McClellan saddle

The McClellan saddle is a riding saddle that was designed by George B. McClellan, after his tour of Europe as the member of a military commission charged with studying the latest developments in engineer and cavalry forces including field equipment.

The saddle was used by several other nations, including Rhodesia and Mexico, and to a degree by the British in the Boer War.

[2] In April 1855, six years before the start of the Civil War, Captain George B. McClellan sailed to Europe as part of a military commission to study developments in European tactics, weaponry, and logistics.

He also proposed a cavalry saddle that he claimed was a modification of a Hungarian model used in the Prussian service.

The saddle always remained recognizable as McClellan's design, which included cavalry and artillery models.

During the American Civil War, many Confederate cavalrymen provided their own horses and civilian saddles.

Because leather was scarce in the South during the Civil War, many of the McClellan saddles had skirts of painted canvas.

It supported a rawhide-covered open seat, a thick leather skirt, wooden stirrups, and a girth strap of woolen yarn.

This variant, the final one in US service, fit closer than other McClellan saddles, and is still used by the US Army in ceremonial uses.

Enormous quantities of M1904 McClellans were purchased by the US Army in World War I, effectively preventing any new saddle from being adopted for general use for decades.

At least some were sold to the Dominion forces in the Boer War, and the North-West Mounted Police in Canada obtained at least a few for test purposes.