By Austin Williams, 33rd VA Co. H

The following article was published in the inaugural November 1, 2024 issue of the “Living History Gazette.” Read the entire issue here. It is an abbreviated version of the four part article on Confederate blankets available here, with recommendations added specific to the living historian. Anyone interest in further details is recommended to read the full article. 

The biggest challenge facing the living historian building a quality Confederate impression is the relative lack of standardization across the Confederate military. Material culture research is essential due to the array of different uniforms and equipment used by southern soldiers. The same dynamic applies to selection of a blanket for your impression. Most Union soldiers carried a wool blanket with relatively standard specifications. The Confederate living historian, however, has a wider variety of different options and it can be difficult to determine which is best suited for your impression without a basic knowledge of Confederate blankets.

British imports dominated the antebellum blanket trade in America. The United States in the mid-1800s produced relatively limited supplies of the coarse wool required for heavy woolen blankets, while British manufacturers had both abundant domestic supply and ready access to cheap wool from Europe. By 1859, England exported over 55 million yards of blankets, heavy woolens, and wool carpets to the United States. Blankets for American markets were often dyed in various shades of deep blue, grey, blue-grey, scarlet, and green, while domestic British consumers preferred undyed white blankets. Blankets were woven as a long continuous piece of heavy fabric and cut down into pairs of blankets for sale, so blanket imports were frequently denoted as pairs of blankets rather than single blankets. Stipes of various widths and contrasting colors both helped to ensure alignment during weaving and denoted where to cut individual blankets.¹

All American industry combined produced roughly a million yards of blankets in 1860. Most of this production was from New England and all the southern states combined produced only 1,650 pairs of blankets in 1860. Only a single southern mill, opened by the Crenshaw Woolen Company in Richmond in December 1860, had the extra wide looms required to weave full 60-inch-wide blankets. Many American blankets were constructed of two pieces of narrower heavy woolen fabric, sewn together along a lengthwise center seam.²

When the war began, Crenshaw offered to produce blankets for the Confederate military, but the Quartermaster Department instead signed a contract with Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co., operators of Washington Mill in Fredericksburg, to produce 10,000 Army blankets. Invoices survive for delivery of at least 5,848 blankets between June and October 1861, but it is unclear whether the contract was ever filled in full. The advance of Federal troops in spring 1862 forced Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co. to relocate their equipment to Manchester, just outside of Richmond. There they were a major cloth supplier but no record exists of further blanket production.³

Crenshaw, their government bid rejected, agreed to produce 5,000 Army blankets for a commercial firm. Throughout fall 1861, the mill produced 450 grey wool blankets weekly, measuring 60 inches by 80 inches and weighting 3 7/8 pounds. The businessman resold the blankets for twice what he had bought them for as the price of increasingly rare blankets skyrocketed by the war’s first winter. Crenshaw sold an additional lot of 1,000 Army blankets in February 1862, but the extent of their blanket production after this is uncertain. The firm signed a large military contract in September 1862 to supply uniform cloth, which ran until the mill’s destruction in a May 1863 fire. Later that year, President Davis was told “we are now destitute of a supply of blankets… there are no factories in the South engaged in the manufacture of blankets. We are dependent almost entirely on purchases in England…”⁴

With limited domestic production, the South turned to expedients. Citizens donated large numbers of blankets during each of the war’s first two winters. A South Carolina relief organization called in 1862 for civilians to “contribute liberally… in blankets or woolen carpets as a substitute for blankets. The quilted ‘comforts,’ so called, are not considered so useful to the solider as the blanket, which is easier dried after being wet. Let the ‘comforts,’ then, be retained for use at home, and our blankets be sent to our soldiers.” A patterned civilian coverlet and a likely civilian wool blanket are both visible in one of the photos of Confederate dead at Antietam. The Quartermaster Department paid Crenshaw in October 1862 to scour and clean donated blankets, drawers, quilts, comforts, and bedding. Some of the items cleaned were likely captured Federal equipment being prepared for reissue, as the contract also included dying overcoats, coats, jackets, and pants.⁵

 Among the donations were wool carpets lined with cloth and pressed into service as emergency blankets. Purchases of “carpet blankets” date as early as September 1861. The Nashville Depot reported in January 1862 having used 20,559 yards of carpeting for emergency blankets and contracted with a local firm for 13,041 lined carpet blankets. In the first two years of the war, the North Carolina state quartermaster issued at least 11,952 carpet blankets and in 1863 the Atlanta Depot had 20,559 yards of carpeting on hand for blankets. With even carpets becoming scarce, in 1863 the Georgia state quartermaster manufactured 10,000 blankets out of jean and kersey cloth lined with cotton shirting. Half of these had been issued by October 1864, with 4,895 still on hand.⁶

While these expedients helped address immediate needs, the Confederacy increasingly turned to England to solve its blanket shortage. 20,000 blankets landed in Savannah aboard the first major blockade runner in September 1861. By circa December 1862, Confederate agent Caleb Huse reported having shipped 62,025 blankets from England. Some shipments were intercepted, like 192 bales of gray blankets “believed to be such as are used in the United States army” found by on the captured steamer Peterhoff. Many more, however, reached the troops, with a soldier in Georgia writing in November 1863: “Quantities of new English blankets have been issued. A single one is large enough to cover a double bed and the texture is far superior to the blankets usually brought south with goods…”⁷

North Carolina uniquely supplied its own troops instead of relying on the central government.Between September 1862 and March 1864, the state issued 33,164 blankets. During the winter of 1862-1863, this number included 2,249 cotton comforts and 1,338 quilts, but these expedients fall away after the state began importing English blankets in 1863. By September 1864, the state had issued 31,000 imported blankets and had 26,886 more on hand. Three of these blankets survive and are nearly identical, with a twill weave of cobalt blue yarn, wide black stipes on each end, and with ‘NC’ embroidered in the middle using red yarn. Georgia followed suit in 1864, importing 113 bales of blankets in early summer 1864. These shipments quickly reached the troops, as a Georgian officer wrote soon after “… I laid under a pine, on a nice pair of new white blankets I had been allowed to buy out of an importation of the blockade by the state of Georgia for Georgia troops.”⁸

Importation efforts reached impressive heights in 1864. The Quartermaster Department estimated it had imported 316,000 blankets between November 1863 and December 1864. In the final six months of 1864 alone, the Quartermaster Department issued 156,092 blankets, almost certainly all of which had been imported. After shoes, no other quartermaster item was imported in larger numbers than blankets.⁹

Confederate soldiers huddled for warmth under a wide array of blankets and the period you are portraying dictates the appropriate blanket for your impression. Early war impressions call for coverlets, quilts, and carpet blankets. Imported English wool blankets should predominate mid and late war impressions. Wool blankets of practically any period design and construction are appropriate throughout, reflecting the variety of English blankets in antebellum use, those imported during the conflict, and limited domestic production. Federal blankets are also appropriate, as at least some British imports closely resembled Union blankets and captured blankets were reissued by Confederate authorities (presumably with the ‘US’ removed). With a few portrayal-specific modifications, almost any period blanket is a viable choice for your Confederate impression.

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Footnotes

This is Chapter Four of a four chapter article. See Chapter One, Chapter Two, and Chapter Three. For a brief summary of this article, adapted to address the needs of living historians, see Blankets for Your Confederate Impression published in the ‘Living History Gazette.’ 

The Means in its Own Hands to Obtain all the Supplies Required

Luckily for Lawton, the summer and fall of 1864 would prove to be the apex of Confederate government blockade running, with overseas procurement and shipping functioning as efficiently as it ever would. Many of the vessel losses in Fall 1863 had been due to the siege of Charleston allowing additional Federal blockaders to focus on Wilmington. Now, Union forces loosened their grip on Charleston and reduced the size of the naval squadron off Wilmington. Blockade runners resumed operations into Charleston in June, reopening a second point of importation.¹

The Confederate government had also made several changes to improve the effectiveness of their vital foreign operations. In September 1863, Seddon had designated Colin McRae the central coordinator for all overseas spending, with power to allocate funds between the various parts of the War Department vying for limited credit, cotton bonds, and hard currency. Creation of a Bureau of Foreign Supplies within the War Department under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas L. Bayne likewise centralized the government’s control of blockade running. As previously mentioned, in February 1864 the Confederate Congress passed legislation formalizing the government’s ability to demand half of the cargo space on incoming and outgoing vessels.²

These regulations, however, ultimately moved relatively little of the government’s overall cargo. Of 36 vessels that docked at southern ports between August and November 1864, only 9 operated under the February 1864 regulations. The rest were government owned steamers or contracted ships, like those contracted for with Power, Lowe & Co. and Davis & Fitzhugh. When the Power, Lowe & Co. contract came up for renewal in fall 1864, it was found the company had made 650% profit bringing in stores for the Quartermaster and Subsistence Departments.³

Contracted ships and ships sailing under the February 1864 regulations, however, still didn’t provide adequate capacity. As of August 1864, the Confederate government had access to roughly 2,000 tons of inbound cargo space monthly; the Subsistence Department alone estimated it needed 2,300 tons of cargo space monthly. By 1864, however, it was clear that the most effective way to bring in the War Department’s foreign purchases was via ships wholly owned by the government. McRae strongly favored direct government purchase of steamers. “I do not favor any partnership connections between the Government and individuals,” he wrote in July 1864. “If there be profits the individuals will get them; if losses, they will fall on the Government.” Rather than ships being jointly owned by the government and private companies, as the Crenshaw-Collie ships had been, he recommended the government buy-out the interests of other parties in these joint partnerships and run the steamers as government vessels.⁴

In spring and early summer 1864 McRae arranged with Fraser, Trenholm & Co. to purchase eight steamers. The first of these, the Bat and the Owl, sailed for Bermuda in August. Two more ships would be available in November, another two in December and the final two in April 1865. He signed a second contract with J. K. Gilliat & Co. for additional steamers, attempting to have two ready to sail by August. These too would be sent to Bermuda, where McRae understood “there is a large accumulation of Government freight.”⁵

Altogether, McRae purchased or contracted for 14 steamers by July 1864, “the best steamers now being built in the kingdom, and are greatly superior to most of the steamers heretofore engaged in the blockade business.” “By the end of the year,” he predicted, “the Government will have the means in its own hands to obtain all the supplies required abroad without incurring any further foreign debt.”⁶

In addition to contracts for ships, McRae finalized several large contracts for supplies in the spring and summer of 1864. In June James Tait renewed his offer for Peter Tait & Co. to supply uniforms to the Confederacy, raising the amount to 100,000 uniforms and shoes, but now offering fully assembled uniforms rather than kits. There was also no mention of the previously offered 50,000 blankets. Lawton again lent his support but reduced the number to the original 50,000 uniforms and sent the contract language to McRae.⁷

By the time this new proposal likely arrived, McRae had already made other arrangements. On June 13, McRae signed a contract with Alexander Collie & Co. to provide and ship to the Islands £150,000 of clothing and “general quartermaster supplies” to be purchased by Ferguson and £50,000 of ordnance stores selected by Huse. £50,000 of the quartermaster amount would go to Peter Tait & Co. to provide ready-made uniforms. Tait agreed to lower prices than those initially offered by his brother, as Alexander Collie paid him directly in cash. When the uniforms arrived in Wilmington on the Condor and the Evelyn in November and December 1864, however, surviving documentation makes no mention of blankets. Peter Tait & Co. did eventually sign an additional October 1864 contract directly with the Confederate government to provide 40,000 uniforms, but the contract made no mention of blankets.⁸

Blankets, however, almost certainly made up a significant portion of the remaining £100,000 worth of general quartermaster supplies Ferguson purchased under the contract. The first shipment under this contract sailed for Bermuda on the Falcon in late June, with the Flamingo following soon after. By July 4, Ferguson had already placed orders for the entire amount of the contract. A third Collie ship planned to sail in mid-July, a fourth in August, and all the supplies purchased under the contract were scheduled to be in the Islands by November.⁹

In addition to the Collie Contract, the Confederate government also signed a major contract for quartermaster supplies with Rosenburg, Haiman Bros. & Co. Louis and Herman Haiman, originally from Prussia, were major sword producers in Columbus, Georgia. Their bother Elias and their partner David Rosenburg represented the firm in Europe. The original contract in January 1864 was for 100,000 uniforms, overcoats, and shoes “in quality like that furnished the Prussian govt.” The contract originally limited procurement to the German market, likely so as to not compete with Ferguson’s work in England. Supplies were to be delivered to Ferguson in Liverpool ready to ship, a quarter by May, another quarter by July, and the remainder by October.¹⁰

In May, however, McRae reported having modified the contact to add 100,000 socks. Possibly around the same time, 100,000 blankets were also added to the agreement. Rosenburg, Haiman Bros. & Co. had engaged Liverpool shipping agent Henry Lafone, who had facilitated vessel purchase for several Confederate-aligned firms, to move their goods at the rate of £20 per ton. McRae reported that the combined goods from the Collie and Rosenburg Contracts would provide for 150,000 soldiers.¹¹

In June, Ferguson reported that the Quartermaster Department “may expect with some certainty 1/4 of [the] goods under [the] Rosenburg contract.” This may refer to a shipment made by Lafone and others in April of 25,000 sets of uniforms, 25,000 pairs of shoes, and 50 pairs of blankets. The Bureau of Foreign Supplies reported delivery of £11,432 of supplies under the Rosenburg contact prior to July 1.¹²

Soon after, however, the firm began to encounter difficulty meeting the terms of the contract and was forced to request an extension of their delivery timeline. Then, in late July, things fell apart completely. Elias having returned to the Confederacy, Rosenburg sold out the contract to Lafone without the consent of his partners. Lafone then shifted the contract to Davis & Fitzhugh. Rosenburg received £20,000 to purchase quartermaster stores, but only purchased £3,000 while claiming the rest on the grounds that Lafone had failed to follow the terms of their agreement. Upon Elias’s return to Europe, Rosenburg fled to the United States. The Haiman brothers engaged Lafone to track him down, eventually recovering only £1,500 of the money. The increasingly complex matter was only resolved four years after the war through litigation. The drama prevented full delivery of the contracted goods by October as promised and necessitated a further extension. The collapse of the contract was likely a disappointment to Lawton, who wrote in September 1864 “I much prefer deliveries under the Rosenburg contract, and hope that they may not be superseded by the supposed advantages of the Davis & Fitzhugh contract.”¹³

Less is clear regarding the Davis & Fitzhugh contract. The company, along with Power, Lowe & Co., had held a large contract since fall 1863 to ship government freight, but the terms by which they provided material are less clear. By the end of July 1864, all the supplies requested by Ferguson under the Davis & Fitzhugh contract had been purchased. The following month, Thomas Bayne reported that the contract would deliver five or six cargos of general supplies to southern ports between August and October. Yet, Lawton found the firm’s products suspect. Inspection of the firm’s incoming cargos by the quartermaster in Wilmington found that “most if not all their deliveries have been purchased in the Islands.” When the Davis & Fitzhugh contract and the shipping contract with Power, Lowe & Co. expired in October 1864, they were not renewed.¹⁴

While Rosenburg, Haiman Bros. & Co. focused on the German market and Davis & Fitzhugh bought at least some of their goods in Bermuda and the Bahamas, Ferguson was hard at work with British manufacturers. Ferguson informed McRae in July that he could leverage government credit to enter into four and six month contracts with the blanket and heavy woolen producers of Lancashire and Yorkshire. McRae, seeking to limit overuse of debt, authorized Ferguson to exercise up to £40,000 in debt payable by the end of the year.¹⁵

Our Entire Supply of Blankets has to be Drawn from Abroad – Spring and Summer 1864

The efforts in Europe produced massive shipments across the Atlantic. The Ramseys landed in Bermuda in February with 18,098 blankets in its cargo hold. Some of this cargo was ferried into Wilmington on May 1 by the Helen, which landed with 102 bales of blankets. The Hackaway made Bermuda with 10,024 blankets in early April and all these blankets had been forwarded by mid-June. The Lucy unloaded 60 bales of blankets at Nassau on June 1. Some shipments to Bermuda were later transshipped to Nassau, with the Mary Celestiasailing for Nassau on May 23 with 77 bales of blankets and blue cloth, while the Florie sailed June 1 with 23 bales of blankets originally shipped from England in January aboard the Princess Royal. The brig Driving Mist, commissioned by the firm Widdecombe & Bell departed England on August 22 with a 165-ton cargo consisting of “large quantity of machinery, blankets, and clothing intended for the rebels,” according to the U.S. Consul in Liverpool.¹⁶

Blockade runners made increasingly regular trips back and forth between the Islands and southern ports. The Lillian landed 45 bales of blankets in Wilmington on June 5, then another 45 bales on June 24. The Florie, after having picked up additional blankets in Nassau, landed 67 bales on June 5 and then another 5,613 blankets on June 24. Surviving records detail the following shipments of at least 1,004 bales of blankets, or roughly 50,000 blankets, between June and August:¹⁷

Date	Ship	Port	Blankets	Owner/Contract
1 June	Lucy	Wilmington	48 bales	Fraser, Trenholm & Co.
2 June	Georgiana McCaw	Wilmington	9 bales	M.G. Kilgender
5 June	Lillian	Wilmington	45 bales	Importing and Exporting Company of Georgia
5 June	Florie	Wilmington	67 bales	Importing and Exporting Company of Georgia
9 June	Helen	Wilmington	38 bales	Albion Trading Company
11 June	Antonica	Charleston	7 bales	Chicora Importing and Exporting Company
12 June	Will O’ The Wisp	Wilmington	8 bales (1,600 blankets)	Davis & Fitzhugh
12 June	Coquette	Wilmington	50 bales	Confederate Navy
24 June	Lillian	Wilmington	45 bales	Importing and Exporting Company of Georgia
24 June	Florie	Wilmington	56 bales	Importing and Exporting Company of Georgia
27 June	Mary Celestia	Wilmington	24 bales	Crenshaw & Co.
1 July	Fox	Charleston	13 bales	Fraser, Trenholm & Co.
4 July	Let Her Rip	Wilmington	39 bales	Chicora Importing and Exporting Company
6 July	Syren	Wilmington	39 bales	Charleston Importing Company
11 July	Chicora	Unknown	20 bales	Chicora Importing and Exporting Company
11 July	Mary Celestia	Wilmington	27 bales	Crenshaw & Co.
30 July	Little Hattie	Wilmington	12 bales	Importing and Exporting Company of Georgia
15 July	Banshee II	Wilmington	Unknown	Davis & Fitzhugh
5 August	Will O’ The Wisp	Wilmington	40 bales (8,000 blankets)	Davis & Fitzhugh
6 August	Mary Celestia	Wilmington	27 bales	Crenshaw & Co.
12 August	Chicora	Wilmington	7 bales	Chicora Importing and Exporting Company
13 August	Syren	Charleston	30 bales	Charleston Importing Company
23 August	Will O’ The Wisp	Wilmington	40 bales	Davis & Fitzhugh
24 August	Owl	Wilmington	7 bales	Fraser, Trenholm & Co.
27 August	Let Her Rip	Wilmington	89 bales	Chicora Importing and Exporting Company
29 August	Ella II	Wilmington	117 bales (5,050 blankets)	Importing and Exporting Company of South Carolina
30 August	Fox	Charleston	100 bales (5,008 blankets)	Fraser, Trenholm & Co.

