Union Knapsack: Federal Equipment | Civil War Reenactor's Guide

back here on backyard history hello and welcome to Backyard history battles today I am going to show you an example of a federal knapsack the m1855 to 1864 NASDAQ [Music] the union knapsack starting from the top has these two straps they are called great coat straps because that's where you put your great coat right on top these straps also are used by those who opted out for a bed roll they use these to fasten the bottom of their bed roll and keep it tight if they decided to switch over but for the issued double bag knapsack that's what these were used for is for the gray coat so going inside of the knapsack you open it up you have the bag obviously that has the two leather tie offs and the trunk which is where it is fastened by the leather straps similar to the gray coach straps but just sewn onto the bag itself now there is many ways you can do this like I said your gray coat would most typically go on top and your blanket your half shelter tent and your gum blanket all that would go inside now with that being said I put mine right here ease of access you could slip it right out without even having to unbuckle your bag and get your blanket if it's getting chilly outside it's it's a lot of things you gotta either you know take from original accounts or learn yourself like what's easiest to do what's the most simple and I like doing things like this putting things in a nice easy place to access so I put that right on top moving on into the trunk so this is where the soldier would keep a lot of his heavy equipment you know this stuff like his ground or his ground cloth his tent uh perhaps even the blanket if he didn't put it on top like I did like I said that's the way I like to put it there just because it's easy to grab and pull right out but yeah we'll open this up and on the inside right front and center is my ground cloth and like I said again I like to have things at an easy place to access and this is something that you get out quite frequently whether it's to put on the ground to sit on when you're by the fire or you get out when it's raining and you throw around yourself so that's why I put this right here in between these two here so the ones that are open towards the bag and out towards the outside of the bag these are the other ones I keep fasting and I put it on top of those now you open these up and this is where you start getting into the meat and potatoes of your so I like to keep my plate right on top and underneath my plate I keep my utensils so inside obviously the utensil bag I have my fork knife spoon all that your cutlery very important to have and I like to keep it in here rather than my haversack some reenactors might keep it in their hypersack because that's easier to get to and yes I would agree it's a lot easier to get to but if you land on that In the Heat of battle or something and a port goes through your average ACT that would not be very comfortable so like I said I like to keep that in my knapsack underneath that is uh just a coin purse wallet type deal I just keep reenactor money inside here greenbacks and that sort of thing so moving on to the next big item half tent so obviously this is only half of the dog tent of your part or your comrade would help put together your other's half and you'd have a nice shelter but that goes right on top or right at the bottom that is and inside of this because I don't have a sheath or anything I keep an ax or a hatchet and this is good for chopping up firewood and whatever you need to do get your reward for your half tent that's good to have now obviously you probably only need one of these per company or a couple of these per company somebody else could be hold carrying your frying pan or something of that nature but I keep hold of a hatchet inside that I tuck it inside of my tent like this so it doesn't cut anything and this is pretty heavy duty canvas so it should be all right now moving on uh a lot of different things I have some soap soap is nice to have when you're getting really hot and sweaty at the very end of the day you just want to clean off rinse your hands wipe down your arms it goes a long way trust me um I also have my little candle holder this holds on to some of my candles and a couple matches and things of that nature but it's also doubles as a lantern this folds out you can put your candle inside very useful for riding and that sort of thing and keeping a light on yourself at night next up I just hold on to some twine it's not very heavy duty but in most instances it does the job so it's pretty good some spare poke sacks I mean you never know when you might run across something and you need to fill them up another thing you can keep in here is an extra pair of drawers socks whatever I like to keep more things in my trunk uh you want to kind of like make it flat and comfortable for when you're pairing it on your back so you probably won't want to have a bunch of stuff in here that will be uncomfortable to carry but uh I think it's a little more secure than the bag I find that a lot of things fall out of the bag if you're not careful because it doesn't fasten nearly as tight moving right along into the bag so these are fastened with these two little leather strips here and like I said it's not as secure as your trunk but you can put a lot of useful things in here this is where I keep my half tin I don't use it as much as my plate so I keep my plate and it like with my fork and stuff but I do have that in case somebody else needs it or I do need to use it for you know something extra put some food in while I'm cooking something else or whatever um and this is where I keep my extra drawers uh I need to get an extra pair of socks so that is something else that uh I would keep in there if I did have a spare pair of wool socks or cotton socks whatever oh yep here are my gloves so this is where I keep my fingerless gloves um most soldiers probably didn't have two pair of gloves but I do like having uh the choice to wear fingerless or non-fingerless or you could wear one fingerless in one hand and then your non-dominant hand where the full full glove I don't know uh whatever you need to do to be able to access your things with your fingers because it's hard to use your fingers when you have soft padding on them but for the most part that's all I keep in my bag now there are many ways you can pack this I mean that's there's really no right or wrong way but there are historical accounts and then you have whatever you want to do as a reenactor but this is how I pack mine and it does pretty well so the knapsack like I said is very up to you how you want to pack it and what you want to do with it or if you want to even have it at all but with that being said there are some personal things or little effects that you can add to it um different people will put their company on it the regimen or whatever they're uh unit right onto the front of the bag and like a white paint probably oil-based latex would come off so I would recommend probably painting it in some oil base just right on front uh now if you don't like it you could paint black over it and redo it or I mean you might see that but like I said that is a option and it's been seen in historical references of knapsacks with companies and whatnot etched into it with a little bit of paint it is a pretty nice and if if you pack it right it can be very comfortable to wear a lot of people don't find it comfortable and it depends on your body stature if you're a larger person then it might be a little more uncomfortable but I don't find it to be too bad and like I said the big part about how you pack it whether you put your tent on the bottom right up against your back or whatever you do to help support another thing I like to do and this is kind of useful to know and it's been very good information that I've learned is your blanket will roll back like over top of the bag it will want to do this when you're wearing it and it doesn't look good doesn't feel good so what I do is when you're putting your blanket or your great coat most likely your great coat up on top I feed my Graco straps through your arm supports right through there so if you take your coat strap you feed it through here and it pulls it up and you want to make sure it's nice and ah now and see that you don't want like twisted or anything but you want it to be pulled nice and tight and pull it however tight you want it to be you don't want it Loose necessarily but this will keep it from rolling and it it's really annoying if it does it doesn't look good if it starts to roll and I'm not sure there are any historical accounts of this but chances are if a soldier knew about this they would have done it it's one of those things where it's minor but it's definitely not out of the question thank you for watching this has been backyard history on how to wear use and equip your knapsack [Music]

Channel: Backyard History Battles

Views: 6,107

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Id: 69zJptLPY4U

Length: 10min 28sec (628 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2023