The Federal infantry cartridge box was a regulation leather pouch with two tin liners inside, designed to hold forty paper cartridges in two compartments of twenty. It rode on the soldier's right hip on a leather shoulder strap, the flap secured with a brass finial. The Confederate cartridge box was nearly identical in design — Confederate quartermasters copied the Federal pattern — but was often made from local Southern leather, with a brass "CS" oval or no plate at all rather than the Federal "US" plate. By 1864 many Confederate cartridge boxes were captured Federal issue, the U.S. plate replaced with whatever the soldier could obtain. The reach for a fresh cartridge was the same motion in either army.

This W. Britain figure depicts a Confederate infantryman at the first motion of the loading drill — reaching back to the cartridge box on his right hip to draw a fresh paper cartridge. The rear view shows the regulation equipment array: bedroll across the chest, haversack with rations on the left hip, canteen at his side, cartridge box at the right hip. He wears the late-war Confederate kit: gray-blue shell jacket, tan trousers, broad-brimmed slouch hat. Pair this figure with Confederate Infantry Ramming Cartridge for the fifth motion in the same loading sequence; with Confederate Infantry Reaching for Cap for the seventh motion; or with Confederate Infantry Kneeling Preparing to Fire for the firing pose — together a complete four-figure Confederate loading-and-firing diorama set.

Scale: 1/30 (60mm). Matte-painted metal. W. Britain model 31358. From the American Civil War range. Single foot figure, supplied painted and ready for display.