I’ve mentioned canteens before, but one of the valued collectables of the American Revolution is the cartridge box, used to keep paper cartridges out of the weather and protected. There are all different types and styles. The Americans adapted and updated the style they used to better protect the ammunition during the course of the war.
In the British army of the period, a cartridge box is worn around the waist on a belt and holds 18 rounds, although in 1771, a box for light infantry was issued that carried 9 rounds, and a “pouch and strap” is a box worn over the shoulder. Provincial forces at the outbreak of the war didn’t differentiate between a cartridge box or a pouch and strap. Documents of the period just call them cartouche or cartridge boxes.
On December 21, 1774, before the war had broken out, the Continental Congress had recommended regulations be published in Provincial newspapers, including Boston. Amongst other rules and regulations, they stated that they were to “make themselves masters of the military exercise[.] That each man to be provided with a well fixed firelock and bayonet, half a pound of powder, two pounds of lead, and a cartouche-box or powder horn, and a bag for ball, and be in readiness to act at any emergency.”
The early style American boxes are fairly simple. They consisted of two pieces of thin sheep or calfskin cut flat at the top and about half-round on the bottom, sewn with the face in, soaked and turned right side out. A heavier leather flap and strap is attached, and a 19-round pine block, although some extant examples have 17 rounds. This style of box was copied from the earlier British designs of the French & Indian War period. The British had realized the flaws of that design and had updated to another style of pouch and strap by 1768. Without an inner flap or ears on either side of the box, water could get in and destroy the cartridges. Because of this issue, a new style of box was produced, and an agreement was made with maker Nathan Smith “March 28, 1777, agreed with the Board of War to make them in a Fort night five hundred Cartouch Boxes agreeable to the pattern shown with the addition of an ear at each end to defend the Cartridges from the weather.”
The Continental army experimented with different types of boxes, including one of tin later in the war, but it didn’t seem to stick, and many were sold off once the war had ended. In 1778, Massachusetts contracted with a London born saddler and chaise maker named John Sebring for another type of box of a style that would last till the end of the American Revolution. It contained a wooden box at the bottom with a tinned-iron container on top of it to hold the cartridges.
One of the most prized are leather boxes made by the Continental government frequently called “new constructed” box that was a blend of British and French types with a wooden block that held 29 cartridges and are frequently marked “U.STATES”.