For all the successful runs, some cargos were still lost. Off course in an attempt to reach Wilmington, the USS Quaker City and USS New Berne chased the Pevensey onto a beach near Beaufort on June 9.  According to the captain of the New Berne, the Pevensey was “loaded on Confederate account, cargo consisting of arms, blankets, shoes, cloth, clothing, lead, bacon, and numerous packages marked to individuals.”¹⁸

As blankets arrived from overseas, Lawton sought to build up stockpiles in anticipation for the coming winter. In early June, the Richmond Clothing Bureau reported having 30,000 blankets on hand. 314 newly arrived bales of blankets from Wilmington were split, with half of the 63,800 blankets being sent to Augusta, Georgia and the other half to Columbia, South Carolina for storage until they were needed.¹⁹

Waller also continued to purchase in the Islands and accumulated significant debt in the process. In late June, Waller offered to purchase 300,000 yards of blankets “on as favorable terms as in England,” if funds could be made available. This was probably an offer from the firm Lamb, Austin & Co., as the following month Waller reported that the company had offered to sell the Confederacy £40-50,000 of supplies. McRae authorized Waller to make the purchases over the next four months. Much of these supplies were likely blankets, as Waller purchased 163 bales of blankets on August 4, amounting to 11,790 blankets. Just a few days later Waller dispatched the blankets as part of £20,000 of goods purchased from Lamb, Austin & Co. to Bermuda via the bark Architect. The following month Waller bought another 117 bales, or 5,350 blankets, from the company and shipped them via the Ella II.²⁰

This was likely the last major blanket purchase made by Waller, as Lawton vetoed the initiative in September. He wrote on September 21 to McRae and Ferguson, stating that he had directed Waller to suspend further purchases, as Ferguson would be able to deal directly “with the manufacturers themselves to purchase better material and at lower prices.” McRae had noted earlier in the year that the goods obtained by Waller was 50% more expensive than those purchased in England and of inferior quality. Waller, Lawton now wrote, was already £30,000 in debt before he had begun purchasing from Lamb, Austin, & Co.²¹

Lawton was more direct in his letter to Waller and his tone is clear over 150 years later. “I think it advisable to be more explicit on one point,” Lawton wrote, “Do not on the authority received from Mr. McRae purchase further of the stock held by Mr. Samuel Austin.” Lawton explained that he might willing to take the whole £40,000 worth of supplies, if Lamb, Austin & Co. would accept payment in cotton. Since, however, they demanded British sterling, Lawton wrote, “I much prefer to leave the expenditure of all such means to Major Ferguson.”²²

In late July and early August, the War Department’s bureau and department heads submitted their budget requests for the next six months. Lawton estimated the need to import 200,000 blankets in order to issue 100,000 blankets and store another 100,000 at the depots for future use. These blankets at $3 each would cost an estimated $600,000. Lawton noted that the scarcity of wool forced him to import half of the cloth required for his department, but “our entire supply of Blankets has to be drawn from abroad.” “To the extent that means can be provided,” he advised, “I believe it to be expedient to purchase abroad. The high prices at home & the inflation of currency consequent upon purchasing at these rates is thereby avoided.” The Quartermaster Department’s request also included $67,500 to pay off £15,000 of Waller’s debts in the Islands.²³

Thomas Bayne likewise prepared an estimate for the War Department’s need for foreign currency over the next six months. This included £570,000 for the Quartermaster Department, the most of any of the departments. To meet the War Department’s need for foreign currency, more than 6,000 bales of cotton would need to be exported per month. In addition to these funds for direct purchases, he catalogued the government’s existing contracts; the Collie Contract for £150,000 worth of quartermaster storers, the Davis & Fitzhugh Contract that promised six cargos of general supplies by October, and the Rosenburg Contract for 100,000 uniforms and 100,000 shoes. While other contracts existed, “they are so indefinite that no calculations can be based upon them.”²⁴

Having requested the necessary funds, in September Lawton confirmed that Ferguson was “fully advised as to [the Quartermaster Department’s] winter wants” and should “continue to press forward your purchases as rapidly as possible.” Ferguson, Lawton wrote, should prioritize shipping the “best quality of blankets, bluchers [shoes], and gray cloths, with a fair proportion of trimming.” Writing the same day to McRae, Lawton reported that “the diminished resource of the country make this department more than ever dependent upon the foreign supply, especially in connection with the articles of leather, stationary, and woolen materials of every description…”²⁵

Adaptive Ingenuity or Dishonest Adulteration – The Shoddy Trade

Recalling how the loss of several ships the previous fall had so strained his department, Lawton also sought to recreate some of the South’s domestic blanket production capacity and reduce his total reliance on importation. In September 1864, he instructed Ferguson and Thomas Sharpe, another Quartermaster agent in England, to purchase four sets of machinery to weave blankets. Although the purchase would cost nearly £10,000, Lawton judged they “will prove an excellent investment, and they will serve to make the Confederacy independent of the foreign market and the contingencies of the blockade.” Lawton further instructed Sharpe to purchase the knowledge or hire someone knowledgeable of the process of extracting wool from rags and scrap cloth. Any process that could covert one ton of rags to half a ton of wool at a cost of one pence per pound “will prove of great value to the Confederacy.” If Sharpe was unsuccessful at acquiring this knowledge, Lawton instructed him to only purchase one set of blanket machinery, as there was insufficient wool within the Confederacy to provide the raw material for four.²⁶

The privileged knowledge Lawton sought to acquire was that of the shoddy trade. Shoddy was made by tearing and grinding soft woolen rags, such as from stockings or flannels, into a pulp. This was accomplished with a device called a swift, or colloquially known as a “devil”, a spiked drum with as many as 14,000 teeth turning 600-1000 times a minute. The same process could be used with harder woolen cloth, such as worsted rags, and coarser teeth on the drum to produce a similar material called mungo. Shoddy and mungo could be mixed with a proportion of pure wool to create a less expensive fabric that had greater substance and warmth. The extreme shortness of the shoddy fibers, however, sacrificed strength and so shoddy was best suited for fabric where warmth was a premium, such as blankets and carpets.²⁷

An 1858 British travel journal described the process, beginning with the operation of the swift: “There I saw a cylinder revolving with a velocity too rapid for the eye to follow, whizzing and roaring, as if in agony, and throwing off a cloud of light wooly fibers, that floated in the air, and a stream of flocks that fell in a heap at the end of the room… The cylinder was full of blunt steel teeth, which, seizing whatever was presented to them in the shape of rags, tore it thoroughly to pieces; in fact, ground it up into flocks of short, frizzly-looking fibre….”²⁸

The fiber was next taken into the mixing room, where “the long fibre is mixed in certain proportions with the short; and… lightly sprinkled with oil…. A dingy brown or black was the prevalent colour; but some of the heaps were gray, and would be converted into undyed cloth of the same colour.”²⁹

“Flocks are intimately mixed,” the journal continued, “by passing over and under a series of rollers, and come forth from the last looking something like wool. Then the wool, as we may now call it, goes to the ‘scribbling-machine’, which, after torturing it among a dozen rollers of various dimensions, delivers it yard by yard in the form of a loose thick cable, with a run of the fibres in one direction. The carding-machine takes the cable lengths, subjects them to another round of torture, confirms the direction of the fibers, and reduces the cable into a chenille of about the thickness of a lady’s finger.” This material was then wound on spindles and sent for spinning into yarn in the same manner of pure wool.³⁰

The proportion of shoddy used relative to pure wool struck the balance between cost and quality. Common practice in the Yorkshire woolen mills by the Civil War period was to use one third pure wool mixed with two thirds shoddy or mungo. Particularly cheap blankets, however, might have as low as one part wool to six parts shoddy. As previously discussed, the surviving blankets imported by North Carolina appear to contain some shoddy, although the exact proportion is unknown.³¹

Views of this process were decidedly mixed. At an 1851 exhibition, the judges praised shoddy makers John Jubb, Hargreaves & Nussey, and Oldfield & Co. for their “general excellence of manufacture and great ingenuity in the application of new materials.” They called shoddy “a striking illustration of the adaptive ingenuity of the present day.”³²

Others viewed the use of shoddy as deceitful and a sign of poor quality, calling it as a “dishonest adulteration” that used “a very inferior species of wool.” The Witney blanket makers refused to use shoddy and major Yorkshire blanket exporter Thomas Cook generally opposed its use. British military blanket contracts through at least 1858 prohibited the use of “shoddy, woollen waste, hair, or anything else but pure wool.”³³

Much of the negative perception of shoddy could, at least in the British opinion, be traced to excessive use of shoddy by American industry during the Civil War. By using too high a proportion of shoddy to pure wool, contractors for the Federal government produced a cheap, weak material unable to withstand the rigors of use and undermining the reputation of shoddy. An English magazine in 1865 charged the Americans with changing the definition of shoddy to be “gilded ignorance, mock patriotism, wire-pulling, successful knavery, swindling, nay treason itself.” It described the experience of Union soldiers issued uniforms made almost entirely of shoddy: “They fade and rip, and burst apart, and drop to pieces, but the contractor feels secure. His fortune is made, let the soldiers shiver and curse as they may.”³⁴

Regardless of the reputation of the industry, it had grown rapidly in the 1800s. Cotton rags had long been used to make paper, but prior to the invention of shoddy, wool rags were considered relatively useless. While several people appear to have developed the idea of recycling woolen rags to make new cloth, Benjamin Law has traditionally received credit for first developing shoddy in 1813 in the Yorkshire town of Batley. The town and its surrounding district emerged as the center of the shoddy industry and remained so through the Civil War period.³⁵

The novel new material was increasingly incorporated into cloth and blanket production throughout the 1820s, During this early period, even some manufactures who would later reject shoddy experimented with the novel material. Thomas Cook, later strongly opposed to the use of recycled wool, sometimes used shoddy in the 1820s from surplus British military grey and white blankets, because he considered the shoddy produced from them to be a higher quality.³⁶

An American protective tariff in 1828, designed to promote domestic textile production, had the indirect effect of helping fuel the growth of shoddy in England. The tariff excluded blankets and cheap cloth under 50 centers per square yard, exactly the goods best suited for shoddy. Depressed economic conditions in England in the 1830s further increased demand for inexpensive cloths and the expanded use of shoddy allowed Yorkshire textile firms to flourish during this decade. This decade also fueled the initial view of shoddy as a dishonest substitution. Some manufacturers sought to maximize short-term profits by flooding the domestic and American export markets with interior products, fraudulently passing them off as pure wool. Men like Gott and Cook, who prided themselves on the high quality of their products, turned away in disgust from shoddy, despite having previously viewed it as a legitimate raw material for inexpensive blankets.³⁷

The industry continued to grow in the 1840s and 1850s, as use of shoddy became extremely widespread in the Yorkshire trade. The introduction of the sewing machine in the late 1840s fueled the rise in ready-made clothing, which in turn drove up demand for inexpensive cloth containing shoddy. The 27 million pounds of shoddy and mungo produced annually in England in the 1840 exploded to 85 million pounds annually in the 1850s. The economic boom also drew more people to Batley, with the population of the village doubling between 1841 and 1861. Shoddy remained largely concentrated in Yorkshire, giving them an edge that facilitated dominance of the American markets, as there was almost no shoddy production in the United States prior to the Civil War. American shoddy was viewed with distain by British shoddy makers, believing it to be “loaded with cheap, short, and unskillfully blended shoddy” containing broken cotton warps.³⁸

On the eve of the Civil War, there were few blanket producers in Yorkshire not using shoddy. Batley remained the center of the industry, with at least 61 rag merchants and dealers operating in Batley, Dewsbury, and Ossett in 1861. These firms sorted rags by color, quality, and hardness, as well as preparing them for grinding by cutting off seams. The concentration of blanket producers in Earlsheaton had previously produced all-wool blankets and still did so in support of British government contracts, but the majority of the blankets they made for the American export market used shoddy. Heckmondwike, adjoining Batley, also consumed large amounts of shoddy, but not as much as Earlsheaton.³⁹

A confluence of multiple factors combined during the Civil War period to produce boom times for the shoddy trade. Large numbers of sheep had died during an 1859 drought, reducing domestic wool supplies and driving up the cost of new wool. Around the same time, an 1860 Anglo-French commercial treaty had opened new sources of woolen rags imported from France. The surge in demand by Federal and Confederate agents for blankets and cloth further drove up the cost of pure wool and the high cost of cotton relative to wool due to the Union blockade further encouraged an increased reliance on shoddy.⁴⁰

By 1863, shoddy had driven “much of the present prosperity and extension of the Yorkshire trade,” while making the area around Batley and Dewsbury the “most prosperous parts of the woollen district.” Batley had 50 rag engines operating in 35 mills producing alone 12 million pounds of shoddy and mungo annually.Overall, England produced on average 46 million pounds of shoddy and mungo annually during the war years and consumed 66 million pounds. Exports grew by 40% by 1863 and by nearly 100% by 1865.⁴¹

The dominance of shoddy during the war was such that, in 1863, a sales agent for Benjamin Gott pleaded for his boss to reverse his prohibition against the use of shoddy: “You must make up your mind… [and] put a certain quantity of shoddy in your black cloths… but not so much as will interfere materially with the strength. This you must do, or you cannot compete with good houses… I know the use of shoddy is very objectionable to you, but if the spirt of competition drives you to it you must do it or be driven out of the market….”⁴²

These boom times, however, were short-lived. Tariffs and development of the American shoddy industry during the conflict broke the Yorkshire dominance of the trade by war’s end. The American markets were virtually closed via tariffs immediately following the conflict and overall British shoddy exports fell as low as 4.3% by 1868. The number of shoddy firms forced to declare bankruptcy spiked sharply. Shoddy prices would not reach Civil War-era prices again until 1910.⁴³

The shoddy engines, blanket looms, and other associated machinery ultimately located by Ferguson and Sharpe would produce 250-300 pairs of blankets daily and could be operated by three skilled men and a workforce of “negro labor and disabled soldiers.” The blankets, weighing nine pounds per pair, were made of 50% shoddy, 25% wool, and 25% cotton warps. The Quartermaster Department’s clothing bureaus could provide the wool scraps and rags needed to produce the shoddy. The 37,500 blankets produced annually would be roughly equal to those being purchased in Nassau.⁴⁴

Sharpe had originally been sent to England to purchase machinery to manufacture shoes, making it difficult to determine which shipments of English machinery were for this original mission or for shoddy and blanket production. In September, the first set of machinery purchased was loaded in Liverpool aboard the Bat, one of McRae’s newly purchased side-wheel steamers for the Confederate government. During its approach to Wilmington on October 10, it was spotted and chased by two Union blockaders. A third warship, the USSMontgomery, fired a shot from a 30-pounder rifle that took off the leg of an Austrian seaman, mortally wounding him. After boarding their prize, the Federal sailors reported its cargo as “machinery for manufacturing shoes.”⁴⁵

A second set of machinery arrived in December aboard the Owl and was sent to Augusta to be operated by Union prisoners. On January 6, 1865, the third and final shoe machine landed in Wilmington inside 44 cases carried by the Stag. Researchers David Burt and Craig Barry suggest that, amidst this shoe machinery, the shoddy machinery ordered by Lawton was also imported on the Stag, and while this is possible, surviving records only directly address the shoe machinery. As late as February 1865, however, a senior quartermaster reported that blanket machinery had been ordered overseas but made no mention of its arrival, suggesting that it still had not been fully delivered as of that date.⁴⁶

Enough to Make the Army Not Only Efficient but Comfortable – The Final Months

While optimistic that shoddy would alleviate his future needs, Lawton informed Seddon in October that “blankets, shoes, and woolen goods have to be drawn in large quantities from abroad” to meet current demand. Large quantities are exactly what Lawton’s overseas network provided. Some ships were lost in transit, like the Hope that was captured in October while carrying 23 bales to blankets. Many more, however, reached Wilmington and Charleston. Between September and January 1865, as least 786 bales of blankets were offloaded on southern wharfs. Some of these shipments were massive, with the Fox delivering 10,000 blankets on September 28 and Ella II landing the following day with another 5,850. The following is based on surviving documentation:⁴⁷

Date	Ship	Port	Blankets	Company
27 September	Wando AKA Let Her Rip	Wilmington	39 bales (2,500 blankets)	Chicora Importing and Exporting Company
28 September	Fox	Charleston	100 bales (10,000 blankets)	Fraser, Trenholm & Co.
29 September	Ella II	Wilmington	117 bales (5,850 blankets)	Importing Company of South Carolina
4 October	Talisman	Wilmington	18 bales (1,890 blankets)	Albion Trading Company
9 October	Syren	Charleston	72 bales (3,600 blankets)	Charleston Importing Company
10 October	Fox	Charleston	49 bales	Fraser, Trenholm & Co.
25 October	Lucy	Wilmington	16 bales (800 blankets)	Fraser, Trenholm & Co.
4 November	Hansa	Wilmington	52 bales	Alexander Collie & Co.
5 or 7 November	Julia	Charleston	25 bales	Donald McGregor
7 November	Chicora	Charleston	16 bales (800 blankets)	Chicora Importing and Exporting Company
8 November	Talisman	Wilmington	7 bales	Albion Trading Company
1 December	Owl	Wilmington	161 bales	Confederate Government
2 December	Caroline	Wilmington	10 bales	Importing and Exporting Company of South Carolina
4 December	Stag	Wilmington	10 bales	Confederate Government
4 December	Hasana	Wilmington	52 bales	Alexander Collie & Co.
9 December	Talisman	Wilmington	37 bales	Albion Trading Company
18 January	Fox	Charleston	6 bales (44 bales thrown overboard in transit)	Fraser, Trenholm & Co.

The scope of the importation effort in 1864 was truly impressive. In early December 1864, Seddon updated Davis on the War Department’s foreign operations. Between November 1, 1863, and October 26, 1864, Seddon reported the importation of 2,921 bales of blankets into Charleston and Wilmington or approximately 292,000 pairs of blankets. An additional 322 bales were brought in between October 26 and December 8, for a total of 3,243 bales. According to Seddon, the Quartermaster Department estimated these shipments had delivered 316,000 pairs of blankets. Modern analysis by scholar C.L. Webster identified at least 82 ships landing in Wilmington and Charleston between April 1864 and late December 1864. Webster’s research accounted for at least 169,868 pairs of blankets imported from these vessels, although an accurate tally is nearly impossible due to lost documentation, conflicting records, and variation in the number of blankets per bale.⁴⁸

In December, Lawton responded to several November requisitions submitted by the Chief Quartermaster of the Army of Northern Virginia, noting that he had waited to respond until additional blankets and other supplies had arrived from Wilmington and Columbia. He expressed surprise at learning of the great need of the troops. Based on the issues made to the Army, as well as a lack of requisitions, Lawton had been under the impression the Army had been receiving “enough to make the army not only efficient but comfortable.” At any time in the past two months, Lawton wrote, sufficient stores were on hand to supply any article except overcoats. The Richmond Clothing Bureau had “a fair supply” of blankets and more had been stored in Wilmington and Columbia. Lawton immediately dispatched 10,000 blankets, plus those recently arrived, and invited further requests “for whatever you may need, either in the way of shoes or blankets, between now and the end of the quarter to make the army comfortable.”⁴⁹

The efforts of Lawton, Ferguson, Waller, McRae and others ensured a continued flow of blankets to Confederate armies in 1864, despite the total reliance on foreign importation and the challenges presented by the Union blockade. In the final six months of 1864, the Quartermaster Department reported the issue of 156,092 blankets, including 74,851 to the Army of Northern Virginia, 4,924 to the Army of Southwest Virginia, 12,429 to the Department of South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, 27,900 to the Army of Tennessee, 27,292 to the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana, and 6,696 to the Department of North Carolina.⁵⁰

For all this success, however, Lawton’s department remained entirely dependent on the continued operation of the south’s last two major Atlantic ports. The Union capture of Fort Fisher on January 15, 1865, spelled the beginning of the end. After the fort’s capture, the Federal Navy kept lit the light used to signal blockade runners, hoping to seize any ships that had not yet heard of the fall of the fort. On the night of 19 to 20 January, the Confederate government-owned Stag and the Charlotte both arrived from Bermuda and were quickly captured. Their cargo holes contained blankets, arms, shoes, and other material. Five nights later, the Blenheim also fell into the trap. She had sailed from Nassau loaded with blankets, shoes, and hats. A small number of ships managed to slip into Charleston until it too fell on February 17. With the closure of these ports, Confederate efforts to import blankets along the Atlantic coast came to an abrupt end.⁵¹

Lawton’s department struggled to continue following the loss of Wilmington and Charleston. In early February the state of Alabama offered to sell to the Confederate Government blankets the state had imported at a rate of $10 per blanket, to be paid for via 20 pounds of cotton. Lawton still dreamed of resumed domestic blanket production. One of his subordinates reported that the primary challenge would be acquiring adequate wool. While some manufacturing facilities existed for weaving woolen cloth, even this produced little due to deficiencies in raw materials. As for blankets, “the blankets now in the hands of the soldiers,” he wrote, “must be turned in in the spring for reissue. As there is not in the entire Confederacy a single establishment that makes them, machinery has been ordered from abroad.”⁵²

Lawton’s shoddy machinery, however, would either never arrive or at least never become operational. Almost entirely cut off from outside supplies and without domestic production, it is questionable whether the Quartermaster Department would have been able to adequately supply southern armies even had Richmond not fallen in April 1865, followed soon after by the surrender of the two primary Confederate field armies and the total collapse of the Confederacy.

Confederate soldiers had, for four years, huddled for warmth under a wide array of blankets. Some were domestically woven by firms like Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co. or the Crenshaw Woolen Company. Some were donated by southern civilians or were reissued Federal blankets. Some were made of repurposed carpet or improvised from jean wool and cotton shirting. Hundreds of thousands of them, likely the majority of them, were imported from Europe and run in past the blockade. Most of these imports came from England, with smaller numbers from France or the German states. After shoes, no other item was imported in larger numbers than blankets. Despite myriad challenges, the Confederate Quartermaster Department performed admirable work in their attempts to provide every Confederate soldier the comfort of a warm blanket.

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Footnotes

This is Chapter Three of a four chapter article. See Chapter One, Chapter Two, and Chapter Four. For a brief summary of this article, adapted to address the needs of living historians, see Blankets for Your Confederate Impression published in the ‘Living History Gazette.’ 

Every Exertion has Been Made – Spring 1862

With such a robust British blanket industry from which to draw, in the spring of 1862 Huse continued work with Fraser, Trenholm & Co. to arrange shipments of blankets alongside ordnance stores. The newly built English steamer Economist No. 2 sailed to Hamburg to take onboard 80 artillery pieces, but returned to England in late February 1862 to take on blankets and other cargo before sailing for Nassau. American diplomats in England reported in March the loading of at least three ships, the Minna, the Mary, and the Pacific, with cargos of blankets as well as small arms, artillery, powder, swords, knapsacks, clothing, shoes, raw materials, and other supplies intended for the Confederacy. At least one of these, the Minna, was owned by Fraser, Trenholm & Co.¹

With Lewis Heyliger’s assistance, the Thomas L. Wragg was prepared to sail on April 5 from Nassau with bales of blankets and other cargo primarily owned by John Fraser & Co. It arrived in Wilmington on April 24 carrying bales of grey and white blankets. On May 11 the Memphis left Liverpool with 12,000 woolen blankets, 45 tons of gunpowder and large amounts of cartridges, lead shot, and steel. The U.S. Consul in London informed the Federal government on May 16 that the Melita was 30 miles below London loading 450 barrels of gunpowder. The ship had already been loaded with blankets, over 15,000 Enfield rifles, artillery pieces, army cloth, saltpeter, and other material. Owned by S. Isaac Campbell & Co., the Melita had been chartered by Fraser, Trenholm & Co. for the voyage. It successfully ran the blockade multiple times before being retired in May 1863.²

Fraser, Trenholm & Co. continued throughout the summer to dispatch ships carrying blankets and other goods, both on government account and for commercial resale. Their ship Minho arrived in Charleston on June 4 with 22 bales of blankets abroad, while the Herald landed early the following month carrying 108 bales.³

This steady stream of imports joined British blankets imported prior to the war and now in use by Confederate soldiers. An officer of the Fortieth Virginia Infantry reported the loss of his horse near Gaines’ Mill on June 27, noting that “Strapped behind the saddle was a pair of white English blankets.” In July, a private in the Thirty-Fourth North Carolina Infantry sent home from Richmond an “inglish blanket” he had recovered from the battlefield, describing it as “one side black and the other read [sic; red].”⁴

Despite the successful shipments, Secretary Benjamin’s rosy predictions earlier in the year that domestic production and foreign imports could fully supply the army were proving increasingly dim. Myers scoured local markets to purchase all available blankets in the spring and borrowed surplus blankets from the Confederate Navy. By July, a quartermaster official informed Benjamin’s replacement as Secretary, George W. Randolph, that “to obtain a full supply of clothing for the Army is becoming more embarrassing and difficult as the raw material is diminishing and the machinery employed in its manufacture becomes worn out. Every exertion has been made to render all the resource of the country available, but if… there were ample supplies of the raw material the capacity to manufacture them is wanting, thereby rendering it certain that a reliance upon our own sources of supply will be in vain.” Alternatively, he argued “The government would save largely by purchasing abroad, even if one of every three cargoes were lost.” The Quartermaster Department’s reliance on private importation had proven unreliable and transferred enormous profits to importers. The Quartermaster Department, he argued, should instead adopt the practice of the Ordnance Department and dispatch a suitable procurement agent abroad to purchase less expensive supplies on the European market. The Quartermaster Bureau recommended Major James Boswell Ferguson Jr.⁵

