Concerning bayonets...

[11mm]

I wonder if bayonets were ever used in battle on the trapdoors. I cannot think of any pictures from the Spanish American War where they are even fixed, though I am sure I have not seen all the pictures.
I can't imagine them being used (or useful) against the Indians. They probably were useful as tent pegs or candle holders in the western campaigns. Did infantrymen being employed as mounted infantry, which I believe was fairly common in the west, even carry them? They were probably officially part of every foot soldier's kit, though one wonders if they were actually carried on campaign.
I do believe they were probably fixed whenever the militia was called out against labor agitators, strikers or rioters.
Anybody know?

[John Sukey]

The Marines may have used them since they seem to like sharp pointy things. I just missed a trapdoor bayonet at a gun show many years ago with USMC on the brass disc:icon_wink:

[Dick Hosmer]

The bayonet, especially the socket kind, was, IMHO, really pretty much useless as a weapon after the Civil War. Even after the switch to the dual-purpose knife bayonet, I'd think use in combat was limited, now that hand-to-hand is getting passe, and will become even more so as robots come into use.

The Brits complained during the Revolution that the US forces would not stand and face a bayonet charge - much less the Indians on the plains a century later. The only documented use - assuming the story is true - that immediately comes to mind is that Crazy Horse was supposedly killed by a bayonet-equipped TD, while being held by two other men.

[Lee T.]

Interesting question, but I think you're limiting the possibilities to only an offensive weapon. I see it as primarily a defensive one. Ever train with pugile sticks in the service? To be prepared for close-in battle the bayonet is a last-ditch choice as a way to gain a couple more seconds to reload or ward off/disable an attacker right in your face. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

A couple vivid examples from film history come to mind - the stand at Rorke's Drift and Isandlwahna (sp?) had different outcomes but surely the troops relied a lot on the bayonet's reach against overwhelming forces. The courageous low-ammunition defense of the Lost Batallion in WWI. An infantry unit facing a cavalry charge - thinking Civil War - in fact a defensive stand against any charge. Even in the auto-fire era, mass attacks such as in Korea and Viet Nam (ala Platoon) bayonets are more than just an accessory. An empty chamber, whether single-shot breechloader, bolt action or M16, would go to choice #2, a bayonet. Choice #3 would be a swinging buttstock.

[Dick Hosmer]

Admittedly, I WAS thinking offensively - and everything you say about defense is true!

But, as to the OP's point, I doubt that the bayonet saw much service in the .45-70 era, except possibly (defensively) in the Philippines.

[blackhawknj]

At least the socket bayonet could be used as a candle stick, the rod bayonet was good for a cooking spit, that's about it.
One book I read about the British Army during the Revolution said they actually got very little bayonet training, and to a certain extent combat in the 18th Century was not a contact sport, so to speak. A French officer named Ardant du Picq found few cases of troops standing up to a bayonet attack. And it was due to the personal intervention of TR himself that the rod bayonet was dropped from the 1903 and a more practical knife (ok, sword) bayonet was adopted.

[sdkrag]

Bayonets were regularly used in garrison on the great plains. You mentioned Crazy Horse. He was incarcerated at Ft. Robinson in what is now Nebraska. During a scuffle a guard armed with a bayonet equipped trapdoor stuck Crazy Horse in the lower back. Story goes he lingered for some hours and after he died his body was spirited away and buried in an unknown location. I don't remember offhand if it was an Indian Policeman or a regular soldier that did the deed. I know of a very rusty bayonet that came off one of the reservations in SD that "supposedly" was "the" bayonet. Who would like to buy that story? I do know there was a lot of inter band and family fighting related to Crazy Horse. His politics were not well liked by opposing factions. Many say that the bayonet action was a set up assassination. I do know that the Re-enacting Infantry Sergeants make us drill with the things.