1858 Accoutrement Description

[coffee boiler]

For those who are interested I just posted to our website Major William Thornton’s 1858 Infantry accoutrements description from the collection of the Nation Archives.

Anyone who has read Paul Johnson’s “Civil War Cartridge Boxes of the Union Infantryman” will remember that in 1858 Major Williams was asked to rewrite the Small Arms and Accoutrements chapter for an intended revision of the 1850 Ordnance Manual. This revision however was never published.

The text is located in the “book” section of our equipment guidelines.

[RyanBWeddle]

Re: 1858 Accoutrement Description

For those who are interested I just posted to our website Major William Thornton’s 1858 Infantry accoutrements description from the collection of the Nation Archives.

Anyone who has read Paul Johnson’s “Civil War Cartridge Boxes of the Union Infantryman” will remember that in 1858 Major Williams was asked to rewrite the Small Arms and Accoutrements chapter for an intended revision of the 1850 Ordnance Manual. This revision however was never published.

The text is located in the “book” section of our equipment guidelines.

:confused_ :sarcastic
Uhhhh...this underlying historical document cannot be copyrighted as it is in the public domain (National Archives).

The only thing you can "copyright" is your particular transcription, fonts and introduction.

You aren't the only person to run across this info in the National Archives, and I know that Paul Johnson & Fred Gaede used/will use this info in monographs they actually 'publish'.

All in all though, an interesting document.

[coffee boiler]

Re: 1858 Accoutrement Description

Ryan,
You are correct in that the original document located at the Nation Archives is in the public domain and is available for anyone to copy or transcribe themselves who wishes to do so. What is copy righted is our transcription of it and for that matter so is Paul Johnson’s work. There is however sometimes a misconception that a transcription of a public domain item is itself also in the public domain as well and not subject to copy right protection. If you were to compare Paul Johnson’s transcript of Major Thornton’s writing you’ll notice that the two are not the same. In Paul’s transcription he has subtle changes in the order of some words and sentences and in some cases substituted words of similar meaning. Our transcription, as well as the manuals posted on USRegulars.com, use similar techniques to uniquely identify our work from that of the original. So to answer your question, yes anyone can go to the National Archives and create their own transcript of these items. You are not, however, allowed to copy from someone else’s transcription work. Which goes back to the other thread about respect vs. piracy within our reenacting community.

But all this detracts from the real purpose of this thread, which is intended to provide information and discussion on accoutrements during this time period. Of particular interest to us was his description of the waist belt, which omitted any reference to the brass keeper. This is an item that while widely rumored to be a mid-war item had yet to be formally documented as such. This whole issue was teased out by the dedicated work of the Columbia Rifles who first brought this issue to the forefront in their CRRC based on a conversation with Paul Johnson. Mr. Thornton’s writings are the first pieces of actual documentation that we have come across that contradicts Todd’s conclusion that the brass keeper coincided with the issuance of the ’55 rifled-musket. We still don’t know definitively when the brass keepers where introduced, but hopefully when Paul’s new book is published he will have the answer to this question.

Kind Regards,