Federal Mounted Overcoat Pattern

[Third Mainer]

Folks,
Does anyone out there make a decent Federal mounted overcoat pattern? Or at best, one that has the correct dimensions? All I can seem to find are the typical rubbish patterns that are geared more to a costume than anything else. The search function turned up a goodly amount of information about the garment, but no patterns.

[Seandahl]

Still can't find a pattern. Country cloth only has footmans pattern

[rmilstead]

Sean,
About 4 years ago I was faced with the same dilemma you have. Frankly I looked around a lot and even bought a pattern made by one of the "historic costume" houses. Big mistake! Basically, I came to the conclusion that a good authentic pattern doesn't commercially exist. Charlie Childs "footman's greatcoat" pattern is, like his other ones, very authentic, but he doesn't sell one for the mounted man's version. My solution was to undertake creating one myself based upon the one he sells. This is not an exercise for the amateur or the faint of heart, however. I have modified some of his patterns on occasion to change them slightly for better fit, etc., but there are a number of significant differences between the two versions of federal overcoats some of which are obvious and some more subtle.

I spent the better part of a summer (on and off) fooling around with this project before getting something that I was basically happy with. I finally constructed a mock-up entirely out of muslin just to see how it worked out. Fortunately, it was pretty close, fit ok, and seemed to hang properly allowing for the fact that it wasn't made of heavy wool kersey but light weight cotton. At that point, however I put the work aside and went on to some other things. When the pandemic closedown came along, I decided to start back on it again. In the early stages I had collected a number of internet pictures of original mounted greatcoats which I studied in terms of construction details, before starting to generally follow Charlie's instructions, modifying what I did as required along the way. During the project I broke my wife's sewing machine sewing together the heavy wool layers and had to buy her another, heavier duty one. Ultimately, two years after I started, it was finally completed, and I was happy with the end result. How many hours I put into this project I can't say but as I said above, not something for the faint of heart.

I am attaching a page out of the Draft 1865 Quartermaster's Manual which gives some of the subtleties in the dimensions between the footman's greatcoat and the mounted man's version (reproduced with the permission of one of the editors since the book is no longer in print.) Realize that the chest dimension is 2 " larger than the comparable jacket/coat dimension for each size. I believe that Charlie's pattern takes this into account but in making mine I was a little generous in the way I laid it out in case it didn't. I am also attaching a few pictures of mine including one with me wearing it so you can get an I idea of fit and how it hangs.

The conclusion of all of this is that you can modify the CRC pattern to make a nice reproduction of a mounted man's greatcoat but you will likely invest a lot of time and that K&P sky blue kersey isn't cheap so once you start cutting, mistakes are very costly.

Good luck,
Dick Milstead Liberty Rifles
The Company of Military Historians