wagon. Portable tent. Knapsack-litter-tent combo.
