the haversack

[Horace]

Re: the haversack

I stated right off that it was an assumption about nonmilitary use of haversacks, but I rummaged around and found some more images I think are worth noting.
In the image of 'Farmers Nooning' by William Sidney Mount that Hank posted there is what may be a haversack at the bottom of the picture. It's tough to tell. There does appear to be a strap looped over the top of the upturned hat.
Then there are two images of paintings by William Harnett; two versions of 'After The Hunt'. They were both painted in 1885, but show objects that are obviously older. (There's what looks like a matchlock in one of them), so I think they're worth considering. There's what clearly seems to be a leather haversack in the middle of each picture, the shoulder straps are visible.
I don't see why hunting/fishing contexts would be discounted in a nonmilitary context regarding the existence of haversacks in 'citizen' life. Hunting was an integral part of life for most people. That's where I would think haversacks would be used, in addition to game and shot bags.
On the flipside. I went through a bunch of pastoral paintings from the 19th century, and haversacks weren't exactly leaping out of them. One scene showed a kid going off skating with a basket over his shoulder. That looked uncomfortable.

[Horace]

Re: the haversack

(title page) Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman.
Sarah H. Bradford
132 p., ill.
Auburn, N. Y.
W. J. Moses, Printer
1869

I found the image in 'The Union Sundered' by T. Harry Williams, 1963. The engraving is credited to the New York Public Library. It is of course an image of her in an antebellum setting. Doing a google image search, I found the above original source.

[PogueMahone]

Re: the haversack

Well, we've acknowledged the use of the haversack-type bag for sportsman of the period and even for some adventuresome souls a'going trekking.

What we are not seeing is an image or written example of "I carried my food in my haversack when I abandoned house and home to flee the advancing army."

Really, what I'd like to see come out of this discussion is not the achievement of justifying the use of a haversack, but rather a way to improve the civilian experience at events.

Hey, if I'm going to be doing more civilian stuff, I want it to be the best it can be!

[Hank Trent]

Re: the haversack

In the image of 'Farmers Nooning' by William Sidney Mount that Hank posted there is what may be a haversack at the bottom of the picture. It's tough to tell.

Agreed.

I don't see why hunting/fishing contexts would be discounted in a nonmilitary context regarding the existence of haversacks in 'citizen' life. Hunting was an integral part of life for most people. That's where I would think haversacks would be used, in addition to game and shot bags.

Absolutely. I think the question is whether they were used in other contexts, where logic would indicate they should be: carrying lunch, going marketing, carrying small miscellaneous items when visiting (a woman's sewing or knitting, presents for the kids, whatever), If people were used to picking up a haversack whenever they went out and needed to carry something, it would be easier to assume they also did so when refugeeing or just traveling for the day to visit an army camp.

On the flipside. I went through a bunch of pastoral paintings from the 19th century, and haversacks weren't exactly leaping out of them.

They really do seem to be rare, where you'd expect them to be. Even Harriett Tubman, with her gun, looks like either a hunter or a soldier.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Jefferson Guards]

Re: the haversack

In the image of 'Farmers Nooning' by William Sidney Mount that Hank posted there is what may be a haversack at the bottom of the picture. It's tough to tell. There does appear to be a strap looped over the top of the upturned hat.

To my eyes the item draped over the top of the hat resembles a vest. The light color being the lining. One of the farmers is not wearing a hat or vest, could this be his hat and vest?

[Citizen_Soldier]

Re: the haversack

Greetings,

After re-examining Mount's work, "Farmers Nooning" I too feel that the item in question is most likely a crumpled up vest resting on a hat.

Horace wrote:

Hunting was an integral part of life for most people.

Are you able to support this? In my research I have seen that many people in the midwest in the years prior to The Rebellion lacked firearms that would allow them to hunt either for food or recreation.

An example would be the following taken from page 209 of "The History of Boone County Iowa" published in 1880. It shares the experience of the local militia called the "Tigers" organizing in response to The Spirit Lake Massacre of 1857 which had happened in the northwestern part of the state.

