Union Blankets

[The Pennsylvania Line]

I just finished reading a thread titled "Confederate Blankets";started by @major bill. I then did a search for a similar thread and again I found information spread out in many threads. I thought a thread dedicated to both State and Federal blankets might be useful to collectors and re-enactors. More documented blankets exist than people realize.

With that said documented General's blankets are rare. Here is one such example that belonged to General Halleck.

https://www.shilohrelics.com/products/102440-major-general-henry-hallecks-custom-made-civil-war-blanket

 

[The Pennsylvania Line]

 

[HatEnjoyer]

I just finished reading a thread titled "Confederate Blankets";started by @major bill. I then did a search for a similar thread and again I found information spread out in many threads. I thought a thread dedicated to both State and Federal blankets might be useful to collectors and re-enactors. More documented blankets exist than people realize.

With that said documented General's blankets are rare. Here is one such example that belonged to General Halleck.

https://www.shilohrelics.com/products/102440-major-general-henry-hallecks-custom-made-civil-war-blanket

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I've seen these around; they're pretty interesting. Blankets are the last thing I'd expect to be identified

 

[The Pennsylvania Line]

Civil War Blanket

Discover the collections of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture

collectionsportal.northwestmuseum.org

"Simple woven wool blanket with yarn dyed yellow-buff and blue. All four edges are unbound and one end has a 2 1/2 inch wide blue stripe 5 inches from the end.

During the Civil War Wisconsin farmer David Watford used this blanket while fighting for the Union as a private in the Wisconsin 20th Infantry Regiment, Company H. The blanket was important enough to Watford to carry it with him and his family as they migrated west to Spokane during the 1880s. Although his wife and daughter found it useful to cover rising bread dough, the family later preserved the blanket and its war story in the museum collection.

The careful handwritten note explains its family importance as both a memorial and a useful tool. "This is Grandpa Watford's Army Blanket which he used in the Civil War. Then Grandma Watford used it as a (Bread Blanket) and later on Mother used it for the same purpose. Edith"

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

Being familiar with bread baking, I can only speculate that they were covering a very large number of bread pans with that blanket. Bread was something, like washing, that housewives often set aside one day a week to do. Very interesting!