Comments on bag or reaction to article?

[flintriflesmith]

Anyone read Wallace Gusler's article in the December Muzzle Blasts? Some folks on other boards have been discussing the correct time frame for having the bag and horn on one strap. The bag itself is also interesting for you guys interested in size of period bags.

I think it is the first one he has written about accouterments. One coming in a few months will be one about original "wipers."

Gary

[Larry Pletcher]

Hi Gary,
It is a great article.  With every contact with Wallace, I learn a bunch.  The comment about the time period for attachment of horn to bag strap is thought provoking.  I had not looked at it from a time frame point of view.  I look forward to additional discussion and questions.
Regards,
Pletch

[David Rase]

I had the pleasure of seeing that bag and talking about it with Wallace at the 2007 Horn Guild meeting in Williamsburg.  I like several others have made my interpretation of that bag.  In fact I am killing evenings in my motel room in Norfolk this week as well as next sewing together a second copy of that bag. 
After reading the article I had to think about the term double button.  I saw that Jeff Bibb did his interpretation of the bag and used 2 buttons to hold the strap.   On my bag I had interpreted that to mean a buttton like a cuff link.  I am sure it was just Jeff adding his own personal touch.  It is a great bag.  One thing I did learn from the article that I did not know was the use of horn for the inner button.  Great article.  As always I await fpr Wallace's next article.
DMR   

[T.C.Albert]

DMR....Im very curious now....I have not yet seen the article and am wondering....is this article about a small square bag made of Russian leather with 18th century Va. provenance? Perhaps recycled into a bag from fine apholstered furnature??? (I think thats how Mr. Gussler had explained it to me?) He showed me that bag at the CLA several years back, and I am wondering if it may be the one the article is about? I think the one I saw had the button closure reinforced from behind with a covered button as well...
TCA

[David Rase]

DMR....Im very curious now....I have not yet seen the article and am wondering....is this article about a small square bag made of Russian leather with 18th century Va. provenance? Perhaps recycled into a bag from fine apholstered furnature??? (I think thats how Mr. Gussler had explained it to me?) He showed me that bag at the CLA several years back, and I am wondering if it may be the one the article is about? I think the one I saw had the button closure reinforced from behind with a covered button as well...
TCA

TC,  That is the bag.  It is featured in the December issue of Muzzle Blast. 
DMR

[george kevil]

What I have been curious about is the strap attachment. Why two buttons on the one side? It seems they are really close together. Could this have been a piece of leather that tied the strap on. Also don't buttons usually have two close holes per button? Or were these backed by something else. That corner confuses me.
 George

[James Rogers]

Wallace Gussler stated bags commonly had horns attached by 1760 and because of that fact, it explained why many inventories fail to mention powder horns but include shot bags/pouches.

 I am guessing that since he did not mention anything to support his statement that he is actually theorizing the 1760 time frame based on the inventory absences rather than the other way around?

[Jefferson58]

Wallace Gusler's article is very interesting, and that pouch does raise some questions for me as well. The question of an "attached" powder horn is something to ponder. I know that Roland Cadle has documentation of Washington ordering pouches in 1775, and that the Revolutionary period pouches often used buckled straps to hold the horns onto the pouch straps. According to Roland, this was so that the troops could remove their horns from their pouches to have them refilled.

In reading the article several times, my interpretation of the strap attachment / adjustment system was two separate buttons, one above the other. In my opinion, the photo does not do a good job of showing this detail, but then that corner of the pouch is torn. Dave's idea that there may have been a "cuff link" sort of arrangement seems possible as well. The use of two buttons, one above the other, makes a more secure attachment for the strap and reduces the load on the back of the pouch. I sewed the buttons about 2" apart, with a small reinforcement inside the pouch, and have over 5" of adjustment to lengthen the strap. I do not know if this is absolutely accurate from a historical perspective, but I have seen one other early pouch that used this same system.

It is a great piece of history, and thanks to Wallace Gusler for sharing it with us.

Jeff

[bigbat]

its a great place/way to store that extra button til you need it

[Frank Barker]

Way to go Scott...You're always thinking ahead..... Jeff, I feel you are right on all points. I have seen pouches with strap adjustment buttons. It's a pretty neat way of construction, especially if you don't happen to have a buckle on hand and want to have an adjustable strap on your pouch. Those oldtimers had lots of ingenuity.

