for you arty guys--meas of picket line rope

[10nycav]

I am posting this in the general section too since most of you fellows may not read the Cav section.

In Hardtack and Coffee, Billings described the picket rope used for artillery horses as being 75 feet long and "1-1/2 inches in diameter." (I am pretty sure this is what he said--but I loaned out my copy of the book so this is from memory. Correct me if I'm wrong!) Obviously, this is a huge rope. He may have mis-spoke and meant to say "circumference," but he seems very accurate elsewhere. If he really meant circumference this would translate to a rope about 1/2" in diameter. Also the strain 12 artillery horses can put on a rope if they got panicked is extreme. My opinion is that a properly set picket line should be about as taut and unyielding as steel cable. I have some friends who went on backcountry excursions in Africa and the picket lines were like this--very heavy and very taut. If they do yield, horses can get caught in them more easily. So maybe he was correct about the 1-1/2" diameter.

Does anyone else have on good authority what the correct measurement for picket line rope was?

Thanks!
Ken Morris
10th Regt of Cavalry NYSV

[bluebellybugleboy]

Pard:
I have hardtack and coffe in my hand currently
on page 178 it says :
"when the army was on the march , with no danger immpending , the horses were un-harrnessedand tied to a pickett-rope.this was a rope about 200feet long and 2"in diameter, which when the battery was drawn in to park ,was hitched to outer hind wheel of a caisson on one flank of the battery and then carried through the hind wheels and over the ammunition-chests of the intervening caissons and made fast to a hind wheel of the caisson on the other flank."

and on the next page (179)it has somemore references:
" In camp, adifferent plan was adopted . if it was in the open , a line of posts was set at intervals , such as would the keep the rope from sagging low , and to them it was secured. The earth was ten feet on either side was then thrown up beneath like a well graded street , so as to drain off readily . Sometimes the picket was established in the edge of woods , in which case the rope ran from tree to tree. In summer camp a shelter of boughs was constructed over the picket. In winter a wall of pine boughswas set up around to fend off bleak winds. Now and then one was roofed with a thatch of confiscated straw; and i remember of seeing one nearly covered with long clap-boards, shingles, which were rifted out of pine logs"

the way i'm seeing the artillery pickett lines is that they were tied to each casson and each caisson would reiebe the tension on the rope , so that would keep it taught on the rope so the horses wouldn't get in a tangle. I hope this helps answers some questions of yours. it certainly answered more that I thought I'd learn in one day .


Rob young

[10nycav]

Thanks for the info! Now I wonder where I got that 75 feet and 1-1/2 inches from??? Does this ring a bell with anyone else? A 2" diameter rope is freakin' HUGE! Lots bigger than what I've seen anyone using (not that it makes it right . . .) What do you arty boys use and what is your documentation for it?

I talked to some fellows who make period rope and they say that in the Civil War rope was measured using both diameter and circumference which has made things mighty confusing in their own research.

Ken

[K Bartsch]

The rope we use for this is about an inch in diameter. We tie off one end to a tree if possible. Then, using a period block and tackle tied (to a tree if possible) at the other end, thread the free end of the rope thru the block, use a couple guys to pull as taught as possible and then secure with a truckers hitch -- at least I think its a truckers hitch, my Boy Scout First Class exam was about 32 years ago. Anyway, you get the idea.

Cordially,

[bluebellybugleboy]

pard:
do you mean the taught-line hitch?

[Ringgold]

The Ordnance Manual calls for a 2 3/4" rope, measured by running a string around the circumference. That would make the diametre almost an inch thick, if my less-than-stellar mathematical abilities haven't sunk me again . . .

Also, rope of import was officially measured in fathoms and not feet. A fathom is about 6'1" long. Gee, why not chains or rods?

[tmattimore]

The Ordnance Manual helps explain why the measure of a rope is its girth.
From page 426
The size of a rope is desginated by the circumfrence or girth measured with a thread.......
The utmost strength of good hemp rope is 6,400 lbs to the square inch; the weight it will bear before breaking is expressed in tons by 1/5th of the square of the girth in inches....

(Thus a 3" girth rope will break at 9 divided by 5 tons or 1.8 tons.)
to continue
in practice a rope should never be subjected to more then half this strain.