Were there any military leaders of the 19th century who still believed in the usage of pikes/polearms in the field of muskets and cannon?

by Hitty40
hborrgg

There were a couple of people who thought pikes still had a place on modern battlefields. The main idea was that they were cheap to make, and since battles were still often decided by a charge a weapon which was lighter and had more reach than a musket and bayonet would be extremely effective. During the French invasion of Spain in 1808 the British decided to send around 80,000 pikes along with other aid in order to arm Spanish volunteers and irregulars. Apparently some of these were used in combat against the French along with homemade polearms made out of farming scythes.

In the US, abolitionist John Brown contracted a local blacksmith to make around 1000 pikes to help arm his slave rebellion. At least some of these were used in his attack on Harper's Ferry. In 1862 Confederate governor Joe Brown came up with a plan to order 10,000 collapsible pikes for arming Confederate troops. Several thousand were produced, but the few companies that were armed with them were generally unhappy about being given such antiquated weapons, and since this was a period where Confederate troops were generally doing well the move was seen as a waste of money. Joe Brown's pikes never saw any serious combat.

It's probably worth noting that in this period "pike" generally referred to a weapon about 6-8 feet long, closer to a medieval half-pike rather than something extremely long.