[flintriflesmith]

...After reading the article I had to think about the term double button.  I saw that Jeff Bibb did his interpretation of the bag and used 2 buttons to hold the strap.   On my bag I had interpreted that to mean a buttton like a cuff link....

Dave, your use of two buttons linked together like a cuff link is how Wallace had also interpreted the evidence. The back of the bag is torn but the shape of the button hole still shows pretty clearly where it passed through the font of the bag (buttoned through two layers of leather).
In a conversation we had, Wallace said that another possibility would be that the button was on the strap and still passed completely through the bag for strength.
The flap button is reenforced by a second button on the inside.
Gary

[Mike R]

I always enjoy Wallace's articles in MB mag and this one was no exception--however I must say that as I remember it, the article contained speculation rather than evidence that horns were typically attached to bag straps in the mid 18th cent.  NoFACTUAL evidence was presented to support an INFERENCE that led to a CONCLUSION.  I was taught [an old Bertram Russell technigue] to read/write critically and that any conclusions not based on FACTS presented in an article/paper are unproven by that paper [they may be true, but unproven, therefore doubts are raised]. There are other evidences [period artwork and rare written descriptions] that the horn and bag were commonly on separate straps.  For example in the 1750s, Rogers Rangers carried a ball pouch on their belt and a separate shoulder slung horn. Period art shows separate horn straps...but a good speculation by Wallace, yet to be proven....certainly by the early -mid 1800s horns were often hung from the bag strap--it is not a stretch to back date the practice--but it was not proven by the MB article...

[bigbat]

Human beings being more or less creative by nature probably came up with their own ideas on many occasions as to how "they" wanted to carry their gear  I don't believe there were any hard and fast rules about such things.  Thats pure "speculation" on my part.  Mike I am glad you like your buffalo horn.  Buffalo horns bring out the "speculation' also. But using "common sense" along with speculation seems to be the best avenue for me.  I lived in a remote Alaskan Eskimo village for 9 years, common sense was a virtue that led to ones survival.

[Jefferson58]

Gary, thanks for the insight about the button strap attachment on the pouch back. Since you pointed it out, I can now see where the button hole was in the front of the pouch edge in the photos. For some reason that did not stick in my mind the first few times I looked at it.

I guess I will have to make another pouch now, and get it right this time.

Jeff

[Lee]

I can remember having a discussion or two with Wallace about shot bags and attached horns over the years.  A few of things to remember here are time, region, and application.  By that I mean what happened in Virginia didn't necessarily happen in New England especially in the same time period, with the same application.  Wallace, God bless him, tends to see things through his Virginia filtered eyes.  Can't blame him, Virginia is a great place to be from, but his loyalty can sometimes skew things. The earliest reference to a bag that had a horn attached to it probably did come out of Virginia by the time of the Rev. War.  Somewhere (probably at Roland Cadle's) I have seen the order that Washington made for bags with horn attachments during the Rev. War.  The order ought to be in Washington's writings since he was such a meticulous record keeper.  To me this means that some Virginians were probably attaching horns to bags earlier than the Rev. War, but there isn't any way to definitively prove this. Washington probably saw it somewhere though....  It falls to speculation at this point.

One other quick point regarding Wallace's article: Just because a reference like "one gun and shot pouch & bullet mold and canteen..." doesn't list a horn, doesn't necessarily mean the horn was part of the shot pouch.  Maybe the horn WAS on a separate strap and was not included in the inventory because it was already gone - sold or given to someone.  The inventory seems to list everything else, why wouldn't it list the horn as well, like some of the later quotes Wallace mentions "...1 shot pouch and powder horn...."

Different regions, different time periods, different applications.  Resist the temptation to stuff things into preconceived categories and come up with glittering generalities.  Like Mike R basically said above: Stick to the facts, and acknowledge speculation as speculation.
Lee
   


       

[T.C.Albert]

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mgwquery.html

Heres a good link to Washington's letters that I was recently given....I have no idea how complete it is, but its searchable...however, I have a hard time deciphering the writing and havent been able to learn much them yet...
TCA

[David Rase]

Here is my interpretation of the square bag.  This was made in April of 2007.  Made this bag out of veg tanned leather and dyed it black.  This was my practice bag.  I am sewing up one out of bark tanned this week.  I am using horn for the captured inner buttons and pounded out my own brass for the exterior buttons


DMR

[Dphariss]

To me a separate horn and pouch would be a royal PITA. Under stress or in a hurry its easier to end up with one and not the other. One is of little account without the other so I would think that someone would figure out that a horn attached to the pouch strap was a good idea pretty early.