It seems that the great difficulty in fitting out the "Tigers" was the scarcity of fire-arms. After the company had been quickly organized, upon the reciept of the news, it was found that there was barely enough arms, including old flint-lock muskets, squirrel rifles, shot guns, and horse pistols to furnish each "Tiger" with a piece. So it happened upon thier departure that some of the "Tigers" had not so much as a flintlock musket.

Other evidence of a lack of firearms in the hands of civilians comes from descriptions of the Missouri State Guard in 1861.

Darrek Orwig

[Horace]

Re: the haversack

This is all thought provoking. People have been carrying bags -book bags, messenger bags, etc. for a long time. It just seems obvious that haversack-like bags for carrying junk would be an obvious thing then. Maybe not.

In those paintings there are baskets and alot of jugs on the ground when the scenario was 'out somewhere'. The jugs were usually fairly large and without straps, so it indicates that they were just carried in someone's hand.

That may well be a vest or a coat on the ground in the painting.

I wondered at one point how many refugees used wagons or hand carts where the haversacks would be stashed, but that seems like a shakey argument.

Bundles then?

[Horace]

Re: the haversack

Hunting was an integral part of life for most people.
Are you able to support this?

My first thought was that I grew up in upstate New York and people there are hunting all the time now, but then I thought 19th century haversacks would be easy to verify since we commonly sling bags on ourselves now.

It seems to me that in a rural context hunters would be as common as farmers, and they'd be the same people most of the time. I'm throwing myself off the cliff of conjecture again, but this seems to be a given.

If some people were too poor to afford a gun, I don't think that significantly lessens the presence of a hunting culture, along with its accessories.

[Hank Trent]

Re: the haversack

This is all thought provoking. People have been carrying bags -book bags, messenger bags, etc. for a long time. It just seems obvious that haversack-like bags for carrying junk would be an obvious thing then. Maybe not.

We may yet find that they were extremely common in everyday use in all contexts. But there's also invisible social pressure that affects what people use, against all logic. Like, for example, in modern society...

--The market wallet is gone. I've never seen a nylon, updated version of it, like one sees updated backpacks. Yet it's surely as practical now as it ever was.

--The book strap, so far as I know, is also gone. I mean the strap that buckles or stretches around a set of books, to hold them together, and you carry them by the strap.

--Businessmen carry briefcases, but beach-goers don't. Seems like a hard-sided carrying case that seals shut would be a good way to keep the sunscreen tube from being stepped on and sand from getting in the dry towels. Yet if such a thing were marketed, we "know" how it would have to look: brightly colored, plastic, not like a briefcase.

--Baskets have their places. Picnics, not boardrooms.

--Women carry purses, but men don't. Again, we "know" that if a man does carry a shoulder bag, it needs to look like a laptop bag or overnight luggage, not a purse.

--I can remember when fanny packs came in. They were new at that time in American society, yet surely as old as the first caveman who tied a burden around his waist.

So if it turns out that haversacks are confined to certain contexts in period life, it may be the same kinds of invisible forces that dictate when and how they were used, regardless of practicality or logic. Any of the above things could be, and are, used out of place in modern society, but we'd recognize them as out of place and draw conclusions accordingly (the guy with the purse is effeminate, the beachgoer with the briefcase can't leave work at the office, the guy carrying his papers in a basket into the boardroom is just weird). Perhaps that's the reason behind drawing Harriet Tubman with a haversack, as well as a gun--it "means something."

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: the haversack

Hallo!

A generation earlier:

In the “Inventory of the Estate of Philip King dec'd No. 7564 Filed October 21st 1824 A true and perfect inventory and just appraisement of all and singular the goods and chattels rights and credits which were of Philip King late of this township pikeland in the county of Chester Yeoman deceased at the time of his death, to wit. -- ",

there are the following items:

4 pieces of tow linnen and 4 Yards of tow [unreadable Stripe?] $16
5 Empty Hogsheads and 5 barrels $4.25
3 Coverleds 5 Sheets and 1 bed case $13.50
1 Market wallet, Woollen and tow yarn $6.90

Curt

[Horace]

Re: the haversack

There's also invisible social pressure that affects what people use, against all logic. Like, for example, in modern society...

