Point of Curiosity, re: Snapsacks/Knapsacks

[Manveruon]

I was just browsing around online for some info on historical snapsacks of the 18th Century, and I stumbled upon this almost immediately in my Google results - thought folks here would find it interesting!

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/commen ... psacks.htm

Ultimately, the (rather short) article here posits that what we normally think of as the 18th Century “snapsack” has been largely mislabeled, and that the word “snapsack” itself was used largely interchangeably with “knapsack,” and NOT specific to a single-strapped, tube-shaped, drawstring bag, as we have come to understand it.
Not that this necessarily matters for our purposes - after all, we all have a pretty standard understanding of what the word “snapsack” means in the context of our hobby - but it’s still an interesting linguistic detail!

[ForgeCorvus]

One of the other things I do is Napoleonic Redcoat.
With us a Knapsack is a back pack and our single strap shoulder bag that we put food in is a Haversack (Haver means "Oat" BTW)
An interesting side note is in the area my family come from (the main trades are mining and steel-working), Snap or Snapping is (or rather used to be) a worker's lunch which you carry in a Snap tin or Snap sack.

I've always translated " Snapsack" as "a shoulder bag used by Rangers and others to carry food and cooking gear"

[Manveruon]

Makes sense to me! That’s exactly what I use my snapsack for! Extremely convenient for that purpose!

[Yavion]

It also makes sense from a logistics point of view. Having food stuffs in a separate containing/bag means you can string it up already put together if you're in an area where animals can get to it, like bears. It also means if you have food residue it states segregated from the rest of your gear.

[Elleth]

Oh yes, this has apparently been something of a bone of contention in 18th c. New England circles for a while.

For a bit more context -
John Rees (the guy mentioned as the researcher in the article) has done a LOT of just fantastic in-depth research on RevWar era, including packs and accoutrements. Here's his Academia.edu profile with links to all his stuff:
https://independent.academia.edu/JohnRees1

This one in particular is really interesting:
https://www.academia.edu/35677994/_Squa ... _Evolution

I can't recall if it was in that paper or another, but in one of them he found a letter from someone writing from (I think) the New England colonies during or not long before the American War of Independence, where the correspondent is describing what we'd call a knapsack/backpack - eg, a bag with two straps, one over each shoulder - in a fashion than seems to imply it was something he'd never seen before.

We know from artwork that at the time of the English Civil War soldiers were carrying big snapsacks (eg, a single bag on a single strap over the shoulder, with one or both ends tied shut "drawstring" style).
And we know from artwork that at the time of the American Revolution the knapsack (two shoulder straps, worn on the back) was in use.

It's my understanding the RevWar folks up in these parts had been assuming that "snapsack" in contemporary documents still referred to the earlier pattern - Rees suggests that the pattern had changed by the 1770s, but the old word stuck around.
I think some of the colonial units up here over the last decade or so have been swapping out (what we'd call) snapsacks for simple knapsacks, but I don't know how universal that's been.


I've not got a clue where the truth lies... but I do think it odd that despite seeing pack baskets worn on the back all the way into the medieval period that knapsacks would be such a comparatively modern invention.

[Ohtarvarno]

Growing up in the Midlands in the UK I agree with ForgeCorvus that "snap" has always been a term for food or snacks. My grandad would often tell me to "get some snap down you".

To me a snapsack would be a general bag to keep food in and not a specific style of bag. This could be a wide range of bags such as the German army ww2 bread bag, a pilgrim bag, a small backpack or just a linem bag that could be kept inside another.

Another way to look at it would be to consider the word lunchbox. There is not just one design of lunchbox. There are many regional and national variations.

[Elleth]

... interesting! Whereabouts in the midlands, may I ask?

Some while ago Albion's Seed went into great detail about the regional origin of the New Englanders of the late 18th c. -

albions-seed-migration.jpg (41.03 KiB) Viewed 5715 times

Any chance your word came from that "to New England" region?

[Ohtarvarno]

Hi Elleth,

I was born and bred about 20 miles north of Birmingham, on the edge of the Black Country. My family roots come from the Shropshire / Wales border.