Ferguson was the perfect candidate for the job. Unlike Huse, a pre-war soldier and educator, Ferguson had over twenty years of business experience. He had obtained extensive knowledge of the British textile industry and knew many mill owns personally, having previously operated his own import and export firm, J.B. Ferguson Jr., Bros. & Co. Myers had initially proposed sending Ferguson to England as a quartermaster agent in October 1861, but the Secretary of War at the time, Benjamin, rejected the proposal of directly purchasing quartermaster supplies in Europe in favor of continued reliance on contracts with commercial parties. Now, with a new secretary in place, Myers finally got his approval to dispatch Ferguson. It would, however, be months before Ferguson could reach England and months more before any purchases he made would arrive on Southern shores. In the meantime, the weather was slowly getting colder as summer turned to fall.⁶

So Greatly Needed at Home – Fall 1862

Alexander Gardner’s photographs of the Confederate dead at Antietam provide a tiny glimpse into the blankets of the Army of Northern Virginia by this point in the war. A photograph of Confederate casualties along the Hagerstown Pike, possibly members of John R. Jones’ Division, shows two blankets. The first, in the foreground and more clearly seen, is light in color with wide stripes of at least three different colors. A narrow header bar stripe is visible at each end. This civilian style blanket may have been donated, brought from home by the soldier, or imported by a commercial firm. The same photo also contains a dark colored patterned cotton coverlet along the right edge of the image. This was likely a donation or from the soldier’s family. Either blanket could also have been a recent acquisition, obtained during the march through Maryland.⁷

A second image, showing fatalities in Bloody Lane, also contains two blankets. The more visible of the two, on the left edge of the shot, is medium colored, perhaps grey or brown. It has a single wide stripe along the end, with presumable a second stripe on the other end out of view. It resembles a Federal issue blanket and may be one, either captured and reused or carried by a Federal soldier at Antietam. We also cannot discount the possibility of items being moved by the photographer as “props” to make a more interesting image. It may also have been a British import, as some British blankets were noted as closely resembling Union blankets, or domestic manufacture, as Crenshaw Woolen Company produced grey army blankets. In the middle foreground is possibly a second blanket, although it is amidst other debris and is harder to analyze. It is light colored, probably white, and has at least two medium width dark colored stripes.⁸

With Lee’s Army returning from Maryland and with the winter of 1862-1863 looming, the War Department again issued an urgent appeal for civilian donations of blankets and warm clothing. The Crenshaw Woolen Company, having only recently signed its contract to produce woolen cloth for the Quartermaster Department, was paid in October 1862 to scour and clean donated blankets, drawers, quilts, shirts, comforts, socks, and bedding. Some of these items were captured Federal equipment being prepared for reissue, as the contract also included dying overcoats, coats, jackets, and pants.⁹

The domestic market for blankets had, by this time, been nearly exhausted. The increasing scarcity of blankets drove up their cost. Blankets that in 1861-1862 had cost $1.50, cost $7-8 by 1862-1863. Even damaged blankets were potentially valuable in a desperate market. Charleston auctioneer R. A. Pingle held an August 20, 1862, auction for two bales of damaged “English Gray Blankets.”¹⁰

Importation promised a potential solution but faced extensive challenges. One of the two major eastern blockade running ports, Wilmington, closed in August due to an outbreak of yellow fever, forcing temporary reliance on the port of Charleston. Whether Charleston, Wilmington, or other ports, at least 105 attempts were made to run the blockade between September 1861 and December 1862, with 77 trips arriving successfully. These favorable numbers, however, conceal the highly risky nature of the business. Of the 36 ships that conducted these runs, 28 eventually ran out of luck and were captured or destroyed. With ship losses high and cargo space at a premium, the private companies on which the War Department relied prioritized their own, more profitable goods. The Confederate agent in Nassau, Heyliger, could only negotiate at best two-thirds of a ship’s cargo space and such a favorable percentage was usually only ever offered by John Fraser & Co. More goods were arriving from Europe than Heyliger could ship aboard blockade runners. A bottleneck developed, with only around half of the War Department supplies shipped from Europe to Nassau in 1862 actually reaching the Confederacy that year.¹¹

On top of the challenge of finding cargo space, there was also the problem of paying for it, as well as for the supplies being purchased by Huse. Since the start of the conflict, the Confederate government had maintained a semi-official “King Cotton” embargo on the export of cotton. While the government’s preference for private industry to bring goods into the Confederacy may in hindsight seem inefficient, it was partially driven by necessity. Huse’s operation had been funded with an initial $5 million via Fraser, Trenholm & Co., but he and other Confederate agents in Europe were increasingly low on funds, particularly with so much being spent on the lofty freight fees charged by blockade runners. Having private enterprise import supplies and then buying the goods upon arrival, despite all its inefficiencies, allowed the War Department to pay with Confederate currency and bonds rather than via its limited holdings of foreign currency.¹²

Private firms, however, often failed to deliver. The Quartermaster Department had signed a massive contract in the summer of 1861 with “capitalists” to import 300,000 shoes and 100,000 blankets into the Confederacy. The promised goods, however, had not yet arrived a year later. Since signing the contract, prices had already increased by 100% and Myers was pessimistic the promised blankets would ever be delivered. As an alternative, Myers sought authorization to contract with companies to import critically needed quartermaster stores in exchange for cotton.¹³

In Fall 1862, Secretary Randolph formally requested President Davis overturn the cotton embargo and permit some government-sanctioned trading of cotton across enemy lines to obtain critical supplies from the North. “The alternative is thus presented of violating our established policy of withholding cotton from the enemy or of risking the starvation of our armies,” he wrote. Randolph recommended that the Commissary Department be permitted to sell cotton to buy bacon and salt and that the Quartermaster Department be similarly authorized to purchase blankets and shoes. Davis soundly rejected Randolph’s proposal and Randolph was soon forced to resign, replaced by James Seddon.¹⁴

Despite the repeated failure of firms to deliver on promises like those made for 100,000 blankets in the summer 1861, the War Department tried again to contract private enterprise to bring in critical supplies. In November 1862, commercial firm Vernon & Co. signed a series of massive contracts to provide British and European supplies for the Quartermaster Department, Ordnance Department, Medical Department, and Post Office. The firm was led by British national John M. Vernon, who had come to the South in 1849 and had been involved in manufacturing arms for the Confederacy in Wilmington. Delivery was to occur between February and April 1863 and invoices would be paid in cotton and tobacco.¹⁵

As part of this order, the Quartermaster Bureau ordered 200,000 blankets, measuring 92 inches long by 68 inches wide and weighing between 4 1/4 to 5 pounds, while the Medical Department requested 25,000 blankets and 6,750 coverlets. The contract also included 200,000 pairs of English Army shoes, 200,000 blue or gray flannel shirts, large amounts of cadet gray and blue wool cloth, flannel cloth, and 300,000 pairs of socks. Other contracts were for arms, ammunition, 12 large rifled cannons, rifles, gun barrels, pistols, and powder. While impressive sounding, there is no record of any portion of this contract ever being fulfilled. Vernon himself attempted to sail from Charleston in July 1863 aboard a steamer loaded with cotton, but the ship was destroyed trying to depart.¹⁶

Also in November 1862, two French brothers proposed a scheme to import 100,000 blankets, 100,000 pairs of shoes, 100,000 yards of flannel, and a million pounds of bacon or pork. The supplies, the brothers proposed, would be transported on French ships under the protection of the French consul through occupied New Orleans and up the Mississippi for delivery to the Confederacy at Port Hudson or Vicksburg. No further record of this effort could be located, and it is highly questionable that the Union navy would have permitted ships, even flying the French flag, to freely sail up the Mississippi. Like the Vernon & Co . contract, this proposal appears to have yielded no results.¹⁷

While other businessmen sought opportunity, John Fraser & Co. continued its steady and highly lucrative trade into the South. On November 12, 1862, Heylinger in Nassau informed the War Department that the Kate, owned by Fraser, was again loaded and ready to sail. “Her cargo consists chiefly of blankets, flannels, &c., and as these are so greatly needed at home, I have refrained from pressing any Government freight [from the Fraser-owned Melita].” The remainder of the Melita’s cargo was dispatched within the next month, with the final portions sailing via the Herald (also known as Antonica) and the Leopard. “Both the Antonica and Leopardcarry a large quantity of iron plates, a considerable shipment of woolens, all the blankets and shoes that could be got together, and a variety of other useful stuff on private account,” reported Heyliger. Within the next two months, Heyliger expected another ten ships to arrive in Nassau carrying “no less than 100,000 pairs of shoes and a vast quantity of blankets…  irrespective of some private ventures which will increase the amount.”¹⁸

While Heylinger shuffled cargos in the Bahamas, on December 3, 1862, the Jusitia landed in Bermuda from England. John T. Bourne, a Bermuda merchant who served as a Confederate commercial agent in the islands, noted it was loaded with “blankets, boots & shoes, medicines, and what the South are actually in want of. I would run the cargo in as soon as possible.” The huge ship’s cargo, some 93,000 pounds worth of blankets, boots, shoes, and clothing belonging to John Fraser & Co., was packed in warehouses to await transshipment to smaller, faster blockade runners for the final sprint past Federal warships.  Just days after the Jusitia arrived, Bourne dispatched “500 odd bales blankets, boots, and medicines…” from the Jusitia onboard the Confederate government-owned blockade runner Cornubia. The Cornubia delivered its cargo safely into Wilmington on December 17, the port having just reopened following the yellow fever quarantine. The vessel then made subsequent runs on January 30, 1863 with 157 bales mixed between shoes and blankets and on March 1 with 130 bales of shoes and blankets, likely the remainder of the Jusitia’s cargo.¹⁹

While private speculators continued to overpromise or overcharge, Huse continued his purchasing efforts in England. “In addition to ordnance stores,” wrote Gorgas in praise of Huse, “using a rare forecast, he has purchased and shipped large supplies of clothing, blankets, cloth, and shoes for the Quartermaster’s Department without special orders to do so.” Despite having had no authorization for the purchases, Huse reported by circa December 1862 having shipped £110,525 worth of quartermaster storers, including 62,025 blankets valued at £23,903.²⁰

On January 3, 1863 Secretary of War Seddon reported to Davis: “For some of the leading articles required by the [Quartermaster’s Department] has necessarily been placed to a considerable extent on foreign supplies, since they are not adequately furnished within the Confederate States. This has specially been the case with woolens and leather, and under the losses and interruptions caused by the blockade there have been at times rather scant supplies of blankets, shoes, and some other articles of clothing.”²¹

Despite Huse’s best efforts, commercial schemes, and a fall 1862 surge in civilian donations, frequently inadequate supplies of blankets and shoes were increasingly on the minds of state authorities in late 1862 as cold weather threatened. The Governor of Alabama had written in August to the Secretary of War asking whether the Confederate government would be able to provide “blankets and clothing for our Army… which can be relied on to carry it through the coming fall and winter.” He was particularly concerned about blankets and other heavy woolen goods. “The little wool we have in the state is bearing an enormous price, and the conduction of the Mississippi presents serious obstacles in obtaining supplies from Texas.”²²

Similarly concerned, Governor Zebulon Vance of North Carolina drew the attention of his General Assembly in November to “the great and almost insurmountable difficulties encountered by the quartermaster’s department providing clothing, shoes, and blankets.” “At the opening of the second winter of the war between the Confederate States and the United States of America,” declared Vance, “the State of North Carolina is under the necessity of applying in foreign markets for material with which to equip its citizens in the Army, especially for shoes and blankets.” Spurred by the urgent need, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia all explored different avenues to supply blankets for their sons fighting in Lee’s army and other Confederate forces.²³

Let Every One Contribute Liberally – South Carolina

South Carolina soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia were “nearly naked, having lost or worn out the little clothing and blankets they had,” according to a fall 1862 report. “The fact being undeniable that our soldiers are without shoes, and in rags, and without blankets.” The state’s governor had, in 1861, purchased quantities of blankets, shoes, woolen cloth, and other essentials but these had been almost entirely exhausted by January 1862.²⁴

One of these early import blankets may have been issued to South Carolina soldier Ebenezer Stenhouse. Born in Scotland, Stenhouse enlisted in April 1861 as a sergeant in the Second Palmetto Regiment. After being wounded in the breast at the First Battle of Manassas, Stenhouse was elected Third Lieutenant of his company in October. The following spring, however, he was absent sick with pneumonia and had been dropped from the roles by May 1862. His blanket, which is now in the collection of the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum, is made of blue-gray wool and has a twill weave like that seen on North Carolina blankets which will be discussed in the following section.  Each end of the blanket has a wide dark blue stripe, again like the blankets imported by their sister state to the north.²⁵

To meet the continued demand for blankets, South Carolina turned to a unique private, commercial, and public partnership. In October 1862, concerned citizens in Columbia founded the Central Association for the Relief of the Soldiers of South Carolina. The charity group immediately called for donations: “If necessary to the keeping up of our army in the field, and, therefore, to the success of our cause in establishing our independence, it would be a false pride, and a silly one, to object to sharing our blankets; and our wardrobe with our soldiers…. Let every one, then, come forward… and contribute liberally… in blankets or woolen carpets as a substitute for blankets. The quilted ‘comforts,’ so called, are not considered so useful to the solider as the blanket, which is easier dried after being wet. Let the ‘comforts,’ then, be retained for use at home, and our blankets be sent to our soldiers.”²⁶

The group appears to have had immediate impact. The following month the state’s governor reported that “recently large supplies of clothing and blankets have been sent… to our soldiers in Virginia.” His call for appropriation of funds for additional supplies was met, in February 1863, with a bill authorizing $100,000 to be given to the Central Association for the Relief of the Soldiers of South Carolina “to be expended in purchasing, and forwarding to our soldiers, shoes, blankets; and clothing.”²⁷

Simultaneously, the legislature authorized the incorporation of several companies which would play a critical role in supplying South Carolinian and other Confederate troops. The Importing and Exporting Company of South Carolina, the Atlantic Steam Packet Company of the Confederate States, and the Palmetto Exporting and Importing Company were all authorized to export produce from South Carolina and import from neutral ports “arms, munitions of war, and other commodities.” Formed to exploit the booming blockade running business, most of these companies included the ever-present John Fraser & Co. among their stockholders.²⁸

These commercial firms formed a mutually supporting partnership with the state’s Quartermaster Department and the Central Association. In the winter of 1862-1863, the Central Association purchased a large lot of blankets at an advantageous price from the state Quartermaster to supply one of the South Carolina brigades in the Army of Northern Virginia. After this time, the state Quartermaster appears to have reduced its direct role in supplying blankets, as the department reported in October 1863 that it had only 294 blankets currently on hand and had issued only two in the previous ten months. The Central Association, conversely, had shipped some 2,401 packages worth some $185,373, primarily to the Army of Northern Virginia. As of November 1863, the Central Association had on hand $18,597 worth of “clothing, woolen, blankets, &c.… a part of which will be sent off next week.”²⁹

As 1863 turned to 1864, South Carolina Governor Milledge Luke Bonham wrote to William C. Bee, president of the Importing and Exporting Company of South Carolina, requesting the firm import “blankets, shoes, clothing, arms, ammunition, machinery and the usual agricultural implements which we cannot manufacture.” Bee, whose firm operated blockade runners such as the Ella and Annie, the Eliza, and the Ella No. 2, was already heavily invested in this area. In December 1863 alone, his company sold 4,790 pairs of blankets to the Confederacy.³⁰

The following year, the Central Association made large purchases from the South Carolina Importing and Exporting Company of clothing, shoes, coffee, and sugar at favorable rates, although it is unknown whether they also purchased blankets. The firm did, however, continue to import blankets, bringing in via Ella No. 2 in October 1864 120 bales of blankets measuring some 1,542 feet and 6 inches in length. Between November 1863 and November 1864, the Central Association distributed 1,425 blankets, 937 of those to the Army of Northern Virginia. They had, during this same period, procured some 1,447 blankets, including the purchase of 669 blankets, the manufacture of 666, and the donation of 87 blankets.³¹

A Most Complete Success – North Carolina

While South Carolina sought to supplement the blankets issued to its troops, North Carolina took on the entire burden of supplying her sons. Early in the conflict the state struck an agreement with the Confederate War Department that North Carolina would fully supply its own soldiers in exchange for limited intrusion by the Confederate Quartermaster Department in North Carolina’s domestic industry. In August 1861, the governor reported the initial success of this arrangement, stating that North Carolina had “been flattered with the compliment of sending the best equipped troops that have gone to Virginia, and we are taking every means of continuing these comforts. The subject of blankets and winter clothes for the troops has occupied our attention, and we are making efforts and appeals to accomplish this necessary object.”³²

On September 20, 1861, however, the North Carolina legislature passed a law requiring the governor, acting through the state Quartermaster Department, to fully supply clothing to North Carolina troops in the field. Little preparations had been put in place for the long-term supply of the state’s soldiers, as the presumption was that Confederate authorities would assume that task after the state carried the burden of initial equipment. With it becoming increasingly apparent that the Confederate Quartermaster Department would be unable to adequately supply the armies, the North Carolina legislature passed this responsibility to the state quartermaster operation. The law also reorganized the Quartermaster Department, resulting in the appointment of Major John Devereux as Chief Quartermaster, a post he would hold until the end of the war.³³

“Immediate steps were taken to comply with the law,” reported the state’s adjutant general, “and although there was no clothing on hand at its passage, before cold weather most of the troops were supplied with clothing and blankets, at least so far as to prevent any suffering.” As part of the reorganization, the North Carolina Quartermaster Department opened a clothing manufactory in Raleigh in September 1861. Initially under the command of Captain Isaac W. Garrett, it passed to Major Clement Dowd in 1863.³⁴

Without the means to produce adequate woolen blankets, Garrett turned in this first winter of the war to an expedient substitute. He began purchasing all the woolen carpeting he could obtain, cutting it into quilt-sized pieces and lining them with coarse cloth. The Raleigh Clothing Manufactory produced 11,952 carpet blankets in its first year of operation, along with 2,801 wool blankets. Agents were dispatched to purchase available blankets across the state and as far away as New Orleans. Between Garrett’s operation, purchases, and donations of blankets and quilts, the North Carolina Quartermaster Department issued 28,185 blankets between September 1861 and 1862.³⁵

Like the rest of the Confederacy, however, domestic sources were quickly exhausted. By fall 1862, the state adjutant general reported: “Some articles are very difficult to be obtained at any price, especially blankets and shoes. The former cannot be had, not is there any material out of which they can be made, as all the carpeting in the market was purchased last year. Arrangements have been made to supply cotton comforts in lieu of them; and although not so good as blankets for camp service, it is hoped they will answer at least to prevent suffering.”³⁶

Early in the conflict, General James G. Martin, chief of all North Carolina war departments, had sought the governor’s approval to begin importation of foreign supplies, but as his term was concluding, the governor deferred the decision to incoming governor Zebulon Vance. Martin’s proposal for the state to begin exporting and selling cotton to fund importation of foreign material induced spirited debate over the legality of the state involving itself in a business venture and the potential loss of public funds. A judge warned Vance and Martin that their involvement in the scheme might be grounds for impeachment, but Vance decided to take the risk and gave Martin his approval.³⁷

Martin dispatched John White as a special commissioner to Liverpool in late 1862. White spent the first few months of 1863 selling bonds backed by North Carolina cotton. Working with British firm Alexander Collie & Co., he purchased and had shipped to Bermuda 25,887 pairs of gray blankets, 26,092 pairs of army shoes, 37,092 pairs of woolen socks, 1,956 Angola wool shirts, 7,872 gray flannel shirts, 1,006 overcoats, 1,002 jackets, 1,010 pairs of pants, and large amounts of wool cloth and flannel. When he left England in early December 1863, an additional shipment of 10,000 pairs of gray blankets, 20,000 pairs of shoes, 1,920 flannel shirts, wool cloth, and cotton and wool cards was expected to ship by January 1864.³⁸

In November 1863, Vance reported the fruits of White’s labors. “The enterprise of running the blockade and importing army supplies from abroad has proven a most complete success,” he informed the General Assembly. “Large quantities of clothing, leather and shoes, lubricating oils, factory findings, sheet-iron and tin, arms and ammunition, medicines, dye-stuffs, blankets, cotton bagging and rope, spirits, coffee, &c., have been safely brought in…” Over 2,000 bales of cotton had been exported to Liverpool. Vance predicted that the state had adequate quartermaster stores to cloth its soldiers through at least January 1865, but additional shipments of blankets and shoes would be required.³⁹

Records of quartermaster issues to North Carolina troops during this period similarly show the impact of these imports. Between September 1862 and March 1864, the state Quartermaster Department transferred 33,164 blankets to Confederate authorities to be issued to soldiers from North Carolina. During the winter of 1862-1863, this number included 2,249 cotton comforts and 1,338 quilts, but after this period these expedients fall away in favor of imported woolen blankets. A typical receipt from the quartermaster depot in Raleigh documented the arrival of 3,402 heavy English blankets on October 31, 1863. Some 2,080 of these imported blankets were issued to the North Carolina soldiers in Cooke’s and Kirkland’s Brigades of the Army of Northern Virginia between October 1863 and March 1864.⁴⁰

At least three of the blankets imported by North Carolina survive and closely resemble each other, suggesting they were made by the same unidentified British manufacturer. All three are woven on a power loom using cobalt blue yarn in a 2/2 twill weave. The blanket are lightly napped and have stripes on each end that were probably originally black. They are all marked with the letters ‘NC’ hand embroidered in the middle of the blanket using rose yarn that was probably originally a deeper red. Researchers David Burt and Craig Barry have speculated White requested his British suppliers mark these blankets as belonging to North Carolina to avoid confusion, the same way that North Carolina stamped imported arms ‘NC’ after several early arms shipments were taken by Confederate authorities upon arrival. Of note and as discussed above, the blanket carried by South Carolina soldier Ebenezer Stenhouse is relatively similar to the North Carolina blankets, omitting only the ‘NC’ and possibly suggesting the states used the same manufacturer.⁴¹

The first blanket is held by the American Civil War Museum and belonged to Captain John Stark Ravenscroft Miller of First North Carolina Infantry. Miller, who served as the regiment’s adjutant in the first year of the war, was promoted to command of Company H in October 1862. While no record survives of Miller being issued or purchasing the blanket, his company did receive 15 blankets in the final months of 1862 and at least two additional blankets in March 1863. Miller was killed in action at the Battle of Second Winchester on June 15, 1863, likely making his blanket one of the first purchased in England by White.⁴²

