BUFFALO COATS by Zina Abbott

Have you ever suffered the disappointment of recalling having seen an old 1800s photo hanging on a museum wall, and thinking you took a picture of it, only to discover you do not have such an image in your computer photos files? Such is what happened to me.

Buffalo coat & hat-Custer Courthouse Museum

I recall seeing an image of about four or five soldiers standing on the parade ground of a fort. Snow was on the ground, and the men were bundled up in buffalo coats, gloves, and hats. I believe this reproduction of an older photo was hanging in the Custer Courthouse Museum close by this buffalo coat display of which I did take a photo.

American plains bison

First, the animal in North America that most people call a buffalo, is not in actuality a buffalo. Buffalo are not found naturally in this continent. Technically, the proper name for the animal is bison, although they are all sub-species of Bovidae, the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes bison, African buffalo, water buffalo, antelopes, sheep, goats, muskoxen, and domestic cattle. So, when people refer to “buffalo coats,” they are actually talking about bison coats.

Sleeveless bison robes have been worn by the indigenous people of North America for centuries. Once the Europeans came to North America and moved west across the continent, as part of the fur trade, along with the more popular beaver, they collected bison hides which were also turned into coats, hats, and gloves.

 

Buffalo soldiers of the 25th Infantry, some wearing buffalo coats.

Buffalo coats were issued to police and military officers, particularly the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the United States Army, prior to their replacement by parkas. The coats were intended for use in extreme cold or arctic conditions.

Often, winters on the Great Plains of the North American continent, with their artic blizzards and drifting snow, get cold enough to fit in the “extreme cold” category. 

gloves made from buffalo hide

As the United States opened up the West to settlement and expansion of the railroads, the effort made to move the native tribes off their bison hunting grounds and onto reservations intensified. Buffalo hunting by whites rose to increasing levels, almost causing bison to become extinct. Although many bison were hunted only for their tongue while the rest of the animals were left in the field to rot, quite a few were skinned and the hides used to make winter outerwear. Buffalo coats became popular among the well-to-do. Only when hunting the animals was prohibited to keep them from extinction did using the pelts from the bison commercially for clothing end.

19th century men wearing buffalo coats

In my book, Hannah’s Handkerchief, one aspect of my plot revolves around the frontier forts of western Kansas. In spite of the danger of attack by hostile tribes—most notably, the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa—the soldiers obtained much of the meat in their diet by hunting the same bison that were the food source of the American Natives (another source of conflict between the two groups). That resulted in hides being acquired in addition to the meat. 

I’m sure in these primitive forts, many of which for the first few years had for structures dugouts in the riverbanks and/or soddies, those pelts would have been welcome for bedding or keeping the soldiers warm, especially on night patrol. So, what happens when my protagonist, Lt. Jake Burdock assigned to the Quartermaster Department of the Army, gets the brilliant idea to gather up those bison pelts and take them to the Army’s official tannery in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas to be processed and turned into cold-weather coats for the soldiers? I invite you to read and find out.

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