Cotton bales

[WestTN_reb]

I submit a question to this forum in the hopes that the information will be of some military use later.

I've been checking around the web for the dimensions for a typical bale of cotton (ie: length, width, height). Everything I've found so far has the modern specifications. Is there anywhere to find the correct size for a period cotton bale, or has the size not changed that much? Any help would be much appreciated.

[Garrett Silliman]

Re: Cotton bales

John,

In the attached you'll find a photo of a Savannah, GA cotton yard with bales awaiting shipment. The photo is post-war (1873) but it gives you an idea of bale size. Each one of those bales is constructed of compressed cotton weighing 400 lbs. The photo is from the Digital Library of Georgia and can be found here:

http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/cgi-bin/vanga.cgi?format=photo&query=id%3actm356-93

-Garrett

[Miss Elodie]

Re: Cotton bales

Good morning,
This won't directly answer your question (I am at work and don't have access to my files), but you may get some answers from the schematics of an 1835 cotton press that survived at Magnolia Plantation near Natchitoches, Louisiana. It was included in the Historic American Buildings Survey and the Library of Congress' American Memory Project has posted most of the findings from what was originally a WPA project. You can see the plans for the cotton press here:

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.la0404

Photographs from a recent visit are posted here:

http://community.webshots.com/album/560748795KkMoJm?vhost=community

I hope this helps!

Jennifer

[Dignann]

Re: Cotton bales

John,

You might consider contacting Lowell National Historical Park in Lowell, Mass. In the mid-19th century, the mills in Lowell depended on Southern cotton, so I'm guessing the park has quite a bit of information on the cotton industry. You may find that bales varied in size, depending on what type of press was being used. As I understand it, value of a bale depended on weight, not necessarily size.

Eric

[Miss Elodie]

Re: Cotton bales

Weight, quality of ginning, and, of course, the grade of cotton determined price. There are numerous reports in contemporary accounts of planters filling the core of the bale with "trash" -- rocks, debris -- to help tip the scales in their favor. The rationale being that the bale wouldn't be pulled apart until in Birmingham or Manchester (UK). If you are at all interested in the business of antebellum cotton, I highly recommend Harold Woodman's book "King Cotton & His Retainers: financing & marketing the cotton crop of the South, 1800-1925." http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/234145

Jennifer

[markj]

Re: Cotton bales

I submit a question to this forum in the hopes that the information will be of some military use later.

I've been checking around the web for the dimensions for a typical bale of cotton (ie: length, width, height). Everything I've found so far has the modern specifications. Is there anywhere to find the correct size for a period cotton bale, or has the size not changed that much? Any help would be much appreciated.

You might want to look at this image, which provides a good sense of scale (especially if you can find some way to look at it in stereo). Frankly, I found the "background detritus" more interesting: abandoned coats, blankets, haversacks, and shoes.

Check it out:

TITLE: Yorktown, Virginia (vicinity). Confederate fortifications reinforced with bales of cotton


CALL NUMBER: LC-B811- 2367[P&P]


REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-DIG-cwpb-01600 (digital file from original neg. of left half)
LC-DIG-cwpb-01599 (digital file from original neg. of right half)
No known restrictions on publication.


MEDIUM: 1 negative (2 plates) : glass, stereograph, wet collodion.


CREATED/PUBLISHED: 1862.


NOTES:

Caption from negative sleeve: "King Cotton" at Yorktown, Va.

Two plates form left (LC-B811-2367B) and right (LC-B811-2367A) halves of a stereograph pair.


Forms part of Civil War glass negative collection (Library of Congress).


SUBJECTS:


United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865


FORMAT:


Stereographs 1860-1870.
Glass negatives 1860-1870.


REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA


DIGITAL ID: (digital file from original neg. of left half) cwpb 01600 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpb.01600
(digital file from original neg. of right half) cwpb 01599 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpb.01599


CARD #: cwp2003004754/PP


Regards,

Mark Jaeger

[WestTN_reb]

Re: Cotton bales

Thanks for all your input. It has been very helpful, especialy the part about the bales typically being 400 lbs. Everything I've found is about modern bales which are supposed to be 500 lbs. The museum references should come in quite handy as well. Also, the pictures of the Confederate works are great.

