Original Gray Issue Shirt

[Charles W. Mood]

Gents,
Has anyone run across an original domet 3-button issue shirt in gray in their travels to museums and historical sites? I'm interested in making one, but I need to find out what shades of gray were used (light gray, dark gray, blue-gray, etc.) I can imagine that there were probably many shades used, but I would like to locate an original and match it in color so my reproduction is historically based, not just a gray I happened to find. Photos or locations of such shirts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanking you in advance...

Chuck Mood

[ScottCross]

Re: Original Gray Issue Shirt

The West Point Museum has an original, but it is blue. There are two at the Smithsonian, but I don't think those are regulation. You should probably contact William Brester at the 1st Division Museum. He did extensive research before reproducing his.

[GreencoatCross]

Re: Original Gray Issue Shirt

The Columbia Rifles Research Compendium cites an original in the collection of Aaron Phelps, but the shirt is a "contract variant" style in plain woven gray wool flannel (CRRC Vol. 2, pg. 53, II.8 Shirts!). There is another gray wool flannel shirt of the same style (with a soldier-modified collar) in a collection out of Hamilton, OH that I viewed back in 1999 but the collection was since broken up a few years later and I have no idea where the shirt went. This shirt was cut from a "mixed" fiber medium gray 2/1 twill woven flannel. These are the only surviving examples of gray issue shirts that I am aware of but note that they are not the "Quartermaster pattern" with three buttons.

Gray wool flannel or domet flannel shirts in the QM/three-button style do show up in original photographs. I found several from various photographs in the Library of Congress online collection. They can be seen at the bottom of the page here: http://www.wwandcompany.com/garment-...shirt-kit.html

Edit: Links to the original, uncropped photographs are below. If you look at the shirts you will see that they are the QM/three-button style and do vary in color. All appear to be "mixed" gray in shades that seem to range from medium-dark to light gray. The thought that some original shirts might have been logwood-dyed white domet or wool flannel has been floating around for some time but I think that is only speculation.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003004850/PP/

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003006282/PP/

[David Fox]

Re: Original Gray Issue Shirt

Humm. What about the Danish goverment reciprocal collection of U.S. Army uniform items, the subject of a recent thread?

[Doughboy]

Re: Original Gray Issue Shirt

Sounds like he is looking for an original he can actually see and match fabric.

[Charles W. Mood]

Re: Original Gray Issue Shirt

Gents,
I did think of the Danish exchange uniforms until I saw Steven Osman's article on the federal shirt (article is located on this website). Osman describes the exchanged shirt(s) as white or cream colored, not gray. His comments from that article are below... and yes, I am trying to find an original to match the fabric.

"In determining what this enlisted shirt looked like we are fortunate to have a well documented regular army example to examine. In 1858 the War Department exchanged sets of current military clothing and equipment with the Danish government. Still Carefully preserved in the Royal Arsenal Museum in Copenhagen are uniforms,drawers, stockings, blankets and shirts as worn by the U.S. Regular Army just prior to theCivil War. The army flannel shirt is off white or cream color flannel (wool on a cottonwarp) with reinforced slit front opening, squared collar closed by a single stamped sheet iron button at the base, tapered sleeves with internally faced cuffs formed as part of thesleeve and closed by single buttons, reinforcing strap across the top of each shoulder and avery full cut in the body. With minor variations, this was to be the most widely issued Federal shirt into the mid 1870’s."

Chuck Mood