Cravats: How Common

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Cravats: How Common

Hallo!

Moderator hat on...

"If nobody has any good written documentation, just photos (and not every person is wearing a cravat in those pics, only a minority), then it is okay for the majority of reenactors at events to wear cravats. I guess that makes sense?'

I would assume that is a rhetorical question posed as wit or sarcasm...

Otherwise, I have photographs of Federals wearing their fatigue blouses tucked into their trousers.
And a photograph of Samuel Richardson wearing hair-on jaguar skin chaps and holsters.

Moderator hat off...

Curt

[Citizen_Soldier]

Re: Cravats: How Common

Greetings,
Just a quick response...

"Yes, the CW era farmers hereabouts always wore their cravats when milking the cows, slopping the hogs, and plowing the fields- just as modern farmers always wear their neck ties."

Curt, obviously thoughts on fashion have changed a little since the middle part of the nineteenth century. Growing up on a farm in my youth I wore a baseball cap and t-shirt, that doesn't mean that when portraying a farmer in the 1860's that I shouldn't wear a broad brimmed hat, shirt, and vest because modern day farmers do not. :wink_smil

There is a TON of material out there showing civilians wearing cravats. To get some fellows started I would recommend the following sources:

Dressed for the Photographer by Severa

Silver and Gold: Cased Images of the California Gold Rush ed. by Johnson and Eymann

Genre paintings by William Sydney Mount and George Caleb Bingham show quite a few cravats being worn by citizens in the years leading up to the war.

Also for those wishing to see if the fashion of civilians wearing cravats continued after the war, The Wisconsin Historical Society has the Dahl photograph collection (ca. 1870 or so) posted online.

Like I said, there is a ton of stuff out there and if a fellows digs for it...you'll find it. Additional resources include illustrations, advertisements for farming implements, store ledgers for cravats, and the list goes on and on.

My conclusion is that a typical soldier in the American Civil War would not have found a cravat to be a foreign or unusual accessory in civilian life. As I mentioned before, I would love to see a research article written on cravats being worn by soldiers with a breakdown of what context the soldier is wearing the cravat, the year in the conflict, which theater, and etc.

Darrek Orwig

[CJ Roberts]

Re: Cravats: How Common

Cody,

I think you are exactly right about the haversack strap. You may be correct about the collar of his coat also. What led me to believe that he may be wearing a cravat is that there is a distinct seperation between the top of his coat and the dark band around his neck area. It appears his collar is folded under, leading me to believe that the dark band around his neck might be a cravat, but it is certainly difficult to know for certain.

[ohpkirk]

Re: Cravats: How Common

While the great number of posts on this thread are speculative and based on nothing other than opinion, the opinion of these people (if based on personal experience and not just posted to boost post numbers.....) could be helpful in continuing where the primary source documents have left of: comfort of the soldier/person while doing labor intensive tasks and wearing the cravat.

While doing antebellum LH's where manual labor is a key part of the lh, I have found that the cravat only aids in soaking up sweat, but also keeps air from entering the shirt via the neck hole and helping cool me off.

However this doesn't answer the initial question of the post: "I want to know what kind of cravat, if any, would have been worn by Confed Inf (more specifically TN, mid-war). Any help, guidance or documentation would be much appreciated."

This thread has gone on tangents including pleated shirts, socioeconomic backgrounds of artillerists, farmers, etc. with no real documentation (other than a few photographs) that answer's the the intial question. The only documentation that I can submit on this question is the prisoner of war photograph that shows AOT soldiers in what they were captured in. Since not many photographs were taken in the field of AOT troops...or CS troops as whole, it will be hard to conclude a decisive answer to this question. However the photographs provided do show a very small cross section of AOT troops and what they were wearing on campaign.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Cravats: How Common

Hallo!

