Knapsacks & Blanket Rolls Redeux

[Skeet]

Re: knapsack vs. blanket roll

Pards, I have a question. Why on earth would you want to wear both? I think blanket rolls are to bulky. Cpl Dan Morgan, 10thVA (IVR)

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: knapsack vs. blanket roll

Dan

Some packs, such as English import packs, are too small to carry a blanket and other personals. It also spreads the load out a bit.

[bonniegreenflag]

Re: Richmond Depot Ground Sheets

Thanks for the input, but I have sense learned new things which have led me to restate the question- did CS groundsheets frequently have stitched grommets without brass? I am interested in purchasing one of Andrew Martin's painted ground cloths and wanted to be perepared.

[ChrisM(armyguy)]

Re: knapsack vs. blanket roll

Ive noticed that while the knapsack allows for more storage space, the bed roll happens to be more comfortable. Many of the mid to late war photographs, you see the mix of bed rolls and knapsacks, though also alot of one or the other. Much would have to do with what the individual unit commanders would allow as we all know that in all things, the private soldier does not have the thinking capacity to come up with decisions on his own and must rely on the education of his officers.



chris mattingly

[poncho]

Re: knapsack vs. blanket roll

Comrades,
After reading all the posts in this thread, I would say it is almost a dead heat on preference. I personally prefer the knapsack for the same reasons everybody has mentioned already. I will add that as far as the lack of comfort of the knapsack; you just get used to it. I often think what the originals did? Sure there are tons of accounts documenting men throwing away their knapsacks, but some still kept them. I have seen late war photos with men wearing nothing but their knapsacks! Also as far as our preferences, we only have to make do with these things for a weekend or 3 days at most. Our predecesors had to make do with these things for years! I'm sure they just acclimated to these conditions. It's just like it would be if you worked in a sewage plant, after a while you don't smell it anymore! :) Basically depending on what you had (or were ordered to have) you just got conditioned to it.

[Yellowhammer]

Re: Richmond Depot Ground Sheets

Features I've seen on painted cloth "ground sheets:"

1- Felled edges.
2- Unfelled edges.
3- Sewn grommets
4- No gromments.

Basically, pick an "edge" option and a "grommet" option and there is an original out there like it.

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: Richmond Depot Ground Sheets

Does anybody know how many surviving CS groundsheets there are?

[Skeet]

Re: knapsack vs. blanket roll

Robert, I didn't think about that. Good point, I'm still going with a Kibbler! Cpl Dan Morgan, 10th VA (IVR)

[Yellowhammer]

Re: Richmond Depot Ground Sheets

I know of three but there can't be that many.

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: Richmond Depot Ground Sheets

I know of three but there can't be that many.

Do you know there provinance if any?

[K Bartsch]

Re: knapsack vs. blanket roll

Comrades,
After reading all the posts in this thread, I would say it is almost a dead heat on preference. I personally prefer the knapsack for the same reasons everybody has mentioned already. I will add that as far as the lack of comfort of the knapsack; you just get used to it. I often think what the originals did? Sure there are tons of accounts documenting men throwing away their knapsacks, but some still kept them. I have seen late war photos with men wearing nothing but their knapsacks! Also as far as our preferences, we only have to make do with these things for a weekend or 3 days at most. Our predecesors had to make do with these things for years! I'm sure they just acclimated to these conditions. It's just like it would be if you worked in a sewage plant, after a while you don't smell it anymore! :) Basically depending on what you had (or were ordered to have) you just got conditioned to it.

This from your post: "I have seen late war photos with men wearing nothing but their knapsacks!" invokes a rather bizarre image don't you think? :wink_smil

Anyway, the thing I like about these little Mex-War singlebags is its virtually impossible to overpack them -- a fact appreciated by one's back and shoulders on a march. I do generally carry a blanket roll in addtition to the pack. There's plenty of photographic evidence of this practice as well.

Cordially,

[GACornbread]

Re: knapsack vs. blanket roll

Comrades:
After all this discussion I want to post this comment from the letters of Marion Hill Fitzpatrick, a Pvt. in the 45 GA. The quote comes from the book: "Red Dirt and Isinglass, A War Time Biography of a Confederate Soldier" by Henry Vaughan McCrea.

Ferguson Hospital
Lynchburg VA
July 6th 1863

"They gave our boys in the Reg. just before the last march a choice to have their their tents hauled or or a portion of their kanpsacks Of course, they all preferred the knapsacks. They carried one knapsack for every five men. I put a pair of pants and some other tricks in one and sent them on."

I find this a very interesting memory of what the soldiers preferred when given the opportunity.

Houston White
Support the Pickets Mill Fence Rail Drive
Register for Picketts Mill authentic Event today!

[FortyRounder]

Re: knapsack vs. blanket roll

In my very humble opinion, most living historians---including we campaigners, who boast of the light loads we carry---pack a lot more than the actual Civil War fighting men often did in the field. Brigham Buswell, a member of Berdan's Sharpshooters, tells in his memoirs how very little he carried in the retreat on the Penninsula in June 1862:

"Our remaining worldly possessions were now reduced to a minimum. They were carried in a small black rubber blanket rolled up and thrown over the shoulder and tied on the other side below the arm. They consisted of one heavy woolen shirt, one pair of socks, a spool of thread, a few buttons and needles, a diary in which I tried as well as I could to record the incidents each day and a testament that my mother gave me when she bade me farewell. Not thinking as we had orders to change camp in a hurry I forgot everything but the shirt, the smaller articles remaining on the ground where they fell." (Civil War Times Illustrated, V. XXXIV, N. 6)

In this situation, a knapsack would hardly seem worthwhile.

[Noble Pelican]

Re: knapsack vs. blanket roll

I havent done as many 63-64 ANV as some of you but I would pick the blanket roll. Although I personally prefer the knapsack, research on ANV Louisianians suggest blanket rolls were the prime item in 62 to facilitate their speedy marches so I doubt they would switch to knapsacks later.

April 18, 1862... "Now prepared for the certainty of swift marching, each man carried only his gun and ammunition, an extra outfit of clothing and shoes, and one blanket. Tents gave way to the necessity of using whatever shelter the countryside afforded. All (General Richard) Taylor required for himself, including a small fly tent and a single change of underwear, he carried on his horse. A Confederate lieutenant described Taylor as wearing a black hat and black overcoat, and like other officers, he tended to keep the overcoat on, even during warm weather to protect against a sudden chill or rain. Tom Strother, his servant, rode alongside, equally Spartan in his accoutrements. 'My people grumbled no little at being stripped,' Taylor recalled, 'but soon admitted that they were better for it,' despite the shock of several more violent storms."

Source: page 148-149, "Richard Taylor: Soldier Prince of Dixie" by T. Michael Parrish - University of North Carolina Press: 1992

[Secede1863]

Re: knapsack vs. blanket roll

The Mexican War Kible (sp?) knapsack works nicely for Confederate Impressions of all times, especially early war.

What Im trying to get accross is as the war went on the knapsacks didn't and got left behind, sold, stolen off dead or just lost.



Our Friend NolanTamsBurke *user name* uses a Kible (sp?) Mexican War Pack.

Stubs