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
I would also be very much interested in any such historical documentation, though I don't expect there to be any. Many times, things that were a good idea or were common procedures, would not have been documented. Paper and ink were expensive/hard to come by and the literacy rate was lower back then.
I often joke that one of the things I remember most about 26 years in the military was standing in lines while waiting to be issued something or to fill out paperwork, get shots, etc. Every moment troops stand in line waiting means they can't be doing other work kike cleaning their musket, setting up camp. getting firewood, cooking, drilling, etc., etc., etc.
So how did they issue powder and ball to troops, or even cartridges for that matter? The Quartermaster Officers were responsible for overseeing the troops got the quantities of powder and lead or balls that were needed, but I'm not sure how far "down into the weeds" they got in handing it out. The Quartermaster NCO's would have done that and though I believe they were more likely to be literate than the average troops, I don't believe they would have written down the procedures. (Even when I retired from the military in 1997 and we were supposed to have turnover folders for all supervisors and Desk Top procedures for each job in the military - it was uncommon to find them even written up or up to date.)
OK to issue the powder, we have to have some way of handing out somewhat uniform quantities. Powder did not come in barrels that were sized to be issued battalions, companies, platoons or squads. So they first had to break down the amount of powder by larger units like regiments or battalions. Then it had to be broken down to ever smaller units to issue individual quantities of powder. That meant some sort of measure or cup dipped into the powder barrels. That was the easy part. You could have laid out individual issue quantities of balls or lead on a blanket to speed up handing them out, but they didn't have handy little containers to issue the powder individually. If they didn't have a funnel to fill the horns, they would have used a piece of paper in a cone shape to fill them. We know funnels were available in the period we just don't know how many the Army would have had at any time. Worst case scenario is having to have each soldier hold out a hand and dump powder in that hand. That would have wasted a whole lot of precious powder.
OK, so we wouldn't want a body of soldiers just standing in line waiting to get their horns filled as there were a lot of other things they had to do from dawn to dusk. Also, when each soldier comes up, you have to either take the time to show him what you are doing to fill the horns or do it for them - which would have been faster as the guy filling the horn would have become more adept at doing it, take less time and spill less powder. Taking it one step further in common sense, you just collect the horns and have a few soldiers filling them who are adept at doing it and have the few funnels available. That way, the rest of the soldiers can be doing other things.
As to issuing cartridges, I can not believe they handed out quantities of paper, powder and ball to each unit to make cartridges. The smart way to do that would be to either have Quartermaster troops cut the papers or "detail" troops to assist the Quartermasters in doing that. That way, you can get the most out of limited amounts of paper. Then you train the most adept troops at making the cartridges. Then you either store the cartridges in wood boxes or lay them out on blankets for issue to larger bodies of troops. Then they issue them out to ever smaller units. A Sergeant or a Corporal with maybe a couple few privates gets the cartridges for their Platoon and then they lay them out in counted quantities on a blanket to issue them to the troops.