I would think that assuming they were only used in Virginia is speculation as well. Its not like VA was in a vacuum and nobody came there from PA and nobody from VA went to Lancaster.

Thinking about it, assuming the mention of shot pouch with no horn mentioned means that the horn was already disposed of is just as great a leap as assuming the horn and pouch are a unit and only the pouch mentioned.
Since a shot pouch is completely useless without a horn assuming the term shot pouch refers to a unit makes sense to me. As good as assuming the horn vanished in some way.
I figure the assumptions kinda cancel each other out in this case.
Reenacting is way over waist deep in assumptions about almost everything anyway.
This cannot be proven either way and the attached horn is far more practical in actual use.

Dan

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Well, unless you are like me and are more comfortable dipping your right hand into the pouch for a ball etc.........but, prefer to pour from a horn in the left hand into a powder measure held in the right and then pour into that tiny muzzle with the right hand ....which is much steadier than the left............ more powder goes where it is supposed to this way...for me... so I wear horn on left, bag on right!!

The idea of the "cufflink" model of buttons makes sense to me as a more substantial connection to handle the weight of the shot bag. I think it has some mechanical advantage over a button just sewed to the leather.   I never cease to be amazed at how clever our forefathers were!

I always enjoy what Wallace has to say!!  A lecture he gave at Martin's station was the first thing that captured my wife's attentions and spurred her interest in my hobby!!

[Dphariss]

Dr Tim

Everyone does things differently. What works for shooter "A" may hopelessly clumsy or  impractical for shooter "B".
I used to ride horses pretty frequently. I carried a pretty big knife on the left side, think of it as a "rope untangler" if you get into a horse wreck with a pack string.  If you have a horn slung over there its likely going the bang on the knife and in general be in the way.
While I have always carried the horn on the pouch horseback its even nicer (for me). It also allows carrying other things on the left side without entangelments foot or horse.


My difficulty with all this is people thinking that it only started in one colony and was unknown in the others.

Then:
Seems to me like the powder containers for matchlock muskets were hung from the bag's shoulder strap. Its a logical progression to put the horn there if the individual charge containers are replaced with a single horn. But like many things its not written down anyplace.
So I cannot see how anyone can say that the horn/powder container on the pouch strap is something that was invented in the 18th century(+-) in VA or anyplace else in the colonies. It was obviously wide spread in the time of the matchlock, probably anyplace there was  matchlock musket by the 17th century.
I really think this is a tempest in a teapot type discussion.
If we assume the equipment in the video (and period drawings) is HC then it seems to me that it would be necessary to prove that the horn was NOT worn on the bag strap the make it "un-HC" in the 18th century since it was being done in some form for generations before the flintlock rifle was even developed.
Dan

[Leatherbelly]

   Speculation or not,I'm with you Doc Tim!

[AndyThomas]

Gary, you dog, I think you knew what a can of worms you were opening.

Dan, Tim, everyone, what you're missing is this. Wallace has been researching what he calls the "backcountry rifle culture" for a number of years now. This culture is what many call the Scots-Irish, few of which were Irish, and many of which weren't Scots! From about 1717 to 1775 there was a hugh influx of these people who disembarked at ports along the Delaware and migrated down the Great Wagon Road (more or less I-81 down the Valley of Virginia). Over several hundred years these people, who lived in a much contested area including the north of England, the south of Scotland, and Northern Ireland, developed a "warrior ethic". They became natural fighters, much like some of the Indians here.

They brought this warrior ethic with them to America. Here they adopted the "short" rifle of the Germans, who had preceded them by a few years down the Wagon Road through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Shenenoah Valley. Having trouble loading the short rifle with its patched ball when mounted, these warriors asked the German gunsmiths to lengthen the barrel to that of the common fowler, about 3 1/2 feet or so. This way they could set the butt on the grown as they rammed the patched ball down the bore. The backcountry horses were much smaller than common pleasure horses today.

Sure, Wallace is speculating about the longrifle and the pouch/horn issue, but he's doing so from the mindset that a people with a warrior ethic settled the Valley of Virginia. Men who quickly adapted to the dangers involved.

