In his book, Sketches of Hunting Pouches………of Southern Appalachia, Jim Webb claims that, “Most old pouches were made to be carried on the left side even though most users were right handed.” He’s speaking, of course, only of shot pouches found in southern Appalachia, not other localities. Of the eight original pouches illustrated, which have horns attached, six are for left side carry. He speculates that these pouches are 19th, even 20th, century items, but that they may be copied after older pouches.
To further make his point, he excerpts a story from Brickley’s History of Tazewell County (which is in Virginia, northwest of Bristol), in which Henry Harman and his two sons have a fight with some Indians in the fall of 1784. In the piece, Brickley states,”The Harmans, to a man, wore their bullet pouches on the left side.…..”. This history was published in 1852.
On page 74 of The Frontier Rifleman, by Richard B. LaCrosse, Jr, there’s an excerpt titled, Anonymous Description of a Party of Long Hunters, 1773, which says in part, “On his left side, he carried his hunting knife, a full powder horn, a leather pouch of homemade bullets ……”. Unfortunately, LaCrosse doesn’t say where the excerpt came from.
As a righty, I find loading with the horn on the left much easier. Since the patches are kept, according to Isaac Weld, “…in a little box at the but-end of the gun…”(LaCrosse 79), then I suppose all I need to fish out of the pouch when loading are bullets. Surely, I could find one with my left hand without too much trouble.
Perhaps left side carry was a Rifle Culture characteristic.
Andy
