This is a standard M1858 smooth-sided canteen that was supplied to the New York Depot, which have the unique characteristic of using a short chain to retain the stopper rather than a string. This has only one partial link left, but it is in the hole on one of the upper brackets that indicates a NY Depot product, the more conventional string being simply looped through a bracket and the ring of the stopper. The cover is typical undyed brown wool, with stains from use but very solid, with good seams, and showing only one larger S-shaped hole above the bottom bracket and a couple of smaller moth nips. The stopper is in place, with its ring, though with pieces out of the cork and lacking its flat cap.

The canteen has a full length, narrow leather sling with a small iron buckle and retaining loop. Some of the earliest Civil War canteens were fitted with leather straps, but photographs show some soldiers using them much later, likely as field replacements for the more fragile cloth straps. In this case, the strap has a postwar splayed rivet securing the iron buckle and retaining loop, indicating a later repair or later strap, likely for wear by a veteran. One side of the canteen cover is stenciled “22^nd / IND” over a short flourish. The regiment was a hard-fighting unit in the western campaigns, mustering in August 1861 and mustering out July 1865, losing 14 officers and 139 enlisted men killed or mortally wounded while serving for the most part in the 20^th, 4^th and 14^th Army Corps, and fighting at Pea Ridge, Perryville, Stones River, Missionary Ridge, Rome, Dallas, Kennesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek, in front of Atlanta, and elsewhere.  [sr] [ph:m]

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