Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

[MickCole]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

Awesome pictures!
So much for the oft-repeated maxim that broadfall trousers were no longer being worn.
Mick Cole
37th VA Co E

[Citizen_Soldier]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

Greetings,
Great thread and cool photos!

From my research on nineteenth century mens civilian clothing via photographs, artwork, advertisements, and etc...fall front trousers would have been atypical among civilians during the time of the Rebellion. In studying any source whether it be an extant garment, photo, or manuscript, one needs to be objective and examine the context.

One reads of civilian clothing being donated to the soldiers in drives, such as shirts and etc. Could these trousers be an old fashioned pair that were in someone's attic that were donated for the war effort?

Also, not knowing much about the collection and it's provenance...I wonder if the trousers could possibly be an addition to the grouping, possibly having been worn by the individual prior to the war or being added to the grouping as a pair of "cool old trousers."

Concerning Stillwell, he wrote his work when he was in his seventies and in one part of the book described General Grant as wearing a uniform coat with a cape. That doesn't mean we should rush out to add capes to our reproduction dress coats...his memory may have been faulting him and he could have described the "planter" in the way he did to stereotype the south, to poke fun, or just to inject some humor into his book. :)

I don't feel there is enough here to claim that fall front trousers were common by any means during the war years among civilians...even if they lived in rural areas. Clothing was being transported all across the United States via boat, rail, and etc. Even rural towns without railroads during this time period had access to modern clothing via teamsters acquiring goods from large town suppliers, out of town rail stations, and docks. There is overwhelming evidence of this in period store ledgers. I'm not saying everyone looked like a fashion plate but not everyone was wearing decades old fashions either. :)

Once again great photos! Thanks Dan and Brian for sharing!

Darrek Orwig

[Dreamer42]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

In the book "The Civil War Letters of Joshua K. Callaway" 28th Alabama Joshua writes to his wife asking for clothes, "P.S. If you get this before Baley leaves send me a shirt & some socks by him..." (Aug 13, 1863, Tenn.). There are other entries asking for his wife to send a lighter shirt as the warmer days of Spring approach.

In Pvt. Snedden's book on his sketches he writes home asking for his boots (to wear instead of his army shoes) as winter approaches in the Fall of 1862 in Virginia.

It would seem to me that, regardless of the location of the troops, they were constantly asking for their families to send articles of clothing.

- Jay Reid
Dreamer42
9th Texas

[Dan Wambaugh]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

Folks,

The trousers were definitely worn by Speck during his term of service, as evidenced by the MASSIVE amount of saddle wear and repairs done to the seat. The similarity of the material to the materials used to make his coat and jacket also lead me to believe that they were part of the initial batch of clothing he wore when he went off to war, all made by loving hands at home.

That said, I agree 100% with Darrek that this grouping, while fascinating and informative should not by any means be the basis for a "common" impression. If every CS private showed up to an overland campaign event dressed in a double breasted overfrock, fall front trousers, and home made jackets sewn with black silk thread, well, that would be just as bad as wearing the famed "Weller" overcoat to events where the CS impression is something other than the 5th Kentucky at Fort Donelson.

It's groupings like this that can certainly quiet the "PEC" nazis out there, but more than anything they show that real research, not generalizations based upon what you read in EoG or on a forum are needed to put together a stellar impression. Every single article of original clothing I examine does away with something I thought I knew, and the idea that original uniforms, especially CS uniforms can be fit into neat little categories is completely and utterly incorrect.

Just some food for thought.


Best,

Dan

[David Fox]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

Re: clothing from home. Remember that, as the war progressed, more and more southron soldiers were cut-off from such assets...first Kentuckians, then Marylanders, Tennesseeans, anybody from the wrong side of the Mississippi, etc. Orphans.

[DougCooper]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

That is the 3rd CS tin drum canteen I have seen with a wool cover...but the first surviving one. The other two were in period photos. Jim Mayo, etc - any idea how widespread this practice was...since it was universal for federal issue canteens?

[Stonewall_Greyfox]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

Greetings,

I don't feel there is enough here to claim that fall front trousers were common by any means during the war years among civilians...even if they lived in rural areas. Clothing was being transported all across the United States via boat, rail, and etc. Even rural towns without railroads during this time period had access to modern clothing via teamsters acquiring goods from large town suppliers, out of town rail stations, and docks. There is overwhelming evidence of this in period store ledgers. I'm not saying everyone looked like a fashion plate but not everyone was wearing decades old fashions either. :)

It's been a few years, but fall-front trousers have been discussed at length here on the forum. The conclusion from the "self-proclaimed" experts then was that these would be anything BUT common. This despite the references to them, from good provenanced collections, and non-provenanced as well.