To further the discussion, an enlargement:



Curt

[nosara]

Re: Cravats: How Common

I agree with an earlier post that the images that we most commonly find are studio pictures. A soldier at his best. The current number of "loud" cravats in use seems overblown. Why would a soldier in the ranks wish to stand out ?
C.Gould
"Brunswick Riflemen"

[AZReenactor]

Re: Cravats: How Common

At least for the United States troops serving under James Carleton in Arizona and New Mexico the cravat was a popular choice it seems, since they were given the option of wearing a cravat in lieu of the leather stock while on the march across the desert in the summer of 1862.

Having regularly worn a cravat as well as a neck stock I can assure you, the later is not only more comfortable but also serves to keep the sweat from rolling down ones neck onto their back too readily. In cold weather either are equally useful at keeping the neck warm.

[Raven]

Re: Cravats: How Common

Not very Common, for a cravat would probably considered pointless and would be tossed away.

[AZReenactor]

Re: Cravats: How Common

Cameron,
Do you have any documentation to support such a broad statement, or is it mere conjecture based on what you've seen at reenactments?

Good research, requires more than an opinion.

Not very Common, for a cravat would probably considered pointless and would be tossed away.

[Dreamer42]

Re: Cravats: How Common

While one usually cannot find specific mentioning of everything we, as reenactors, are looking for, I feel that we may allow ourselves the ability to read between the lines. For example, when Joshua Calloway's 28th Alabama was on its way into Kentucky, he mentions dropping (and leaving) their knapsacks and excess clothing, except one extra shirt, prior to a very long march. Does this mean EVERY soldier did exactly as Joshua did? I doubt it. Does he specifically mention a cravat? No. But I cannot believe that cravats would be kept, when so much else was left behind. Later he compains about being naked to the elements that October. Another indication that very little clothing was available.

Many years ago I owned an original photo which showed the soldier holding a 1841 rifle and 1859 pistol and wearing a cravat. His only uniform was a kepi. Definately a studio pose.

- Jay Reid
Dreamer42
9th Texas

[yankee]

Re: Cravats: How Common

Those of you whom have the book, EOG: arms and equipage the union. on page 124, on the first row of men, sixth man. He is wearing a cravat or necktie. they are sitting on lookout mountain. Also, there is one man on page 8, there is a man on the second row far left and he is also wearing a necktie.

-Matthew Rennier
My two cents.

[Son of Eire]

Re: Cravats: How Common

If you go to the LOC Prints and Photographs site and load the uncompressed TIF file it becomes clear that this is not a cravat. I would post the file, but it is entirely too large to fit on the forum.

[cap tassel]

Re: Cravats: How Common

I've read the thread and didn't see any mention of the quote in the chapter From Finery to Tatters in The Life of Johnny Reb. It's of an Alabama soldier to his brother back home and it brings up some questions.


"I...receive ...the bundle you sent me ... can put everything to advantage except the cravat - If I was to put it on the Boys would laugh at me."


What's interesting is his brother obviously didn't think anything wrong with sending a cravat. Best we can tell the soldier was influenced by peer pressure not to wear it. I'm wondering if that meant a cravat wasn't 'military' enough. Would this sort of be saying 'hey I'm in the army now, I can't be wearing a cravat'. The book doesn't give any more info than that. The cite says it comes from Court Martial Records.

...oh wait I see now that the citizen forum thread was after a lot of the posts here. The case was made there very well that a cravat was something everybody wore.

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: Cravats: How Common

Major Franklin Leland Anderson wrote home to family on September 18, 1864 that he threw his "cravat away when warm weather set in, if Aggy can find one send it to me, if not tell her to get you one of the black silk kerchiefs and you can make me one and send it in one of your letters." (Craig, Tom Moore and Melissa Walker, ed. Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War: Letters of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore Families, 1853-1865 , Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009, 140).

[Raven]

Re: Cravats: How Common

Cameron,
Do you have any documentation to support such a broad statement, or is it mere conjecture based on what you've seen at reenactments?

Good research, requires more than an opinion.

No such research is required really, I'm just basing this opinion on common sense. I mean of coarse they would have been common earlier in the war, but not later. At least for the common foot soldier.