Mcclellan Saddle

planetFigure

Help Support planetFigure:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
megroot

megroot

A Fixture
Joined
Jan 7, 2004
Messages
28,725
Location
Netherlands, Arnemuiden
This whas the saddle used by the 1st Virginia Cavalry. As I'm almost so far that I can paint the saddle I run on some questions.
In my search for pictures of the saddle I see always the stirrups covered with brownblack leather.
Carl didn't sculpt that, so I wonder, shouldn't it be there or not????
If so, what could be the reason that it wasn't sculpt? Isn't it there because the saddle is not on the horseback, but on the soldiers back and therefore the covering is hidden???
Somebody could please help me out.

Marc
11096395_2m.jpg
 
According to Mrs Helm they are removable and while you might use them in bad weather or long periods of riding, on short trips you may well not bother to strap them on.

Steve
 
What I think you are talking about are the leather covered stirrups, or hoods as they are called in military terms. In later days and in cowboy terms they are called tapaderos. Essentially they protected the foot from two things, one is that you can't get your foot all the way through the stirrup, as such it would be harder to get hung up and drug by the horse. The other is if your riding in brush etc it protects your boots as well as keeps the foot from being knocked out of stirrup very easily.

As for removable, don't think so! They were riveted to the stirrups in several places. However, not everyone had these and the saddles were quite common to just have plain wooden stirrups.
 
I went to the web site "Society of the Military Horse" operated by Pat Holscher and looked up the McClellan saddle.

An excerpt from one of Mr. Holscher's posts regarding the identification of a particular McClellan saddle. Several pieces of useful information.

"The stirrups are not original to this saddle in all likelihood. They are not military stirrups to be sure. Military McClellan stirrups of this era were wood, including the stirrups for the M1857, which varied from those for the M1859 simply by lacking hoods. These do not have the appearance of any standard US military stirrup. They're almost certainly a replacement stirrup for whatever was on the saddle originally.
Keep in mind that there's really fairly little here to indicate that it is an early 1857, which were very few in number, other than the covered seat and general construction, but that's not unique to the 1857. Commercial McClellans went into production very early, as early as the Civil War (officers purchased their own saddles at that time). Fenders aren't as unique as you suppose as they were generally incorporated into civilian McClellans, unlike most of the later 19th Century military McClellans. As you note, a complaint about the M1857 was the thin leather, and you are lacking that here. You have a tree that is not rawhide covered, but that's very common amongst the commercially made saddles, as the ID post above notes, and which has been discussed in other threads here on the forum. Black McClellans continued to be commercially offered after the Army went to russet, and McClellans were also used as Police saddles up until extremely recently on some police forces. Actually a few still use them."​

Here's another good source of information about Confederate saddles and tack. http://confederatesaddles.com/ The site has a section on saddles for sale with good color photos.
​
All the best,​
Dan

​
 
The Fenders and Tapederos are two different things. I have a Mclelland style saddle with both fenders and tapederos. The tapederos are not removable being riveted to the stirrups. The fenders are removeable as they are generally a slide or buckle fit to the stirrup leathers. What is visible on the bust cannot be trapederos but more likely the fenders.
 
David, I think they are not.
I'm looking for this:
tapaderos.jpg


And that is absolutely not at the place that you wrote.
As you can see they are not removable, they are riveted.
So I let it as Carl sculpted it.
To all the guys who made a comment and helped me into the right direction Thanks.
David, I'm really looking forward to your painted version.
I think when you have done that, I'm not gonna showing mine......I think it is something for me to shame.
 
Fooey, Marc! You should definitely show us your painting. Your painting is yours and Davids is his. There are far too many people in this world that are more than willing to criticize, most of the time destructively and negatively. So going around thinking your work isn't good enough is a real waste of your time on this earth. Do your best and claim it as yours, brother.

All the best,
Dan
 
Dan Morton said:
Fooey, Marc! You should definitely show us your painting. Your painting is yours and Davids is his. There are far too many people in this world that are more than willing to criticize, most of the time destructively and negatively. So going around thinking your work isn't good enough is a real waste of your time on this earth. Do your best and claim it as yours, brother.

All the best,
Dan
Click to expand...

Amen to that!
 

Similar threads

V
Completed CGS 120mm Cuirassier with 69th Regiment Color
2
Replies
35
Views
3K
Waterlooman
Waterlooman
lpa53
WIP Danish Cuirassier
Replies
8
Views
981
MalcC
MalcC
The Riveteer
Waterloo - the truth?
2
Replies
29
Views
2K
sd0324
sd0324
Nap
  • Sticky
So....You want to build a HISTOREX figure
2
Replies
37
Views
7K
Babelfish
Babelfish
svt
WIP Horse with Hungarian saddle.
2 3
Replies
41
Views
5K
Nap
Nap

Latest posts

Back
Top