Eastern Federal Canteen Spouts - Dispelling Some Common Myths

Sam Chapman

Although somewhat of a obscure subject I feel this article to be necessary in order to dispel some of the reenactor myths about Federal canteens. These came to light after a discussion in the summer after reading about them on the internet. These two assumptions where that

• All Federal canteen spouts had vent holes in them.

• All Federal canteen spouts were made of pewter

These assumptions were applied to both smoothside and bullseye variants of the canteen (the 1858 model and its subsequent improvements). As we were planning a tour of many Eastern battlefields and museums it was decided to do a survey of the surviving canteens to see if these factors indeed held true.

Firstly what was the vent hole, and what was its purpose? Despite many claims that the vent hole was intended to allow the canteen to dry out more effectively this was almost definitely not its intention. The vent hole was designed to allow easier drinking from the canteen - by allowing air back into the canteen it would prvent a vacuum forming and make the flow of water steadier (this is the same as when you tip a bottle of water upside down). The hole was cleverly positioned so that when the cork was in place in the spout that the vent hole would effectively be blocked off and prevent any leakage (see diagram below).

To assess whether this vent hole was uniformly present we examined as many canteens as possible (29 spouts in total) and somewhat surprisingly found only 5 of these to have vent holes. The vent holes appeared in both smoothside and bullseye canteens meaning that it was unlikely to be only a single contract. However none of these canteens had visible makers marks so the possibility of it being a single contractor or depot is not ruled out. Where present the hole was in the upper half of the canteen spout and was of 3/8-inch diameter. The hole was seen on a front/back orientation (i.e. at 90 to the solder) however due to the small size of the sample, no real conclusion can be reached here. All of the canteens with vent holes had pewter spouts.

In our sample it can be seen that the majority of canteens had pewter spouts with only 3 in 29 being tin. However this disproves the myth that all spouts should be pewter with the likely hood being that the majority being pewter and a few tin.

Due to the small size of the sample few positive conclusions can be reached - it is far easier to disprove than prove something. Also this sample is only 29 out of the millions of canteens produced and as a result far too small to be able to make predictions from. As many other features of the canteen were noted at the time in order to aid manufacturer/depot identification but this has proved difficult so far. Of interest are the two different methods of chain attachment. One being the well-known method of having a hole drilled through the strap loop. However the other is more interesting (due to its high quality it is unlikely to be a field modification) with a ring around the spout having the chain attached to it.

Note on sources:

The canteens came from either relic shops or the NPS battlefield museums. Where known the provenance of the canteens has been included.

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