American Cartridge Box
The soldier carried his cartridges in a special pouch called a cartridge box or cartouche box. Usually this consisted of a leather pouch enclosing a block of wood with twenty to thirty holes bored into it to hold the individual cartridges. It was designed for safety and for the protection of the cartridges against wet weather and from breakage. This particular pouch has a tinned iron tray (for extra cartridges and flints) which sets under the wooden block. References to such trays are frequent in the early 1780s, and there are indications that they may first have appeared as early as 1779.
Castine will commemorate the 225th Anniversary of the 1779 Penobscot Expedition during the summer of 2004, culminating in a series of events on the weekend of August 13-15. This engagement was considered the most disastrous naval defeat in American history until Pearl Harbor.
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