The Keagy/Noble Civil War Blanket
Made by Waterside Woolen Mill

Who made the blankets used in the Civil War?

The developing industrial infrastructure of the New England States represented the majority of domestic textile manufacture of the period. A significant portion of early America's woolen production capability was comprised of small mills along the rural streams and valleys of Pennsylvania. The Waterside Woolen Mill and the Keagy Woolen Mill are examples of these. The balance of the blankets used by Federal soldiers was made abroad.

Woolen Blanket Supply

The Keagy Woolen Mill and the Waterside Woolen Mill had a ready market for blankets. Anxious Quartermasters would readily accept shipments of blankets, even if the specifications were beyond normal tolerance. There were also political or emotional reason to supply blankets to the Union Army. Many of the soldiers were relatives, neighbors or friends. Morrison's Cove, the valley in which the two mills are located, had hundreds of pards involved in the conflict.

Civil War Blanket Specifications

The Adjutant General was responsible for the specifications of the Uniform and Dress of the Army of the United States during the war. In 1851, General Order Number 31 described No. 143 Blanket- woolen, grey, with letters U.S. in black, four inches long, in the centre, to be seven feet long and five and a half feet wide and to weigh five pounds.

Through a government exchange of enlisted soldier uniforms and equipment in1858, two blankets of the 1851 pattern are preserved in the Danish Military Museum in Copenhagen.

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