I'm currently developing a history themed board game based around the development of the North American continent. I'm attempting to make it as historically accurate as possible and I need your help! My main question is: what were the standard infantry firearms of the Mexican army and the French Army (foreign legion) during the 1860s. Did they use minie ball based weapons like in the American civil war? I'm finding a lot of conflicting information on the web. I've mostly found the india pattern "brown bess" being used earlier in mexico, and the peabody rifle, remington rolling block, and winchester m1879 hotchkiss being used later. But there seems to be a void of standard weapons used during the French Intervention. Thanks for taking the time to read this, can any historians out there help me?
It's a funny thing, I noticed a while back that the famous painting Edouard Manet did of the execution of Emperor Maximilian, the soldier looked French and were carrying the French Model 1842 Musket...and the soldiers themselves look French. Here's an interesting article theorizing that Manet was essentially accusing French Emperor Louis Napoleon of being responsible for Maximilian's death...which is partially true.
A photo was taken of the real firing squad, though, and though it's small and blurry on the MOMA website, they look like they have French Model 1822 muskets that have been converted to percussion. The locks look too big for them to be Model 1842. You can see an example of a Model 1822 midway down the examples here