The Historical Shooting Kit of a Civil War Cavalryman

Civil War cavalry arms.

Introduction
The equipment needed or desired by a historical shooter is largely a matter of personal taste and interest; the kit chosen can be as simple as just a weapon and ammunition or can be as elaborate as a full military uniform and equipment as for a living history presentation, or anywhere in between.  In this post I will review the gear I have assembled for my personal kit as an example of what the reader may wish to consider.  Obviously, this is a work in progress and will need a lot of work to bring to the standard I hope to achieve.

I don’t participate in Civil War reenactment, so the kit presented here is very generic, but with a few exceptions does a fairly decent job of presenting a realistic kit for a Federal cavalryman late in the War.  The main flaws in this kit are that I don’t have the correct trousers (see below), that my canteen is a modern sutlers-row example, and that my saber is garbage.

The Smith Carbine

The Smith carbine is a .50-caliber breech-loading rifled carbine patented by Gilbert Smith on June 23, 1857 that was used by various cavalry units during the Civil War.  They were manufactured by the Massachusetts Arms Company of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts and the the American Machine Works in Springfield, Massachusetts. The name of the distributor for the weapon, Poultney & Trimble of Baltimore, Maryland, is often stamped on the carbines’ receivers.  They were 39½ inches in overall length with a 21⅝-inch barrel.  Approximately 30,000 Smith carbines were manufactured in total.  My Smith is a reproduction by Pietta that has been extensively reworked by David Stavlo at Lodgewood Manufacturing.

Pietta Smith Carbine.

An even more unusual aspect of the Smith was its ammunition.  The earliest Smith cartridges consisted of a .50-caliber bullet loaded into a hardened rubber case.  The case was pierced in the back to allow the flash from the detonating musket cap to reach the powder within, setting off the round.  The rubber case would obturate to fill the chamber completely, making the cartridge excellent at preventing the escape of combustion gasses which so plagued other breech-loading rifles of the period.  The rubber for these unusual cartridges became scarce later in the period, so a different approach was used:  Metal foil was wrapped around a mandrel to form the case, and paper was then wrapped around that.

Smith cartridges and cartridge packets.

Poultney & Trimble-style foil cartridges.  Note the different style of packaging.

To see how I load ammunition for my Smith, see here:
https://historicalshooting.blogspot.com/2020/12/ammunition-for-smith-carbine.html

The Remington New Model Army

The New Model Army was a .44-caliber closed-top revolver designed c. 1863 by Eliphalet Remington & Sons of Ilion, NY. They made three designs, a pocket model in .31 caliber, a Navy model in .36 caliber, and this one, with all being essentially the same design except for the caliber and some very minor differences in frame size and in hammer and cylinder design.  The New Model Army is often mistakenly called the “1858 Remington,” however, that appellation arose from collectors who misunderstood the 1858 patent date stamped on the barrel. 1858 was the date of the patent on some aspects of the loading lever system and does not apply to the revolver in general, so the name is quite incorrect and should no longer be used. In reality, the New Model Army was designed in c. 1861-1863.  My Remington is a reproduction by Pietta that has been extensively reworked by Gary Barnes of Gary Barnes Conversions.

Remington New Model Army, reproduction cap tin, and a cartridge pack.

Kerr combustible cartridges.

To see how I load and package ammunition for my Remington, see here:
https://historicalshooting.blogspot.com/2020/10/making-civil-war-style-paper-cartridges.htm

My full kit.

The Forage Cap

The most common style of forage cap or “Bummer” cap was the M1858, which was dark blue wool with a floppy peak that falls forward when you wear it. The Kepi cap, with its short, rigidly formed body was far less common with enlisted men as it was a private-purchase item and was not even mentioned in the Uniform Regulations of 1861. The brim of the forage cap should be worn either flat or folded slightly upward, not rolled down-ward as most people do with baseball-style caps today.

Uniform Jacket

Many troopers wore the Mounted Services Shell Jacket, a blue, waist-length jacket with twelve buttons down the front. Others, however, wore the four-button Fatigue Jacket or “sack coat,” especially as the War progressed. These were lighter and more comfortable to wear and were probably more common than shell jackets for most of the war.

