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UNION CAVALRY CARBINE CARTRIDGE BOX WITH IDENTIFICATION DISPLAY TAG

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This is a good example of the Civil War Union cavalry carbine cartridge box made and marked on the inner flap by “Hoover Calhoun & Co” of New York, a well known supplier of leather gear to the army. The marking is a bit rubbed on the upper and middle line of the oval stamp, but is unambiguous. The leather overall has a good surface with deep brown tones, some rubs and minor wrinkles from flexing, but no substantial flaking. The latch tab, inner flap with side ears, belt loops, implement pouch, and buckles are all in place and secure. This was a universal pattern that could accommodate cartridges for different carbines depending on the configuration of a wood block, now missing, that would be bored out to hold them, but marks from the tips of the bullets on the underside of the inner flap indicate it carried cartridges for a Burnside carbine, whose peculiar shape meant they were carried point up and stood rather tall. The box comes with an old typewritten display tag, likely from a veterans’ post or local historical society, with an inventory number “212” and reads as follows:

“212. THIS AMMUNITION CASE WAS USED BY HENRY WELTY WHO ENLISTED FROM STEVENS POINT, PORTAGE CO. ON MAY 10^TH 1861 WISCONSIN. LATER HE WAS FIRST SGT. IN CO. B 186^TH REG OF PENNSYLVANIA VOL.”

Welty has an interesting, if puzzling, history. He shows up in the Wisconsin records as mustering into Co. G of the 5^th Wisconsin on 5/10/61, which is a match for the card, and deserting on 8/18/62. The regiment served in the east, seeing action at, among other places, Yorktown, Lee’s Mills, Williamsburg, Gaines Mill, Golding’s and Garnett’s Farm, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Glendale, and Malvern Hill in the Peninsula. Welty apparently decided he had had enough just before the beginning of the Antietam Campaign. We not see him in the 186^th PA, but there is a Henry Welby, so it is likely him again, either hiding under a pseudonym or just the victim of a copyist’s error. He is listed as mustering into Co. B of that unit as 1^st Sergeant 2/25/64, and mustering out 8/15/65. The unit spent its time in the service doing provost guard duty in Philadelphia. That he went in as a First Sergeant implies he had some bearing of authority and experience, so perhaps he did not hide his previous service and the listing of desertion might be a misunderstanding in the records that was later cleared up. In either case, this would certainly seem to be the same man noted on the card. The flip side is that he seems to have had only infantry service, so the possession of a cavalry carbine cartridge box is something of a puzzle. Bates lists him clearly (as Welby) in Co. B of the 186^th PA. If he had been in the 185^th PA, which was the 22^nd Cavalry, we might have had a good explanation. Whatever the reason, he left behind a good example of a regulation Civil War Union cavalry carbine cartridge box.  [sr][ph:L]

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