Handcuffed Soldier?

Yes the ones shaped like an 8 or with a solid bar were not liked very much by their captors..I f the prisioner had to relieve himself, the guard had to help him, or unlock them and let him do his own buisness at hand....
 
Even modern handcuffs and manacles ..... had to 'help' when nature called-- (Thank goodness for rubber gloves --before issuing rubber gloves to the rank and file, many of us bought Rubbermaid dish washing gloves to protect ourselves health wise--Hospitals were generous in giving us a box when we visited there--now, they are standard issues). I think back on all the out of pocket expenses I had to protect myself from society's diseases and risks--I could be driving and living at a higher standard.

M. E. Wolf
MPDC -retired
 
Yes the ones shaped like an 8 or with a solid bar were not liked very much by their captors..I f the prisioner had to relieve himself, the guard had to help him, or unlock them and let him do his own buisness at hand....

Check out the pictures, though (hope the links work, was having trouble with some when I was posting yesterday). The "8" or solid bar chains, at least the southern ones I'm aware of, were generally long ones, designed for convenience of movement, for men to wear when being conducted on foot in coffles. From the appearance, and from common sense based on coffle drivers wanting to make their job easier and safer, I think one could relieve oneself while wearing them, not that I've ever worn them, thank god!

I suspect the design was primarily to reduce the number of welds, since they'd be forge-welded individually with hammer and anvil, so a series of longer links would be almost as flexible as a regular chain, but require half or a quarter or less of the number of welds.

Do you have images or info on solid-bar short handcuffs and their use in the period? The various name-brand law enforcement handcuffs I've seen, like the ones in the linked images, have a couple flexible links between the cuffs, so I haven't run across that form specifically, but I'm sure they were around, since they'd be similar in concept to the stocks and yokes in the south.

And, uh, because I realize it sounds like I care way too much about this, LOL! No, I'm not into bondage or anything. Needed to research this a while back to see what former enslaved people and masters were talking about when they referred to various forms of confinement, and get a clear enough mental picture to decide when they were writing from first-hand experience or copying and exaggerating to make things sound better or worse.
 
.... No, I'm not into bondage or anything. Needed to research this a while back to see what former enslaved people and masters were talking about when they referred to various forms of confinement, and get a clear enough mental picture to decide when they were writing from first-hand experience or copying and exaggerating to make things sound better or worse.

I could only find this picture so far, but if you need assistance in your researches, let me know. Apparently the collar shown below would have had three prongs, each prong would likely have had a bell at its end.

Servant three-prong collar.jpg
 
I could only find this picture so far, but if you need assistance in your researches, let me know. Apparently the collar shown below would have had three prongs, each prong would likely have had a bell at its end.

View attachment 3936

Oh yeah, collars with prongs. They seem to have been more common in the very deep south, New Orleans, etc. They show up occasionally in runaway slave ads, and an antebellum abolitionist museum in Rhode Island actually managed to snag one, after discovering that a steamboat captain offered to remove one from an enslaved woman and kept it in the hold of his ship forgotten, after steaming north. Charles Ball gave a gothic horror kind of story about a man he discovered wearing one in the woods (starting at the very bottom of the page).
 
Well well well... I ran across the picture below while looking for something else entirely. These are Union prisoners of war in the south. I'm still leaning toward watch chain in the photo, but just imagine that the man in the photograph is the man on the right, with one end of the chain going up to his neck--not visible because of his greatcoat--and the other disappearing at his waist.

One problem is that there's no connecting chain visible in the photo. And, also, the drawing is an artist's depiction of how he imagined the man's story, so wasn't necessarily how things were. And there's the problem that the end of the chain in the photo loops upward, but I can't tell what the end of the chain in the drawing does, whether it's just hanging loose or goes somewhere with a purpose.

But it just goes to show one never knows what's out there.
?id=KG4UAAAAYAAJ&output=html&pg=PP1&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&q=&sig=ACfU3U3KMvA7fij0faAHeg0yQINcK1_ZWQ.png

Link to the book http://books.google.com/books?id=KG4UAAAAYAAJ
 
Well well well... I ran across the picture below while looking for something else entirely. These are Union prisoners of war in the south. I'm still leaning toward watch chain in the photo, but just imagine that the man in the photograph is the man on the right, with one end of the chain going up to his neck--not visible because of his greatcoat--and the other disappearing at his waist.

One problem is that there's no connecting chain visible in the photo. And, also, the drawing is an artist's depiction of how he imagined the man's story, so wasn't necessarily how things were. And there's the problem that the end of the chain in the photo loops upward, but I can't tell what the end of the chain in the drawing does, whether it's just hanging loose or goes somewhere with a purpose.

But it just goes to show one never knows what's out there.
?id=KG4UAAAAYAAJ&output=html&pg=PP1&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&q=&sig=ACfU3U3KMvA7fij0faAHeg0yQINcK1_ZWQ.png

Link to the book http://books.google.com/books?id=KG4UAAAAYAAJ

Wicked ... The excess chain is probably supported in the pocket or belt--I can imagine link of chain to be padlocked on another prisoner in tow--and plenty of practice on the slaves down there, pretty handy with locks, chains and 'torture.'
Of course--this is just my opinion.

M. E. Wolf
 
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