Reproduction Civil War U.S. Signal Cartridges & Box

These are photos of a US Signal Corps marked wooden box that contains 50 original, and extremely rare, Coston's signaling flare cartridges as used in the Federal Army's pyrotechnic signaling system during the war.

The outside dimension of the wooden box is 20" wide x 11" deep x 4" high. The box, made of ¾" pine, and constructed with a brass-hinged top lid and iron locking device that secures the lid to the box.

The box wears its original coat of dusky-gray paint on all exterior surfaces except for the bottom. Stenciled on the exterior of the lid's surface in faded black paint are 5/8" high block letters that describe the box contents: "44 SETS / U.S. SIGNAL CARTRIDGES / A.G.M. 1861".

The interior of the signal box is unpainted while the lid bears the maker's name and address stenciled in black ink with bold 1" high letters that spell:
"MANUFACTURED BY / G. A. LILLIENDAHL / PYROTECHNIST / NEW YORK."
The box interior has a false floor, which is perforated with 98 holes laid out in a grid. Each hole is 5/8" in diameter with the grid being divided up into seven equally spaced compartments, with each compartment housing a total of fourteen flares of the same type.

Set into the holes in each compartment in the box are individual Coston-patent flare cartridges, making a total of 98 flares in the box. Each flare is a hollow, cylindrical-shaped, 3" long wooden stemmed device that is filled with powder composition and sealed with a paper topping. The flare cartridges exhibit unique color combinations to represent various numerals and letters used in military signaling.

History:
In the 1860's, G.A. Lilliendahl was the owner of a fireworks manufacturing company in New York City that held production rights to make the small signaling flares called "Coston's Composition Night Signals", a.k.a. the Coston's Telegraphic Night Signal System.

The Coston story: Martha Coston, a native of Baltimore, MD was the wife of a young naval scientist who died and left her a widow in 1849 at the age of 21 with four children to support. In going through her husband’s property, Mrs. Coston found her husbands idea for a system of signaling flares in his notebooks. He was unable to get his system to work but Martha Coston in seeking a means to support her family took the drawings and tried to perfect her husband’s system. Her goal was to create flares that were bright and long-lasting enough for ship-to-ship or ship-to-land signaling over great distances. After ten years of experimentation and failures she finally succeeded, and in 1859 she was granted a US patent. Mrs. Coston had invented and patented a system of red, white and green "Pyrotechnic Night Signals" in cartridge form that worked so well, that the U.S. Government soon purchased the rights on the pyrotechnic signaling system for $20,000

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This project is to make a faithfully accurate reproduction of this Civil War U.S. Signal Cartridge Box and the Cartridges (minus anything of a pyrotechnic nature of course!)

So why start my Blog this project? I wanted to start off with a pretty simple project - something nearly anyone can build. Most of construction materials that are necessary to build this box and the flares are available at your local hardware store. As far as tools are concerned, all that's required are some basic woodworking tools that most people have on hand, or are inexpensive to purchase.

If you've come to this web page and I've not shared any of the contruction photo's - you've simply arrived before I've had time to put that stuff up. Come back in a week or so and you should see photo's of the contruction in progress.