A friend of mine now owns 2 pairs of fall front trousers, which came from a trunk out of Rockbridge County, Virginia...we cannot document these to the war, but they have the following features:

Medium-Weight Wool Broadcloth, Blue...completely handsewn

Heavy-Wool/Cotton Jeans Cloth, Green...machine sewn seams, and piecing...handsewn button holes and topstitching

Now this doesn't mean every soldier or farmer should wear these style trousers...as they would certainly not be as common as button-fly during this period...but we need to move beyond the idea that these would just be wrong for our period...in portraying people of this era, we need to remember that not every community was on the forefront of fashon...and indeed it took a while for many communities to transition, just as it does today.

Sorry for the sidetrack,

Paul B.

Imprisoned in a land where the Mullet still reigns supreme.

[Elaine Kessinger]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

Also remember where gents got their clothing before the war started and how that changed rapidly once the war got under way. Tailors, Cutters, and Seamsters were the same as gents in other professions, they joined up and were conscripted too. As were the gents who ran second-hand clothing markets and ready-to-wear emporiums. The women and graybeards who were left were often under goverment contract to produce the "slop" that was issued and/or very limited in the fabrics, notions, and trimmings they could obtain. Contrary to popular myth, there really were very few super-domestic-godesses who were able to whip out men's tailored garments at home, and if she can't make it, and she can't buy it, how can she send it?
One can also make the argument, in rebuttle, that a gent wouldn't request an item he didn't think his folks could find/make.. but he may not be aware of how the blockade in the south and the lack of imports in the north were effecting his folks.
Finally, were one to use "clothes from home" in one's impression, make sure they "fit" as if they were made for you alone. This era saw the START of standard sizing of menswear, pre-war almost all of it was custom made to fit one person, and the folks at home and tailors used pre-war would know the Measurements (not sizes, measurements) of the person the garment is for. ...and if it's something a fond woman would make, add in details that make it personal: monogram, fancy needlework, extra hand-work. It's one of the socially acceptable ways women showed affection in this era.

[DougCooper]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

At one point in 1864, the 28th Louisiana (Piney Woods impression) moved with their brigade through the area of their homes. For 2-3 days the families moved along with the brigade sewing, mending and supplying all manner of clothing to the troops. Source is the Brigade QM, Silas T. Grisamore.

[Iceman]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

Doug,

A comment about your question of cloth covered Confederate canteen; "I was burning with thirst, and applied to my canteen, but found it was nearly empty, and I observed a hole in it, showing that the ball had passed through it. The cloth covering having got worn off the canteen, the water had got warm with the sun, and it had been that which trickled on my hand" - Life in the Confederate Army, by William Watson, Co. K, 3rd Louisiana Infantry.

And just so that this post doesn't go off topic, in my research I, too, have read many letters and memouirs where a soldier would have his messmate ,who was going home, bring him back letters and clothing. It would seem that the average Confederate (since this thread seems to be all about the Confederacy) relied more upon item either being sent from home, or for someone in the regiment to go home on furlough and bring items back, than on the State or Centeral Governments for clothing. However, like the post above, if that soldier's home is now in occupied territory, there would be very little chance of any things, or any one, getting either in or out. Just in the State of Louisiana; if you lived in Eastern Louisiana, eventhough the Federals took control of New Orleans and Baton Rouge in the spring of 1862, a Louisiana soldier in the AOT or ANV whose hometown was in the Florida Parishes would have a better chance of obtaining items from home either via the post or by furloughed messmate, than a soldier whose home was in Western Louisiana; i.e. on the western side of the Mississippi River. So like always, it goes back to the time and place for the impression you're going for.

[VMI88]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

...but we need to move beyond the idea that these would just be wrong for our period...in portraying people of this era, we need to remember that not every community was on the forefront of fashon...and indeed it took a while for many communities to transition, just as it does today.

