1790-1810 Militia Dragoon Cartridge Belt

In 1778 Congress recommended that mounted troops be equipped with cartridge
boxes that buckled around the waist and contained twelve tin tubes. This one does
Congress better by half, having 18 tin tubes contained in a long, thin leather pouch
with a heavier leather flap, that is mounted by two belt loops on a waistbelt
measuring about 2 –inches wide and 40 inches long that fastens with a narrow
interior strap and buckle. The tins are about 2 inches long and .55 inch in diameter.
The pouch holding them is about 11 inches long. The belt and pouch cover are solid,
but the cover is detached for most of its length, being still anchored at either end
near the belt loops. The face of the pouch softer leather and torn at about the
midpoint with some leather missing at the bottom that will let some of the tubes slip
out and should be repaired. There is a name inked at one end of the waist belt. This style of belt is illustrated in Steffen’s The Horse Soldier and Peterson’s Book of
the Continental Soldier, but there is not much to date any example precisely. This
likely is from a militia dragoon company of the late 1790s to early 1800s.