Blankets, Form 40, and Quartermaster Form

[Tyler Underwood]

Question one: While doing some recent research on the 32nd Virginia Infantry I came across a Form 40 "Special Requisition" that specifically requested "one grey blanket" and "one white blanket" Forgive my ignorance, but why on earth would a request be this specific as to the color of blanket?


My second question is the same regiment made a requisition on a "State of Tennessee Quartermaster Form" Granted State of Tennessee was lined out, but how do you suppose this particular form came into the hands of a unit that never set foot in TN. nor came any closer than Appomattox? Is it possible that when forms were requested that the QM Dept. gathered up whatever was available?

[Mississippian]

Re: Blankets, Form 40, and Quartermaster Form

Could be the blankets were of different quality. Did it give a price? I remember a QM form from a unit in Mississippi asking for "common blankets" "felt blankets" and another type I couldn't decipher. The State of TN QM forms you see a lot out west in 1861-2. How it got up there, who knows.

Will MacDonald

[Tyler Underwood]

Re: Blankets, Form 40, and Quartermaster Form

Did it give a price?

Yes, both were $4 and some change.

The State of TN QM forms you see a lot out west in 1861-2.

Imagine that.

[rmilstead]

Re: Blankets, Form 40, and Quartermaster Form

Tyler,
I have always had the suspicion that some (many?, most?) Special Requisition No. 40 Forms were completely filled out on the same day that they were fulfilled not somehow submitted by the company commander and later completed when the items requested were finally issued. That is, they were just filled in to represent a convenient record of what was issued for the AQM or Company commander's purposes. As such, the description of the blankets you describe may just represent a quip of the specific AQM given what he received and have no further significance. I actually think that they also often documented random distribution of the "stock" when it was available from Brigade or Division not due to some "pre requested" quantities based on company needs. I have seen numerous examples of serial issue of like materials in quick time sequence as if the AQM received a little one day, passed it out, more a few days later, passed that out and so on. Bottom line: this does not appear to have always been an orderly process.

I have no real documentary evidence for these suspicions just after looking at literally hundreds of them such anomalies as you are noting are very common and seem to be more in the "make it up as we go along" school than a well planned process.

With respect to the Tennessee QM Requisition form being used, I have never seen "the like" but many times I have seen the No 40 being totally hand written so they obviously used whatever they had or could get. Again if it was a form for the AQM or Company Captain, not sent back to QM HQ, why not?


Dick Milstead
The Company of Military Historians
Hardaway's Alabama Battery
Liberty Rifles

[andyrobertshaw]

Re: Blankets, Form 40, and Quartermaster Form

In the British military Grey blankets were for men and Brown for horses. You could see a Grey blanket on a horse but would be on a charge if a man used a Brown blanket himself. In other words function.