Stretching Blankets

[lojafan]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Curt and Christopher,

Thank you for your additions. I havnt made a complete decision on what I will do, its more in the information collection phase. I'll make sure I look for more information before I do anything, until then, its under the stars for me with my one blanket and gum blanket.

Thanks again!

Andrew Gale

[Foggy Bottom Jim]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Yet another image wherein blankets are used as shelters. This at a hospital at Keedysville MD. Found on the LOC website by typing Keedysville in the search block. It is the second image.

[KarinTimour]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Gentlemen:

A few thoughts on using blankets for shelter rather than shelter halves:

1. As nearly everyone has said, if all you have is a blanket, certaily use it as a shelter.

2. However, if it is rains buckets that night, the blanket is going to get soaked. Wool will absorb and hold a tremendous amount of water. Water is heavy, so if you'll be pulling out at day break and marching off somewhere else, you'll have to remove the water (or as much as you can) and then also tote a much heavier blanket with you.

3. Wet wool is subject to distortion, and a soaked blanket, which has a lot of water in it is going to be heavy. This will cause the middle to sag, and distort the shape of your blanket to have a large bulge in the middle. Depending on how far it has to hang, and how it's rigged, it may pull the corners considerably off of a straight line. If, the next morning, in an attempt to get all the water out wring it out by hand, you will increase the chances for further distortion. Depending on how wet the blanket is and how much you wring it, it may start to fell, which will cause the blanket to get thicker, warmer and shorter as it dries.

4. An emergeny is an emergency, but just wanted to give you some additional information about the potential consequences of a blanket shelter. If you've got another option, I'd seriously consider it. Most of the pictures that are up show people using blankets where they won't be marching the next morning with them. If you don't have to march the next morning, as soon as possible I'd take down the blanket and lay it flat (not over a fence, rather flat on the ground) to dry, and preferably somewhere in the shade rather than full sun.

5. Just wanted to give you some advice about what a wool blanket might do in such circumstances, as these are expensive items.

Use the information if it's useful, if not, disregard,
Karin Timour
Period Knitting -- Socks, Sleeping Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[lojafan]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Karin,

Thank you very much for the information. Pretty much from you said and from what everyone else has said, I probably will not make a shelter from it, espically when I can get something else that will last much longer and is made for what it will be used for, for around the same price.

Thanks everyone!

Andrew Gale

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Hallo!

Arrrggggggg....

(Bringing back memories of three days of down-pour and a blanket that weighed about five (5) pounds at home, and what seemed to be 50 pounds wet in the field.

:)

Curt

(A wet blanket can be carefully wrapped around a large long plank to dry at home to help return it "square.)

[KarinTimour]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Dear Mr. Gale:

Glad to have been of assistance, I think you're making a wise and cost-effective decision.

Dear Curt:

Wrapping it around a plank for "square transport when wet." What a great and creative fix for a difficult and potentially messy transport problem!

Glad to have been of assistance,
Karin Timour
Period Knitting -- Socks, Sleeping Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[fahnenschmied]

Re: Stretching Blankets

For anyone wishing to broaden their horizons on the use of blankets as tents by a military organization - you may look back to the War of 1812 for some examples of this alternate sort of shelter....And this was in the days before the Tent d' Abri.

http://www.warof1812.ca/b_tent.htm

David Stone

[coastaltrash]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Anyone want to see how one of the reenactors on this forum do it, here's a neat image from Derrick Pugh's album- http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...pictureid=1398

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Hallo!

Hoping that's an original bayonet on the musket... ;) :)

Curt

[coastaltrash]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Guess we could tell in the morning!

[fahtz]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Or maybe during a nice little driving rain storm...

[floridawar]

Re: Stretching Blankets

There is a good account of a blanket "shebang" in McMorries' History of the First Alabama Regiment (p. 65) he mentions building one with his young pal during the siege of Port Hudson, LA:

As an instance out of hundreds I give the circumstances of
the untimely and tragic death of Newton Soles, a youth of 16,
and naturally inclined to be a little thoughtless. The heat of
the sun was so intense that we were permitted to erect, in rear
of the breastworks what we called "shebangs." These were
made by first driving down into the ground two small stakes
three feet high and about seven feet apart and connected at the
top by a ridge pole, across which a blanket was stretched.
Then, at right angles to these stakes, and about three feet from
each, four other stakes each) about one foot high, were driven
down to which each corner of the blanket was fastened. Two
men could very well occupy a "shebang." On the day of his
death Newt proposed to me to build one. This point
of the line was on a hillside; and, in getting from the ditch to
the bank in rear one had to be very careful not to let his head,
or the least part thereof, show itself above the breastworks, because
it was almost certain death. As we ascended the bank
I said to Newt : "Look out for your head there." He was on
the upper side of the hill. We had just put up the two high
stakes, the ridge pole, and had stretched the blanket, when I
heard the thug of a bullet. Newt rolled into the ditch, dead..."

In July, 1863, Johnny Green of the Orphan Brigade mentions making a "shelter tent" of his blanket during a storm in Mississippi; "I stretched my blanket over a young pine sapling bent down, making a dog tent of it, and crawled under to sleep on the pine baughs piled under there..."
In September, 1864 Wash Ives of the 4th Fla. (AoT) noted in a letter that "we are pretty scarce of blankets, and pieces of carpet are highly prized." He explained the loss of blankets as "being broken down on the march to save themselves from capture, they would throw away any blankets in preference to clothes and many blankets were literally torn to pieces by shells and minie balls..."

cheers,

James "archie" Marshall
Tampa, FL

[lukegilly13]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Perhaps using a blanket as a shelter might be more effective and comfortable when pitched for mere sun shade instead of turning rain?

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Stretching Blankets

Hallo!

To use an inappropriate "adapt, improvise, and over-come" phrase...

IMHO,

It depends upon the circumstances, the raw materials at hand, the time allowed to build things, and the experience/knowledge/desire of the men involved.

Meaning, if lads do not have gum blankets, or the dead fall or cut brush to erect "rat's nest" debris shelters, or lean-tos, and the rain is more of a threat than a passing annoyance, etc, etc.,

A woolen blanket will make a decent lean-to, and even when wet will pass/flow most water to the bottom- if one (as with canvas) does not touch it to create a drip.

But, it might be better for two men to erect one blanket as a roof and bundle in the second blanket for (relative) dryness and warmth- than two men each with a wet blanket shivering on their own.

Still IMHO...

I believe we moderns have a different concept of comfort, space, and "homophobia" than did CW soldiers.
Even my grandmother slept in the same bed in an unheated room, with her two adult sisters until she was married and left home at the age of 21.

So, we ignore, overlook, or reject CW practices... to be rugged but cold, wet, and miserable individualists.

;) :)

Curt

[Tom Dodson]

Re: Stretching Blankets

The practice of "stretching blankets" is mentioned in the book "Bloody Banners and Barefoot Boys : A History of the 27th Regiment Alabama Infantry, CSA". It also mentions the use of a quilt for cover; a practice seemingly frowned upon by the reenacting world in general. I can see where a blanket could be used for shelter if nothing else were available. A soggy blanket or quilt is not something that I would care to have to carry around however.
Of course, if a shelter half or ground cloth were available they would be far superior choices.
Tom Dodson
Armory Guards
47th Georgia