For many years, I’ve seen in many sources comments about the horse equipment, especially saddles, being largely inspired by French hussar equipment. That sort of discussion is informative, if you know what French hussar equipment looked like. So began a longtime hit and miss search of foreign designs and influences on the horse equipment of…
In 1863, the Ordnance department of the US Army was making numerous positive actions to improve the horse equipment acquisition process. One of these efforts was concentrated on quality control of saddle trees – a product notoriously difficult to produce to specification on a mass scale. All saddle trees were made using hand tools, so…
One of the real treats that occasionally happens for the student of old historical artifacts is the discovery of a true rarity. Not just a hard-to-find item but an item that could be termed a ‘unicorn’ – so rare is it that there is no readily apparent logical reason that it should still exist. Such…
Like so many details of American military horse equipment, these details can be traced to European influences – even to the small small brass decorative fittings. Pommel ornaments or ‘shields’ are a fixture of US military saddles going all the way back to the first Ringgold dragoons saddles (circa 1841-42). A natural solution for reinforcing…
In the rosters of influential US Army officers of the early 19th century, the name of Samuel Ringgold is held in high esteem. Reknowned for his work in introducing and development of light artillery in the US Army, he is also known here for a side project to promote an Americanized take on the French…
Thornton Grimsley was born on the 20th of August 1798 in Bourbon County, Kentucky where his father had recently immigrated to with his large family. Both his parents died before 1807, leaving a helpless family of eight children. After a short time he was apprenticed in 1808 to the saddlery business of John Jacoby, in…