Miller’s blanket is made of blue wool woven in a 2/2 twill pattern. Close examination of the material shows it contains shoddy, as various light-colored fibers can be seen amidst the blue. The blanket is 67 inches wide and 71 inches long, with a 3 inch wide stripe located approximately 4 ½ inches from each end. Although these stripes currently appear green-brown, historian Frederick Gaede believed these stripes were originally black and oxidized to its current color. The blanket is marked in its center with the letters ‘NC’ stitched in red yarn.⁴³

The second blanket was donated to the Maryland Center for History and Culture. It was reportedly purchased in 1864 in Charlotte, North Carolina by a Lieutenant E.H. Browne of the Confederate Navy for $125. The museum describes the blanket as being cobalt blue with a woven twill and a medium brown stripe woven on opposite ends of the blankets. As with the Miller blanket, an ‘NC’ is embroidered in the center with red yarn. It measures 58 inches wide by 71 ¾ inches long. The Museum was unable to locate the blanket in 2011 for a Civil War sesquicentennial exhibit, although museum staff report it is almost certainly somewhere in the museum’s old textile storage area and will be rediscovered in the future.⁴⁴

A third blanket is in the collection of the Sam Davis House in Smyna, Tennessee. It was reportedly bought at auction in Charleston by a Major J. Burrows Tree and was presented to the Sam Davis House by the Nashville chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It being bought at auction upon arrival further supports the theory that the blankets were marked ‘NC’ in England prior to shipment, although it is unclear why the blanket was sold at auction rather than being delivered to North Carolina authorities. This blanket is the largest of the three, measuring 67 inches wide and 73 ½ inches long.⁴⁵

The following analysis by Frederick Gaede details each of the three blankets:

In early 1864 Vance informed the Confederate War Department that North Carolina currently had at Bermuda or en route 8 or 10 ships bearing 40,000 blankets, 40,000 pairs of shoes, and large amounts of army cloth and leather. North Carolina had also purchased 112,000 pairs of cotton cards, dye, lubricating oil, and machinery to refit 26 cotton and woolen mills in the state. A September 30, 1864 statement of goods issued and sold by North Carolina from foreign importation included 31,000 blankets. At that time, the state Quartermaster still had 26,886 blankets on hand.⁴⁶

Speaking after the war, Vance reported that the North Carolina state Quartermaster Department had distributed over 50,000 blankets during its operation. “Not only was the supply of shoes, blankets and clothing more than sufficient for the supply of the North Carolina troops,” he recounted, “but large quantities were turned over to the Confederate Government for the troops of other States.” When hostilities ceased, the state still had 96,000 uniforms on hand, along with “great stores of blankets, leather, etc.”⁴⁷

Her Sons Shall Not Suffer – Georgia

Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, Georgia’s governor Joseph Brown had taken efforts to stockpile military supplies. Before even leaving the Union, Georgia obtained from England 10,000 pairs of blankets, the same number of shoes, two small gunboats, and a supply of powder and shells. In March 1861, Brown wrote to the newly appointed Confederate Secretary of War asking whether Confederate authorities would supply volunteers with tents, accouterments, and knapsacks. “We have on hand, and on the way from New York,” he wrote, “quite a supply of blankets and some clothing for soldiers.”⁴⁸

In April 1861, as tension around Fort Sumter grew, Confederate authorities requested Georgia provide powder and shells from its stockpile to bombard the fort. Brown readily agreed, but only on the condition that the Confederate government purchase his entire stockpile of blankets, shoes, and munitions. Despite efforts at negotiation, he proved unwilling to budge from this demand and the Confederate government ultimately paid for all the supplies in gold.⁴⁹

Later that year, Brown dispatched Colonel Jean Alexander Francoise LeMat, inventor of the famous revolver, to Europe with orders to purchase 5,000 pairs of “French or English soldier’s pattern” blankets and promised to pay $4.50 per pair of blankets upon delivery. Georgia further sought to purchase 5,000 “pairs of sewed shoes, French or English soldier’s pattern, nailed soles and heels” and 2,000 British Enfield rifles. It is uncertain, however, whether LeMat’s efforts ultimately secured any blankets.⁵⁰

Two years later, the state Quartermaster General reported on his work in response to legislative appropriation of funds to “procure and furnish clothing, shoes, caps or hats, and blankets for the soldiers from Georgia.” His March 1863 report detailed issues of supplies to units in the field and supplies remaining on hand but made no mention of blankets. That fall, Brown reported that the state quartermaster operation had nearly 40,000 suits of clothing on hand but “has been unable to get blankets and it has been very difficult to procure shoes.”⁵¹

To meet this unmet demand, the Georgia state Quartermaster pursued a dual course of domestic production and foreign importation. With no mills available to produce woolen cloth of sufficient weight and width for blankets, the state quartermaster began manufacturing in 1863 some 10,000 blankets out of jean and kersey cloth lined with cotton shirting. Brown also dispatched Colonel William Schley to England to purchase a 50 percent interest in a steamer on behalf of the State of Georgia. Anticipating shipments from abroad, in February 1864, the state commissioned George Harriss of the firm of Harriss & Howell to act as Georgia’s agent in Wilmington, authorizing him to receive, store, and forward arriving shipments of blankets, clothing, and other equipment.⁵²

Schley, however, proved unable to purchase a steamer as originally planned. Brown turned, instead, to the Importing and Exporting Company of Georgia, signing a contract in March 1864 to charter their ships Little Ada, Florrie, Little Hattie, Lillian, and a fifth ship, the Emma Henry, currently under construction in Glasgow. Colonel C. A. L. Lamar was appointed agent of the State of Georgia to take charge of state efforts to export cotton and import war supplies. Schley shipped a consignment of 30,000 British military blankets to Nassau and Lamar loaded the Little Ada with 300 bales cotton in Charleston to pay for the shipment.⁵³

The Little Ada, however, remained floating in port for nearly three months because it was unable to obtain clearance from the Confederate government. The Secretary of the Treasury disagreed with Brown over whether Georgia had to reserve half of each vessel’s cargo for use by the Confederate government and refused to authorize departure of the Little Ada. An indignant Brown, always strongly protective of Georgian states’ rights, blasted back, proclaiming that Georgia’s “sons are in the field. They need blankets, shoes, clothing and other necessaries. The Confederate Government is often unable to furnish these, and they suffer for them. The State… says her sons shall not suffer, and if the Confederate Government cannot supply these necessary articles, she will.” He demanded the Little Ada be allowed to depart to “pay for blankets to be imported for Georgia troops in service who have great need of them.”⁵⁴

The Little Ada was finally cleared and sailed form the Santee River on June 10, 1864, bound for Nassau. The ill-fated ship’s career as a blockade runner, however, was short-lived, as she was captured the following month by the USS Gettysburg. The other ships chartered by Georgia, however, had better luck. In June the Lilian and the Florrie both arrived in Wilmington carrying 45 bales and 56 bales of blankets respectively. Another shipment of 12 bales of blankets arrived on the Little Hattie the following month. The shipments quickly reached the troops, as Georgian officer Edward Porter Alexander wrote from near Richmond that “… I laid under a pine, on a nice pair of new white blankets I had been allowed to buy out of an importation of the blockade by the state of Georgia for Georgia troops.”⁵⁵

The Lilian returned to Bermuda in July, where it was loaded by Major Norman Walker, Confederate agent and Quartermaster at St. George’s with blankets, arms, ammunition, bacon, flour, etc. for shipment to Wilmington. Three days out, the Lillian was spotted by a Federal warship. During the chase, the Lillian lost a boiler, reducing the steamer’s top speed from its usual 12 knots down to 8 knots. The ship’s crew were uncertain their injured vessel could make the sprint past the Federal blockaders positioned near the Cape Fear River approaches to Wilmington. One of the crewmen, purser James Sprunt, described the steamer’s final approach to Wilmington in the early morning hours of July 30:

“At the first streak of dawn we were off Masonboro Sound, and soon after distinguished through the haze no fewer than eight blockaders apparently waiting to gobble us up. To our astonishment, however, they took no notice of our approach, as our ship was painted the exact color of the sand dunes along the beach, which we hugged as closely as we dared, and steered straight for the fleet, through which we passed without a gun being fired….”⁵⁶

The Lillian successfully delivered its cargo to Wilmington, but the blockade runner’s luck had been exhausted. On its way out of Wilmington on August 24, the Lillian was captured by the USS Keystone Stateand USS Gettysburg.⁵⁷

Despite the loss of the steamer, shipments of blankets and other supplies continued, with Schley arranging purchases in Europe and Colonel Lamar and Colonel A. Wilbur organizing imports and exports. In October 1864 the state Quartermaster reported that over the prior year he had issued 4,229 domestically-produced jean blankets and still had 4,895 on hand, plus three bales of imported British blankets in preparation for winter requisitions. The following month, Brown reported Georgia had exported some 1,614 bales of cotton valued at over $5 million. 30,000 army blankets were awaiting shipment in Nassau and Brown expected 5,000 full uniform suits, 18,000 yards of cloth, and 5,000 shoes to be delivered before December. Brown also appointed M. B. Peters to be Georgia’s agent in Charleston. Combined together, Georgia issued 7,504 blankets during 1864, increasingly drawn from abroad.⁵⁸

Georgia’s efforts to import blankets and other supplies continued up to nearly the end of the war. In March 1865, Brown informed the General Assembly that, since November, six ships had been dispatched from Nassau with blankets and cotton cards. Two ships had been lost enroute, but the other four had arrived safely. With the loss of the last major Confederate ports at Wilmington and Charleston, Brown appointed a Mr. A. Alexander of Muscogee County as Georgia’s agent authorized to ship from Nassau to Georgia by way of the mouth of the Chattachoochee River, “all the cloth, ready-made clothing, shoes, blankets, buttons, thread, &c., which the State has stored at Nassau.” This scheme never produced results, and, after the end of the war, the state appointed Leopold Wantzfelder as its agent to sell off all “blankets, shoes, cloth, soldier’s clothing, buttons, trimmings, and all other property” in Nassau.⁵⁹

Very Little in Excess of Immediate Demands – Virginia

Virginia, meanwhile, appears to have considered taking steps to augment Confederate issues of blankets to their troops, but ultimately took limited action. The state Quartermaster focused exclusively on outfitting Virginia State Line forces that remained under state control and responsibility. By December 1862, the state Quartermaster had purchased 5,725 blankets, the second largest expense for the department after uniform cloth. During the year, some 3,637 blankets had been issued to the State Line via the Quartermaster in Wytheville.⁶⁰

The Quartermaster reported: “No such statement accordingly accompanies this report, but I may safely say that the materials on hand, and the articles of shoes, socks, blankets, &.c., reported as purchased in the south, are very little, if any, in excess of the immediate demands of the troops….” The commander of the State Forces, Major General John B. Floyd, strongly disputed claims that his troops were adequately supplied. In November 1862 he wrote that the State Line was “without shoes, blankets, pantaloons, coats, shirts, socks, and almost every other article necessary to live in camp… There are hundreds of men here without shoes and without coats and blankets.”⁶¹

Dismayed by these reports, the state Quartermaster personally visited Wytheville. “The result of my investigations,” he wrote Floyd, “are that the inefficiency in the departments alluded to is seen after leaving Wytheville. It is notorious, that whilst your command has been suffering for clothing, blankets, shoes, &c, more than sixty wagon loads of such supplies were at Greever’s — at which point also an abundance of transportation was found lying idle, for want of proper control and direction.”⁶²

Floyd, however, remained unsatisfied. “A large number of the men are without shoes and blankets, clothes, tents and cooking utensils,” he complained in January 1863, “and among three regiments there are only five axes, and not spades and picks enough to bury the dead.” The quartermaster, however, had little left to provide. An additional 124 blankets were sent to Floyd in January and early February, leaving the state quartermaster with only 60 blankets still on hand.⁶³

The state’s efforts, however, to keep Floyd’s troops supplied did little to benefit the thousands of Virginians serving in the provisional Confederate army. Hearing continued complaints, the Virginia House of Delegates charged its Committee on Military Affairs to research a bill “authorizing the governor to import a supply of shoes and blankets for the use and benefit of the Virginia troops in the confederate army.” After the committee reported such an effort would be impracticable, they were next charged in December 1863 with researching a possible bill to authorize the purchase of surplus blankets in the state and, if purchase provided ineffective, to impress the required blankets. Again, the committee failed to advance a bill.⁶⁴

Trying again the following month, the Committee was directed in January 1864 to simply confer with Confederate authorities to determine whether the Confederate Quartermaster Department would be capable of supplying Virginia soldiers with adequate blankets, shoes, and clothing. This effort finally produced a draft bill and in March 1864 the House of Delegates passed a bill “to provide for the purchase of shoes, blankets, and other articles of clothing for the troops of this state in the service of the state or of the Confederate States.” All these legislative efforts, however, do not appear to have produced results and Virginia never entered into the types of state-directed importation or private-public partnerships seen in North Carolina, South Carolina, or Georgia.⁶⁵

The Most Destructive and Disastrous Conflagration

As state-run quartermaster operations remained in their early stages and the Confederate Quartermaster Department struggled to pay for and ship supplies, the winter of 1862 was particularly harsh for men of the Army of Northern Virginia.  On November 1, the Richmond Whig printed a letter written by an anonymous private in Lee’s army. “Huddled around a scanty fire,” he wrote in description of the Army of Northern Virginia, “with no tent to shelter them from the inclemency of the season, with no clothing to protect them from the piercing cold, with no blankets to wrap them in the few hours [of] sleep, and no shoes to cover their feet on the rugged marches.”⁶⁶

Later that month, a Charleston reverend just returned from visiting the army reported “There is great want of everything, and especially of shoes and blankets. Send on immediately.” Soldiers reportedly marched through snow barefoot and lacked adequate clothing. One brigade commander laid the blame squarely at Myers’ feet, claiming multiple requisitions for shoes had been rejected and Myers had callously remarked “let them suffer.” The scandal grew the following month when, the Richmond Enquirer claimed a sentinel had frozen to death while on duty at Camp Lee for want of proper clothing. A minister from Richmond visiting that day to distribute religious material, upon learning of the man’s death “very promptly bundled up his tracts and came to town to take up a collection for the purchase of blankets.” The city’s Young Men’s Christian Association collected donations of over 6,000 pairs of shoes and 7,000 blankets from Richmond citizens for distribution to needly soldiers.⁶⁷

Myers tried to defend himself from the criticism, reporting that “many [blankets] were issued but the soldiers discarded their government issued blankets during the summer, many by the sides of the road after a day’s weary march.” The Richmond Clothing Bureau had, over the past year, issued 153,347 blankets and 320,000 pairs of shoes to Lee’s soldiers.⁶⁸

While the men of the Army of Northern Virginia shivered and the Richmond papers sought to assign blame, Ferguson had finally arrived in England in late December 1862. He initially set up operation in Liverpool, before later moving to Manchester.  His initial attempts to gain control of overseas purchasing for the Quartermaster Department, however, were challenged by Huse. Despite having only been charged with purchasing for his own Ordnance Department, Huse had taken for himself the role of de facto Quartermaster agent as well. He refused to cease purchasing quartermaster stores. “Huse has caused me more annoyance than all the others combined on this side,” complained Ferguson, “and has defeated my plans in a great measure for keeping up the supplies of our department.”⁶⁹

Even more concerning, Ferguson had significant concerns regarding Huse’s near-exclusive supplier, S. Isaac Campbell & Co. Based on his knowledge of the textile industry, Ferguson judged the prices charged by S. Isaac Campbell & Co. were exorbitant and, upon examination of some of the fabric purchased by Huse, determined it was worth only roughly half the price Huse had paid. Perhaps most alarming, Huse admitted having personally accepted a commission from S. Isaac Campbell & Co. Investigation of Ferguson’s suspicions ultimately confirmed S. Isaac Campbell & Co. had been overcharging Huse by as much as 20% over the agreed upon commission. War Department financial agent Colin McRae, after completing the audit, reported “they have in many instances made charges that can be characterized by no other term that that of fraudulent.”⁷⁰

Instead of relying on questionable middlemen like S. Isaac Campbell & Co., Ferguson began signing major contracts directly with British blanket mills and other suppliers. “My knowledge of the market will enable me in most instances to do without brokers, commission agents, and all classes of middle-men,” he would later write to his superiors in Richmond. “All that I want is explicit orders from you as to what is most needed and the money to buy them, and you may rest assured that the supplies will be sent forward with dispatch.”⁷¹

Soon after Ferguson’s arrival, the British steamer Peterhoff departed London on January 9, 1863. American diplomats in London suspected the newly constructed ship would make for Charleston. Instead, the vessel sailed for Texas. Although this Trans-Mississippi destination takes the vessel outside the scope of this study, its cargo is noteworthy due to the amount of detail available via legal disputes following its capture by the USS Vanderbilt on February 25, 1863. The cargo contained 192 bales of gray blankets “adapted to the use of an army, and are believed to be such as are used in the United States army.” These blankets were elsewhere described as “government regulation gray blankets.” These blankets were shipped by Grant, Brodie & Co., a commission merchant house in London operated by John Mactaggart Grant and Walter Brodie.⁷²

The first major shipment of goods purchased by Ferguson were loaded aboard the Fraser, Trenholm & Co. ship Minna, which left Liverpool on February 9 bound for Nassau carrying more than 4,000 blankets, 15,00 pairs of blucher shoes, gray and sky blue uniform cloth, flannel, 10,000 brass buttons, 7,542 pairs of socks, and other supplies. “Valuable cargo,” summed up the local American Consul. The goods, however, were intercepted when the USS Victoria captured the Minna enroute to Wilmington.⁷³

Undeterred by the loss of his first major shipment, Ferguson continued operations in England and other parties continued to ship goods. As of early May 1863, another Fraser, Trenholm & Co. vessel, the Beauregard, was believed to be enroute to Charleston with blankets, a battery of six guns, Enfield rifles, 500 bags of saltpeter, and other munitions.⁷⁴

The Confederate Quartermaster Department suffered a significant setback to their domestic endeavors a few months into 1863. The Crenshaw Woolen Mill, so critical to the Confederacy’s war effort, was kept running around the clock by around 140 workmen and women producing woolen cloth. At around 2 o’clock in the morning of May 15, friction from components in the picking room started a fire, which quickly spread due to the highly combustible nature of the wool in the room. Efforts made to douse the flames were futile, as the hose proved too short to throw water on the now roaring blaze. “The city and country around were lightened to the brightness of mid-day,” described the Richmond Whig, “and the fresh breeze blowing at the time sent volumes of sparks far away through the night, presenting a spectacle of sublime grandeur which is seldom witnessed.”⁷⁵

The blaze rapidly consumed the entire building, leaving only the charred brick walls and destroying over 30,000 pounds of wool, some 5,000 yards of fabric, and, most critically, all the factory’s machinery. The Richmond Daily Dispatch called it “one of the most destructive and disastrous conflagrations which the city has ever been called upon to suffer.”⁷⁶

“This mill was the most extensive and valuable of its character in the Confederacy,” continued the Dispatch, “and its loss will be seriously felt.” At the time of its destruction, Crenshaw was making approximately 2,000 yards of double width woolen fabric weekly and, in a year, produced enough cloth to clothe 40-50,000 men. While the firm had never produced blankets directly for the Quartermaster Department, this extremely valuable domestic resource was now gone. The Department would now look exclusively overseas for blankets.⁷⁷

From Crisis to Promise – Summer 1863

Even worst, by the summer of 1863 the Quartermaster Department was in financial crisis. The Treasury Department began routinely refusing to provide funds because War Department expenses far exceeded authorized levels. Soldiers had not been paid in six months and the department was running up significant debt with southern textile mills. Ferguson was spending heavily in preparation for the coming winter season, but available funds in Europe were rapidly drying up. The Secretary of War had instructed that other departments have priority when allocating the proceeds from European loans. Confederate military setbacks at Gettysburg and Vicksburg severely damaged Southern credit in Europe and some contractors began to refuse to extend Ferguson lines of credit.⁷⁸

Intimately tied to the Department’s financial difficulties were continued shipping challenges. Davis had finally ended the de facto cotton embargo and authorized the War Department to begin exporting cotton to fund European purchasing. The challenge then became how to convert cotton into currency and hence into blankets and other needed supplies. Initially the government relied on private shipping to bring its cotton to market, but most firms prioritized lucrative commercial goods over government cotton and goods. The inefficient system of relying on private companies to bring in needed goods and take out government cotton as payment did not produce the volume of imports required. The Confederate government had, by 1863, directly purchased or obtained controlling interest in several steamers, but these vessels primarily supported the Ordnance Department and the Medical Department. Ferguson’s purchases for the Quartermaster Department had to be brought to the Confederacy via extremely costly shipping contracts with firms like Fraser, Trenholm & Co., forcing the War Department to pay exorbitated shipping fees and further exacerbating the financial crisis.⁷⁹

Despite Davis’s reluctance to regulate private enterprise, it was finally apparent that dramatic action was necessary. In August 1863, Seddon ordered government agents to begin impressing half of the cargo space on all incoming and outgoing vessels to carry government cargo in and government cotton out. Anyone refusing would have their ship seized and impressed fully into government service. A February 1864 law formalized Davis’s power to regulate overseas shipping and formalized this requirement to reserve half of incoming and outgoing cargos for the government. These regulations were the cause of the dispute between Georgia and the Confederate government over the Little Ada previously discussed.⁸⁰

As might be expected, these regulations were extremely unpopular with ship owners. To provide a potential alternative, in Fall 1863 the War Department signed contracts with several shipping companies, including Power, Lowe & Co. and Davis & Fitzhugh, to run government cargo in and out of Southern ports. These contracts exempted the firms from impressment and sold them cotton at a lower price in exchange for an agreement to build or purchase new steamers and bring in entire cargos for the government. While the government got less for its cotton, these contracts increased the flow of quartermaster supplies into the Confederacy without the need for coercion through impressment. Power, Lowe & Co. were the agents and past owners of North Carolina’s dedicated blockade runner, the Advance. After the firm successfully brough in a shipment of shoes in early January 1864, a quartermaster in Wilmington proposed directly contracting with the firm to provide shoes and blankets for a 20% commission, although it is unclear whether anything came of this proposal.⁸¹

In addition to the impressment regulations and shipping contracts, the Quartermaster Department also sought to emulate the Ordnance Department and obtain its own dedicated vessels. In 1863 Seddon signed a contract with James and William Crenshaw, whose brother Lewis Crenshaw had been president of the Crenshaw Woolen Company, to purchase a line of 12 steamers that would prioritize importation on behalf of the Quartermaster and Subsistence Departments. The Crenshaws, in turn, entered into a partnership with British firm Alexander Collie & Co., already a prominent player in Confederate trade with twenty ships engaged in blockade running. North Carolina had also primarily worked through Alexander Collie & Co. to purchase and ship blankets and other supplies for state use. The three parties ultimately agreed the Confederate government would pay for three-fourths of the ships, with Crenshaw-Collie paying for the remaining fourth. Half of the ships’ cargo space would be dedicated to the War Department, the Navy Department would have a quarter, and Crenshaw-Collie would have the remaining quarter to import tax-free whatever goods they wished.⁸²

