Earliest documented horn on bag strap?

[brazosland]

Like the title says. How long has this been done?

To my uneducated mind it seems to be a very late thing…like 1820’s and later. Git some learnin in me, please!

 

[Mad L]

Interesting question.

 

[brazosland]

Anyone have an opinion?

 

[TDM]

Just my opinion based on what I’ve seen and read, I’d say a little earlier, maybe just post 1800.

 

[DOUBLEDEUCE 1]

 

[SOLANCO]

Varies. If I were looking to shoot some meat I would tuck my little 4 shot horn in the bag. If I were trekking or anticipating trouble my large horn would be on its own strap. On my shoulder or, maybe, on my saddle horn.

 

[tenngun]

Will have to check it out for sure, but I’m thinking Firearms traps and tools of tge mountain men show Spanish having flask attached to the strap and French with axe and horn all on one strap
It’s going to be hard to id for sure. Cartoons or drawings made on the spot, and paintings after the fact may not be fully accurate. Contemporary bags are almost non existent and journals pretty iffy
I would say post 1800, but sure wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Maybe Americans got the idea from French and Spanish right after the Louisiana purchase ????

 

[Brokennock]

This would be a very difficult thing to prove or even get a solid idea of.
My inclination is post 1800. But, this is based mostly on period paintings earlier than that not showing horns attached to bags, but many of those don't clearly show the area the attachment would be, it wasn't the focus of the artist.

 

[LongWalker]

Anyone have an opinion?

There are paintings of bags with horns or flasks attached that date to the 1500s. Until the bombing of WWII, there were bags (dating to the late 1600s) with attached horns or flasks, and paintings of those particular bags in use by known individuals.

There are bags with attached horns in private collections (and probably museums, didn't look) in the UK that were collected 1748-1782 in what is now the US. (There were some pretty neat pouches that didn't have horns attached too.) There is at least one drawing of a Hessian soldier (1780 IIRC) that seems to show the horn attached to his pouch, while others around him seem to be using belt pouches (or possibly cartridge boxes). By 1814 (arguably, possibly earlier--maybe as early as 1803 but this hasn't been shown via documentation), the US Gov't was issuing riflemen a pouch with attached horn.

So there you go. Documented use of a horn or flask attached to the pouch straps . . . if you're re-enacting as a 16th century sailor on a British merchantman landing for water on an unknown island, a German prince hunting in what is now Germany a generation after the Peace of Westphalia, a souvenir-collecting Scottish officer in His Majesty's army serving in the North American colonies during the Seven Years War or the AWI, an oddball Hessian chasseur serving as an auxiliary to His Majesty's army in Nova Scotia in 1780, or a US Rifleman in 1814-1840ish carrying an 1803 Harpers Ferry/1814 or 1817 Common Rifle/flint Hall breechloader (or possibly in the first year of the US Civil War, when states emptied their armories to arm state troops).

 

[tenngun]

I’m of two minds on this.
People tended to follow styles in time. Does this mean they didn’t improvise and adapt?
We know pockets were not used on rifleman shirts. However of three documented revolutionary known shirts one has pockets. Was it originally on the shirt, added later? We don’t know.
How common was it?
When did such shirts become in to use?
We don’t associate them with F and I period, but someone made the first when was that?
They were common ten years later.
What could you do with the materials of the time in the way they made stuff.
Paintings are few and set. 99.999 left no visible record.
However
If we do what ever we want then we move to Steam punk/rev fair.
Yet if we say someone couldn’t do such and such how real are we representing the past?