Shirt
Shirts varied considerably; at the beginning of the War troopers were issued the 1851 gray wool flannel shirt, but later the issued shirts were of white cotton or muslin. In addition, many troopers wore civilian shirts of various fabrics and colors.

Trousers
The issued trousers were of sky-blue wool in the Mounted Pattern, which had an extra layer of material in the seat and on the insides of the legs. Regulations called for the trousers to be worn outside of the boots (for those who had them), however, pictorial evidence indicates many troopers tended to tuck them into their boots in the field. The trousers were held up with cotton suspenders (which occasionally had elastic in them although it was not common); note that the suspenders were attached to buttons on the trousers, not to clips. Unfortunately, I have not managed to acquire a good pair of trousers, as the photograph above shows.

Footwear
Cavalry troopers wore both the M1851 Jefferson Brogans, which were lace-up ankle boots, and artillery boots. Artillery boots were rarely issued to Federal troops, but when they were, they were usually made of black leather with a square toe and a twelve-inch top. The very tall knee-flap boots many people love today were private purchase items and were uncommon for enlisted men.

The full belt kit.

Saber Belt
These were of black leather with two straps for the saber and a shoulder strap, although photographs show that most troopers left off the shoulder strap. Enlisted men wore the M1851 belt plate which was brass with a separate silver wreath.

Cap Pouch
The M1850 was the most common pattern issued, although several styles were in use. These were of black leather with a woolen lining to help with cap retention. These were most often worn on the front of the belt just to the right of the buckle plate, although they can occasionally be seen on the left side of the buckle.

Pistol Cartridge Pouch
These were called pouches rather than boxes because they did not have interior containers. These are small but should hold two to three wrapped packages of pistol ammunition. They have a small leather flap inside which makes for a good place to put a combination tool (see below). Not all enlisted troopers wore them, but when they did they were usually worn just to the right of the cap pouch.

The Pistol Holster
These were of black leather with an unmarked flap. They had a small strip attached to the flap to secure it closed on a brass post. Holsters were worn butt forward on the rear of the right hip.

Smith cartridge box, outside view.

The interior of the box showing the cartridges and implement pouch.

The Carbine Cartridge Box
These were of black leather with two loops on the back for wearing on the belt, however, they also had buckles on the bottom and a strap on the back to enable them to be worn on a sling, as with the rifle cartridge boxes. They were almost never worn on a sling, but were usually worn on the belt on the right side of the back after the pistol holster. The 1860 pattern boxes had wooden blocks inside drilled to hold 20 rounds of carbine ammunition and had a small implement pouch.

All of the cartridge boxes sold by mainstream sutlers are designed for Sharp’s Carbines, so the Smith cartridges don’t fit in them. Originally, I used a Sharp’s box from which I had removed the wooden block so that the cartridges could be carried loose in the box, but that was unsatisfactory. I ordered a custom Smith cartridge box from David Jarnagin of C & D Jarnagin Company, which can be seen here.  Interestingly, although some original boxes had spaces for twenty cartridges this box has only eighteen. I discussed this with Mr. Jarnagin, who told me that the originals were never standardized and that mine was copied from an original in the collection of the Tennessee State Museum.

Carbine Sling
This is a wide leather strap with a wide brass buckle having two tongues and a brass strap end. It holds a steel keeper to which is attached a large steel spring-loaded hook used to hang the carbine. The hook attaches to the ring on the sliding bar on the carbine. It might seem as though these should be worn with the buckle on the front, however, most photographs of the period show them being worn with the buckle on the trooper’s back when in the field and in front only for formal events. The carbine sling should be worn so that the end of the leather falls to the point of your right hip. Although the carbine can hang loose by the side, when moving on foot they were usually flipped up over the right shoulder if attached, but note that when dismounting the trooper was taught to unsnap his carbine from its sling—they were not fired while attached to the sling when on foot.

