The National Snuggie of Texas is Green

Believe it or not, Texas gets cold in the Winter and the fashions used in other parts of the South and country at large were incorporated in the Lonestar Republic. We’re going to be diving into blanket coats and Mackinaw blankets as they relate to Texas in general this go around.

First things first, what is a blanket coat or a Mackinaw? A blanket coat is simple enough to decipher you’d figure but what you think is a firm surface quickly pulls you under the quicksand. A blanket coat could be made from a blanket or wool duffle, or even strouding, or basic woolens no one would consider using as a blanket. They could be hooded or have a basic collar, they could have basic sleeves or have cuffs, and they might be belted or have double or single rows of button. Generally though they exhibit articulating sleeves and keyhole backs and were cut in a frock type fashion.

One thing to note regardless is there are key regional variations and styles that can be called out by the keen eye. A blanket coat from Mississippi is not going to be the same as the capote keeping a Cree man warm in the north. nomenclature helps cement this divide as well with most Southern Americans refering to these kinds of coats as blanket coats and very rarely “capotes”.

A good rule of thumb is to remember all capotes are blanket coats but not all blanket coats are capotes.

A mackinaw was a grade of trade blanket that throughout the period became synonymous with the generic product. You see this nowadays with people refering to a “coke” when asking for any carbonated drink whether Coca Cola or not; or as in journeymen electricians calling all sidecutter pliers by the Klein brand name. Trade blankets in general were known for their point/bar system of sizing and their black/indigo bar on both ends. By the 1820’s they were being seen in colors like white, red, green, or blue. They were an essential element on the frontier as well as sold it major eastern cities like Baltimore, Charleston, and Washington DC to name a few.

Join me as we explore the quotations surrounding both these things all within a colonial and Republic era Texas. To give a better understanding of the descriptions you will be reading here are images of blankets in the Southern and Western United States from the era

Missouri 1818

Early 1820’s Indian Territory

1830’s Rocky Mountains

1830’s Rocky Mountains, painted years later

1844 rural South

With these visuals in mind let’s dive into the text.

PRICE LIST

Natchitoches 10** December 1821.

pair of 3 point Blankets at $5 pr. pair. $15

Col. Stephen F Austin will Please To Settle with the Person who is authorized to Settle the Estate of D. Marple and Much Oblige

Natchitoches 27h July 1824-

The Austin Papers, Vol. 1 Pt. 1

AUSTIN TO WILLIAM T. AUSTIN

Col Stephen F Austin

Bot of Wm T Austin

1 pr 4 point Blankets. $6.00

Brazoria Decr. 14th 1830

The Austin Papers, Vol. 2

French or Mc a Knaw blankets is all the sort that will sell here

I think that 40 thousand dollars worth of Indian produce can be taken in here between now and the first of next Feby perhaps much more [for] the Cherokees, Shawnees, Delawares & Kickapoos have been very successfull at beaver this winter they

say that they will all go and sweep them the next.

Francis Smith, Tenoxtitlan March 11th 1832

December 3, 1833

Gave taylor pair pantaloons-red ones-to make me a Blanket coat-&e He went to work in my back room

December 5, 1833

¼-bot of Perry & Sommerville 2 Blankets & trimmings for Capot. $6.68 or thereabouts, taylor took measure & cut out the same &c.

January 23, 1834

Sent my blanket coat to Mrs. Hammer to mend-

William Barrett Travis Diary

“While others were sent around the place, picking the dead and wounded, among those that they brought in mortally wounded was a man that had on him a green blanket coat, he was shot through the side of the head, and laid on his back keeping up a species of snoring, which sounded so peculiar that one could not help noticing it”

“[Ben Milam] was shot through the temples, the ball coming as near out on the other side, that it made a swelling and was cut out with a razor, I had been looking at him a few minutes before as he stood there dressed in a white Blanket coat”

First Hand Account of the Siege of Bexar From the Republic Pension Application of Joseph Lopez

Sterling C Robertson

Milam 7th Feby 1836

P S 1/2 Dozen linnen shirts

4 checked Do

2 Macinaw blanket of blue, red or green of the largest size

PAPERS CONCERNING ROBERTSON'S COLONY IN TEXAS, Volume XIII

To Genl S. F Austin B T Archer Wm Wharton Commissioners

List of Articles, to be purchased by Col A Huston in N. Orleans

1200 Blankets 3½ point French Coloured

Austin Papers volume 3

Memoranda of a Trip to the South from Fredericksburg,
Virginia, begun January 17, 1837

Left Fredericksburg at 12 o'clock m. in the cars on the railroad, baggage consisting of one large black trunk, one hair trunk, saddle bags, hat box with a hat in it, having a cap on my head, umbrella and sword tied together, a large green blanket with a horse blanket and leggings wrapt up in it (too much by half).

The Diary of William Fairfax Gray From Virginia to Texas 1835-1837

“Deaf Smith's horse bore evident marks of superior breeding,) with a Mexican saddle, consisting of the bare tree with a blanket or great coat covered over it. Mexican spurs, the shank about from one to two or three inches long-bridle of ponderous and very rank bits--a Mexican gourd swung from the saddle bow--holsters--pair of pistols and bowie knife in the belt, a rifle on the shoulder--a mackinaw blanket rolled up encroupe-a cabarrus, or rope of hair around the horse's neck”

-Matagorda Bulletin. (Matagorda, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 6, Ed. 1, Wednesday, September 6, 1837

(Note this mext passage is 1842 but I have added it here in the timeline for a logical continuity and conclusion)

“entered the house of Widdow Smith, said to be the widdow of Deaf Smith where they laid their hands on and took off three blankets, two of which were Mexican and one Mackinaw. These were taken off by those boys who services to steal this covering off the widows and orphans of the Wife of a man who had suffered every privation that was possible for his Country in her hour of peril and died a martyr to patriotism”

Attack and Counterattack

No. 20

ACCOUNT OF INDIAN BUREAU WITH W. B. BRONAUGH

[April 7, 1838]

Government of Texas Tonkawa

Dr To W. N. Bronaugh

6 Mack Blankets. 5 30.00

" 11 Blankets. 2.50 27.50

TEXAS INDIAN PAPERS, 1825-1843

“The costume most in vogue at Galveston is the Blanket Frock Coat & trousers, with the simple & elegant alteration as to the general mode of wearing the latter of pulling the boots over them.”

