Rubber/waterproof shirts

[webbguard]

I don't know if this has been discussed before but I found this while reading "An Itineray of the Seventh Ohio Infantry". On page 122 they mention drawing either rubber or waterproof shirts ( don't remember the exact wording). Then on page 124 they drew ponchos so that rules out that piece of equipment. Just thought it was interesting and might be worth discussion.
Yours as ever,
Steven Whaley

[PogueMahone]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

Waterproofed shirts may have been "waxed" fabric.

I can't imagine either being comfortable to wear for long.

I'd like to see the original reference if someone can get the quote.

[webbguard]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

Joe,
I have the quote save I can't post it here. My computer at home is down and on top of that it's cold up here. I will give you my work email and try to get something to you that way. If you can post the attachement please do. I hope it will helpful to somebody. I agree, they wouldn't be very comfortable. You may be dry but you'd be hot as blue blazes.
Later,
Steven

[webbguard]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

Joe,
e-mail me at swhaley@waxie.com
Whaley

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

http://www.archive.org/details/compandeditin00wilsrich

The exact wording, from March 2, 1862, is "rubber shirts." The ponchos referred to later are described as oilcloth shelter halves.

Both are new to me. Maybe they were state issue.

[DougCooper]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

Any way that could be "rubber sheets" vice "rubber shirts"?

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

Any way that could be "rubber sheets" vice "rubber shirts"?

I think that makes more sense than the alternative, which is the existence of an article of military clothing that doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere else.

Later in the same work, on page 173, there's a discussion of a clothing requisition made by Shields after his division reached Bristow Station in June 1862. It includes among the requirements 12,000 shirts (nothing said about rubber) and 3,500 "rubber blankets."

The book was published in 1907, but the passage with "rubber shirts" is a verbatim quote from S. F. Barstow's AAR in the ORs, (Series I, Volume 51, part 1, page 545), published in 1897.

I think it's possible that a typist or printer misread "sheets" as "shirts" from a handwritten manuscript and the first editor overlooked it. The second editor had no real reason to proof something taken directly from the ORs. FWIW, there are no other references to this clothing item in the ORs and very few other contemporary references to rubber shirts.

But hey, I could be wrong.

[MassVOL]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

Could this be a reference to a talma?

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

Could this be a reference to a talma?

I wondered the same thing, but several arguments exist against it. First, talmas were meant for issue to cavalry and light artillery, not infantry. Second, even though they appear on the list of clothing, talmas were issued as company property like scales and hat brass.

Scott's Military Dictionary states this explicitly (p. 162); General Orders 95 of 1861 and 202 of 1862 confirm this by omitting talmas from the five year clothing allowance totals.

Talmas disappear entirely from the general orders for clothing in 1863 and the total number purchased during the war by the federal government came to less than 35,000 (ORs, Series III, Volume 5, p. 285).

It's possible that infantry obtained an issue of cavalry gear, or that the state provided something odd, or that the men up and bought something different on their own, but I think the odds run against it.

[PogueMahone]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

I wondered if the writer may have been thinking of a poncho as a rubber overshirt when he wrote that.

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

I wondered if the writer may have been thinking of a poncho as a rubber overshirt when he wrote that.

Well, that's probably as good as the other unverifiable theories. I just like "shirts" for "sheets" because it implies a handwriting issue. :)

[Ian McWherter]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

In reading through store inventories from Gold Rush California merchants I've come across rubber goods for practically everything including: rubber boots, rubber overshoes, rubber coats, rubber trousers, rubber overalls, rubber caps, rubber vests, rubber gloves, rubber pouches, rubber canteens, rubber mattresses, etc., etc.

So it wouldn't surprise me at all for rubber shirts to exist, but who knows.:)

[Sut Lovingood]

Re: Rubber/waterproof shirts

Mr. Whaley,
I cannot say that the line you mentioned was or was not a mistake(shirts instead of sheets) as has been theorized.
I can say that there were rubber shirts or at least I've seen records of them.
Mr. McWherter alluded to the possibility of them in CA. where there was rubber (almost) everything. The records I've seen, and newspaper adverts, were indeed from California.

But I will mention a non California reference.

In London there was a case where a boy with psoriasis (the lad was from New York) was treated for the condition using...rubber shirt and drawers.

"Seven days after his admission the patient commenced wearing india-rubber underclothing, being clothed in a complete suit, consisting of shirt and drawers. These garments he continued to wear night and day for six days, at the end of which time he was perfectly well of his disease over the trunk and limbs, that is to say the disease had completely disappeared from those portions of the body which had been covered by the underclothing. The disease at this time continned as before, unchanged on the head, forehead, and eyebrows. Three weeks after his admission he commenced wearing a vulcanized india-rubber cap, which was pulled over his eyebrows in evening and at night, and in daytime whenever he was indoors. Cap was worn in all about seven weeks."Transactions of the Clinical Society of London. p. 170, publication 1876.

Most anything was attempted with India-rubber at one point. This afternoon I was handling a harness c. late 1860s (manufacturer was only producing from 1867-69), made of india-rubber.