Mitten Knittin’

Great coat, no mittens

We’ve seen Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs explaining the need for $800,000 worth of heavy winter clothing. Here he is apparently reaching out to citizens to help by making mittens for the troops in the field.

From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in November 1861:

Mitten Knitting for the Army

The approach of cold weather should remind us of the condition of our bave [brave] soldiers who are now in arms defending the Government from the ruthless hand of treason and rebellion. We have a large and patriotic army in the field, and there must be a great deal of suffering during the coming winter unless every effort is made to render their condition comfortable and happy. Our Government furnishes no mittens for its soldiers, nor are the kind required for those in the field made by machinery, but must be knit stitch by stitch by the nimble fingers of our patriotic women. The Quarter-master General has called upon the people for mittens to supply the wants of the army, and with a hearty and enthusiastic response from all quarters. Every patriot should respond either by giving yarn, or money with which to buy it or by knitting the material contributed by others. As the shaping of the mitten will be new to many who may wish to commence them at once, we give the following directions published in many of our exchanges: Cast 24 stitches on two needles, and 23 on the middle one. … [The rest of the directions are at least 15 lines of a single-column newspaper – extremely “Greek to me”]

The Humble Stitcher has a piece about knitting in the Civil War.