“The first that struck me was a gentleman apparently of about 40 years, attired in a frock coat made out of a scarlet blanket with a black edging, & picking his teeth with a Bowie Knife. In this unpretending employment was engaged no less a personage than Mr McKinnie of the firm of McKinnie & Williams, the Barings of Texas”

“The only other person of note on board was a red-headed gentleman in a tanned deerskin doublet, &-liquor. This garment however he doffed on the following day & appeared in a green blanket frock & black border, jealous I suppose of the gawdy McKinnie.”

Galveston Island, Or, A Few Months Off the Coast of Texas: The Journal of Francis C. Sheridan, 1839–1840

“Whenever Walker was hunting in the vicinity of his farm, he wore a glaring-green blanket coat and asserted that the stags, rendered curious by the sight of the striking color, would stop until he had come near enough to shoot them. I convinced myself of the truth of this statement, and henceforth the red and green coats did not surprise me any more.”

“In the month of July, 1840, there was great excitement in Houston among the youth able to bear arms. The Indians on the upper Brazos were bothering some settlers in Robertson's colony. They had to be chastised. To effect this, a company of volunteers formed without delay. It was a comical sight to observe these brave Texians appear on the drill ground. They were more like a gang of robbers about to undertake a raid than disciplined soldiers who risked time, money, and life to protect their fellow citizens from future invasions of the redskins. One of them was clad half-Mexican and sat on a mule, an old saber strapped to the left side of the saddle, pistols and cartridges for the musket-like gun in his belt. Another, restraining a mustang and nearly touching the ground with his feet, was wrapped in a wide motley blanket coat, below which the bowie knife was concealed. He carried a little leather bag with ammunition and the long, old, but reliable rifle, with both his hands resting upon it, across the pommel.”

Gustav Dresel's Houston Journal: Adventures in North America and Texas, 1837-1841

“While passing a gateway near the entrance to the kitchen, a dragoon trailing close at my heels, I encountered, face to face, the prisoner confined in the dungeon adjoining our apartment. He was dressed in a green blanket coat, with black collar and cuffs, had large, black whiskers, and wore his hair extremely long, and although his complexion at the time appeared dark, his face was extremely pale. I was about to accost him, when he gave me a look that appeared to be so full of mingled scorn, hatred, and en-mity, that I was for a moment chilled into silence.”

“As we approached the centre of the city, although it was now almost eleven o'clock at night, we met numbers passing. My dress plainly denoted that I was no

-countryman of theirs, for I wore a blanket coat I had purchased of an American at Chihuahua, and an American hat. The sight of a foreigner thus attired, and thus strongly guarded through the streets at an hour so unseasonable, excited not a little curiosity in the passers-by, and they crowded under the lamps and peered inquisitively in my face.”

“By-and-by his eye fell upon one of our officers, Lieutenant Hornsby, who happened to be the best-dressed man in the party.

His well-wadded and full-buttoned Texan dragoon-jacket was new, or nearly new, his cap and military trousers had seen but little service, while his blanket was of that fiery and showy red which could not fail to attract in a country where gaudy and glaring colours are so much sought after and admired.”

Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé expedition

“The Mexicans had robbed them of their clothing; my son, on his arrival in San Antonio, was in his shirt-sleeves. Mrs. Elliot took a green blanket-coat off of her son, and put it on mine. This coat, he afterwards said, was the means of saving his life.”

FLOWERS AND FRUITS IN THE WILDERNESS; Or, Thirty-six Years in Texas and Two Winters in Honduras.

“In order to save the ballance of his men, though scarcely able to walk, he advanced towards the enemy with a white flag. (a Mackenaw blanket stuck on a gun.) This was done twice, to which the enemy showed no respect, but continued their murderous and galling fire”

The Morning Star. (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 4, No. 419, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 10, 1842

“He says his name is William Doherty or Dougherty and that his parents live 12 miles south of Washington, Hempstead County, Arkansas. He says he is 19 years of age which corresponds with his ap-pearance. He is dressed in the cotton coat above mentioned. copper colored jeans pantaloons, much worn, the remains of a green blanket coat, and has on an old white hat and a pair of pretty good brogans.”

An editor's view of early Texas/Standard, Dec. 4, 1844

No. 123

ACCOUNT OF INDIAN BUREAU WITH TORREY AND BROTHERS

[January 12, 1845]

Indian Bureau

To. Torrey & Brothers.

6 pr. Supr. White Mackinaw Blankets 7.00

TEXAS INDIAN PAPERS, 1844-1845

“A number of men, evidently farmers, clad mostly in coarse, woolen blanket-coats of the brightest

colors — red, white and green - stood around the stove, engaged in lively conversation.”

Texas; with particular reference to German immigration and the physical appearance of the country

Ending on that note I hope you’ve come away having seen a new angle or your own rabbit trail to take this study. Blanket coats are still an area that more research is needed to be spread to a wider audience. But till next time, keep warm!