For more info on this backcountry people, read Albion's Seed by Fischer.
For more info on why the rifle was an important part of this culture, badger Wallace into finishing his book!!

Andy

BTW- I think Wallace wears his pouch on the right and horn on the left.

[Lee]

A couple points here:

When it comes to inventories: I'm just trying not to read more into the inventory description than is actually there. Seems to me that to include the horn with the shot bag is adding to the description what may not have been there.  After all the inventory seems pretty specific to me when it includes a canteen, bullet mold, etc.

Concerning the idea that an attached powder horn is far more practical, I'd say it depends on the application.  If you are in New England or New York, serving in a colonial regiment during the F & I War, the reason your horn would be on a separate strap is so one or two soldiers could carry all the horns from your company to be filled at the powder magazine.  It wouldn't do to accidentally blow up the entire company while they were all standing in line waiting their turns to fill their horns.  As I recall, Washington's VA application still allowed the horn to be detached by means of buckles.  That means the horns were not permanently attached and could be collected to be taken the the magazine as well.  Now, If you are a civilian hunter, say an overmountain man, permanently attaching your bag and horn together just might be the best way to go.  Then there are the fellows who like carrying the horn and bag on different sides of the body - it saves a switch of hands with the powder measure while loading.

These examples are time, place, and application specific.  Massachusetts soldiers during the F&I War developed their own way of carrying a horn that may not match the method that was used by longhunters or even soldiers from PA & VA. Sure there was give and take from one region to another, but the fact remains that there are obvious regional characteristics as to how powder horns were carried.  And these regional characteristics are time period and application specific.  If you are a reenactor you have to consider the time period you are reenacting, the region you are representing, and the specific application (like military, civilian, or longhunter) you are trying to portray.  Its not some over thought form of science here, but it's not just personal preference either (like some guys seem to think).

I'm off to Texas for Christmas.  Happy Holidays!
Lee

[Dphariss]

A couple points here:

When it comes to inventories: I'm just trying not to read more into the inventory description than is actually there. Seems to me that to include the horn with the shot bag is adding to the description what may not have been there.  After all the inventory seems pretty specific to me when it includes a canteen, bullet mold, etc.

Concerning the idea that an attached powder horn is far more practical, I'd say it depends on the application.  If you are in New England or New York, serving in a colonial regiment during the F & I War, the reason your horn would be on a separate strap is so one or two soldiers could carry all the horns from your company to be filled at the powder magazine.  It wouldn't do to accidentally blow up the entire company while they were all standing in line waiting their turns to fill their horns.  As I recall, Washington's VA application still allowed the horn to be detached by means of buckles.  That means the horns were not permanently attached and could be collected to be taken the the magazine as well.  Now, If you are a civilian hunter, say an overmountain man, permanently attaching your bag and horn together just might be the best way to go.  Then there are the fellows who like carrying the horn and bag on different sides of the body - it saves a switch of hands with the powder measure while loading.

These examples are time, place, and application specific.  Massachusetts soldiers during the F&I War developed their own way of carrying a horn that may not match the method that was used by longhunters or even soldiers from PA & VA. Sure there was give and take from one region to another, but the fact remains that there are obvious regional characteristics as to how powder horns were carried.  And these regional characteristics are time period and application specific.  If you are a reenactor you have to consider the time period you are reenacting, the region you are representing, and the specific application (like military, civilian, or longhunter) you are trying to portray.  Its not some over thought form of science here, but it's not just personal preference either (like some guys seem to think).

I'm off to Texas for Christmas.  Happy Holidays!
Lee

Ah yes, the right way, the wrong way and the military way.
Are you sure you are not making assumptions that people outside the military were doing things the military way? If I were a long hunter type just what regulation governs what I wear, or a farmer or a even a militia man? Some of which were rather independent it seems.

Dan

[flintriflesmith]

...Concerning the idea that an attached powder horn is far more practical, I'd say it depends on the application.  If you are in New England or New York, serving in a colonial regiment during the F & I War, the reason your horn would be on a separate strap is so one or two soldiers could carry all the horns from your company to be filled at the powder magazine. 
...Lee

Lee,
When you get back from your Texas holiday trip could you post some of your period documentation referring to the procedure you have described of having one or two men take the horns from a group (company or squad) to the magazine to be filled? I have been unable to document that procedure in any of the period sources I have access to.
Gary