This is a nice example of the U.S. Model 1855 Rifleman’s buckle with one of its belt support slides, all excavated in Orange, Virginia. All have a nice, even olive-green tone on the face with a little whitish-gray mixed in on the reverse and are in very good shape, only the belt slide showing some unevenness or curvature. These innovative buckles copied the French 1847 Chasseur-a-pied buckles, and indeed their whole belt design. The wide belt was intended to support not only a cartridge box worn on the waist, but also the heavy brass-hilted saber bayonet adopted for use with the Model 1855 rifle. The buckle is two-piece, using a simple wide tongue and with each side having wide bars through which the wide belt passes, but also a central bar with stud that engages the adjusting holes on a narrower billet sewn inside the belt, to actually keep the belt and buckle together on each side. The whole system was part of the trend toward light infantry, with the elimination of the cartridge box sling intended to ease the soldier’s load, and with a brass slide on either side of the buckle with a small hole at top to engage the J-hooks on the ends of the knapsack straps to equalize and balance things.

These buckles were regulation in the prewar U.S. army for what was envisioned as a “corps of foot riflemen,” with the 9^th and 10^th U.S. infantry taking the lead, and were widely worn by militia units equipping themselves as riflemen, though the distinction was rapidly lost as the .58 rifle musket became the standard long arm. They nevertheless show up in lots of early war photographs, into 1862, after which they were supplanted by the standard infantry gear that had evolved from the earlier narrow belts and small size M1839 oval US belt plates.  [sr] [ph:L]

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