Primed to Fire: An Archaeological Study of the Percussion Caps at Historic Fort Snelling (21HE99)

The goal in undertaking this thesis project was to examine percussion caps recovered from Historic Fort Snelling to try and better understand weapon utilization, their association with structures and activity areas at the fort, and potential availability. Located at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers near St. Paul, Minnesota the fort was built in the early 1800s to assert the United States’ political and economic objectives in the region. Over its tenure the fort has had a long history of service, with mission objectives constantly changing over the years. The fort was key to the foundation of Minnesota as a state, and for that reason the old “historic” fort was restored in the mid-1900s. Today the fort operates as a living history museum with reenactors telling the stories and history associated with the old fort. A few years prior to the construction of Fort Snelling percussion caps were invented and forever changed the world of firearms. At the height of their usage, they provided users with a reliability and durability that prior to that time had only been hoped for. Eventually percussion-based firearms became the standard firearm for many soldiers, including those stationed at Fort Snelling. The percussion caps that have been recovered through archaeological excavation have added a little more to the history of the fort in understanding weapon utilization, their association with structures and activity areas at the fort, and potential availability. The research in this thesis examines the distribution of caps across the fort, the types of caps used, elements of entanglement, and experimental archaeology to test the reliability of “scar” marking on the crown of caps to associate them with individual weapons. The results of this study have found percussion caps in a fort setting to be useful in determining areas where firearms were present in the compound. Additionally, the physical characteristics of percussion caps give only limited insight into their manufacture and origin, unless a maker’s mark is present. Lastly, experimental archaeology dealing with the study of “scar” markings on the crowns of percussion caps confirms that the hammer and nipple configuration on percussion-based firearms leaves distinctive identifiable characteristics unique to each paired assembly and has the potential to track a weapon’s movement though the examination of caps with matching patterns