Visualizing History: “Keeping Powder Dry”

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Waller’s Powder Horn SOURCE: Image courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution.

Musket-toting soldiers needed a ready-at-hand, moisture-tight container for gunpowder. The eighteenth-century solution to this packaging problem was the powder horn, made from the horn of an ox or cow and carried on a shoulder strap. Tight wooden plugs sealed both ends. A soldier filled the large end with explosive powder and dispensed it through the small end into the firing pan of the musket. Experienced soldiers took a total of 45 to 90 seconds to reload and fire.

During the considerable down-time of military life, soldiers personalized their horns with carved or engraved words and pictures, sometimes hiring skilled artisans or possibly doing it themselves. Hundreds of surviving horns from the Revolutionary War bear their owners’ names and often a precise date. Popular choices for pictures included sailing ships, soldiers in battle formation, and animals real and fictive. Some horns depicted maps while others celebrated victories the soldier had witnessed.

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Sherburne’s Powder Horn Edward Sherburne from New Hampshire joined the Continental army in January 1776. His bold name on his seventeen-inch horn ensured that no one might mistake it for another. To the left are the words “Success to” followed by “Liberty” inscribed in a heart. A rabbit and a lion sit atop the banner “Liberty,” joined by a bust possibly of George Washington. The inset enlarges the carving above Sherburne’s name, showing eight soldiers firing at one another. Sherburne rose to be a major, but his career was cut short; he died in battle at Germantown, Pennsylvania, in October 1777. SOURCE: Photo by David Wesbrook. Reprinted courtesy of the Honourable Company of Horners.

The two powder horns shown here are emblazoned with patriotic rhetoric about liberty. William Waller joined a Virginia militia unit in 1775 and defended New York against the British invasion in August 1776. He chose two slogans: “LIBERTY or DEATH” and, on the other side, “KILL or be KILLD.” The first had become something of a popular catchphrase in 1775; it graced the masthead of a fiery Massachusetts newspaper, and it also appeared in occasional personal correspondence. (Its usage did not originate with a March 1775 speech by Patrick Henry, alleged to end with the stirring words “Give me Liberty or Give me Death.” Henry’s speech was nowhere reported in the press of his day, nor did he speak from a written copy. A biographer in 1816 crafted the famous lines, based on a recollection of an old man present that day.) Waller carried his powder horn into a November 1776 battle defending Fort Washington, just north of New York City. The fort fell, and Waller was one of 3,000 men captured by the British that day. Most of those captives were herded into prison ships in the waters off New York City, and almost none of them survived.

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Detail of Sherburne’s Powder Horn SOURCE: Photo by David Wesbrook. Reprinted courtesy of the Honourable Company of Horners.

SOURCES: Waller Powder Horn: Image courtesy of the Museum of the American Revolution; Sherburne Powder Horn and Detail: Photo by David Wesbrook. Reprinted courtesy of the Honourable Company of Horners.

Questions for Analysis

  1. Why would soldiers put their names on their powder horns? How were the horns similar to military dog tags?
  2. What might the date on a powder horn signify about a soldier’s participation in the war? Why might it be important or useful to carry dated equipment?
  3. These two horns and many others carry military motifs and themes. Is it in any way surprising to find a lack of pictorial references to civilian life or loved ones back home?

Connect to the Big Idea

The scores of existing powder horns show us an intricate and often beautiful form of folk art. What can they also show us about the political beliefs and personally felt allegiances of the common soldier in the Revolutionary War?