While promising a steady supply of cargo space for the Quartermaster Bureau, the introduction of William Crenshaw as an additional player in Liverpool further muddled Confederate purchasing operations. William Crenshaw began making purchases via Collie’s firm, invoking the anger of Huse. Crenshaw tried to insist Huse’s purchases be shipped via the Crenshaw-Collie Line, while Huse tried to demand Crenshaw-Collie  purchase supplies via Huse’s favored British firm, S. Isaac Campbell & Co. Meanwhile, while 12 steamers were eventually planned, only three were available by late summer 1863, with three more projected by the end of the year. The first of these ships, Venus, arrived in Wilmington on June 18, 1863 with 25 bales of 60 inch by 80 inch blue-grey blankets in her hold.⁸³

Confusion occurred at home as well as abroad, with agents for different parts of the War Department sometimes competing to purchase newly imported supplies. The Chief Quartermaster for Joseph Johnston’s forces in Mississippi dispatched his own purchasing agent to Charleston in an attempt to directly obtain supplies. In July 1863, the agent purchased 20,000 imported blankets at auction. Myers was infuriated by this breach of protocol and seized the blankets before they could be shipped west.⁸⁴

With multiple promising shipping developments underway, Myers dispatched Major Richard P. Waller to Nassau to better organize the blockade runners operating out of the Islands and eliminate the bottleneck that had plagued the Quartermaster Bureau since the previous year. Waller’s orders also authorized him to “purchase all shoes and blankets, either at Nassau or Bermuda, that you may consider suitable for the Army, at any price you may think best for the interests of the Confederacy.” This would be among Myers’s last contributions to the Confederate supply effort, as he was replaced on August 7 with Brigadier General Alexander Lawton.⁸⁵

We are Now Destitute of a Supply of Blankets – Lawton Takes Control

Myers’s tenure as Quartermaster General had been plagued by his bureaucratic, inflexible nature. Lawton, however, was a former division commander in the Army of Northern Virginia and knew firsthand the suffering of ill-supplied troops. He also brought intellect and business savvy from his pre-war legal career. Lawton moved quickly to enact sweeping change in his department, seeking to emulate the example of self-sufficiency offered by the Ordnance Department. Despite all the challenges inherited by Lawton, initial prospects appeared promising. Ferguson had purchased large amounts of material in England, Waller was enroute to Nassau where the Quartermaster Department had an extensive stockpile of stores, the first few ships of the Crenshaw-Collie Line were in operation, and the government’s new impressment regulation promised increased availability of cargo space.⁸⁶

Waller had meanwhile arrived in Nassau on August 10, 1863 and set to work. Within three days, he had consolidated all the quartermaster supplies previously stockpiled by Heyliger and loaded them on a Crenshaw-Collie Line ship, the Hebe, for shipment to Wilmington. Waller supplemented the Hebe’s cargo with 21 bales of blankets he purchased locally in Nassau. This initial shipment, however, would serve as a harbinger of a challenging several months for Lawton and the Quartermaster Department. While trying to enter New Inlet near Wilmington on August 18, the Hebe was spotted by the blockader USS Shokokon, chased aground, and destroyed. Five days later, the USS Minnesota landed two boats to drive off the Confederates salvaging the wreck. “There was a quantity of rubbish on the beach,” wrote the Federal officer, “also some three or four bales containing cloth and blankets, and about three bales of the same which had been broken open and scattered on the beach prior to our landing, all of which had been damaged by fire, water, and dirt.”⁸⁷

Thankfully, however, the Eugenie, a steamer owned directly by the Confederate government, had arrived safely in Wilmington on August 17 with a cargo that included 68 bales of blankets. The same vessel had previously delivered 100 bales of blankets to the Wilmington docks back in June, the only major shipments of blankets documented since March other than the June inaugural trip of the Venus. Some of the Eugenie’s cargo likely made it to the Army of Northern Virginia by September, as the Assistant Quartermaster for the Thirty-Third Virginia Infantry documented receiving and issuing at least 90 “English blankets” to his unit that month. Unfortunately, Eugenie was severely damaged while running into Wilmington in early September and would never return to active blockade running duty.⁸⁸

Despite the deliveries from the Eugenie, the destruction of the Hebe came just as Lawton was facing mounting reminders that the impending winter would bring a surge in demand for blankets. A concerned Virginia politician wrote in September 1863 to Jefferson Davis stating: “You will feel surprised when I inform you that we are now destitute of a supply of blankets and overcoats for our troops this winter, and that there are no factories in the South engaged in the manufacture of blankets. We are dependent almost entirely on purchases in England, and so much risk is there attending this trade, that it amounts almost to a prohibition.” The same politician also contacted Lawton to express his concerns. Lawton, all too familiar with the challenges faced by his department after a month on the job, responded “there are several articles essential to the comfort and efficiency of our armies, that it will be impossible to provide this winter without relief from abroad. Blankets, for instance, are very scarce, and the facilities for procuring the same in the home market very limited.”⁸⁹

Waller wrote to Lawton on September 10 and September 18 offering a potential additional source of blankets. If he could be forwarded funds, Waller wrote, he could obtain on reasonable terms 25-30,000 blankets, 20-25,000 pairs of shoes, large amounts of flannels and grey cloth, and other stores. Lawton, responded on September 28, stated that he would normally prefer to not purchase in Nassau, as the prices were higher than those available in Europe. However, he wrote, “In view of the approaching cold weather, the great scarcity of stores here, and the unfortunate loss of the steamer Hebe, I am constrained to resort for the present to the nearest point of supply to save time.” Lawton authorized Waller to make what purchase he could, giving “preference to such supplies as are most needed — blankets, shoes, and heavy material for overcoats.”⁹⁰

In accordance with Lawton’s orders over the coming months, Waller would go on to purchase 2,300 army blankets in November 1863 from the local Nassau firm A. Wolf & Co., immediately dispatching the blankets via the Banshee. In January 1864, A. Wolf & Co. sold Waller 3,408 blankets sent via the Wild Dayrell, 1,460 blankets sent via the Mary Anne, 3,612 sent via an additional run by the Wild Dayrell, 1,624 sent via the Syren, and 2,036 blankets shipped aboard the Presto. Also in January 1864 Waller bought 898 “Army Blankets” from Jervey & Mueller, the Nassau-based arm of William Bee’s Importing and Exporting Company of South Carolina.⁹¹

So Much Needed for a Winter’s Supply – Fall 1863

Robert E. Lee wrote to Lawton in early October desperately requesting blankets and shoes for his men. Lawton responded: “Blankets are extremely scarce. About 4,000 have been issued to your troops within the past month…” These 4,000 blankets were likely those brought in by the Eugenie and included those issued to the Thirty-Third Virginia in September. Lawton continued, stating “the depot here (Richmond) [has] only 1,500, which with 12,000 at Atlanta, for [which] the commands in that section of the country are clamorous, constitute the entire supply; and unfortunately our domestic resources in this particular are very limited.” Lawton noted that a shipment of 10,500 shoes and 6,500 blankets had just arrived in Wilmington and declared “In view of the exhausted condition of our resources here, I am using every effort to draw a winter’s supply from abroad…”⁹²

The recently arrived blankets referenced by Lawton were 43 bales of blankets brought into Wilmington by the Dee, another of the Crenshaw-Collie Line. Lawton was indeed making every effort to import more blankets. The same day he wrote to Lee, Lawton directed Ferguson to “expend in blankets, shoes, and material for overcoats, as heretofore instructed, these being the articles most needed… There is not a day to be lost in forwarding these supplies… winter is almost upon us and we have barely time, with the utmost dispatch, to procure from abroad some of these essential articles of supply which cold weather will render a necessity and which the exhausted condition of home resources forbids that we should expect to procure here… The early receipt of these supplies is rendered the more necessary by the fact that our depots are bare, and that a valuable cargo of blankets, shoes, and woolens forwarded by Major Waller from Nassau in the Hebe proved a total loss with that steamer.”⁹³

Lawton penned similar letters the following day to Confederate Treasury agent Colin McRae in Paris and Major Walker in Bermuda, reporting that “the depots are quite bare” and domestic resources “nearly exhausted.” He pleaded with McRae for additional funds and asked if Walker could purchase supplies locally in Bermuda, noting that Waller had arranged for around 20,000 blankets, a similar number of shoes, and a large quantity of woolen cloth in Nassau. Meanwhile, Ferguson in England was authorized to purchase 300,000 blankets, although any purchases he made would not arrive on Confederate shores for months.⁹⁴

Lawton’s losses, however, were only just beginning. Waller had loaded the remainder of the Nassau stockpile on a second Crenshaw-Collie Line steamer, Venus. Laden with quartermaster stores, Venus was spotted by the USS Nansemond near New Inlet just outside of Wilmington. Nansemond gave chase and forced Venus to become beached ashore, where it and its cargo were destroyed.⁹⁵

Still reeling from the loss of the Hebe, Lawton now struggled to recover from this second blow. “I alluded to the fact that the loss of one of the Collie steamers, the Hebe, freighted with shoes and blankets, the articles most needed, had embarrassed me very much,” Lawton wrote to Ferguson on October 21. “I have now to add that that embarrassment has been greatly increased by the unfortunate loss of another vessel of the same line, the Venus, loaded, I fear, wholly on account of this department, and with supplies of a like character.”⁹⁶

Two days later, Lawton informed Heylinger: “The loss of two steamers of the Collie Line [Hebe and Venus], on which we have been almost entirely dependent, has so straitened the resources of this department that the Secretary of War has consented that for the present any facilities at the command of the Government may be devoted to the special purpose of forwarding quartermaster’s stores, particularly such articles as blankets, shoes, and material for overcoats, so much needed for a winter’s supply.” Lawton similarly communicated these orders to Ferguson, Waller, and Walker, pressing them to do all in their power to provide blankets, shoes, and heavy cloth to make overcoats. Seddon, however, provided his own conflicting instructions to the agents to prioritize commissary stores, nitre, and lead.⁹⁷

The loss of Venus and Hebe had also strained the relationship between Alexander Collie and his American partners. Collie wrote soon after “I regret very much to say that I fear the Crenshaw contract will not work out…. Owing entirely to a nasty jealous spirit which is not credible to those who indulge in it.” The Crenshaw brothers evidently claimed Collie’s personnel in Wilmington and Bermuda were harming the operations of the line. Collie, in turn, claimed the Crenshaws’ management of the joint vessels had been “far from good” and he did “not hesitate to affirm that the Venus was been lost solely through this.” Rather than the 12 ships originally planned, Collie announced his refusal to build any additional ships. The Crenshaw-Collie line would be limited to the surviving ship, Dee, and two more scheduled to enter operation before the end of the year, Ceres and Vesta.⁹⁸

Despite Collie’s attempt to blame the Crenshaw brothers for the loss of the steamers, the setback had more to do with the movements of the Federal Navy. In July 1863, Union forces had invested Charleston and, following the early September capture of Fort Wagner, Charleston was effectively closed as a port. The Federal Navy shifted ships north from Charleston to augment the squadron at Wilmington, increasing the difficulty blockade runners faced reaching the Cape Fear River. Since the beginning of 1863, the half dozen ships efficiently operated by the Ordnance Department had made 22 round trips without a single loss. Now, they too began losing vessels. Soon after midnight on November 7, the USS James Adger and the USSNiphon captured the Ordnance Department’s Cornubia along with her crew and all her cargo. The following morning, James Adger chased down and seized the Robert E. Lee, another Ordnance Department steamer. On board, the vessel carried 214 large cases and bales of shoes and blankets (some bales weighing as much as two tons), 150 of cases Austrian Lorenz rifles, 250 bags of saltpeter, 61 barrels of salt provisions, and 30 pigs of lead. On the morning of November 10, USS Howquah captured the Confederate government-ownedElla after firing a glancing shot off her engine.⁹⁹

Private companies lost ships at an alarming rate in November and December as well. The Importing and Exporting Company of South Carolina lost the Ella and Annie to a Federal boarding party, the Anglo-Confederate Trading Company’s Banshee was captured, and the Chicora Importing and Exporting Company’s General Beauregard and Antonica were both driven ashore and destroyed.¹⁰⁰

Has Left Us in a Sad Condition – Winter 1863-1864

Not all was bleak, as some ships did still get through, allowing Lawton and his quartermasters to begin fulfilling some requisitions. Alexander Collie’s Hansa delivered 24 bales of French blankets on October 14 and another 30 bales on November 21. The government-owned Phantom brought in 35 bales of blankets on October 23 and the Crenshaw-Collie Line vessel Dee ran in an unknown number of blankets on November 6. North Carolina’s Advance landed 125 bales of blankets on November 10 and Fraser, Trenholm & Co. imported 30 bales of blankets on the Bendigo. Surviving records for the last shipment brought in by the General Beauregard before its December destruction detail the blankets being imported:

• 3 bales grey blankets 68”x85” (143 pairs)
• 4 bales blue-grey blankets 56”x80” (200 pairs)
• 4 bales blue-grey blankets 56”x85” (200 pairs)
• 4 bales blue-grey blankets (200 pairs)
• 4 bales brown-grey blankets 58”x82” (200 pairs)¹⁰¹

Even more details on this shipment are available from a shipping book in the National Archives recording movement of these blankets by rail from Wilmington to Richmond on November 26. The total number of blankets is higher than the records found elsewhere, possibly reflecting the incomplete nature of surviving documentation or mixture of cargos from multiple vessels. The Mackinaw blankets listed refer to an inexpensive, dense blanket popular along the northern American frontier due to its natural water repellent and extra warmth. Although woven with a twill pattern, after being woven the blanket was heavily fulled or felted, resulting in nap on both sides that concealed the weave and made the blanket warmer without additional cost.¹⁰²

Number of Bales	Number of Pairs	Color/Material	Dimensions	Weight
3	143	Gray	68” x 85”	Not Noted
4	200	Blue Gray	56” x 80”	Not Noted
4	200	Blue Gray	56” x 85”	Not Noted
4	200	Blue Gray	58” x 82”	Not Noted
4	200	Brown Gray	58” x 82”	Not Noted
2	200	Gray Mackinaw	56” x 82”	Not Noted
2	300	Single Gray	56” x 84”	6 lbs
2	200	Brown Gray	56” x 78”	5 lbs
1	100	White Mackinaw	60” x 80”	5 lbs
1	100	White Mackinaw	56” x 84”	7
1	100	White Mixed Mackinaw	56” x 78”	8
1	100	White Mixed Mackinaw	56” x 78”	5.5 lbs
1	99	White Mixed Mackinaw	56” x 78”	5.5 lbs
1	99	White Mixed Mackinaw	60” x 80”	6.5 lbs
2	200	Blue Gray Mackinaw	56” x 78”	6 lbs
2	200	Blue Gray	56” x 78”	6 lbs

The Crenshaw-Collie Line, however, continued to have particularly poor luck. On her first attempt to run the blockade, the Ceres ran aground on the shoals outside Wilmington on December 6. Responding Federal ships found the stranded ship abandoned and her cargo ablaze. The ship had carried one of Ferguson’s largest cargos, with 26,000 blankets, 16,000 pairs of shoes, and 15,000 yards of heavy woolens abroad. The Vesta, also on her maiden voyage, also ran ashore and was destroyed on January 11, 1864. By early 1864, only the Dee remained of the Crenshaw-Collie Line, all the Ordnance Department’s ships were gone, and many privately owned vessels had been lost.¹⁰³

The losses, particularly of the Crenshaw-Collie ships, continued to challenge Lawton’s ability to meet demand. Lee repeatedly raised concerns about the availability of blankets for his command, writing to Seddon in late October, “I hope you will endeavor to provide the army with shoes, clothing, and blankets, for the season is approaching when the want of these articles will entail great suffering and sickness on the troops, and incapacitate them for military movements.” In mid-December, Longstreet’s Corps in eastern Tennessee submitted a requisition for 10,000 blankets. Lawton was only able to send 3,600. Explaining why he was unable to fulfill the requisition in full, Lawton acknowledged that “the loss of one hundred thousand [pairs] of shoes & as many blankets off Wilmington since Sept. has left us in a sad condition in reference to these important articles.” As soon as he could, on January 16, Lawton sent Longstreet 6,400 additional blankets recently arrived in Richmond from Wilmington.¹⁰⁴

Despite the government having been repeatedly let down by private contracts, in December the Quartermaster Department entertained a series of massive contract proposals for clothing and blankets. On December 18, J.J. Pollard wrote to the Secretary of War offering to provide 100,000 pairs of blankets, shoes, flannels, and stationary, with delivery to occur between March and July 1864. Lieutenant Colonel Aurelius F. Cone, one of Lawton’s subordinates in Richmond, expressed his support for the contract, but research to date has been unable to identify further information on Pollard, the contract, or whether any goods ever came of it.¹⁰⁵

Lawton, meanwhile, gave his initial approval for a large contract offer from Peter Tait & Co. of Limerick, Ireland. Tait’s brother in Richmond, Major James L. Tait, wrote on December 15 to Seddon offering to provide the Confederacy with ready-cut kits for 50,000 uniforms, including caps, jackets, trousers, grey flannel shirts, and overcoats. The contract proposal also included 50,000 Army blankets, 100,000 Blucher-style Army boots and wool socks, and 50,000 haversacks for £158,475. Seddon approved the contract two days later and authorized Lawton and McRae to proceed with the contract.  When the proposal arrived in England, however, McRae demurred, reporting that Tait’s prices were “10, 15 to 25 per cent higher” than what Ferguson normally paid. Even so, McRae claimed that he would have ratified the contract if he could, but lacked adequate funds at the time. The parties would continue to spar over contract terms for the next few months, but, in the meantime, none of the 50,000 blankets would be forthcoming.¹⁰⁶

Leveraging those lower prices, Ferguson was hard at work responding to Lawton’s requests for more blankets. He wrote from Manchester on December 31, 1863 that he had recently shipped to Heyliger in Nassau, via the Cassandra, 2,100 pairs of blue gray blankets measuring 60 inches by 80 inches and weighing nine pounds per pair, as well as 1,329 pairs of gray blankets weighing nine pounds per pair. Upon receipt of a late 1863 request from Lawton for 200,000 blankets, a seemingly frustrated Ferguson responded in January that “it is no light matter to get up to 100,000 blankets… in a month’s notice & do it all as it should be done.” He hastily assembled 40,000 blankets and rushed them to Nassau.¹⁰⁷

On February 12, Waller informed Lawton “I have received… a letter from Major J. B. Ferguson, quartermaster, England, advising me of the shipment to the agent of government of the Confederate States here of 69 bales of blankets, and through Alexander Collie & Co. of 487 packages, mainly blankets.” Overall, in the first three months of 1864, Confederate agents at St. George’s and Nassau reported receipt of roughly 43,000 blankets, 17,000 pairs of shoes, 6,000 overcoats, 5000 pairs of pants, and tens of thousands of yards of wool cloth sent from Europe.¹⁰⁸

Although Ferguson ensured a steady flow of blankets to the Islands, the Confederacy continued to lose steamers running these blankets in past the blockade. Waller dispatched the Wild Dayrell in late January with 3,612 blankets purchased from A. Wolf & Co, among other cargo. The steamer accidently ran aground in New Topsail Inlet near Wilmington, but by the time the USS Sassacus discovered the stranded ship, most of her cargo of shoes, blankets, and provisions had already been unloaded. After an unsuccessful attempt to refloat the ship, the commander of the Sassacus allowed his crew to loot the remaining cargo and burned the stranded vessel. The Spunkie similarly ran aground on the beach near Fort Caswell approaching Wilmington on February 9 and broke in two. Again, Confederate salvage efforts recovered most of the blankets, shoes, and commissary stores carried by the Spunkie before Federal ships could arrive. The Presto was destroyed at the mouth of Charleston Harbor with 20 bales of blankets, although salvage efforts recovered around 600 blankets. In early March, the USS Pequot off the coast of Beaufort, South Carolina reported “…capturing the British double-screw, iron steamer Don… five days out from Nassau, bound to Wilmington, with a cargo of army blankets, shoes, clothing, etc.”¹⁰⁹[110]

Meanwhile the Crenshaw-Collie Line, initially the answer to the Quartermaster Bureau’s shipping woes, was in shambles. On February 6, 1864, the Line’s last surviving ship, Dee, was lost off Masonboro Inlet east of Wilmington. What little cotton was successfully brought out by the Line had gone to pay for the ships themselves, meaning little money remained to finance Ferguson’s purchasing operation. The strained relationship between the Crenshaw brothers and Alexander Collie deteriorated alongside the loss of ships until the partnership was eventually dissolved following the loss of the Dee. Alexander Collie & Co. would continue as a prominent blockade running firm and William Crenshaw would work to rebuilt alone, but the promised line of steamers dedicated to running in blankets and other quartermaster stores never materialized. Later that year McRae penned a dour epitaph for the failed enterprise; “The Collie & Crenshaw contract was by no means favorable to the Government, and… the Government had not received from it the money invested.”¹¹⁰

The loss of all these ships and their cargos severely taxed the Quartermaster Department exactly at its season of highest demand. Desperate, Lawton wrote to Governor Vance asking whether North Carolina might extend a loan of blankets, heavy woolen cloth, and shoes. In addition to the state’s domestic manufacturing resources, Lawton wrote that North Carolina had enjoyed “unusual facilities for drawing supplies from abroad.” Just days before, Vance had triumphantly informed Seddon of the arrival in Bermuda of 40,000 blankets intended for North Carolina soldiers. Lawton inquired whether the state might therefore have a surplus that “could be spared for awhile to aid the service at large during the stress of the winter months.” In addition to calling on Vance’s “public spirit,” Lawton promised to repay North Carolina with equivalent supplies in the spring. Vance, however, refused Lawton’s request.¹¹¹

Thankfully, help arrived just in time, with a series of ships successfully landing major cargos of blankets. A month before its capture by USS Pequot, the Alexander Collie & Co-owned Don brought 40 bales of blankets into Wilmington. Fraser Trenholm & Co’s Lucy brought in 50 bales of blankets and cloths on March 10. The Syren, owned by the Charleston Importing Company, unloaded 30 bales of army blankets on April 14. In March and April, at least 106 bales of blankets from these ships and others were shipped by rail to Richmond.¹¹²

Aided by these deliveries, Lawton’s department succeeded in making it through the winter and into the warmer spring months. In April, Lawton informed Waller that “the pressure for blankets has ceased for the present…” and instructed him to suspend the purchase of blankets. Waller should, instead, prioritize the shoes demanded by the summer campaigning season and wool cloth, as “the limited quantity of wool in this region of country compels me to look abroad for material for clothing.” “The only relief that spring brings,” Lawton continued, “is in the item of blankets, and even these will have to be accumulated during the summer and fall for next winter’s use.”¹¹³

Go to Chapter Four

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Footnotes

This is Chapter Two of a four chapter article. See Chapter One, Chapter Three, and Chapter Four. For a brief summary of this article, adapted to address the needs of living historians, see Blankets for Your Confederate Impression published in the ‘Living History Gazette.’ 

