Confederate Frock

[hpotter]

Gentleman,

I have been looking up and down for information on confederate frock patterns and can see that there are many opinions on several threads. The Company Tailor has a pattern that he will make labeled as a Confederate Frock Communication style. I have seen communication style shell jackets. I have tried to do some research on what a communication frock coat looks like. Any ideas. Thanks.

[ley74]

Re: Confederate Frock

Just out of curosity, what impression are you trying to develop? There may be better alternatives. If you just want a frock, wail away.

[hpotter]

Re: Confederate Frock

I was aiming for an early war impression. Perhaps a homespun tailored frock. No lapels.

[coastaltrash]

Re: Confederate Frock

Heath,
I think you mean a commutation era garment rather than communication. I highly suggest picking something up from Cody, his patterns are first rate. But that is only one small piece to the never ending puzzle of a well made garment, find someone (for all I know you can do this) that can sew and understand the instructions. It's easy to butcher the best pattern and the best material by not knowing what is going on.

[Tom Ezell]

Re: Confederate Frock

Gentleman,

I have been looking up and down for information on confederate frock patterns and can see that there are many opinions on several threads. The Company Tailor has a pattern that he will make labeled as a Confederate Frock Communication style. I have seen communication style shell jackets. I have tried to do some research on what a communication frock coat looks like. Any ideas. Thanks.

I'm not sure that we can definitively document that the Confederate Army's Signal Corps consistently wore frock coats (you are looking for a communication frock rather than say, a commutation frock)...

Confederate uniforms, to include frock coats, were often based on common civilian clothing patterns, which differed considerably from tailor to tailor. Some will have the tail pockets concealed completely inside the skirts, some will have them set into an outside seam in the skirts, some will have them inthe outside seam but covered by a little flap or scallop. Some will have 9-button fronts, some will have 8, or 7. Some will have two-piece narrow sleeves, some will have one-piece "ballooned" sleeves like the recent fashions. Some of the 2-piece sleeves might be ballooned, too. And it just goes on from there, depending on just who patterned and made the coat.

Instead of paying the commutation funds directly to an individual, several states opted to use these at the State level to fund their own clothing operations, and some of these states chose the frock coat for their standard uniform. This followed the tradition of the pre-war state militias, which often based their official uniforms on those of the U.S. Army, and the frock coat was readily seen to have that special martial, war-like look, all the better to outfit the flower of Southern manhood in the defense of their natural rights.

The Arkansas Military Board took note that the pre-war Arkansas State Militia had adopted the U.S. Army uniform coat, and ordered gray jean frock coats (with matching caps and trowsers) to be produced for its volunteers. Louisiana took a similar step, providing gray frock coats for the volunteers gathering at Camp Moore. Tennessee prescribed a blue frock coat similar to the U.S. Army’s pattern, while the Kentucky State Guard outfitted itself in gray woolen frocks with blue cuffs and collars. Texas issued frock coats at least to its troops deployed to the “seat of the War” in Virginia, and Georgia state troops received gray frock coats with trimmed collars and cuffs. North Carolina used these funds to help finance their issue of the distinctive North Carolina sack coats and shell jackets to their folks.

Soldiers also received clothing items from the folks back home, or the soldiers' aid societies in local or nearby communities. Given the haphazard survival of Confederate clothing records as well as the scarcity of contemporary images of Confederates "in the wild" wearing this stuff, and you can see how hard it is to determine whether a particular piece of clothing was really "commutation" or not.

The bottom line is to look at the specified impression and work from there. Were they more likely to have roundabouts or frock coats? Or something altogether different? For references, Ron Fields’ book by Brassey’s “Uniforms: The Confederate Army” spends most of its pages documenting state by state the different types and distribution of state commutation jackets and spends less than a dozen pages at the back surveying some of the CS central clothing depot garments. Les Jensen’s little book, “Johnny Reb” does pretty much the same, though not on a state-by state basis. Identified and dated images of soldiers from the unit that you’re studying help as well... get out the magnifying glass and look for the seam lines to see how the garments were put together, and then you can start work from one of your arsenal of patterns.

[hpotter]

Re: Confederate Frock

Some great info here guys. Thanks alot for the ideas.