Companion Article: Thoughts on Musket Cartridges and cartridge boxes in the 18th

[cannonman61]

       I wrote this to aid our instructors in their history presentations. I hope you enjoy it. As always constructive feed back is appreciated to aid in future efforts for our instructors.                          


                                                                Thoughts on:
                                   Musket cartridges and cartridge boxes in the 18th Century.

   Recently I wrote a short piece on the effectiveness of an 18th century musket in battle. There were many salient points made, many not often thought of by the laymen historical interpreters.
   This being so, I thought perhaps a short piece written on this subject may enlighten things for those of us striving to make our presentations more accurate and increase our abilities to answer questions from the public at our events.
   First off it must be stated that while civilian style weapons used at this time could use pre-prepared cartridges, they did not always do so. Many civilians lacked the proper instruction as to how to create them or their use and also probably lacked a proper containment/storage devise to use them to advantage. ( i.e.: they had no cartridge boxes and their drill was to "load from the bag"). A properly equipped militiaman and ideally all regular service members on service with the armies of the day would have sported a proper wood and leather cartridge box. It may well have been a belly box of 12-18 rounds mounted on the waist belt and fixed so that it would remain in front of the wearer for quick access. Light infantry and militia were most often issued this type of box. This box was made of a block of wood, formed with a curved front and back to closely fit the wearers belly and had a flap and belt loops nailed to the front of the block with iron or brass tacks. The loops would be affixed in the front to secure the belt  to the wearers waist and the flap was cut in a way to form a relatively weather proof cover over the cartridges. The flap was nailed to the back of the box and hung over the front over the tops of the box and the cartridges to keep them in place on the march and give some protection from inclement weather.
   The regular infantry and even some well equipped militia units ( Think of Isaac Davis's unit) were equipped with shoulder boxes. These were the standard of the day. They were also made of wood blocks with holes drilled for between 24 and 36 cartridges. As the standard load of cartridges for each soldier was 24-60 rounds, the remaining rounds were wrapped in paper, tied with string and stored in the soldiers pack or haversack. These boxes were suspended over the soldiers left shoulder with a 2 inch or wider leather or in some cases, linen strap. The strap had D ring buckles to adjust the length of the strap and was sewn to the leather body covering the wood block. The box was covered with a large flap that hung over the front of the box to provide some weather resistance. Some British boxes had an inside flap and leather ears on the sides of the box to further weather proof them against rain or mist. The flaps could be secured to the front of the box with a leather button securing the flap to prevent spillage during the soldiers movement. These type boxes formed the bulk of the cartridge boxes found today that are extant of Rev War period accoutrements in public and private collections.

   Cartridges for the above boxes fell into what are now thought of as the two main styles of cartridges of the time; British and French. The British style was a paper cylinder rolled on a former or mandrel from a piece of trapezoidal shaped precut paper. It was then pinched, twisted and tied at the one end and slipped off the former or mandrel. An appropriate sized ball was then placed in the tube and a second string was drawn around the tube just above the ball to form a girdle of sorts around the ball in order to prevent powder added in the next step from getting in front of the ball by force of gravity. The powder charge was measured and was usually between 125 and 150 grains depending upon the recommendation of the artillery officer in charge of the powder stores as he had tested the powder for strength upon its acceptance into stores. The top of the cartridge was then twisted down flush with the powder and again tied off with string. Any large amount of paper was then cut off from the end of the cartridge to "prevent loose ends" as they would protrude out of the protected area of the cartridge box and possibly corrupt the cartridge in inclement weather.
   The second style was the French style. These cartridges were similar in materials to the British cartridges. The method to these were again to begin with a piece of trapezoidal shaped paper and wrap it around an appropriate sized mandrel to form a tube. At this point the mandrel is withdrawn and the appropriate size ball is placed in the end of the tube at which point the ends of the paper were folded over the ball into a smooth semi circle and affixed with a glue to prevent opening. The tube is then charged with the correct amount of powder for the cartridge and the end folded inward of each other into a tail. The tail is then tucked back into the seams created by rolling the cartridge paper.
   The short version of all this is that the British used string to tie and affix their cartridges and the French used both folding and glue to affix theirs. We Americans on occasion were know to use both methods, although the French style came more and more into standard use as the war progressed and we moved away from anything with a British connotation to that which our ally, France, used.

   Now, who exactly made all these cartridges for the army? Good question.
The cartridges  were made by the soldiers themselves. Each regiment assigned a few men to the duty as needed. The cartridges were normally made in the artillery park of the army while under the close supervision of a responsible artillery officer to make sure there were no accidents or sloppy results resulting in wastage.  Units were encouraged to send only  experienced men, never raw recruits, as when this was done quality suffered greatly. Upon inspection, any cartridges found by the officer to be defective or made incorrectly were ordered sent back to be reassembled.  Reserve cartridges that belonged to a unit and were not immediately issued to the men were wrapped in thin bladder canvas and tied in bundles of 6-12. These were then packed in leather topped budge barrels that allowed access to the cartridges through the tied off top but gave a good deal of protection from any stray sparks that may ignite the cartridges and from inclement weather spoiling them as well. All barrels were then marked for unit identification.
   A last word on the cartridges. The armies preferred a paper that was soft and brown, described by Timothy Pickering as wrapping paper. Think of the paper we wrap parcels with today. However, paper of any sort was relatively scarce in the colonies. At times our army was forced to cut pages out of books to supply the needed paper for the cartridges. Keep in mind the most common book in the colonies was the Bible and you will understand the quotes of officers present at some battles that one could read the books of the bible on the field as the pages on the field of battle. A sad commentary on our supplies available to the men fighting the war.
   
   

[PHenry]

cannonman61,
Excellent as always Mr. D. Nicely done. Saved a copy to my history file and will send to all who seek to improve their history presents.
PH

[Shoot Squirrel Yes]

Good stuff, CM. I've read accounts of market wallets and, in some cases, harvest baskets being used.