A Stand Of Arms - "What Is Become Of The Cartouch Boxes"

Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne's British and German soldiers left their camp on the morning of October 17, 1777, with orders to march "... to the verge of the river where the old fort stood, where the arms and artillery are to be left; the arms to be piled by word of command from their own officers." [1]  Following the surrender, American Colonel Jeduthan Baldwin would record in his diary that among what was captured were "5000 Stands arms", or as Lieutenant-Colonel James Wilkinson would quote decades later from Major Ebenezer Steven's return: "five thousand stand of arms are taken ..." [2]    

What is a stand of arms?  The term does not appear in Thomas Simes "A Treaty on the Military Science".  Captain George Smith's Universal Military Dictionary helps some, as "Stand of Arms" is defined as being "a complete set of arms for one soldier."  What is meant by "arms" though is open to interpretation under Smith's definition, which reads that they are: "... in general, all kinds of weapons, whether used for offence or defence. In a legal sense, arms may extend to any thing that a man wears for his own defence, or takes in his hand, and uses in anger, to strike, throw at, or wound another." [3]  

Captain Bennett Cuthbertson's instructions for infantry makes use of the term "arms and accoutrements", but not "stand of arms".  In chapter thirteen he offers detailed instruction on the inspection and care of "arms", then goes on to talk about "firelocks" [muskets] and bayonets.  Later he uses the term "accourtrements", and provides guidance on how to care for pouches for ammunition and bayonet belts. [4]  Fifty years later, well after the surrender at Saratoga, the term is more clearly defined in Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary as: "A stand of arms consists of a musket, bayonet, cartridge-box and belt, with a sword. But for common soldiers a sword is not necessary." [5]

Words mattered, especially with regard to the Articles of Convention, as Burgoyne or one of his officers interpreted the phrase "arms to be piled" as meaning muskets and bayonets, and for those enlisted troops who had them, swords or sabers.  

Cartridge pouches, as pictured above being worn by a soldier of the recreated British 24th Regiment of Foot for the annual commemoration of the surrender of arms at Saratoga, were not surrendered.  Major-General Friedrich Adolph Riedesel, the commander of Burgoyne's German troops, confirms this writing: “Finally, after much trouble and deliberation, General Bourgoyne signed the convention and on the 17th in the morning the army marched out laying down nothing but muskets and sabers, and marched thus to Stillwater...  The men have retained cartridge boxes and sword belts, but they had to surrender muskets and sabers." [6]      

One of Burgoyne's officers, Ensign William Noble of the 47th Regiment of Foot, acting aide-de-camp to Major-General William Phillips, suggests their retention was an afterthought, an action taken in response to Major-General Horatio Gates saying that he wanted to respect private property, "... and as the Colonels would suffer by the loss of their accoutrements, the soldiers might take them.  I was the officer sent to the commanding officers to tell them the soldiers were to keep their accoutrements.  They had taken them off with a design to leave them behind, and upon my delivering the message they put them on again." [7]

Another of Burgoyne's officers described the circumstances somewhat differently.  Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Kingston, Burgoyne's adjutant general, recalled that on the day of the surrender, "... when the King's troops marched by with the accoutrements on, Mr. Gates asked me (we had been old acquaintance formerly) whether it was not customary on field days for arms and accoutrements to go together. I told him there was nothing said in the Convention that I had agreed to with him relating to the accoutrements, and that he could have no right to anything but what was stipulated in that treaty. He replied, "You are perfectly right, " and turned to some of the officers in their service by, and said, "If we meant to have had them, we ought to have inserted them in the Convention". "  [8]

A month after the surrender, Congress ordered that the return it had received of material captured at Saratoga be reviewed by a committee of three of its members.  Three days later that committee concluded that in the report they received from Gates, "...there is no mention in the said return of standards, military chest, medicines or tents ... the muskets amount only to four thousand six hundred and forty-seven, a number not equal to the prisoners who surrendered agreeable to the convention of Saratoga, and ... there are only six hundred and thirty-eight cartouch [cartridge] boxes..."  Congress responded to the committee's findings with a resolution that an express rider be sent to Gates to inform him that they " ... desire answers to the following questions, viz. ...[among other items] What is become of the cartouch boxes ?..." [9]