Paul,

You're absolutely right. I still see folks wearing "Member's Only" jackets, which have been out of style for 25 years. That's kind of a silly example, but just because something isn't fashionable doesn't mean it's never worn. Especially in the 19th Century when people didn't have the same mass-produced disposable culture we have today.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

Hallo!

"It would seem that the average Confederate (since this thread seems to be all about the Confederacy) relied more upon item either being sent from home, or for someone in the regiment to go home on furlough and bring items back, than on the State or Centeral Governments for clothing."

While that was certainly true in specific instances of time, place, and circumstance...

IMHO, I would not want to see it made into an Universal Statement.

Others' mileage will vary...

Curt

[KarinTimour]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

Another consideration is that of cost. My current understanding of how enlisted men were charged by the armies for clothing is as follows (subject to correction by those of you who have done more on this than I):

a. If you were a US or Confederate Regular, you were operating on a schedule of being able to "draw" on X number of particular items of clothing in a year. My primary interest is knitted stuff, and my current understanding is that the army (US and CS) had you scheduled for 4 pair of socks a year.

b. If you were Federal volunteer troops, you had an annual amount "budgeted for your clothing. If memory serves it was about $46. You could use up to that amount of money in drawing whatever you wanted (and the QM had available) without cost.


In either system, if you used more than the amount "allotted" to you, either drew more than your $46 or for example, drew 6 pair of stockings, then the difference was subtracted from the amount you were earning by being in the army.

On the other hand, if you drew less clothing than the army had you scheduled to get, the difference between what you drew and the maximum allotted to you would be refunded to you. I'm not that clear how often you got this money. I know when you mustered out, anything left in your clothing allowance was added to your mustering out pay. I think in the interim, the amount you had in reserve was just added to the following year's allotment. I'd welcome any corrections of the above from any of you who know more about this than I do.

Returning to the issue at hand, clothing from home. If you understood the clothing allocation system, and you had a means of writing home and getting clothing from home, either by mail or by people bringing it back when they return from furlough or sick leave, it was in your financial best interest to get socks, drawers, shirts from home, if you had people at home who could supply you. Added to this financial incentive the points that Miz Elaine raised about how the clothing from home fit you, and the quality of what they would have sent you, and for some people it was a financially wise move to send for clothing from home.

As was pointed out in a similiar thread earlier this year, the quality of the craftsmanship would vary. If your mother/wife/sister had been making you shirts with huge stitches and poor buttonholes that didn't fit you all your life, they probably kept doing that while you were in the army. WE have clear documentation of people saying that the uniform they got in the service was the best suit of clothes they'd ever owned. Chances are good, however, that most people were used to a better quality of stocking than the ones that were issued.

Remember also the whole issue of the use of wool for Federal underwear. As I understand it, most men weren't used to wearing wool underwear, and that the war revolutionized the use of wool in this way in the post war years. Which implies that drawers and proably most shirts from home would have been cotton. There's a letter home that a Confederate wrote after rifling through a dead Federal's knapsack -- he'd found two pair of wool stockings, the first he'd ever tried, and he thought them much better than any stockings he'd ever had on before.

Another issue is that while the Eastern Theater Federals were used to pretty regular mails, there were particular instances when that wasn't so. The Carolinas Campaign, the March to Atlanta, and the seige of Chattenooga are a few examples that spring to mind. During those time periods, you'd be drawing from the QM or going without.

As others have said, goes back to your particular impression, the area where the soldier you were portraying grew up, the unit he was in, the army he was in and where they were in the war.

Hope that's helpful,
Karin Timour
Period Knitting -- Socks, Sleeping Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[csuniforms]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

Hello, "clothing from home," a person could spend his whole life researching this one segment of Confederate material culture. I have viewed hundreds of letters by CS soldiers asking for clothing-- sending what they cant use back for storage and describing what they need for cold weather wear or to replace what was lost or wore out.
That the Southern Populace was the chief source of clothing for the ANV and the AOT from April of 1861 to Spring of 1863, and to a lesser extant beyond is a given.-- The following article gives a little more insight to the question. It is dated fall of 1862. The time when the two major Armies were reported in rags and barefeet. The following year the Commutation System was dropped and the QM Department made responsible for supplying each and every Confederate soldier under the Depot system.
The descriptions we read of CS soldiers, "no two dressed alike"-- runs through the entire Civil War, and while we as researchers and living historians struggle with the question of Depot uniforms vs. "sent from home". I quote from my book,

"A Confederate private's appearance changed month-to-month, circumstance. Each individual and Company had their own story to tell, their own trials in keeping properly clothed."

