SPANISH AMERICAN WAR BLUE WEB CARTRIDGE BELT

$100.00

Quantity Available: 1

Item Code: 2024-511

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This is a nice example of the blue web US army cartridge belt of the 1890s used for the .45-70 arms that were still the main arm of the volunteer troops in the Spanish American War and Philippine Insurrection. This shows no shredding or damage, just slight fading to the color and a soldier’s rack number “22” stenciled in white on the inside. The belt is the single loop variety, made with 50 loops for .45-70 cartridges. This follows the Mills pattern closely but the brass bases of the clasps are not stamped with the usual Mills Orndorff patent dates suggesting it may have been made by one the competing firms given government contracts during mobilization for the war.

Company saddlers and other leather workers started fabricating looped cartridge belts for non-regulation wear in the field soon after the formal adoption of metallic cartridge arms. Some suggest it might even date to the Civil War, but a point in the later 1860s with the adoption of the .50 Sharps and Allin conversions seems more likely. In any case, the army started catching up in the 1870s with the development of the 1874 Hazen loops, which slid over the leather waistbelt, and the 1876 prairie belt using web cartridge loops covering a leather belt with an open frame brass buckle. This shifted to fully woven belts in the 1880s using cast and then stamped H-shaped U.S. belt plates and finally to patterns like this in the 1890s that omitted the belt plate in favor of a simple wire clasp system. It was not long however, before these passed from use in favor of pocket belts better suited to magazine arms using fixed numbers of cartridges per loading.  [SR][ph:L]

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