Gates answer was straight-forward, but probably not what Congress wanted to hear, as: "..Many of the cartouch boxes were left, and some were carried away. The mentioning of the accoutrements was forgotten in the convention. Those that have been carried off have been sold upon the road to Boston for drams."  [10]

Regardless of why Burgoyne's troops kept what they did, it was a costly decision.  Congress was already dissatisfied that the Convention allowed Burgoyne's troops to return to England.  Gates response, in addition to Burgoyne having alleged that Convention was broken as his officers were not provided with quarters as agreed upon, led Congress to suspend the embarkation of the Convention Army for Britain on January 8, 1778.  Among its reasons for doing so was: "That as many of the cartouch-boxes and several other articles of military accoutrements annexed to the persons of the non-commissioned officers and soldiers included in the Convention of Saratoga, have not been delivered up, the Convention, on the part of the British army, has not been strictly complied with..." [11] 

The question of what happened was more than a legality.  While Gates fought Burgoyne, General George Washington struggled to arm and equip his Continental regiments and militia in Pennsylvania.  Among what he needed was to ensure that all of his soldiers could carry their cartridges securely.  On October 13th he expressed "real grief and amazement" over the lack of arms and accoutrements in his army, and in a letter to Congress lamented that he was unable to even find out if there were any cartridge boxes in store.  Five days after Burgoyne's surrender he discouraged the Board of War from making cartridge boxes with painted canvas flaps, and later, making boxes without an inner flap. [12]  Several thousand well made British and German cartridge pouches would have been a welcome addition to Washington's army.  

UPDATE:

Americans writing about the surrender at Saratoga use the term “cartridge box” for what the British separately labeled “pouches” and “boxes”.  In the British army, each term had its own meaning.  This is explained in an outstanding presentation by Saratoga National Park Historian Eric Schnitzer.  

His presentation, made in 2022 at the Museum of the American Revolution, begins at about 1:37:00 in the “Day 2” video currently available online.

The presentation includes an excerpt from a letter Burgoyne wrote to Congress on February 11, 1778.  Burgoyne explained the difference between boxes and pouches, and that most of his troops, with the exception of the light infantry, had left their cartridge boxes in Canada at the start of the campaign.  Regardless, the Convention Army would spend years in captivity due in a large part to this issue.

[1] Articles of Convention, Article I.

[2] Baldwin, The Revolutionary Journal of Jeduthan Baldwin, 128.  Wilkinson, Memoirs Of My Own Time, 1: 322.

[3] Thomas Simes, A Treatise on the Military Science (London: John Millan, 1780).  Captain George Smith, An [sic] Universal Military Dictionary (London: J. Millan, 1779) np.  My thanks to friend and colleague Mike Barbieri for sharing this definition to me.

[4] Bennett Cuthbertson, System for the Complete Interior Management and Economy of a Battalion Of Infantry (Bristol: Rouths and Nelson, 1776), 89-101.

[5] Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828), accessed online January 18, 2024 at: https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/arms 

[6] Riedesel to the Duke of Brunswick, Albany, October 21, 1777, transcribed by Saratoga National Historic Park, nd, 8.  Riedesel, or perhaps the translator, uses the term "boxes" rather than "pouches".

[7] Charles Deane, Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne and the Convention of Saratoga... A Paper Read Before the American Antiquarian Society on the 22nd of October, 1877, (Worcester: Charles Hamilton, 1878), 40.

[8] Burgoyne, Expedition From Canada, Evidence, 119.

[9] Deane, Burgoyne and the Convention, 37.

[10] Deane, Burgoyne and the Convention, 38.

[11] Deane, Burgoyne and the Convention, 41-42.

[12] John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1933), 9:362-363, 366, 415, 497.

Next Week: West Springfield, Massachusetts - "The Roads Were Golden"

For more on the Convention Army's 1777 march from Saratoga to Boston, see:

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