AMERICAN REVOLUTION CARTRIDGE BOX

AMERICAN REVOLUTION CARTRIDGE BOX

This is a cartridge box from the American revolution.  Early in the revolution Americans use what are called bag boxes.  This is an example of that type of cartridge box.  A wood block is placed in a leather bag and nailed into place.  The room below the block is hard to access.  This block has holes for 24 cartridges.  You can see the nail holes but most of the nails are missing.  There is a single flap and the latch tab is gone and there is a hole in the flap where it was attached.  The leather of the bag is solid but has a few areas of deterioration.  One is the hole where the latch tab was attached.  The second is on the side of the box where there is a tear in the leather.  And there is a small tear on the edge of the flap.  Also with the box is the remnants of the white leather sling.  It consists of three main pieces and a couple of small pieces.  As shown in the pictures two pieces are attached to the bag.  The other main piece is folded in half and wrapped in a thin plastic.  I have not removed it from the wrapping but in the picture you can see it laid out extending from one of the pieces attached to the bag.  That length is apx half the length that is in the bag.  There have been previous work attaching backing to the leather strap.   Also there are some letters written in pencil of the face of the block.  They seem too long to be a name and I am not sure what they are.

Cartridge Boxes from the American Revolution are quite scarce and this example displays well.  Starting about 1779 the Americans started changing to a rectangular type of cartridge box.  There was a tin tray be;ow the wooden block for tools, extra flints and cartridges.  An inner flap was added as well.  The rectangular type of box evolved into the pattern 1808 cartridge box.  SOLD