Development of the British Blanket Industry

Confident though Benjamin might have been regarding the prospects of domestic blanket production, it would be impossible for southern industry to come even close to the dominance of British manufacturers. The English blanket trade had its roots deep in the Middle Ages, with small family firms spinning yarn and weaving blankets by hand. During the latter half of the 1700s, these traditional artisans and guilds began to be overshadowed by increasingly larger companies.

Then, in 1792, merchant-turned-manufacturer Benjamin Gott began a revolution in the industry when he opened England’s first large woolen mill, Bean Ing Mill, in Leeds. The soon famous Bean Ing helped establish Leeds, a city in the northern English region of Yorkshire, as a center of blanket and textile production. This development coincided with the Napoleonic Wars, which, due to the constant demand for blankets and uniform cloth, was “perhaps the most powerful single influence on the woollen cloth industry.” Gott’s firm, Benjamin Gott & Sons, supplied cloth and blankets to the British, Russian, Prussian, and Swedish militaries during the conflicts. He established a second large mill at Armley to meet demand for his products.¹

Although Gott and others spurred expanded textile production in Yorkshire, the true center of England’s blanket industry had for centuries been the Oxfordshire town of Witney. The Witney manufacturers held a well-established reputation for high quality, while Yorkshire’s early reputation was for cheap, coarse cloth. The quality of wool used was similar, but the Witney firms used more refined cloth dressing and finishing methods that produced a finer product.²

Whether in Witney or Yorkshire, blanket manufacturing in the early 1800s remained rooted in legacy processes, even as early industrialization began to transform the industry. Companies bought raw wool and spun it into yarn at their mills. Yarn was then distributed to local artisans, who worked at home using either their own hand loom or looms owned by the company. The completed blanket would then be returned to the mill for dying and final finishing before it was ready for sale. In the early 1840s, however, incorporation of stronger cotton warps made possible the introduction of power-driven shuttles in Yorkshire. The first of these early power looms was installed in 1844 at Dewsbury Mills.³

Power looms increasingly gave Yorkshire manufacturers an edge over their competitors in Witney. The balance of power in the industry had begun to shift to Yorkshire in the late 1830s and by the 1850s Yorkshire had established a clear lead in the production of heavy woolen fabrics and blankets. It took only a few years for other Yorkshire firms to copy the example of the Dewsbury Mills and install power looms, but the Witney manufacturers would not begin using this technology until the late 1850s.⁴

Blanket making of the period generally resembled the following process at larger mills using power looms, although many small producers continued to use a blend of legacy methods and new technologies through the Civil War period:

1. 

   Wool arrived at mills as bales of raw sheep’s wool, sorted by quality.

2. The wool was cleaned to remove grease, dirt, and other impurities. Many manufacturers used scouring machines that bathed the wool in successive rounds of detergent and hot water, followed by a wash in clean cold water.
3. After drying, wools of different qualities, lengths, and colors were blended to create the desired grade.
4. Wool would then be fed through multiple “willeying” machines that opened up and pulled apart the wool fibers. The first, a “shake willey” shook the wool while cylinders with metal spikes beat and roughly opened the wool. Then the wool was fed through a “teaser” which had cylinders of finer teeth that further opened the wool fibers.
5. Olive oil was sprinkled on the wool fibers to lubricate them prior to carding.
6. Wool began the carding process by passing through a “scribbler,” a machine with a large roller covered with a leather sheet with embedded bent steel wires. The wires graduated from coarse to fine to further disentangle the wool and draw out the fibers.
7. After being roughly carded on the scribbler, the wool was fed into a fine carding engine with even finer teeth than the scribbler. These teeth more perfectly opened the wool and spread it into a regular thickness and weight. The output was a light, filmy substance of cardings about three feet long.
8. The carded wool was then “slubbed” on a frame called a “billy,” which generally contained 60 spindles, to join the cardings together into continuous “silvers”. In the 1850s, a new machine was introduced in this portion of the process called a condenser, which used a “ring doffer” of bands of wire teeth to condense the carded wool into narrow strips which were then rubbed between leather belts to form silvers. Silvers were wound on long woolen bobbins for spinning.
9. The large bobbins of silvers were placed in a row along the back of the spinning mule, a fixed frame holding the bobbins and a moving carriage with between 300 and 1,000 spindles holding small bobbins on which the yarn would be spun. The carriage moved on rails to stretch the yarn while the small bobbins rotated to twist the yarn. The carriage was then reversed to wind the yarn on the bobbins, repeating the process until the bobbins were full.

10. Dying could occur at various points in the process, but dyeing yarn at this stage was common. Most blanket produced for British markets were left undyed and bleached white, while blankets for export markets were often dyed.
11. The thread running the length of the blanket, around which the yarn would be woven, was called the “warp.” Warp threads had to be measured to the correct length and wound onto warp beams that were then attached to the back of the loom.
12. Bobbins of yarn were placed on a flying shuttle, a wooden boat-shaped object with metal ends. One set of warp threads were raised, and the shuttle was sent flying between the warp threads to the other side of the loom. The alternate warps were then raised and the shuttle sent flying back in the opposite direction. This process continued with the “weft” yarn being woven between the warp threads. Once a blanket’s length of material had been woven, it was common to switch to an alternative color yarn and weave in colored stripes called “laces” or “header bars.” These stripes marked the places where the fabric would be cut into individual blankets. The process was continued until a complete “stockful”, or a continuous piece of blanketing material usually about 24 blankets long, had been woven. At this stage the material remained coarse and appeared more like rough sacking than a blanket.

13. The stockfuls were next “fulled” to remove grease and shrink the material to size, drawing the fibers closer together into a thicker and softer material. The material was soaked in soap and water to clean and soften the wool. It was then run through a milling machine or fulling stocks. Stockfuls were fed into the milling machine and then ends were sewn together to form a continuous loop. The loop of material was run between rollers until it had shrunk to size. The older fulling stocks method used a machine with large wooden hammers to pound and roll the fabric to make it shrink and drive out dirt.
14. The material was washed in water to remove the fulling soap and then dried outside on long tenter racks or dried indoors via steam.

    

15. White blankets were then bleached in long, airtight buildings by burning sulfur underneath the lengths of stockfuls hung from rails in the roof. This process gave the blankets a strong, lasting smell and so some blankets were made unbleached. These blankets were cleaned with fuller’s earth instead of soap and were only bleached via natural sunlight.
16. The material at this point was clean and dry, but hard and heavy. A “raising machine” raised the nap of the fabric and produced a soft, fleecy finish by using cylinders covered with fine steel wires.
17. Finally, the stockfuls were cut into individual or, more commonly, pairs of blankets and packed tightly into bales for shipping.⁵

The British Blanket Industry on the Eve of War

As war loomed in America, the manufacture of blankets in England was largely concentrated in a few towns in the West Riding District of Yorkshire. According to the 1861 British census, 72% of the woolen textile workers in England and Wales resided in Yorkshire. Blanket manufacturing in particular was concentrated in the “Heavy Woolen District” between the West Riding towns of Dewsbury, Batley and Heckmondwike. The area had long hosted many small companies, perhaps only a single family, utilizing hand looms to make blankets. Beginning in the early 1840s, however, increased use of power looms forced consolidation of many of the smaller firms. By 1860, roughly 11,000 people in Yorkshire were employed at steam-powered mills, while another 2,000 weavers still operated hand looms to produce blankets and other heavy woolens. By 1864, 166 different blanket manufacturers operated in the Heavy Woolen District. The majority of these remained exceedingly small, with only a few companies of substantial size. A senior partner of one of the large firms observed “this neighborhood is studded with multitudes of small makers whose whole property may not, nor does, average £100…”⁶

Merchant houses in Leeds, the major West Riding city roughly ten miles northeast of the Heavy Woolen District, purchased the output of many of these smaller firms. These blankets would be bought unfinished, with dying and other finishing work conducted in Leeds prior to sale for either the domestic or export markets. The biggest of these merchant firms on the eve of the Civil War remained Benjamin Gott & Sons, which both purchased blankets from Yorkshire makers and manufactured blankets and cloth themselves. The firm was one of England’s largest employers in the early 1800s and at the start of the Civil War, Benjamin Gott & Sons employed 291 men, 361 women, 63 boys, and 102 girls in several mills. Over 500 worked at the Bean Ing Mill alone. Contrast that workforce with the circa 60 men and women employed by the Confederacy’s Washington Woolen Mill.⁷

A circa 1860 visitor to the Bean Ing Mill wrote “we observed, in all its stages, cloth sufficient, one would imagine, to clothe the world for many years to come, and that too of every shade of colour and gradation of price.” Gott’s operation was massive and relied heavily on the latest in industrial technology. The same visitor, writing of the sense of wonder he felt touring the Mill, stated “how will that wonder be increased when he passes into another room, running the whole length of one portion of the building, containing mules over 100 feet long, each having 600 spindles and guided by only one man and two girls!”⁸

The largest of the blanket manufactures in the Heavy Woolen District itself was Cook, Son & Wormald of Dewsbury. Originally founded as Hague & Cook in 1811 as a woolen spinning and cloth fulling business, in 1815 they began weaving blankets and heavy woolens at their Dewsbury Mills two miles south of Dewsbury. Guided primarily by senior partner Thomas Cook, the firm steadily expanded as Hague, Cook, & Wormald throughout the 1800s on the strength of their export trade to the United States and their success winning major government contracts. By the mid-1800s, Hague, Cook, & Wormald was at least three times as large as the next largest of the Heavy Woolen District firms, with Gott and the Witney blanket makers their primary competitors. Around 1859, the company became Cook, Son & Wormald. The firm’s main spinning mill was destroyed by fire in early 1860, but a replacement was operational by summer 1861, just in time to support increased orders from the American conflict. As of June 1862, the Dewsbury Mills operated 5,746 spindles, 161 hand looms (133 leased out to weavers who operated the looms at home), and 124 power looms. To again illustrate the contrast with Confederate domestic production, recall that the Washington Woolen Mill boasted only 37 looms and 1,000 spindles.⁹

The town of Dewsbury hosted an additional 31 blanket manufacturers as of 1864. The largest after Cook, Son, & Wormald was Thomas Spedding. Until the 1830s, Halliley, Brook & Co. had operated the large Aldams Mill in Dewsbury. After their business failed, Hague, Cook, & Wormald leased the mill for a few years. By the late 1840s, however, local blanket maker Spedding had joined with Mark Newsome and Edward Hemingway to operate the Mill. The description of the Mill, called “one of the most complete Woollen Manufactories in the North of England,” when it was for sale in 1840 gives a sense of the scale of even a moderately sized British manufacture like Spedding compared to the modest facilities of Confederate mills like Washington Mill and Crenshaw Mill:

“All that extensive Carding, Scribbling, and Fulling Mill, called Aldams Mill, consisting of a Mill, sixty yards long by thirteen yards wide, and three stores high – with Counting House, three large Warehouses, Press Shops, Wool Chambers, Weaving Shops, lighted with Gas and heated by Steam, Wool and Piece drying house, heated by steam, Dyeing house, cistern, Gas House, Steam Engine of fifty horse power, with boilers, shafts and going gear, five Willies, Fourteen Scribblers, Six single and five double Carders, Fourteen Billies, Two Tommies, Two Mules, three Raising Gigs, Ten Fulling Stocks, Three Rag Machines and one Washing Machine, and other machinery…”¹⁰

Just north of Dewsbury, in the hamlet of Batley Carr, was another moderately sized firm, Joshua Ellis & Sons. Previously James Ellis & Sons, Joshua had taken sole ownership of the firm from his father in 1843. In the mid-1860s, his brother and partner Robert Ellis served as mayor of Dewsbury. The firm operated two mills and employed 500 people.¹¹

Contiguous with Dewsbury and just to the south was the village of Earlsheaton. On the eve of the Civil War, there were five or six blanket mills in the town and a significant proportion of the population was engaged in making white and colored blankets, including gentian (a rich blue), scarlet, and green. The village, which continued to favor traditional hand looms over power looms, specialized in weaving and utilized yarns spun in mills elsewhere in the district. From time-to-time makers in Earlsheaton worked together to execute large orders for all-wool blankets for the British government. The Earlsheaton area had 43 different blanket manufacturers as of 1864, of which some of the largest were Thomas Tong, Edward Hemingway, Less, and Towson.¹²

Two miles northwest of Dewsbury was the thriving town of Heckmondwike. For decades, the village had hosted blanket sales on Mondays and Thursdays at the town’s Blanket Hall. “The chief article of manufacture is that of blankets, in all their variety of quality, size, style, colour, &c.” wrote a member of the local textile trade in 1860. “White wool blankets, of superior quality, are made here and in the immediate neighbourhood in quantity; and indeed Heckmondwike may be designated the head quarters of the blanket trade.” The countryside surrounding Heckmondwike hosted several small blanket makers and “if one happens to be in the neighbourhood, on a fine sunny day, the hills may be seen dressed out in snow-white drapery (blankets), forming a pleasing scene, and one bespeaking well-directed industry.”¹³

The village had 44 active blanket manufacturers as of 1864, but the largest was Edwin Firth & Co., a company that, like Thomas Spedding, inhabited the tier of manufacturers below Cook, Son, & Wormald. A successful merchant, Firth bought Flush Mills in Heckmondwike when it came up for sale and began manufacturing blankets. As his five sons came of age, he brought them into the firm. Their products were woven by hand, usually in the homes of their employed weavers. The mill burned down in 1858 after a bit of steel was accidentally fed into a machine with the wool, struck a component, and created a spark. Flush Mills was, however, soon rebuilt and was operational during the Civil War period.¹⁴

Just outside of Heckmondwike along the Halifax Road to Dewsbury lay another concentration of blanket makers in the village of Kilpin Hill. Although small, by the eve of the Civil War there were 12 blanket manufacturers in the hamlet. The largest of these companies were all owed by sons of Joseph Tatterfield, previously the most prominent of the Kilpin Hill manufacturers. These included Jeremiah Tattersfield & Sons, George Tattersfield & Co., Moor End Mills, John Tattersfield & Sons, and Tattersfield, Oddy & Co. The first three of these employed only 15-30 people. The brothers, however, would collaborate on larger orders and, together, they stood along Edwin Firth & Co. and Thomas Spedding as the three largest blanket makers in the region in the tier below the massive Cook, Son, & Wormald.¹⁵

East of Heckmondwike is the town of Batley, of which more will be said later. As of 1864, the town had 47 blanket makers. Foremost among them were George Sheard and John Nussey. Nussy operated Carlinghow New Mill and, while much smaller, was one of the competitors of Cook, Son, & Wormald. Sheard was one of several smaller manufacturers from whom Cook, Son, & Wormald would occasionally obtained goods when required to fill larger contracts that exceeded their own capacity.¹⁶

Meanwhile, the blanket trade in Witney continued to struggle to compete against their Yorkshire rivals. Throughout the 1850s Witney lacked the railroad connections Yorkshire boasted, making it more difficult to obtain coal and delaying the widespread adoption of steam power in Witney. Yorkshire’s greater use of machinery produced blankets that the Witney firms viewed as being “of inferior quality, and at lower prices,” undercutting the Witney makers’ reliance on their reputation for high quality goods. Blanket makers made up 19% of the town’s population in 1851, the single most common occupation. The Witney population declined throughout the 1850s, while Yorkshire’s population boomed.¹⁷

The same process of consolidation that occurred in Yorkshire was reflected in Witney as well, with a few dominant firms rather than the previous large number of independent master weavers. By the 1850s, only six notable companies remained in operation and consumed only about 28,800 pounds of wool weekly. These firms largely survived based on their existing reputation and major contracts they held with London merchants and the Hudson Bay Company.¹⁸

The largest of the Witney firms was Edward Early & Son, employing up to 800 people in the decade prior to the Civil War. The next largest was John and Charles Early & Co, employing around 300 people, followed by Richard Early, Richard Early Jr., and Horatio Collier. Despite the family ties between these companies, relations were not always cordial. In the late 1850s, an attempt by Edward Early & Son to break into the lucrative Hudson Bay Company trade caused bad blood with John and Charles Early & Co. In 1859, Edward Early & Son’s notepaper warned they had “no connection with any other Firm by the name of Early.” The tensions eased, however, in 1860 after Edward was placed on the Hudson Bay Company’s list of blanket contractors.¹⁹

John Early & Sons had been one of the leading Witney firms in the first portion of the 1800s, operating 70 looms at a time when most other companies had only 20-35. The firm became John and Charles Early & Co. in 1851 after John brought his son Charles on as a partner. The company had, around that time, 144 employees, including 16 women and 28 children. Charles embraced new technology in a way other Witney firms had not. He installed the first power spinning mule in the firm’s New Mill in 1853, introduced power looms in 1858, and in 1861 added a steam engine at New Mill. Possibly more critically, in 1861, Charles helped open a rail connection to Witney. After John’s death in 1862, the firm became known as Charles Early & Co. by 1864.²⁰

Edward Early & Son operated a factory at West End and continued to rely on handlooms to produce blankets. They leased a second facility, Farm Mill, from the 1840s through the 1860s. Possibly due to their delayed embrace of industrial processes, however, they were ultimately bought out by Charles Early & Co. two decades after the Civil War. The Collier family was the second most prominent of the Witney blanket families, with Horatio Collier making blankets at the Corn Street Factory and Crawley Mill.²¹

The leading British blanket manufacturers available to fulfill Confederate orders during the Civil War are perhaps best summarized by the entrants in the 1862 International Exhibition in London. Among the firms displaying goods in the Industrial Department of the Exhibition were:

• Benjamin Gott & Sons, Leeds: Cloths, blankets, and woolen yarns.
• Thomas Cook, Son, & Wormald, Dewbury: Blankets, rugs, and cloths. Awarded a medal “for superior blankets at low prices.”
• Edwin Firth & Sons, Heckmondwike: Blankets, cloths, sealskins, mohairs, rugs, &c. Awarded a medal “For superior sealskin cloakings, also blankets for cheapness.”
• John Early & Co., Witney: Blankets, pilot and collar cloths, and tweeds
• Edward Early & Son, Witney: Witney blankets, tilting, yarns, rugging. Awarded a medal “For very superior Witney blankets.”
• Horatio Collier, Witney: Witney blankets²²

A Very Fit and Proper Pattern for the Service – British Army Blankets

Many of these firms, in addition to producing blankets for civilian use, also worked under contract for the British government to manufacture army blankets. Although the British blanket trade overall was highly competitive in the 1800s, supplying blankets and heavy woolens for the British military was oligopolistic. Only a small number of companies regularly took on the risks and profits associated with British government contracts. In the early decades, the Witney manufacturers and Benjamin Gott & Sons received most of the contracts. Witney firms like John Early & Sons had established relationships with the British Board of Ordnance and greater experience efficiently adhering to promised delivery dates. The Witney focus on British government contracts may have, in part, allowed the Yorkshire producers to capture most of the American export market in this period, as will be described in a following section.²³

The blankets made by Witney for the British Army in the late 1700s and early 1800s were natural white wool. At least eight of these white blankets survive in American museums with provenance from the American Revolution and War of 1812; oddly enough, no surviving blankets from this period have been identified outside of the Americas. British Army regulations from circa 1803 stipulated blankets were to “measure when furnished 84” long by 66” wide and to weigh when perfectly dry and free from oil or filth of any kind 8lbs and 6oz per pair. The warp and wool alike and not spun to[o] hard and thready. The knap well raised on both sides, the colour clear and good and the wool itself good and sweet….”²⁴

Surviving blankets from this period are all stamped with a roughly 4.5-inch-tall broad arrow and GR (for Georgius Rex, i.e. King George) of roughly the same size, which marked them as official Army property. An 1814 contract for the British Army in Canada ordered 40,000 blankets measuring 72 inches wide and 90 inches long, “to be stamped each with durable marking stuff (G.R.) in each corner.” These marking were not unique to blankets and could be found on British army shirts, knapsacks, and other official property. By the 1860s, the mark had evolved from the king’s initials to WD for War Department.²⁵

The blankets all have stripes or “header bars” that, as noted above, marked where to cut between individual blankets and also helped the weaver control the shape of the blanket. The stripes on these blankets were very narrow, only two shots of colored yarn followed by 4 shots of white yarn followed by another two shots of colored. These vary from 1-3 inches from the end of the blanket. The variance may be due to lack of precision in cutting as well as fraying over time, as the ends of the blankets were not bound or finished in any way. Stripes on some surviving blankets are medium to dark brown, likely having faded from black. Other blankets have blue stripes and it remains unclear whether the color difference is significant or was simply a detail left to the discretion of the contractor.²⁶

Several, but not all the blankets have two small hash marks of colored yarn along the selvage. These are likely a style of point mark, a system used to denote the size of a blanket with more points meaning a larger blanket. Some of the blankets have these hash marks in the same color as the stripe, others have them in a yellow or gold color.²⁷

The size of these blankets is difficult to define. As noted above, an 1814 contract specified 72 inches wide and 90 inches long, but the British military ordered blankets in a variety of sizes for different purpose, such as for use in barracks versus use on campaign. The surviving blankets vary from 60 to 72 inches wide and from 75.5 to 90 inches long. Their weights range from 3 pounds 12 ounces to 4 pounds 13 ounces.²⁸

Hagues, Cook, & Wormald received their first major government contract, possibly for blankets like these, in 1823 to supply 22,000 blankets. Between then and 1850, the firm fulfilled 91 different contracts with the British military and supplied 1,323,000 blankets and 421,000 yards of cloth. Throughout the early-to-mid 1800s, roughly 20 companies competed for these lucrative contracts. Six of these were Witney firms like John Early & Sons. Five were London firms, like Hebbert & Co., S. Issac Campbell & Co., and Dolan & Co., that did not themselves produce blankets, but subcontracted for blankets from Witney and Yorkshire manufacturers. The rest of the companies were all in Yorkshire, including Hagues, Cook, & Wormald, Benjamin Gott & Sons, and Edwin Firth & Co. Although competitors, several of these companies also colluded on government contracts, agreeing not to underbid each other and dividing up portions of contracts amongst themselves.²⁹