--The market wallet is gone. I've never seen a nylon, updated version of it, like one sees updated backpacks. Yet it's surely as practical now as it ever was.

--The book strap, so far as I know, is also gone. I mean the strap that buckles or stretches around a set of books, to hold them together, and you carry them by the strap.

--Businessmen carry briefcases, but beach-goers don't. Seems like a hard-sided carrying case that seals shut would be a good way to keep the sunscreen tube from being stepped on and sand from getting in the dry towels. Yet if such a thing were marketed, we "know" how it would have to look: brightly colored, plastic, not like a briefcase.

--Baskets have their places. Picnics, not boardrooms.

--Women carry purses, but men don't. Again, we "know" that if a man does carry a shoulder bag, it needs to look like a laptop bag or overnight luggage, not a purse.

--I can remember when fanny packs came in. They were new at that time in American society, yet surely as old as the first caveman who tied a burden around his waist.

So if it turns out that haversacks are confined to certain contexts in period life, it may be the same kinds of invisible forces that dictate when and how they were used, regardless of practicality or logic. Any of the above things could be, and are, used out of place in modern society, but we'd recognize them as out of place and draw conclusions accordingly (the guy with the purse is effeminate, the beachgoer with the briefcase can't leave work at the office, the guy carrying his papers in a basket into the boardroom is just weird). Perhaps that's the reason behind drawing Harriet Tubman with a haversack, as well as a gun--it "means something."

That was deep. I tried the fancy quote trick. When I was a kid I wondered why no one smiled in the old photos. They didn't because they didn't. Invisible social pressure.
So when people ran, what did they grab?

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: the haversack

Hallo!

It can be hard to hold a smile for the length of some exposures.
Plus, with the primitive state of dentistry, many people did not have smiles worth showing.

;) :)

Curt

[ElizabethClark]

Re: the haversack

So when people ran, what did they grab?

Well, we do have information on that... all of the letters, diaries, and such left by citizens, describing exactly what they did grab, and sometimes what they put it into, and how long they expected to be gone, and what happened after that.

Didn't find Sarah Morgan in the basement... I'll keep looking. She has multiple refugee flights, and each one is a little different. One that comes to mind happened in the night, and she tossed items into a pillowcase, and her sister bundled clothes and things into the bedsheet... and they were headed out of New Orleans, making their way along the road to a relative's house.

Other citizen accounts have different information, but in this case, we do have actual historical records of what was grabbed when contemplating flight.

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: the haversack

Not going to get into all the various accounts of people fleeing but again I will point to our departed researcher friend Mary Elizabeth Massey's Refugee Life in the Confederacy and primary sources some published, some not.

Sarah Morgan's (published) diary does have some interesting accounts of shutting down the household as well as sudden flight. 1862 Examples:

From pg. 88

Sarah in this case is running from the quickly approaching Union troops to Baton Rouge. Among the things she and her family took with them:

Her and her sister Miriam’s toothbrushes which she “slipped them in my corsets”
A comb
Face powder
Lace collar
Tucking comb and hair pins
Old papers
“Two dirty underskirts and an old cloak”
“A nother bundle, all our silver” packed by a slave, Tiche


The things were place in a “pillow-case jerked from the bed”

From pg. 212

“Yesterday, I thought myself beggared when I heard that our house was probably burnt, remembering all the clothing, books, furniture etc that it contained; but I consoled myself with the recollection of a large trunk packed in the most scientific style, containing quantities of night gowns, skirts, chemises, dresses, cloaks, in short our very best, which was in safety. Winter had no terrors when I thought of the nice warm clothes; I only wished I had a few of the organdie dresses I had packed up before wearing. [snip]"

[Horace]

Re: the haversack

It had not occurred to me until now that in in order to do a more accurate refugee impression a person should have a period correct pillow case. That's why I come here.
Where do you find a period correct pillow case?