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Tried without success to find the thread on historical precedents for adding another button & button hole to enlarge a repro US issue shirt collar so it would actually button. One original example, at least, indeed survives.to document this alteration.
Back in 1995 I wrote an article titled The Union Army Standard Size and Make Shirt which appeared in the Journal of the Company of Military Historians, Vol. XLVII, No. 3, Fall 1995 which is largely about the Saroni contract shirt in the famed Troiani collection. Another government shirt surfaced just before the essay went to the editors. It had another button and button hole "near the top of the breast slit, just below the as-made ones on the collar, perhaps to custom enlarge the one-size-fits-all collar of the issue garment." It was worn by Sergeant Charles Bright, 17th Ohio Infantry and is in a private collection. I saw it just as it was purchased at a relic show and did not have an opportunity to take pictures or measurements.
Hope this is of interest.
Dean Nelson
1st Maryland Infantry, CSA, N-SSA
descent:
Private Alston Houston, Co. H, 30th Virginia Infantry; the Sparta Greys
Private Andrew Jackson Schroll, Co. E, 149th Illinois Volunteers
Back in 1995 I wrote an article titled The Union Army Standard Size and Make Shirt which appeared in the Journal of the Company of Military Historians, Vol. XLVII, No. 3, Fall 1995 which is largely about the Saroni contract shirt in the famed Troiani collection. Another government shirt surfaced just before the essay went to the editors. It had another button and button hole "near the top of the breast slit, just below the as-made ones on the collar, perhaps to custom enlarge the one-size-fits-all collar of the issue garment." It was worn by Sergeant Charles Bright, 17th Ohio Infantry and is in a private collection. I saw it just as it was purchased at a relic show and did not have an opportunity to take pictures or measurements.
Hope this is of interest.
Dean Nelson
1st Maryland Infantry, CSA, N-SSA
descent:
Private Alston Houston, Co. H, 30th Virginia Infantry; the Sparta Greys
Private Andrew Jackson Schroll, Co. E, 149th Illinois Volunteers