Event Guidelines: Confederate Clothing Issue

[Herr teufelhund]

Re: Event Guidelines: Confederate Clothing Issue

Good Morning Gents,
I was reading all your posts on this subject and perhaps my age, or my lack of experience on this subject but i thought maybe I could bring up a point that you may or may not have thought of.
1. With the milita being so close to home the the years before the war the members had a way to get the exact same style of what ever piece of gear everyone else had. So as a youth growing up till the time they themselves entered the army, the only impression they had was a "uniformed apperance". So when they had a few differences you become different and therefore you don't have a uniformed apperance.
2. Speaking from my own personal background, when I look at the company of marines I belong to even when we're massed tightly in formation someone not wearing a part of his uniform the right way sticks out and gives an sloppy apperance.
I think it stands to reason that a country that had a standing army for hundreds of years would view a differences even few as not having that uniformed apperance that the European observers talked about. Not that the Confederates were sloppy or ragged but comparied to the Federal, or English, or French soliders, the Confederate were sloppy. Agian I may be wrong with this thought and if I am please forgive me and help me to learn what you know.
God bless this country and the Marine Corps
John

John, please use your full name to sign all post...... - Mike Chapman

[VMI88]

Re: Event Guidelines: Confederate Clothing Issue

Here are some excerpts from an unpublished manuscript based on the remembrances of two soldiers in the 33rd Alabama Infantry, Army of Tennessee:

(October 24, 1862) “Arriving at Knoxville about October 24th we had [issued] . . . a suit of clothes each, woolen gray jeans, jacket lined with white cotton sheeting, with four C.S.A. brass buttons, a pair of unlined gray jeans pants, white cotton sheeting shirt and drawers and white cotton machine knit sleazy socks and pair of rough tan brogans, hand made wooden pegged shoes. Some drew gray hats . . . Most, or all of us had been using finger knit woolen socks which were sent to us from home.”

(November 1862) “[Triune, Tennessee] We were not entirely dressed in gray uniforms, many occasionally received boxes of provisions and clothing, shoes or boots and homemade lamb’s wool or beaver or coon skin fur hats from folks, and it was quite common to see soldiers wearing home woven gray blue, brown or black woolen jeans pants or overcoats, gray or black hats and a majority of us wore wool socks sent us from home, while others wore the entire regulation gray uniform including gray caps.”

(January 1864) “[Tunnel Hill, Georgia] Recruits [joining] the regiment each month through 1862-3-4 and the first part of 1865, though not always getting a uniform on first arrival in camp and mustered into service, men at times going through a fight and exchanging their Confederate tin canteen and white cotton cloth haversack and home woven wool blanket or cotton bed quilt for a Yankee U.S. blanket, oil cloth haversack and cloth covered canteen on the battlefield before drawing a gray uniform.”

[Alamo Guard]

Re: Event Guidelines: Confederate Clothing Issue

Ok Men, One last factor to figure on this topic, length of service. If ya'all had a man who was a fresh fish verus the grizzled vet doesnt it stand to reason his uniform might be a shade diffrent?
Jeancloth has a habit of fading to almost a drak grey/brown after expose to good old mother nature. Also the color of the wool mixed with the cotton has alot to do with the shade.
I think it might be scenerio driven on the color, type, and condition of any uniform worn by the confederate forces. If the unit mustered in as a company or recieved a bulk reissue of uniforms of course it stands to reason they might all look the same.
Men who missed the reissue for various reasons might not have same appearance.
There are so many factors in this discussion we could spent days on it. My bottom line is Conderate forces should be diffrent, mismatched, and varied. However there isnt much evidence (except noted marches and specific supply difficulites) of being ragged and threadbare (boy am i gonna hear some flack on that last comment).