U.S. Model 1885 carbine boot of black harness leather, seamed and riveted, with a wide keeper band at the upper body carrying a buckle and tongue strap, a long russet-brown attachment strap riveted at the upper rear and fitted with a graduated series of punched and slotted adjustment holes, and a second buckled strap at the base of the boot. The boot carried the trooper's carbine on the saddle.

Impressed on the upper face in a stacked arrangement: 46 over F over 10. In the standard form of cavalry equipment marking, these denote the individual trooper's roster number (46), the troop (F) and the regiment (10th Cavalry). Beneath the numerals is a faint impressed ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL stamp, partly obscured by crazing of the leather.

The 10th U.S. Cavalry was organized at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1866 under Col. Benjamin H. Grierson. With the 9th Cavalry, it was one of the Army's two regiments of Black cavalry, enlisted men serving under white officers, whom Native Americans of the Plains are traditionally said to have called Buffalo Soldiers. The regiment served on the Southern Plains and in the Southwest, including the Apache campaigns of the 1880s, and later in Cuba in 1898 and on the Mexican border in 1916. Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois, was one of the Ordnance Department's principal producers of leather horse equipments in the 1880s and 1890s. The markings are consistent with issue to a trooper of Troop F, 10th Cavalry; the individual is not identified.

Heavy crazing and cracking to the leather with scuffing and loss of the black finish, most pronounced at the upper face and the lower body; light rubbing and wear to the keeper and strap edges; attachment strap dry with enlarged holes. Complete as photographed, including both buckled straps.  [ss][ph:L]

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