The Rebel Cedar Canteen: 1861-1865 – ParT I

Origins; Alabama Manufacturers; Government-Run Shops; Ordnance Bureau Issues from Montgomery & Selma

“…from our own armories and workshops we derive, in great measure, the warlike material, the ordnance and ordnance stores which are expended so profusely in the numerous and desperate engagements that rapidly succeed each other.” --- Jefferson Davis, January 1863

“We had no water to wash down our feast. The boys had drunk theirs during the fight, and my old cedar canteen had been shot away by a cannister shot, leaving me nothing but the stopper and string…” --- W. B. Smith, Co. B, 37th Georgia Infantry, 1903

“…they saw a man come out of the woods and sit upon a log beside the road twelve or fifteen rods before them. He carried a gun, a blanket, a haversack, a wooden canteen. His cap, coat, trousers were of butternut-colored cloth, and soiled.” --- William Kreutzer, 98th New York Infantry, 1878

“I forgot to say that the next day we captured those Johnnies, and that cedar canteen was a trophy of that day, and that it is the best canteen made.” --- J. T. Grimes, 12th Illinois Cavalry, 1909