CONFEDERATE ENLISTED MAN’S WAIST BELT- EX-TEXAS CIVIL WAR MUSEUM

$1,250.00 ON HOLD

Quantity Available: 1

Item Code: 1179-1165

This waist belt, fitted with a simple iron horseshoe buckle and a narrow billet added to one end comes from the collections of the Texas Civil War Museum. A wide variety of belts and buckles, some carried over into Confederate service from militia use and some just improvised are well documented in standard references, period photographs, and by excavated artifacts. See Mullinax among other authors, but in particular Lon Keim’s “Confederate General Service Accoutrement Plates” for the variety of simple belts and iron buckles often taken into service southern volunteers.

In this case it seems the underlying wider belt with one standing retaining loop was the basis for the improvisation, with the blackened iron horseshoe buckle crudely stitched on in an oblong pattern, often seen more neatly done on Confederate officers’ belts. The same crude stitching then secures a second, added, retaining loop to the rear. The maker then lengthened belt by adding a long narrow billet to the other end, securing it with the same type of stitching he used for the buckle and then pierced it for the buckle tongue. It looks as if he may have originally planned to have the belt narrow to width of the billet much earlier along its length- there are two parallel slits in the belt, back from the billet, but which stop short of it. One of slits has a tear to the belt edge, leaving the strip attached at one end but not the other. We have left this as is, but it would not take much to stabilize it. It looks like the maker suddenly realized that some width was required to better carry a cap box, bayonet, and perhaps even a cartridge box as well, if the soldier lacked a cartridge box sling- and it certainly looks like accoutrement belts and leather was in short supply.

The belt is solid, aside from the one short loose strip, and two other short slits, showing wear and losses to the finish from flexing and use, but with billet, buckle and retaining loops firmly in place and very displayable. This is telling testimony to the shortage of supplies and resources to arm the flood of volunteers in 1861, particularly in the south, and to the resourcefulness and talent for improvisation necessary to meet the demand, especially in more remote or rural communities. This would make a great piece in a display showing the progression and improvement in Confederate wartime manufacture, though it always had to struggle with a dearth of resources.  [sr] [ph:L]

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