It just goes on and on-- one bit of information at a time.---


AMERICAN CITIZEN [CANTON, MS], October 31, 1862, p. 1, c. 1
Clothing for the Army.
It is a settled fact, admitted on all hands, that our government cannot supply our soldiers in the field with clothing. It behooves us, then, to inquire, "Are the people doing all in their power to supply the deficiency?" We fear they are not. We fear that there is too great an indifference prevailing in the public mind on this all-important subject. If our armies are not fed and clothed, they cannot fight, and if they cannot fight and fight successfully, we are a subjugated people, beyond all peradventure. Let every one who has a relative in the army, to see to it that he is well clothed. Let them not rest night nor day till that is accomplished. Having accomplished that, let him or her then "not grow weary in well doing," but go forward in the good work, and do all they can to clothe some other person who may not be so fortunate as to have relatives at home to care for them. You need not be afraid of doing too much. If the particular friend for whom you buy and sew should have more than he needs, rest assured he has a comrade in arms who is needy, and to whom he will turn over his surplus.
Since commencing this article our eye has fallen upon an article in the Richmond Whig on this subject, which we cannot do better than to transfer. The Whig, in referring to the army under General Lee, from which it has direct information, says that many of his soldiers have not changed their clothing since they left Richmond. They have slept in it, fought in it, crossed the Potomac in it, marched over dusty roads and through storm and sunshine in it; yet they have not changed it or washed it in all this time, because they had no other to put on when that was taken off. The reader will not be surprised to hear, therefore, that many of the troops are covered with vermin, and their clothing rotten and dirty beyond anything they have ever seen. There is no negro in the south who is not better off in this respect, than some of the best soldiers and first gentlemen in all the land.
The same journal understands that the government has already forwarded to General Lee's army over thirty thousand garments and a large shipment of shoes. This number of garments, allowing a coat, pair of pants and shirt to a man, will furnish suits, say, for ten thousand needy men. This will go far toward relieving the more destitute. The government has in its employ in Richmond fifty-eight tailors who cut out the cloth, and twenty-seven hundred women who make it up into garments—the whole turning out, on an average, nine thousand garments per week, or coats, pants and shirts for three thousand men. There are other establishments in other parts of the Confederacy, where clothing is being manufactured for the army, and the force engaged is sufficient, perhaps, to turn out twenty thousand garments a week. At this rate, estimating our army in the field at four hundred thousand men, it would require more than a year to furnish each man with a single suit of clothes. If we suppose the various government establishments will be able to supply two hundred thousand men by Christmas, there will still be two hundred thousand left who will have to look to the people at home for their outfits, or go without clothing. If the government should provide for three hundred thousand, the number left for the country to clothe would still be frightfully large—one hundred thousand men!
These figures are merely rough estimates, and are only intended to serve the purpose of directing the attention of the people to the magnitude of the labor before them. After government shall have done all it can, there will still be much left for the warm hearts and willing hands of the people to perform. And, if they would accomplish this labor in time to benefit those for whom it is undertaken, they cannot set about it too soon. The weather among the mountains in Virginia is already cold to the men who do duty for us with only tattered, dirty and threadbare garments upon their manly limbs. Let the people, then, everywhere, and in whatever circumstances, commence the good work as soon as possible, and never leave off until one of the best and bravest armies in the world shall have been furnished with all the comforts it may be in our power to bestow. There are none so indigent that they cannot contribute something to the relief of such troops as ours. Let it be remembered that though destitute as they are represented to be and though many of them have gone without food for days together, and that at a time when they were making long marches and fighting bloody battles with the enemies of our country, still they are cheerful, patient and resolute as ever, and are ready now, as they have been at all times, to assert their birthright to be free. If the invader thinks differently he has only to seek them where they are, and he will soon be cured of his folly.

Tom Arliskas
CSuniforms

[kevin]

Re: Clothes From Home/Private Purchase

hello,
I know its not quite on topic, but it was in the pics associated with this thread so, close enough. I'm wondering about the tin can w/ bail in the photo of the accoutrements. It looks like the lid goes over te outside of the container, more like an old lunch pail or "growler " that I've seen associated with the ninteenth century mine workers. Am I correct about this or do my eyes deceive me?