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Re: Staying warm while on the run
A discussion of the Maple Leaf blankets occurs in Vol. 47, No. 2 (Summer, 1995) of Military Collector and Historian, in an article by Lawrence E. Babits entitled "Rubber Poncho and Blankets from the Union Transport Maple Leaf". You can get back copies here: http://www.military-historians.org/c...al/journal.htm
In this article Babits examines thirteen rubber blankets, eleven from the transport and two from other sources. No two are identical, none match the quartermaster specifications, they seem to come from several manufacturers, they appear to represent three broad types, they have three different sizes of brass grommets, several different kinds of reinforcement unrelated to grommet size, and one with sewn grommets.
With this amount of variation in rubber blankets, it seems a stretch to identify any one type as specifically military.
A further idea of the variety of rubber goods one might see in the countryside comes from The farmer's every-day book: or, sketches of social life in the country ... By John Lauris Blake (Auburn, NY, 1850):
India rubber, as now manufactured, is the only known article that enables the wearer of it to be completely exempt from the evils of which we are speaking. Let a person on a farm be enclosed with a coat and pants—boots, and n tarpaulin, with a cape, made of this wonderful material—the cost of which is a comparative trifle—and he may labor all day in the open air, during a constant descent of rain, and remain as free from moisture upon his skin and under-clothes as though he had been laboring in his cellar or barn....India rubber is now manufactured into so many articles of utility, it would be impossible for us to enumerate them all. We will name a few in addition to those already named, of such as are particularly adapted to rural life, to wit: gloves and mittens, team-whips, gate and door springs, saddle-bags, carriage-tops, cloaks for riding horseback, traveling-bags, guncases, capes, bottles, tubs, water-tanks, beds, pillows, canteens, and matress-covers.
The U. S. government procured about 1.9 million "Blankets: Rubber and painted" and 1.6 million "Ponchos rubber and painted" during the war (ORs, Series III, Vol. 5, p. 285). Given what Babits found with just eleven samples of the first from one transport, and what Blake says about the variety of rubber goods in use on farms a decade before the war, I just don't see a real soldier of the civil war picking out a rubber blanket -- or a poncho, or an oilcloth version of either -- as "military issue". It's not a cartridge box or a uniform coat. The degree of uniformity we might expect today when we think of a "government issue" blanket, poncho, or talma of rubber, gutta percha, or oil cloth doesn't really seem to have existed then.
And don't get me started on blankets :) Unless it has a big "U.S." stitched in the center, you can't necessarily draw any conclusions there, either. G.O. 121 of August 28, 1862 reads in part:
As the sudden call for volunteers and militia has exhausted the supply of blankets, fit for military purposes, in the market, and it will take some time to procure by manufacture or importation a sufficient supply, all citizens who may volunteer or be drafted are advised to take with them to the rendezvous, if possible, a good stout woolen blanket. The regulation military blanket is 84x66 inches, and weighs five pounds.
As all clothing, blankets, and shoes issued by the United States to its troops are charged at average cost, and no soldier who furnishes his own blanket is required to draw one, it is to his interest to supply himself, and thereby avoid much discomiort, as it is impossible tor the United States to supply all the troops immediately.
That is, at a certain point in the war, a civilian blanket and a military blanket can very well be the same. On the whole, it seems to me that for many items in general use the distinctions we might want to make today, as reenactors, between "military" and "civilian" items would probably make no sense to the original cast.
A discussion of the Maple Leaf blankets occurs in Vol. 47, No. 2 (Summer, 1995) of Military Collector and Historian, in an article by Lawrence E. Babits entitled "Rubber Poncho and Blankets from the Union Transport Maple Leaf". You can get back copies here: http://www.military-historians.org/c...al/journal.htm
In this article Babits examines thirteen rubber blankets, eleven from the transport and two from other sources. No two are identical, none match the quartermaster specifications, they seem to come from several manufacturers, they appear to represent three broad types, they have three different sizes of brass grommets, several different kinds of reinforcement unrelated to grommet size, and one with sewn grommets.
With this amount of variation in rubber blankets, it seems a stretch to identify any one type as specifically military.
A further idea of the variety of rubber goods one might see in the countryside comes from The farmer's every-day book: or, sketches of social life in the country ... By John Lauris Blake (Auburn, NY, 1850):
India rubber, as now manufactured, is the only known article that enables the wearer of it to be completely exempt from the evils of which we are speaking. Let a person on a farm be enclosed with a coat and pants—boots, and n tarpaulin, with a cape, made of this wonderful material—the cost of which is a comparative trifle—and he may labor all day in the open air, during a constant descent of rain, and remain as free from moisture upon his skin and under-clothes as though he had been laboring in his cellar or barn....India rubber is now manufactured into so many articles of utility, it would be impossible for us to enumerate them all. We will name a few in addition to those already named, of such as are particularly adapted to rural life, to wit: gloves and mittens, team-whips, gate and door springs, saddle-bags, carriage-tops, cloaks for riding horseback, traveling-bags, guncases, capes, bottles, tubs, water-tanks, beds, pillows, canteens, and matress-covers.
The U. S. government procured about 1.9 million "Blankets: Rubber and painted" and 1.6 million "Ponchos rubber and painted" during the war (ORs, Series III, Vol. 5, p. 285). Given what Babits found with just eleven samples of the first from one transport, and what Blake says about the variety of rubber goods in use on farms a decade before the war, I just don't see a real soldier of the civil war picking out a rubber blanket -- or a poncho, or an oilcloth version of either -- as "military issue". It's not a cartridge box or a uniform coat. The degree of uniformity we might expect today when we think of a "government issue" blanket, poncho, or talma of rubber, gutta percha, or oil cloth doesn't really seem to have existed then.
And don't get me started on blankets :) Unless it has a big "U.S." stitched in the center, you can't necessarily draw any conclusions there, either. G.O. 121 of August 28, 1862 reads in part:
As the sudden call for volunteers and militia has exhausted the supply of blankets, fit for military purposes, in the market, and it will take some time to procure by manufacture or importation a sufficient supply, all citizens who may volunteer or be drafted are advised to take with them to the rendezvous, if possible, a good stout woolen blanket. The regulation military blanket is 84x66 inches, and weighs five pounds.
As all clothing, blankets, and shoes issued by the United States to its troops are charged at average cost, and no soldier who furnishes his own blanket is required to draw one, it is to his interest to supply himself, and thereby avoid much discomiort, as it is impossible tor the United States to supply all the troops immediately.
That is, at a certain point in the war, a civilian blanket and a military blanket can very well be the same. On the whole, it seems to me that for many items in general use the distinctions we might want to make today, as reenactors, between "military" and "civilian" items would probably make no sense to the original cast.
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