frock coat question

[11thCT]

Hey everyone,
I have been doing research on my unit, the 11th Connecticut, and I came across a newspaper article from 1861, and it has raised some questions for me. Here is the part of the article that interests me:


"Uniforms of dark blue, in the rifleman style, facings of the same color, with heavy black leather leggings, reaching nearly to the knee, and confining the pantaloon at that point, were worn by several companies. Other dispensed with the leggings, and wore green facings. All but the flank companies A and B were armed with improved Springfield Minie muskets, the former carrying breech-loading Sharpe's rifles, with sabre bayonets."

Does anyone know what the green facings would signify? Would these have been the two flank companies, designated as sharpshooters, perhaps?

[Bill52]

Re: frock coat question

I am not much of an expert on this but have you looked at Frederick P. Todd's book American Military Equipage 1851 to 1872? This is form Todd's chapter on Connecticut. Riflemen wore green pompons, piping, and trousers stripes, a yellow trumpet device on the dress caps. The color persisted well into the Civil War, for flank company tradition among Connecticut regiments died hard. In 1861 companies A and B of an infantry regiment were considered to be its rifle companies and were distinctively armed and uniformed as such: the others were called "the regimental companies."

Connecticut chose green because green was the U.S. Army's traditional color for riflemen. I would have to believe that for the two companies with green facings, the green indicated that they were designated rifle companies, not sharpshooters. You would need to talk to someone more knowledgeable than I, but before the War, in the U.S. sharpshooters and riflemen meant about the same thing. By the end of the War sharpshooters had under went a change in tactics and the term sharpshooters had come to mean something different. Sharpshooters of the late Civil War period were in general were more on the line of German yagers, riflemen were more in the British or Italian light infantry style.

William T. Carr
Company of Military Historians.

[11thCT]

Re: frock coat question

Hello Mr. Carr.
I have not seen Mr. Todd's book, but now that you have mentioned it, I will have to find myself a copy. Your thoughts on the matter concur with my own feelings that the green would have been used by the two flank companies.

I wish I could find some early war pictures of enlisted men from my unit. Does anyone have an idea on a good place to start looking? Internet searches have turned up nothing but photos of some of our various commanders.

[CompanyWag]

Re: frock coat question

Some humble suggestions for finding images of enlisted men. They will require much more leg work than a simple google search:

- Contact the state historical society. Speak with the archivist to see if they have any images in their collection. Be polite & be patient...they are often swamped with requests from researchers and geneologists.

- Contact local county historical societies in the counties where various companies of the 11th CT were raised.

- Set an eBay search for Civil War images of the 11th CT. Set it up to shoot you an automated email when a likely image surfaces. If lucky, you can glean info from an id'd image even without buying it.

- Get to know the local image collectors and dealers. Collectors can be guarded & suspicious of outside inquiries, but with the right approach you might get lucky.

[11thCT]

Re: frock coat question

Thanks Mr. McKee, for your input here! I should've thought to contact the Historical society earlier, but just never considered it. I've had saved searches on ebay for a while too, but with limited success.

[roundshot]

Re: frock coat question

Here's a link to some photos of the regiment including one of enlisted man Alvin Flint (if you haven't seen): http://11thcvi.org/history.html

[11thCT]

Re: frock coat question

Thank you, Mr. Williams. That is actually my unit's webpage, so I am familiar with the Alvin Flint photo. I have seen higher resolution copies of the same image, but it doesn't give much detail. I'm more interested in full length photographs, where more detail of the uniform can be seen.