Canteen
These were usually the M1858 smooth-sided or M1862 bullseye pattern. They were tin with a wool cover and a white cloth sling. They were issued with sky-blue wool covers at first, but later several different colors of wool were used. Modern reproductions are often made of stainless steel, and as long as the cover is used that is unnoticeable. Corks should be made of cork with a metal ring on top and secured with a piece of cord, not a chain. Some pictures from the period indicate these were carried on the saddle rather than being worn, however, in Congdon’s Cavalry Compendium we are told that the canteen was never to be attached to the saddle so here we see a case in which regulations may not always have been followed strictly.

Haversack
The Federal issue haversacks of the Civil War measured around 12 in. x 12 in. with a bottom gusset of 3-1/2 inches (although dimensions could vary) and were made of light cotton drilling or canvas which was often (but not always) “tarred” or painted with a combination of lamp black and linseed oil which gave them a shiny black water-resistant finish. During the war these were intended to carry food and eating implements only, however, the historical shooter will find them to be better for carrying all of his shooting implementia discreetly (I carry a field cleaning kit, oiler, range book, pen, stadiometer, etc., in mine). These were rarely carried on the trooper but were usually attached to the horse’s tack, so I am not wearing one here.

Cleaning Kits
The term “cleaning kit” is somewhat nebulous so we need to be specific about what we mean. We can break cleaning kits into three groupings: First, there’s a range or “shop kit,” by which I mean one with modern components not intended to recreate historical ones. Second, we can talk about a “garrison kit,” which means a period kit (or reproduction of one) intended to be stored in garrison. Third, and the focus here, is a “field kit,” meaning one which a trooper might take with him in the field.  A field kit should have, at a minimum, a wiper, a bore brush (you can’t really use a jag on a thong) for each caliber of weapon, cleaning patches, a combination tool having a nipple wrench and a turnscrew (or turnscrews) for each weapon, and an oil bottle or “oiler.”

All of the revolver combination tools I have seen have a nipple wrench with a single turnscrew set at right angles to it (except the Colt Walker which had a slightly different design).  This is a modern reproduction.

Reproduction revolver combination tool with a nipple wrench and turnscrew.

Carbine combination tools had a slightly different configuration, being a flat bar with a nipple wrench set into one end and then the end of the bar being a turnscrew, with an additional smaller turnscrew on a rotating pivot. Pictured below is a reproduction Smith combination tool made for me by Josh Davis of Davis Reproductions.  It is a superb and fully functional tool that I use in all day-to-day shooting.

Reproduction Smith combination tool.

Bore brushes of the period tended to be of twisted wire with boar’s bristles inserted into the winds of the wire. The one in the picture below is approximately five inches in overall length, with the brush proper being about four inches. The thong is around thirty inches in length and about 0.15 inch thick, and the ferrule is approximately three-quarters of an inch in length.  I can find no bore brushes made from boar bristles, however, nylon is a good replacement, so I have .54– and .45-caliber nylon bore brushes (I find that .50-caliber bore brushes don’t do a good job in the Smith). These are, unfortunately, shorter than the original, but I can live with the anachronism until I find some longer ones.

Reproduction bore wiper.

A review of various sources has not turned up any regulations for standard oilers. Instead, it seems a variety of civilian oilers have been recovered indicating that these may have been privately purchased or locally sourced. I have a reproduction of an oiler for the 1853-pattern Enfield rifle (many of which having been used in the War) that I fill with Ballistol.

I keep the brushes, cleaning patches, and oiler in a small drawstring bag which I keep in my haversack. The combination tools go in the accessory compartments of my cartridge box and pouch.

Historical Shooting with Civil War Cavalry Arms
For anyone interested in a far more detailed look at the kit and equipment of a Civil War Cavalryman along with extremely detailed information about the carbines and revolvers of the period and extensive information about loading and shooting them as practiced in period, I would suggest considering buying a copy of my book.

Historical Shooting with Civil War Cavalry Arms, by Hugh T. Knight, Jr.

The book is available for purchase here:
https://historicalshooting.blogspot.com/2022/08/historical-shooting-with-civil-war.html