Between the 1820s and 1850s, the British government purchased army blankets in the following standard sizes:³⁰

Type	Size	Weight
Barracks	56 inches by 93 inches	8 lbs
Hospital	56 inches by 96 inches	4 lbs 12oz
Single	56 inches by 92 inches	3 lbs 12 oz
Coverlets	51 inches by 36 inches	4 lbs

The Crimean War from 1853 to 1856 caused a spike in demand. The British government alone required 300,000 additional blankets and British allies also looked to English mills to produce blankets for their troops. Firms like Edwin Firth & Co. “threw themselves heartily and successfully into the large business to be done in the supply of army cloths and blankets.” They became the exclusive English contractor supplying blankets for the French military. In the 1860s, a representative of the firm testified that they made “blankets and woollen cloths for army purposes chiefly.”³¹

It is unclear exactly when the British Army transitioned away from white blankets. There are references to Crimean War era blankets being “buff colored with a red stripe.” Following the conflict, however, references to other colors begin making appearances. A merchant who purchased surplus military equipment to resell stated in 1858 that “I have got now 700-800 new brown blankets, sold at the last Tower sale, and they are all of them stamped.” The War Department put out a request for contract proposals that same year for 10,000 grey blankets, “specifications state that no shoddy, woollen waste, hair, or anything else but pure wool should be used, and that no soap, stoving, or dry raising, in getting up there [sic] goods shall be allowed.”³²

The contract for these blankets went to Haigh, Cook, & Wormald and the surrounding circumstances illustrate the sometimes questionable practices connected with these deals. The War Department provided Charles Elliott, Superintendent of Inspectors at the Tower of London, with the contract specifications above as well as a model pattern. Elliott noted, however, that the pattern contained impurities, contrary to the specifications calling for nothing but pure wool. He employed London broker Jeremiah Carter Jr. to provide alternative samples. Carter had inherited his business from his father, who had been the London agent for Haigh, Cook, & Wormald and was a key player in the firm’s collusion with other companies seeking government contracts. The family firm continued to represent Haigh, Cook, & Wormald until the 1880s. Both father and son were repeatedly accused of having an inappropriately close personal relationship with the Tower inspectors like Elliott.³³

Carter brought Elliott six blankets. “The one selected,” testified Elliott, “as considered to be perfectly in accordance with the specification, and a very fit and proper pattern for the service, light, warm, and durable.” Carter noted “I gave him [Elliott] the name of the manufacturers of the blankets, and that eventually approved was made by Haigh, Cook, and Wormald, the best manufacturers in the country.” Given the potential conflicts of interest at play, it is no wonder that, around this same time, Thomas Cook testified that for the last 30 or 40 years his firm “have been large contractors with the Government for the article of blankets…. Our business with the Government in the way of blankets has been very large.”³⁴

While grey blankets may have begun to enter service in the late 1850s, by 1861 regulations formally specified a grey blanket for soldiers of both Line and Rifle regiments, making stockpiles of now outdated white blankets potential surplus. As of late 1857, the British government had 159,134 blankets in storage at the Tower of London. In 1863, the British Army offered a contract for 20,000 barracks blankets, measuring 56 inches by 92 inches and weighing 4 pounds 4 ounces each. The contract stipulated the blankets needed to be “Grey color, free from hair and wool waste and perfectly dry, not soaped or dry-raised… one fast, Blue bar [stripe] not more than four or less than three inches from the end.“ British Army regulations by 1865 dictated a grey blanket for field service measuring 60 inches by 86 inches.³⁵

Two original Confederate blankets, held in a private collection and discussed in Craig Barry and David Burt’s Suppliers to the Confederacy Volume III, are nearly identical to the white British blankets from the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 periods. The first blanket has two blue stripes on both ends and a small 1 3/4-inch-long sky-blue hash. It measures 62 inches wide by 76 inches long. The other blanket is also white but has two brown stripes instead of blue. It has a matching brown two-inch-long hash mark and measures 68 inches wide by 77 inches long. Neither is marked with a broad arrow or the WD that would be found on British Army property of the period. There are several potential explanations for this lack of marking. It is possible they were made for the British army, failed to pass the rigorous inspection criteria, and were sold as surplus. It is also possible they were copies of the British Army blanket made for sale to the burgeoning British volunteer movement of the late 1850s. Either way, they, and many similar British Army blankets, found their way across the Atlantic and into the hands of Confederate soldiers.³⁶

An Immoderate Demand for Goods – British Blanket Exports to America

These army blankets were only the latest in a decades-long flow of British blankets into America. Following the War of 1812 and normalized relations between England and the United States, British blanket manufacturers were well positioned meet the demand for inexpensive, low-quality blankets demanded by American consumers. Thomas Cook made a major bid in the 1820s for Hagues, Cook, & Wormald to expand into American markets and by the 1830s the firm had become the principal exporter of blankets to the United States. In 1839, Hagues, Cook, & Wormald began selling British Army model blankets to the American government and within six years the firm had taken most of this trade from Benjamin Gott & Sons. At the dawn of the 1850s, American orders for blankets from Hagues, Cook, & Wormald were increasing steadily each year.³⁷

English consumers evidently preferred white or undyed blankets, as British manufacturers made dyed blankets almost exclusively for export to the United States and other overseas markets. At the 1851 British Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, Edwin Firth & Sons received a medal “For blankets with cotton warp, with good workmanship and cheapness combined. This is a new article of produce, and it has become a great branch of trade to the slave states of America.” Hagues, Cook, & Wormald was awarded for a variety of blankets, including “scarlet and blue blankets, for the American trade.”³⁸

In 1860, England exported 5.8 million yards of blankets to the United States, down from the peak of 6.7 million yards in 1852. Manufacturers, particularly in Dewsbury and Earlsheaton, were making an array of gentian (deep blue), grey, blue-grey, and green blankets in various sizes and qualities for American consumers. Their cheapest product was a very inferior grey blanket. An English blanket maker in 1860 noted that “the bulk of these blankets is consumed in the Slave States of American, and the low grey blankets just adverted to are designed chiefly for the use of the slaves.³⁹

The start of the Civil War found the blanket industry in the midst of a slight depression, exacerbated by high wool prices. Initially demand increased only slightly, but realization that the war would last into the winter triggered a surge in demand for blankets and other heavy woolens. In October 1861, the American Vice Consul in Liverpool reported “I am informed that large orders for blankets for the south are being executed in Yorkshire.” The following month, Thomas Cook wrote to his agent in New York, “There is an immoderate demand for goods throughout this district, particularly for Brown, Grey, Army Blankets…”⁴⁰

During the Crimean War the decade before, the British heavy woolen sector had refined its ability to quickly shift production from civilian products in response to large military orders from British, French, and Turkish forces. They now did so again as military orders began to pour in from the Americas. Mills that had only recently completed a large order of “Blue Mixture” heavy woolen cloth for the Italian Army in 1860 and 1861 adjusted only slightly to begin producing the cadet grey woolen cloth requested by the Confederacy. To meet blanket orders that exceeded their capacity, Cook, Son, & Wormald purchased blankets made by George Sheard in Batley and other smaller manufacturers. As demand increased, so too did the price of blankets, ending the year 40% higher. In December Cook again wrote “Regarding the U.S. Grey Blankets… of which so many are being made at 66 inches by 84 inches, 10 lbs. per pair… we should like to enter into arrangements to commence in January… provided other orders do not come in the meantime… we could deliver 20,000 pairs per month… Our price today would be 14s.2p. per pair… what the price may reach it is impossible to foresee.”⁴¹

British blanket exports to the United States and Confederacy in 1861 had been 5.2 million yards. Initially bright prospects for 1862, however, dimmed as the United States passed increasingly more severe tariffs to protect the rapidly expanding New England woolen industry and raise money for the war effort. These laws, beginning with the Morrill Tarif of 1861, would eventually doom the British blanket trade with the United States, but the war boom delayed this by several years. Early in 1862, a Federal prohibition on foreign purchases left Cook, Son, & Wormald with 12,000 yards of contracted fabric on hand. One of the partners visited New York to ensure the firm was paid for the remainder of the contract and Cook mused “This ruinous affair will be a caution to us against entering on a large order for a new make of goods in an excited market and with a limited time.”⁴²

Regardless of the prohibition, some Dewsbury firms continued to make blankets in 1862 for the United States government. “Business in this district has become exceedingly brisk and very large quantities of heavy, grey blankets are being made, many on speculation,” wrote Cook in October, “We however are determined not to meddle with anything we do not get passed and paid for here.” While export numbers are not available for 1862, the following year 2.6 million yards of blankets were exported to the Americas and another 2.8 million yards in 1864. Much of this was likely driven by growing Confederate demand, as Union protectionist policies limited orders for the north. Thomas Cook, whose firm had a decades-long history of selling blankets to the United States Army and strong commercial ties to the north and who thus may have hesitated to contract directly with Confederate buyers, noted Cook, Son, & Wormald had received no orders for grey army blankets in 1863, “whereas during the last two autumns we have been busily engaged in them.”⁴³

The diary of Thomas Jubb records the efforts of British heavy woolen manufacturers to meet Confederate cloth and blanket demand. He wrote on April 21, 1863 that his brother’s firm, John Jubb & Sons of New Ing Mills in Battley had “received orders for about 10,000 yards Blue Mixt. Army’s [cloth] for quick delivery[,] supposed for the Southerners.” The following month he noted “Very busy making Blue Mixt. Army Clo[th]s.” As fall approached, Jubb recounted how blankets “in Mixt. And Blue and Black have a great demand.”⁴⁴

Go to Chapter Three

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Footnotes

By Austin Williams, 33rd VA Co. H

This is Chapter One of a four chapter article. See Chapter Two, Chapter Three, and Chapter Four. For a brief summary of this article, adapted to address the needs of living historians, see Blankets for Your Confederate Impression published in the ‘Living History Gazette.’ 

Of all the items the Confederacy struggled to provide its armies, few presented as much of a challenge as putting adequate wool blankets in the hands of Confederate soldiers. Despite blankets being an essential piece of equipment for the health and comfort of soldiers, the Confederacy went into the war with only limited ability to produce blankets and all that domestic capacity had been lost by mid-war. The Confederate Quartermaster Department had to rely heavily on blankets imported from the thriving English blanket industry to provide adequate supplies to the Army of Northern Virginia and other field armies. Yet, despite all the challenges it faced, the Quartermaster Department eventually developed a highly successful foreign operation, importing at least 440,000 blankets and making blankets the second most numerous imported quartermaster good after shoes. Lee’s army was the recipient of a significant portion of these blankets.¹

From the beginning of the conflict, it was apparent the South would struggle to provide enough blankets for its emerging armies. On May 13, 1861, the first Confederate Quartermaster General, Abraham Myers, wrote to Secretary of War Leroy Walker with his assessment of the challenge faced and a recommendation. “I apprehend, from attention to the subject and inquiry among intelligent merchants,” wrote Myers, “that the resources of the Southern States cannot supply the necessitates of the Army of the Confederate States with the essential articles of cloth for uniform clothing, blankets, shoes, stockings, and flannel. I respectfully suggest that measures be taken to obtain these articles from Europe.”²

Myers proposed the Quartermaster Department send agents to Europe to purchase blankets, much as the new Ordnance Department was then doing to obtain arms and munitions. Unlike the Ordnance Department, however, Myers did not press the matter and waited on the Secretary of War for a decision, which did not come. Confederate leaders optimistically believed state and private efforts would provide adequate blankets, shoes, and wool cloth for the brief war most predicted. Myers, however, judged these efforts would fall short and responsibility of providing blankets would ultimately fall to him. He dispatched purchasing agents across the South to buy up available stocks of blankets and shoes. He also turned to the Confederacy’s textile industry to seek domestic sources of production.³

Never Heretofore Made in Virginia – The Crenshaw Woolen Company

The overall American antebellum blanket industry was relatively weak, with consumers relying heavily on imported British blankets. English producers had cornered the American market starting in the 1820s, meeting growing demand for inexpensive, low-quality blankets. One British manufacturer bemoaned in 1825 how “the verist rubbish” sold best in the United States and called the products being exported “hateful to look at by those who recollect what formerly went to America.”⁴

Blanket production began to pick up in the United States in the mid-1840s, but American manufacturers still operated at a distinct disadvantage to their British competitors. The United States in the mid-1800s produced relatively limited supplies of the coarse wool required for heavy woolen blankets, while British manufacturers had both an abundant domestic supply and ready access to cheap wool from Europe. By 1859, Great Britain was still exporting over 55 million yards of blankets, heavy woolens, and wool carpets annually to the United States. All American industry combined in 1860 produced just 296,874 pairs of blankets or roughly a million yards. A January 1861 advertisement by Richmond auctioneer Alex Nott for English Yorkshire blankets is representative of the British dominance of the pre-war blanket market in what would soon be the Confederate States of America.⁵

As with other industries, much of the growth in American blanket production in the 1840s and 1850s occurred in the North. Over 66 percent of blankets woven in American in 1860 were made in New England, and the entire South produced only 1,650 pairs of blankets that year. John Brown’s attack on Harpers Ferry in 1859, however, had stimulated Southern business to pursue the dream of “commercial independence” from Northern textile firms. Several Richmond businessmen, including Lewis D. Crenshaw, Samuel P. Mitchell, Wellington Goodin, John H. Montague, and P. W. Harwood, announced in 1860 the establishment of the Crenshaw Woolen Company, outlining the objective of their firm as making “such Goods as would not compete with, but would rather aid other Southern manufactures by furnishing grades and styles of Goods that have never heretofore been made in Virginia.”⁶

Crenshaw and his partners obtained an imposing five story brick building along the south side of the Richmond Canal, immediately adjacent to the Tredegar Iron Works. They converted this former flour mill to textile production, installing the finest quality machinery available, including the extra broad looms required to weave blankets. The mill entered initial limited production in August and immediately began to earn praise for its products. In October the Virginia Mechanics’ Institute awarded Crenshaw Woolen Company a silver medal for “superior all wool Blankets” and in November The Daily Dispatch reported the growing popularity of Crenshaw’s fabric, which was “being worn by all who can get them.” “Not only are they superior to most of the manufactories received from the North,” continued the paper, “but they are equally cheap and far more beautiful. More than that – they are ‘home made’ and should be adopted and worn by every class of citizens.”⁷

The Crenshaw Mill entered full production in December 1860 and local dry goods merchants Samuel M. Price & Co. and Watkins & Ficklen began offering Crenshaw’s “superior bed blankets made in our own city.” On the same day Virginia left the Union, April 17, 1861, the mill’s retail agent, Crenshaw & Co., began directly advertising the firms’ products in the Richmond papers. “Encourage southern manufacturers” they proclaimed, reporting their weekly production as 4,000 yards of cloth per week and having on hand “20,000 yards of Fine, Plain, and Fancy Single and Double Milled CASSIMERESE and CLOTHS, besides a lot of FINE BLANKETS and GENTLEMEN’S SHAWLS.”⁸

Prior works on the subject of Confederate blankets have stressed the importance of the Crenshaw Woolen Company in supplying the Confederate Army with blankets, primarily citing an October 17, 1861 article in the Richmond Enquirer. The paper praised the Crenshaw Mill as “second in importance as an auxiliary to Southern independence, scarcely to the Tredegar Iron Works, and the Virginia armory.” The mill was reportedly producing about 450 blankets a week, measuring 60 inches by 80 inches, made entirely of wool, and weighting 3 7/8 pounds. The Enquirer claimed Crenshaw was working exclusively on government contract and that “large numbers [of their blankets] have already been furnished to the army, are quite equal to the English army blankets, which are made of shoddy, and superior to those of the Yankees.”⁹

The Enquirer, however, was mistaken. While Crenshaw was operating exclusively under contract at the time, these contracts were not with the Confederate government. When war broke out, the Crenshaw Mill had produced $63,000 worth of goods since they began operation, but had sold only $13,000 worth, leaving them with a significant accumulated stockpile. In May or June 1861, a senior official from the Confederate Quartermaster Department contacted the Crenshaw Woolen Company requesting they provide a sample and propose a contract to supply the Confederacy with “a suitable army blanket.” The mill quickly complied, producing a sample four-pound blanket and proposing to sell 20,000 to the Quartermaster Department for $3.25 each, half paid in Confederate bonds.¹⁰

The Quartermaster Department, however, rejected Crenshaw’s offer. Rebuffed, Crenshaw & Co. sought alternative buyers in the private sector. In late July, the firm advertised they were “making a lot of GREY BLANKETS which we will be prepared to deliver in a few days.” They also dispatched samples of their products, including sending to Georgia “a piece of blanket which is very heavy and a handsome article.” The samples of Crenshaw’s work, reported a Georgia paper, “indicate a degree of perfection in woollen manufactures which we did not suppose to have reached here in the South.”¹¹

An unnamed commercial firm viewed the sample blanket Crenshaw had made for the Quartermaster Department and offered to pay in cash $3.50 per blanket. Crenshaw agreed, but limited the contract to only 5,000 blankets, “being all the company chose to make for any one out of the army.” Based on the mill’s reported rate of production, this order likely took around three months to complete, making it almost certainly the same blanket described in the October 1861 Enquirer article. The astute businessman then resold the blankets, including likely at least some to the Quartermaster Department, for $7 a blanket.¹²

By August, the Crenshaw Woolen Company, having signed enough contracts with commercial firms to fully commit the mill’s production through January 1862, stopped taking further orders. The following month the firm sold in bulk all its remaining pre-war stock of fabric and blankets to a leading dry goods merchant. Crenshaw & Co.’s regular advertisement for “bed blankets,” which had reliably appeared in the Richmond papers since April, disappeared in October.¹³

After completing their existing contracts, including the order for 5,000 army blankets, the Crenshaw Woolen Company again contacted the Quartermaster Department, offering to contract with the government for the entire output of the mill. Again, the Quartermaster Department rejected the offer. The firm made the same offer to Virginia Governor Samuel Letcher, but he similarly declined, citing lack of legal authority to enter into the contract. Unable to secure government contracts, the Crenshaw Mill again turned to the private sector, selling its remaining stock at auction on January 8, 1862. The company then began selling sixty days’ worth of production at regular auctions. Finding that speculators were then reselling Crenshaw goods at exorbitant profits, the firm transitioned in late April to weekly auctions every Wednesday at noon.¹⁴

It is unclear how many of these auctions included blankets. Crenshaw & Co. advertised in early February 1862 the forthcoming sale of 1,000 Army blankets. Based on rates of production, this represents just over two months’ worth of the Mill’s output and may be all the blankets woven after Crenshaw completed its 5,000 blanket contract in fall 1861. Advertisements for Crenshaw’s auction sales, which ran until November 1862, made mention only of woolen cloth, which the firm offered in exclusively Indigo blue and grey.¹⁵

The Crenshaw Woolen Company finally obtained its first and only government contract in September 1862, agreeing to supply 20,000-25,000 yards of 54-inch width woolen cloth to the Quartermaster Department. The contract made no mention of blankets and surviving invoices confirm the firm began delivery of woolen cloth under this contract beginning in mid-October. These invoices document deliveries every 3-7 days of cloth but no blankets. The Crenshaw Company’s directors affirmed in late 1862 that this contract to supply cloth was the only contract the firm ever had with the Confederate government. While the Quartermaster Department may have purchased Crenshaw blankets at auction or from resellers and soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia likely privately purchased Crenshaw blankets from Richmond dry goods merchants, the Crenshaw Woolen Company was not the principal supplier of blankets it has previously been portrayed as.¹⁶

Success to Southern Manufactories – Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co

Crenshaw was not the only Virginia textile mill considered by the Quartermaster Department in summer 1861 as a potential source of army blankets. In July the Department signed a contract with Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co. to produce up to 10,000 blankets. The blankets were not as heavy as those woven by Crenshaw, weighing only 3 ½ pounds, but they cost only $2.50 compared to Crenshaw’s quote of $3.25. Possibly due to the cost savings, the Quartermaster Department chose Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co. over the Crenshaw Woolen Company as its major supplier of blankets.¹⁷

Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co., like Crenshaw, was established just prior to the war. In April 1859 the firm’s stockholders elected Granville Kelley as President and General Superintendent, with construction of the company’s Fredericksburg mill beginning in June. The brick structure, dubbed the Washington Woolen Mill, was 120 feet long by 60 feet wide and rose five stories. The Alexandria Gazette reported the arrival of the mill’s machinery in February 1860, proclaiming “Success to southern manufactories.” A May 1860 initial test of the machinery drew a large crowd of spectators.¹⁸

On the eve of war, the Washington Woolen Mill was operating nineteen broad looms capable of weaving 54-inch cloth and 18 looms to for 27-inch cloth. None of these looms were wide enough to produce the 60-inch blankets made by the Crenshaw Woolen Company, possibly meaning Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co. blankets were pieced together from two narrower pieces of fabric sewn together along a central seam. The mill ran 1,000 spindles in four spinning machines, four sets of wool cards, three fulling mills, three presses for finishing cloth, and 22 bars for drying. It employed 35 women and at least as many men, with a monthly payroll of $1,000. The mill consumed around 800 pounds of wool per day and utilized cotton warps manufactured in neighboring Falmouth to produce 1,350 yards daily of primarily yellow and slate-colored kersey.¹⁹

Once the Washington Mill transitioned to wartime production, surviving invoices document the delivery of at least 5,848 blankets between June and October 1861. It is unclear whether documentation of further deliveries has been lost, or if Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co. were unable to produce the full 10,000 blankets. In their initial contract proposal, they noted their ability to weave all of the promised blankets was contingent on them being able to secure adequate amounts of the coarse wool necessary for blankets. A single outlier invoice documents the delivery of seventy blankets on January 17, 1862.²⁰

The advance of Union troops on Fredericksburg in spring 1862 threatened the firm’s operations. The firm dismantled as much of its machinery as possible and loaded it on eight old freight cars for evacuation south. In the confusion, however, the cars were left behind as Confederate troops retreated. An engine was rushed back up the rail line and retrieved the cars and their valuable machinery before they were captured by Union forces. The firm’s now vacant Washington Mill was seized by Federal authorities and converted for several months into a hospital, at which nurse Clara Barton observed her first amputation. During the 1864 Overland Campaign, the structure served as a hospital for the Union Fifth Corps.²¹

Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co. used their rescued machinery to reestablish their operation in Manchester, just outside of Richmond. They once again became a significant supplier of woolen cloth for the Quartermaster Department, but none of the surviving invoices from this period mention blankets. It is unclear whether something about the relocation prevented the firm from producing blankets or perhaps the Confederacy’s dwindling wool supplies deprived the firm of enough coarse wool to resume blanket production. After the end of hostilities, Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co. again packed up their machinery and returned to Fredericksburg in June 1865.²²

Other Domestic Suppliers

Kelly, Tackett, Ford, & Co. is the only domestic manufacturer known to have a significant contract to supply blankets to the Quartermaster Department for likely issuance to the Army of Northern Virginia. At least one other Virginia firm, Keith & Chilton, supplied limited amounts of blanket material to the war effort. Dr. John Augustine Chilton and Isham Keith operated a small mill in Waterloo, Virginia along the upper Rappahannock River in Fauquier County. This was a family enterprise, as Isham was married to John’s sister Juliet. Before the war, they advertised the production of heavy woolen goods, including “Negro Blankets, Stocking Yarns, and plain Linseys for negros.”²³

Surviving invoices document the sale of at least 1,665 yards of “blanketing” to the Quartermaster Department in July and August 1861. The company has other invoices for 27-inch and 54-inch kersey cloth, suggesting that blankets produced from their “blanketing” were two narrower pieces of cloth sewn together as they likely lacked the broad looms found in the Crenshaw Mill. If true and depending on blanket length, their production would have only resulted in just over 400 blankets. The last surviving records for the company are from October 1862, as the advance of the Federal army in the area likely prevented further production. Isham died at age 62 in August 1863.²⁴

Prior research by notable Confederate material culture researcher David Burt has also highlighted Jacob Bonsack of Roanoke County, Virginia as a supplier of blankets to the Army of Northern Virginia, describing them of being made of coarse wool and jeans. The Bonsack family opened their woolen mill in 1822 and, while best known for their jean cloth, did produce blankets as well. Bonsack’s blankets earned praise at an 1843 exhibition:

“Specimens of Blankets, manufactured in Roanoke county, at the manufactory of Mr. J. Bonsack, excited general admiration. Indeed, we never saw so good, and we hear dealers in dry goods say, they never saw better from any quarter. Mr. Bonsack has a woollen [sic] manufactory, and, regarding these Blankets as specimens of this work, well does he merit the public encouragement. He reflects high credit upon the manufacturing reputation of our State. Had a premium been offered for such fabrics, it would certainly have been awarded to Mr. Bonsack.”²⁵

Surviving records of Bonsack’s business dealings with the Confederacy, however, contain no indications he contributed blankets to the war effort. Instead, the firm wove large amounts of jean cloth for the Confederate Quartermaster Department. A May 1863 contract proposal to supply jean cloth noted that “the whole capacity of my factory to be employed in the production of the govt. until completed.” When Federal raiders passed through Roanoke County in June 1864, a Union officer demanded Bonsack cease providing fabric to the Confederate Army. Bonsack reportedly refused and his mill was burned to the ground. The mill held some 200 pounds of wool belonging to the Confederate Quartermaster’s Department at the time of its destruction.²⁶

While other eastern states had sizable textile industries, research to date has been unable to locate additional domestic blanket suppliers from this region. Virginia contained most of the South’s antebellum woolen production, with 45 mills in 1860. Georgia was next with 11 mills producing woolen cloth, followed by North Carolina with seven and Alabama with six mills. The majority of the south’s textile mills produced exclusively cotton fabric. As of November 1861, the Athens Southern Watchman reported Georgia produced 473,500 yards of cotton goods per week, but only 23,000 yards of woolen kerseys and linseys and 22,900 yards of wool and cotton blend jeans and cassimeres. Review of surviving business records of major North Carolina and Georgia textile mills, such as Georgia’s Athens Manufacturing Company or the Eagle Manufacturing Company and North Carolina’s Young, Winston & Orr, F & H Fries, Mountain Island Factory, Yadkin Manufacturing Company, or Blount Creek Manufacturing Company, found no invoices or contracts involving blankets.²⁷

With limited ability to produce blankets, the growing Confederate military rapidly consumed existing commercial stocks, buying up business’ pre-war holdings of British and Northern-made blankets. Within days of Virginia’s secession, Petersburg-based import and dry goods firm Hamilton & Graham sold at least 550 blankets to the Confederate government. Dry goods wholesaler Brown, Tate & Co. of Charlotte, North Carolina sold 30 extra heavy blankets to the Mecklenburg County Flying Artillery and another 58 gray blankets to the military. In South Carolina, the Rutherford Volunteers purchased four blue Mackinaw blankets and 110 duffel blankets from Chamberlain Miler & Co. The firm also shipped blankets to Richmond in June 1861 and in July paid for damages to several bales of blankets.²⁸

That or Nothing – Early Importation

With Myers’ May 1861 request to send a purchasing agent abroad remaining unaddressed, domestic production and antebellum stocks were supplemented by blankets imported into the Confederacy by Ordnance Bureau agent Caleb Huse and private enterprise. On June 17, 1861, Huse and his superior officer Major Edward Anderson first visited the offices of S. Issac Campbell & Co., the firm that would, for a time, become the Confederacy’s almost exclusive supplier in England. Within weeks, contracts with S. Isaac Campbell & Co and several other British firms had begun filling warehouses with supplies desperately needed by southern armies. While material was relatively easily acquired in England, Huse and Anderson faced difficulty shipping their purchases to the Confederacy. The Union declaration of a blockade and a British royal proclamation asking British subjects to respect a lawfully constituted blockade had cut off all regular trade into the South.²⁹

On July 29, Fraser, Trenholm & Co. approached Huse and Anderson with a potential solution to their shipment problem. The firm, the Liverpool arm of the prominent Charleston commercial house John Fraser & Co., was serving as Huse and Anderson’s financial agents in England. The firm was, for its own commercial interests, preparing a ship, Bermuda, to run the blockade and offered space in the ship’s hole to the Confederacy. The offer, however, was no act of charity. “The rates they charged were high,” wrote Anderson in his diary, “but it was that or nothing.”³⁰

The Bermuda arrived safely in Savannah on September 16, 1861. While the ship carried some government cargo purchased by Huse and Anderson, the majority was consigned to Fraser, Trenholm & Co. for “private speculation.” Most of Fraser, Trenholm & Co.’s cargo of some 20,000 blankets, 60,000 pairs of army shoes, 6,500 Enfield rifles, rifled artillery, medical supplies, and large quantities of ammunition were sold to the Confederate government and private merchants at high prices, netting John Fraser and his partners tremendous profits. The ship would make a second attempt to run the blockade in March 1862, but was captured in the Bahamas by the USS Mercedita.³¹

The privately-owned Thomas Watson, a former illegal slave ship that had operated out of New York in 1859 and 1860, had left Wilmington in late June and sailed for Liverpool. The vessel departed England in August laden with “blue, red, and gray flannels, gray and blue blankets, machinery, salt, etc.” On October 12, Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles alerted the Atlantic Blockading Squadron of a “shipment from England to Halifax of large quantities of blankets, etc. intended… for the blockaded ports.” When the Thomas Watson attempted to enter Charleston harbor three days later, Federal cruisers gave chase. Attempting to outrun the pursuers, the ship instead ran aground on a reef and had to be abandoned and burned. One of the Federal pursuers, the USS Flag, recovered part of the Thomas Watson’s cargo from the wreck, including four bundles of gray blankets.³²

Back in England, Huse and Anderson continued, in addition to the munitions they had been tasked to purchase, to also purchase quartermaster stores. They also encountered other Confederate agents of varying degrees of credibility. Anderson noted in his diary a meeting in Liverpool with Edward Gautherin, who claimed to be an authorized Confederate government agent to purchase blankets but lacked funds. “Of course I could not entertain any request from him to furnish means” wrote Anderson, “nor do I intend to mix myself with these stray ways and drift along from Richmond. Huse & I can purchase all that is wanted.” Gautherin, of Gautherin & Girard of Paris, would in early 1863 go on to sign a contract to supply the Confederate Navy two years’ worth of blankets, shoes, and cloth and would become one of the Navy Department’s most trusted overseas suppliers.³³

Anderson and Huse, meanwhile, could readily purchase, but still lacked the means to ship their purchases. In late August 1861, the Confederate Congress authorized $1 million to purchase blankets, woolen clothing, shoes, leather, and flannel, as well as a ship on which to ship them. Working with the Confederate naval agent in England, Huse and Anderson purchased for the Confederacy the Fingal. Unlike the Bermuda, where government material shared space with commercial cargo, the Fingal would be entirely devoted to government purchases. The ship departed England on October 10 with Anderson aboard and safely reached Savannah on November 12, 1861. Included in the ship’s cargo hole were 6,210 blankets (9,982 yards) purchased from S. Isaac Campbell & Co., as well as 11,340 rifles, 7 tons of shells, 230 swords, 499,000 cartridges, 24,100 pounds of gunpowder, 500 sabers, clothing, medicine, pistols, and leather. A Confederate newspaper heralded the arrival of the Fingal, claiming it was loaded with blankets and army stores sufficient for four brigades. The Confederate quartermaster in Savannah dispatched 155 bales of blankets north to Richmond on November 26, almost certainly the blankets brought in by the Fingal.³⁴

With Anderson gone, Huse appears to have felt empowered to further exceed his orders and purchase increasing amounts of quartermaster stores beyond the ordnance stores that he had been tasked to procure. He prepared an even large shipment of items purchased from S. Isaac Campbell & Co., to be shipped on the single screw iron hull steamer Gladiator. Among the items in the huge ship’s hole were 5,055 pairs of gray blankets, 250 white blankets, and 2,200 blankets of unspecified color.³⁵

The large and slow Gladiator, prevented from leaving Nassau harbor by a watchful Union gunboat, transshipped its cargo to several smaller, faster vessels. On January 30, 1862 Confederate commercial agent Lewis Heyliger dispatched the Kate at New Smyrna, Florida with 32 bales of “blankets and serge” from the Gladiator, along with 6,000 Enfield rifles, powder, cartridges, caps, medical supplies, and mess tins. Additional cargo from the Gladiator landed on March 2, 1862 aboard the Cecile.³⁶

Not all the cargo purchased by Huse had fit on the Gladiator. The Sidney Hall left the mouth of the Thames in early November carrying the remainder of the Gladiator’s intended cargo. The American Consul in London informed Washington that the Sidney Hall had a “large quantity of blankets, army cloths, saltpeter, etc.” He also reported the ongoing loading of the Stephen Hart.³⁷

Huse had been preparing the cargo of the American-built schooner Stephen Hart simultaneous to the preparations for Gladiator. He purchased from S. Isaac Campbell & Co. 1,354 pairs of “super russet blankets,” 1,710 pairs of white blankets, and 6,805 gray blankets. “Super” referred to the blanket’s grade, indicating a higher-grade quality of blanket, above fine and below super super. The Stephen Hart, partially owned by Fraser, Trenholm & Co., left Liverpool in mid-November but was captured on January 29, 1862 off the coast of southern Florida. Upon inspection by a New York prize court, the Stephen Hart was found to carry 6,800 gray blankets, each weighting 4 ¾ pounds, 1,600 white blankets weighting 5 pounds, and 150 white blankets weighting 5 ¼ pounds. The entire cargo, which also included small arms, artillery, ammunition, accouterments, knapsacks, and other war material, was claimed by S. Isaac Campbell & Co as their own and they tried unsuccessfully to regain the cargo via legal means.³⁸

Undeterred by the capture of the Stephen Hart, Huse prepared his largest shipment of blankets to date. December 1861 and January 1862 invoices detail the quantity, color, and, in some instances, the size of 18,097 blankets purchased by Huse from S. Isaac Campbell & Co. and shipped via the Economist and the Southwick. The following is a consolidated list of these invoices. A small number of entries also specified that they were super grade, but these were too few to be separately specified.

• 13,648 pairs of gray blankets of unspecified size
• 960 pairs of blankets of unspecified color and size
• 404 pairs of white blankets, hospital size (72 inches wide)
• 1,780 pairs of white blankets, size 9/4 (81 inches wide)
• 605 pairs of blue gray blankets of unspecified size
• 600 pairs of white blankets, size 10/4 (90 inches wide)
• 100 pairs of white blankets, size 11/4 (99 inches wide)³⁹

The Economist, owned by the ever-present Fraser, Trenholm & Co., arrived safely in Charleston on March 14, 1862 after passing through Bermuda. The Southwick arrived in Nassau in early April and offloaded its cargo of blankets and other supplies for transshipment via smaller vessels.⁴⁰

Meanwhile, Fraser, Trenholm & Co. were building on the success of the Bermuda and preparing additional ships for their own commercial shipments, in addition to those conducted with Huse. The firm’s Charleston packet Cheshire had run out past the blockade and arrived in Liverpool in September. It departed England on October 10, 1861, bound for Nassau. Soon after its departure, the American Vice Consul in Liverpool alerted his government that “I am informed that large orders for blankets for the south are being executed in Yorkshire. You would observe by the manifest of the Cheshire and Eliza Bonsall that bales of blankets formed part of both cargos.” The Eliza Bonsall was also owned by Fraser, Trenholm & Co. Both ships had bales marked <W. B. & Co>; a third ship, the Consul, was set to sail from England in early December with a cargo of salt and blankets and had bales with the same marking, warned the American diplomat. After Cheshire safely arrived in the South, Savannah businessman G. B. Lamar contacted the Confederate War Department on December 2, 1861 offering to sell 60 bales and two packets of blankets from the vessel.⁴¹

The arrival of a commercial cargo in Charleston in early January 1862 elicited significant excitement. “Yesterday one of our city wharves presented quite an active scene,” wrote a local newspaper, “in consequence of a fine display of merchandise which crowded the surrounding space and which was being discharged from a vessel lately from a foreign port. The cargo consisted of English blankets, Confederate gray cloths, hardware in casks, coffee, soap, candles, codfish, spool cotton, English paper and envelopes, butter, arrowroot, cheese, linens, hosiery, buttons, needles, Spanish cigars, and various other items of great value at this time.” While the name of the ship was omitted, it may have been the Ella Warley, another ship owned by Fraser, Trenholm & Co. and which delivered a cargo into Charleston on January 3 that included at least 12,300 blankets.⁴²

The substantial profits being earned by Fraser, Trenholm & Co. by importing desperately needed items like blankets did not go unnoticed by other entrepreneurs. As early as August 1861, a British ship had been forced by weather to land in Rhode Island. One of the passengers was a French citizen named Louis de Bebian, employed by the Wilmington firm O. G. Parsely & Co. Among his papers Federal authorities found instructions from the company for de Bebian to proceed to Liverpool and there to purchase army blankets, coffee, clothing, and iron for shipment to Wilmington.⁴³

Another Wilmington company, J. & D. MacRae & Co. noted in November that “blankets, shoes, gray cloths, and cassimers, pig and hoop iron, kersey and military stores, block tin, etc. all very scarce and command extreme prices. We would like a joint interest in a shipment including any of the above articles.”⁴⁴

Other companies sought to more directly copy Fraser, Trenholm & Co. and commission cargo ships to run into Southern ports, but met with mixed success. The USS Dale captured, on November 15, 1861, the British schooner Mabel with a cargo that included seven bales of blankets, as well as cloth, saddles, tin, lead, coffee, potatoes, shoes, revolvers, and swords. The vessel claimed to be sailing from Havana to New York, but carried paperwork indicating she had had departed Nassau and was seized attempting to approach Savannah. The USS Bienville chased ashore a schooner along the southern Georgia coast on December 15 and burned it along with its cargo blankets, shoes, coffee, cigars, and other material.⁴⁵

Another entrant in the industry, Zachariah C. Pearson, mistakenly bought a number of large, deep-laden vessels which carried large amounts of valuable cargo but were too slow to outrun blockade runners. His ship Patras was captured in April 1862 trying to enter Charleston loaded with powder, arms, quinine, and coffee. Modern Greece was lost after beaching itself outside of Wilmington in April 1862 and Ann was captured in May 1862 trying to enter Mobile. For all three vessels, this was their first and final attempt to run the blockade.⁴⁶

Meanwhile, as importers grew rich, the dwindling availability and rising cost of blankets and other goods drove some antebellum companies out of business. Richmond dry goods merchant Watkins & Ficklin, one of the original two merchants to sell Crenshaw Woolen Company blankets in 1860, were forced out of business and liquidated their remaining stock in a November 19, 1861 auction. Items for sale included “White, Gray, Blue and Green, English, Army and Bed blankets.”⁴⁷

Prevent Our Brave Defenders from Suffering – Charity Donations

The increased flow of imported blankets was supplemented by private donations. A group of concerned citizens in Tennessee wrote in July 1861 to Secretary of War Walker asking; “Can the [War] Department furnish all our soldiers with socks, shoes, coats, blankets, and shirts, and every other article necessary to constitute a solders winter dress?” “If Richmond was unable to provide for the soldiers” the citizens inquired “whether the Government wanted aid and cooperation in the [manner]?” If so, they suggested the War Department publicize a plan to coordinate civilian donation efforts.⁴⁸

Walker immediately wrote to the state governors, requesting their assistance gathering woolen clothing and blankets from the civilian population for benefit of the military. “[You are] doubtless aware of the difficulty of procuring a full provision in consequence of the blockading of our ports, and the limited quantity of goods in the market place.”⁴⁹

A few weeks later, on August 31, 1861, the Confederate Congress passed a law requiring the Secretary of War to “make all arrangements for the reception and forwarding of clothes, blankets, and other articles of necessity that may be sent to the Army by private contributions. Walker delegated this responsibility to Myers. In the following months, each state was directed to appoint local and state-level chairmen to solicit and collect donations. These agents were required to forward to their proper destination contributions from various citizens and county associations. Donations of blankets, clothing, and shoes for general distribution to the army were to be paid for in Confederate bonds. The Central Committee of Tennessee published a notice that “if any blankets can be furnished by any person they will be thankfully received of any kind and color.”⁵⁰

In Georgia, Governor Joseph Brown issued an impassioned plea for donations in support of Georgia’s sons in Virginia; “They are our fellow citizens, our neighbors, our friends. They are enduring all the toils and labors of a soldier’s life… Winter will soon be upon us, and it will be impossible for them to get…such supplies of clothing, shoes, and blankets, as are absolutely necessary in that severe climate for their health and comforts. Shall we permit them to suffer for the necessities, while we have plenty at home? NEVER!…. I wish to purchase… all the good blankets that can be found in the market.”⁵¹

The response from Confederate civilians was overwhelming.  “Never was there such a patriotic people as ours!” wrote a War Department clerk. “Their blood and their wealth are laid upon the altar of their country… contributions of clothing, provisions, etc., are coming in large quantities, sometimes in the amount of $20,000 in a single day.” By November, a soldier in Richmond reported “… clothing for the winter campaign is abundantly supplied. True much of it is the result of private contribution, but this speaks the more for the patriotism of the people.”⁵²

Among the donations sought by Confederate authorities was an expedient, emergency solution to the increasing scarcity of blankets. As early as September 1861, the Confederate military began repurposing flat ingrain wool carpets as makeshift blankets. The Richmond firm Christian & Lathrop that month sold 595 “carpet blankets” to the Confederate Quartermaster Department. Additional purchases of blankets from the firm occurred in November. Also in September, James G. Bailie & Brother, Dealers in Carpetings, Rugs, Oil Cloths, Mattings, and Linens in Augusta, Georgia, sold Confederate authorities 1,482 carpet blankets.Although outside of this study’s focus on the Army of Northern Virginia, the Quartermaster Depot in Nashville reported in January 1862 having used 20, yards of carpeting for emergency blankets. They contracted with J.T. Lord to purchase 13,041 lined carpet blankets between December 1861 and February 1862.⁵³

Carpets remained in use as blanket substitutes beyond the first winter of the war. The Central Association for the Relief of the Soldiers of South Carolina called in fall 1862 for the donation of woolen carpets to be turned into blankets. In 1861 and 1862, the North Carolina Quartermaster Department issued at least 11,952 carpet blankets, exhausting the supply of carpets in the state by fall 1862. Some of these carpet blankets were issued to the Thirty-Fifth North Carolina, of Ransom’s Brigade, on November 15, 1862 and they continued to be issued prior to the Gettysburg campaign. An 1863 entry for the Confederate depot in Atlanta stated 20,559 yards of carpeting were in storage for making blankets.⁵⁴

At the start of the war’s second year, the Confederacy was obtaining blankets in several ways. The Quartermaster Department had directly contracted with firms like Kelly, Tackett, Ford & Co. to produce blankets for the military and had solicited blanket donations from the civilian population. Purchasing agents bought up dwindling antebellum blanket and carpet supplies and bid to purchase blankets imported from abroad by private speculators like Fraser, Trenholm & Co. The Confederate government also signed optimistically large contracts for firms to purchase and import blankets to sell to the government at a predetermined rate, but little had come of these. Finally, Caleb Huse, despite no orders to do so, continued to purchase quartermaster stores in England and arrange shipment to Bermuda and the Bahamas. Once in the islands, Confederate agents transshipped the goods onto commercial vessels willing to make the run into southern ports in exchange for extremely high freight charges.⁵⁵

While perhaps disorganized and inefficient, the combination of purchases by Huse, importation by private business, domestic production, public donations, and conversion of carpets initially succeeded in providing an adequate supply of blankets for the first winter of the war. The Quartermaster Department issued 27,747 blankets to the army in Virginia between October 1861 and March 1862. While this not nearly enough for a field force that numbered circa 80,000 at the time, it was supplemented from donations and other non-official sources. By mid-winter, a Congressional investigation of the Quartermaster Department reported that supplies, shoes, and blankets “are on hand or have been distributed in sufficient quantities as, with the contributions of states and individuals, to place our troops beyond the danger of suffering during the present winter.”⁵⁶

Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, who replaced Walker in September 1861, reported in February 1862 that necessary supplies that winter “could not possibly have been furnished in time for the wants of the present winter had not the entire population aided with common accord the efforts of the Government to prevent our brave defenders from suffering for want of needful protection from exposure.” Additionally, large amounts of blankets, medicine, and equipment had arrived via importation. “It will hereafter be in the power of the Department to furnish all that is required,” he boldly predicted, “not only from supplies of blankets, cloth, and shoes already imported from Europe, but from the productions of manufacturing establishments at home.”⁵⁷

Go to Chapter Two

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Footnotes