That is part of where the question came from. I'm wanting to add some cotton bales (actually facsimiles of them because I can't afford that much cotton) to some earthworks that are utilized for a Mainstream (I know....the horror!) event in my area. In my defense, the historical records for the engagement specifically state that they used cotton bales to make crude breastworks. Just doing what I can to make any event a little more authentic. Thanks all.

[Michael Comer]

Re: Cotton bales

John,

Lewis Gray in History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860, makes mention of New Orleans reporting it received 193 bales of Missouri cotton which had an estimated weight of 59,444 pounds. This averages to 308 ponds a bale.

James Montgomery in Cotton Manufacture in the United States of America, published in 1840, makes mention of a machine called a whipper which could "willow one bale of upwards of 400 lbs. in an hour and a half".

A report of the Committee on Manufactures to Congress, in 1815 gave the particulars of cotton manufacturing in the US at the time. It reported 27,000,000 lbs. of cotton in 90,000 bales which makes an average of 300 lbs. per bale.

Just a suggestion about making your 'bales'. Don't know just where in Tennessee you live but there is some cotton grown around the western part and in W. Kentucky and E. Arkansas. We have a lot of it here in SE Missouri if you're close enough. It's getting to be picking and ginning time and that means there will be lots of loose cotton all around a gin area that doesn't make it through the process.

If you have a gin in your area that handles a lot of cotton, they might be more than willing to let you pick up all that waste cotton. You could use it on the outside of a bale form to give it the right look without busting your budget.

As an aside, bales aren't really used anymore - at least not around here. The farmers put them in what is called a module - the equivalent of 12 -15 bales. Compactors are brought out into the field, the cotton is dumped in them from the picker and is then compressed to make the module. Special trucks with beds made solely for picking up these modules weighing several tons go out to the fields and bring them to the gin. Some folks still trailer in loose cotton but that seems to be declining. It's a pretty interesting process.

[WestTN_reb]

Re: Cotton bales

Michael,

Thanks. I live in Dyersburg, so I'm around a lot of cotton. My folks also own some property in Carroll County, Tennessee. My plan was to just see if one of the local farmers would let me pick up what his cotton picker didn't. I like your idea better.

[Spinster]

Re: Cotton bales

Go armed with lots of garbage bags, and watch the 'turn arounds' as the balers get to the end of the field--they seem to loose a good bit there and never return to pick it up. Same thing goes for the areas around the big compacter bales---once they are loaded and gone, there are piles of cotton still left on the ground----ragged, torn, and trashy, but the ginning and cleaning process is much more efficient than even a generation back, when trash in the cotton caused a downgrade in the price received.

Its also the time of year where anyone who needs a few stalks for a school show and tell can find them easily--the ends of the rows are often left totally unpicked.

A bale is a tremendous amount of cotton---our local Fiber Guild has been hand processing about a bale and a half of a particularly unique breed of cotton for nearly 10 years now. We're near about done with it.

The use of cotton bales as a weapon of war goes further back than our period---during the Battle of New Orleans, bales of cotton were used as foundations for American cannon emplacements, to prevent them from sinking into the swamps of Chalmette.

[WestTN_reb]

Re: Cotton bales

Thanks again Ms. Lawson.

I had heard about the cotton bales used at New Orleans, but didn't realize they were used as cannon foundations.

The battle that is being recreated at the Mainstream event I mentioned involves Gen. Van Dorn's raid on Holly Springs, MS in 1862. The 25th Indiana (could be wrong about designation), according to a diarist whose name eludes me, were said to have thrown up makeshift breastworks of earth and cotton bales to defend modern day Michigan City, MS after receiving reports that Van Dorn was headed their way. What later ensued was a very one sided battle, with the Confederates suffering approximately 250 casualties, and the Indiana boys suffering 2.