Boxes for shipping

[rbruno]

I have been looking more into original records and as different items were being sent out from Richmond, the invoice of course list what was being sent and at the end how many boxes or arms chest it took to ship the items. I searched the forum and found a thread that focused on ammo boxes. Does anyone know what a packing box used to ship haversacks, belts, gun slings, halters, etc would have looked like? Was there a standard box like the ammo box thread described? If so does anyone have dimensions, descriptions, pictures? There had to be plenty of these in camp, but probably most ended up as fire wood. Just curious to see what these would have looked like.

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Boxes for shipping

This is just one example and not offered as a universal guide.

Google Books has a preview copy of Lynette Taylor's The Supply For Tomorrow Must Not Fail, based on records left by a Captain Simon Perkins, a Union army quartermaster:

http://books.google.com/books?id=3di0pFV0RqwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+supply+for+tomorrow+must+not+fail#PPR13,M1

Pages xii and xiii of the Preface have photographs of the boxes in which Captain Perkins stored his documents. These are described as "vintage crates" painted dark blue with lettering stencilled in red.

You can get some idea of size from the photos, which show the boxes as they were found, filled with bundles of forms. If the forms are folded according to regulation, they should be about 3.5 inches wide and 8 inches long. This would make the interior of the box shown about 12 inches wide and 20 inches long. Looking where the top of bundled papers stored vertically stands, I'd say the box is about 11 or 12 inches deep. The boards seem about an inch thick, the top is flat and hinged, and the boxes seem to be nailed rather than dove-tailed.

Hope this helps!

[ephraim_zook]

Re: Boxes for shipping

Michael,

I wonder if the boxes in the photos were shipping crates, storage crates, or shipping boxes converted for storage purposes. No scientific support for this, but would shipping crates typically be hinged? I suspect not. What do you think? You've spent more time researching this stuff than anyone else.

regards
Ron Myzie

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Boxes for shipping

This is a subject that I know next to nothing about. I honestly don't know what they are.

In addition the hinges they have metal handles on the side. If they had had wooden handles I would say they might be converted ammo boxes. They seem a little small to be converted hard tack boxes.

But it strikes me that, as a quartermaster, Perkins would have had access to the material and labor with which to have his own boxes purpose-made -- the vertically filed papers fit well enough to support this -- and he could certainly argue that it was a legitimate business expense.

There's a box for company papers something like these in Lord's. With all the variety in supposedly standardized items used in the civil war, it wouldn't surprise me to see a range of boxes used for storing files. Given that, I see the Perkins' boxes as a source of suggestions rather than a model to follow strictly.