Actually, Napoleonic soldiers’ haversacks are not too complicated to make. They consist of a large piece that is folded and seamed at the sides and hemmed around the edges to become the bag
and a long strap that is sewn into a tube, turned inside out, ironed flat and connected to the upper ends.
Up to now the whole process took me about 5 hours, and I still have to connect the strap to the bag and make the buttons and buttonholes for closure. On the other hand, most of my time was spent on hemming the flap and upper edge and finishing the seam allowances on the bag.
The latter of the two would not be necessary if the linen was woven to the correct width, which is not unlikely for the period in question. So an early 19th century seamstress, who would have been far more proficient at hand sewing than I am, might have finished two of these in a day. But if you consider that the commissariat accounts cited in “Soldiers’ Accoutrements” name a stock of 10.000, that’s still a lot of work.
But what’s really amazing about this haversack is its size. According to the commissariat list, the finished bags were 21 inches wide and 12 inches high, so that is what I based my reconstruction on. This thing is really huge, you could hide whole armies in it. I wonder how heavy it will become when it is filled up with three days worth of food.
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