Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

[dixieflyer]

Forumites,
Back in the day, I really used to enjoy making up cartridges. I know some hate that chore, but I guess I found a certain "zen" in doing so.

Anyway, since returning to the fold I've been catching up on research both old and new, and my reading has naturally led me back to reproducing cartridges. I have a couple of questions for the scribes and sages here:

.69 Caliber Smoothbore Ammunition: I've seen the table of regs (1861 if memory serves me correctly) that states these are supposed to be made out of red paper. I have never seen an actual, original .69 smoothbore ball round in the flesh, and the only photos in books I have of these are in B&W to the best of my memory. Were these produced throughout the war with red paper, or did this get dropped in favor of the plain-Jane tan/brown variety that .58/.577 caliber rounds were made of in the interest of expediency?

Percussion Cap Tubes: That green paper, I've never seen it. I bought a "lot"/bag of dug machine cut Minie' rounds years back that included the remains of what I thought/think is a percussion cap tube. (A bunch of percussion caps inside of the remains of a tan/brown paper tube.) Was the green ever really used? Was it used then dropped?

Thanks in advance for your help on this.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

Hallo!

Tis complicated. In brief and to over generalize...

The 3rd Edition (aka 1861) Ordnance Manual specified green wrapeprs for .69 RB and red wrappers for buckshot. It seems to have omitted a spec for buck-and-ball wrappers. .69 EB were to have been "ordinary" paper.

Surviving cartridges would seem to show that this was rarely followed, "ordinary" (read as off white) paper being the more common, and it did not seem to bother the inspectors. This is also true for string, it runnng from natural to white to two ply variations of blue and white, red and white, or pink and white.

My theory is that the wrapper color became less important, as the packing box was color coded anyways. Meaning, a wooden packing box for .69 RB was (ideally) to have been blue, and red for buckshot rounds. "Lead" for .69 EB.

Or, as with the Williams Patent cartridges, my theory is that they went from blue to ordinary paper so that the soldiers could not see a difference as readily and throw away the unpopular rounds.

Same thing for percussion cap rolls- ordinary paper was fine in practice, and it was not like a soldier would confuse his cap "tube" for a cartridge by mistake. ;) :)
Of the handful of surviivng originals i havre seen, they were all ordinary paper wrapped. (But, that raises a discussion as to the unbalanced weight of late War artifacts in the archeological pool skewing things for the whole War..)

Curt

[dixieflyer]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

Danke sehr Herr Doktor Professor Schmidt! This confirms what I suspected back then as well as now, but never had an opportunity to put it before a such a learned group in this venue. I shall forge ahead with my rolling papers as planned.*

*Ooops! hope that doesn't set of a DEA filter. :o

[john duffer]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

" and it was not like a soldier would confuse his cap "tube" for a cartridge by mistake. "

It's a modern reference rather than period but at an LBL event where I portrayed a guerrilla leader and we were bounced by a company of very swift feds I did indeed ram a tube of caps while running in terror. I didn't realize it until next morning when multiple caps wouldn't fire and I used a worm.

[dixieflyer]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

Well John, I must confess that the same thing happened at the '89 Franklin 125th when during the CS assault my messmates needed ammo, and I passed a packet up to them. They unwrapped them and one of my messmates did the same thing. We got lucky that day.

[MarkTK36thIL]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

Out of curiousity, does anyone have a picture of a sleeve of caps from a package?

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

Hallo!

I thought I had one, but all of my reference photogrpahs are still trapped in a dead hard drive. I will look through my disk piles to see if may be I had downloaded it to disk some time or not.

The lone and only, or last one I recall on Public Display was years ago at the old NPS Gettysburg Visitors' Center. As you turned the corner in the "gun wing," immediately on the right was a cartridge box with tins and cartridges, and a cap roll in ordinary paper.
Then it disappeared with a sign saying it was removed for conservation.
For years afterwards, it was never brought back.

I have only been to the "new and improved" VC once, so I might have missed it. But I DOUBT it.

Curt
Balking at the $400 fee for a lab to try, successfully or not, to retrieve my photos and documents Mess

[Roger Hansen]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

I dug 3 or so intact cart paper rolls of caps from Federal trenches at Spanish Fort 25 years ago. Each roll had 12 caps. Diameters was about 3/8 inch as the caps were stacked inside. Really surprised they were in excellent shape and I was able to preserve. Length was about 1 3/4 inches. The color coming out of 3 ft of dirt was dull white. Sorry I am not in a place to take a photo. The bullet drops along the trench bottom in the area were primarily Washington Arsenal .58 pistol carbine design (Mason) and Williams Cleaners Type 3. There were A LOT of cleaners dropped and fired - and very obviuous the Confederate were using them also. Remember pulling up white cartridge papers (torn) occasionally along with bits wool socks in same area.

Roger Hansen

[J. Donaldson]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

Attached are two images of .69 ammunition as displayed at the West Point Museum.

[CompanyWag]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

I just happened to have a roll of caps sitting on the table next to my desk. Here's a quick front and back scan of the roll for your reference. Ordinary cartridge paper, tied the same as a cartridge.



Scott Cross: If you happen to be reading this note...Yes, this is the same roll that John Wedeward attempted to molest on the way home from one of the Chicago Civil War Collector Shows.

Paul McKee

[dixieflyer]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

Curt, I appreciate your feedback and looking for me. Roger, you have jogged my memory banks, and I remember you telling me about pulling those up now. Paul, thanks for the images, my previous attempts at this looked just like that. I could have sworn that I remember them being wrapped in plain cartridge paper, thanks for confirming it for me. Bob, thanks for the image of the .69 rounds. I'll get you a three-wolf shirt to give Patrick. ;)

[itz3r1k]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

they packed the caps in an green tube. from what i have read atleast. and on the .69 the cartridges were the plain paper and the bundling paper was green for the smoothbore. the ammo boxes were blue for smoothbore and red for buck and ball.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Various Colors of Cartridge Papers from U.S. Arsenals

Hallo!

A problem some lads sometimes have when using the "Pertinent Data" taken from the small arms Table on page 270 of the 1861 Ordnance Manual is that...

it presumes one already knows that the cartridges are not color coded but the wrappers of the bundles were to have been.

When reading the Table the papers that form the cartridges are made of "Ordinary Paper.' In the table they are listed under "Trapezoid" and no color is listed because there were no colors- they were "ordinary paper."
Below that then, is the "Wrapper" section that gives the dimensions for the bundle wrappers AND the (official) color for the bundle wrapper colored papers. (I say "offical" because with the color coding of the boxes, there was no real need to color code their bundled cartridges, and may explain why the "regs" were not followed as evidenced by the artifact pool.

"they packed the caps in an green tube. from what i have read atleast."

When making a statement that is outside of our Collective Knowledge base, research and documentation base, and surviving artifact pool, it is a good idea to cite the references, documentation, and artifacts used to come to that analysis and opinion please?

Thanks!

Curt
Always looking to learn soemthing new Mess