RARE CIVIL WAR US CONTRACTOR MARKED RUBBER BLANKET IN EXCELLENT CONDITION

$7,500.00 SOLD

Quantity Available: None

Item Code: 1052-1140

This rubberized blanket a very scarce piece of Civil War issue field gear that is maker marked, contract dated, in excellent condition and displays like gangbusters, with the rubber coated surface flexible, showing full coverage with no flaking, peeling or tears, just a few small light brown paint stains, and displays even better with one corner folded back to show the markings on the underside.  The cloth underside is fully intact and bears a red contractors stamp in one corner reading in one oval, “MANUFACTURED / BY / THE PHOENIX RUBBER CO. / LICENSED BY.” followed by a second, larger oval below: “UNION INDIA RUBBER Co. / EXCLUSIVE / MANUFACTURERS / GOODYEARS PATENT / DEC. 25. 1849 / EXTENDED 1858 / NEW – YORK.” Just below this is another red stamp, in oblong border, “DEC. 19. 1864,” which the contract date for its manufacture. A few of the letters are faint on the right tip of the second stamp, with the initial patent date a bit light, but they are very visible, clear and unambiguous. On the opposite end of the poncho in large black letters is stenciled, “JOHN M. EGGLESTON / E. BURKE, VT.”

The Union Indian Rubber Company had been dealing with Goodyear since at least 1848 producing various rubber goods, and in the Civil War held an exclusive license from Goodyear for their sale to the U.S. Government. Bazelon places their wartime contracts for rubberized blankets at a total of 500,000 from 1862-1865. The Phoenix Rubber Company, run by Warren Ackerman & Co. in Naugatuck, CT, was one of three known subcontractors to the Union Indian Rubber Company in fulfillment of their US Army contracts.

Despite the large numbers manufactured during the war, US contracts for various types ran to 1,703,401 and private and state purchases would add to that, these survive in very, very limited numbers, in part from deterioration due to poor army postwar storage, which led to a mass sell-off of surplus in the 1880s, and even more from their obvious usefulness in civilian life, which meant few would remain unused in a veteran’s attic, only to be discarded eventually when worn out.

This measures about 44 ½ inches wide by 70 inches long (not completely flattened out) with applied 1/2  inch wide reinforcing edge strip, and has 18 brass grommets mounted along the edges, passing through 1 ½” by 1 ½” reinforcing squares of rubber set as diamond shapes, with the grommets 1 inch from the edge. These were to allow soldiers to lace them together to form waterproof tents as well as use them for ground cloths. One grommet is placed in each corner. On the short sides there are two equally spaced between them. On one long side there are four equally spaced between the end grommets, but on the other long side there are an extra two, set close to the middle two, with the idea of letting the soldier run a lace or thong through them to secure it around his neck and over his shoulders, creating an improvised poncho. (Blanket pins and other devices were likely used as well. Commercial vendors were quick to offer spring hooks mounted with regulation general service button faces for the soldier who wanted something more military for his raingear.) See Babits’s 1995 article in the CMH journal on rubber blankets and ponchos recovered from the U.S. transport Maple Leaf and Woshner’s excellent book on gutta-percha and rubber products of the period for details and discussion of wartime design and variations in both rubber blankets and ponchos.

The stenciled name and location are clear and unambiguous. We find a John F. Eggleston serving in the 14th Vermont, but the middle initial differs and he was out of the service before the contract date of the poncho. An obvious candidate presents himself in John Mason Eggleston, in 1860 a farmer in Burke, VT, with a post office address of East Burke, who died in 1879 and is buried in Woodmont Cemetery in East Burke. Born in 1816, however, he would have been too old for military service either active or likely even in a home-guard unit. We can’t rule it out as a practical postwar civilian purchase of army surplus by John M., but he might have gotten it from a returning veteran, perhaps from one of the four Eggleston’s from Burke who were likely related to him in some way and whose service records fit the contract date in the blanket.

Without some further connection or provenance, however, this is reaching, but regardless of its immediate source, this is a rare and remarkably well preserved, Army-issue, mint condition piece of Civil War soldier’s gear that would be the centerpiece of any camp or field gear display.  [sr] [ph:L]

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