Revolutionary War Cartridge Box with waist belt

This is a nice early piece being offered; it is an original Revolutionary War Leather Cartridge Box. It measures 8 ½” x 3” x 2 ½” and has period brass tacks to outline the box – this was a common adornment by soldiers during the war. The leather strap is approximately 30”. On the inside is the typical wooden box, drilled to hold 24 cartridges.  The size of the holes in the block suggests that this one was made for a sixty-nine-caliber musket.

Revolutionary War cartridge boxes on the eighteenth century in both Europe and the colonies were generally provided with paper cartridges for their firearms (see original example, not included). The box is made of water-resistant leather on the exterior and the top is covered with leather flap to prevent loss and protect from the elements.

Using pre-made cartridges a soldier could be trained to load and fire his musket in just 20 seconds, far faster than using loose powder from a powder horn. Cartridges, however, were made of paper and could easily become wet and useless. By the late 17th century leather boxes with wooden blocks became the standard way to carry the effective but fragile cartridges.

Saddlers and harness makers often made simple cartridge boxes like this one for American soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Boxes like these were common in New England and New York early in the Revolutionary War and examples were even recovered from the site of the Battle of Valcour Island in Lake Champlain. The Federal militia act of 1792 ordered American militiamen to carry a box with a minimum of 24 rounds of ammunition. Some older cartridge boxes have inserts added to carry the extra rounds.

There is a similar example of this box in the Fort Ticonderoga Museum collection and in “Collector’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Revolution, by Neumann and Kravic (see pictures). This would make a great addition to any Revolutionary War collection.