Uniform Guidelines

[Matt Woodburn]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

Holler is correct on looping on the left. Pete, that is where we took it from. The left is pinned up I think to prevent knocking your hat off when at support arms. So Paul, the left we're talking about for this event is your actual left. If you wear a wedding ring on your left finger like most American men, it will be that side to loop up. Paul, contact Jim Kindred with Military Warehouse to see if he wants to make up some better Jeff Davis eagles. Post back here what you find out.

[Silas]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

I PM'd Kindred.

[Matt Woodburn]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

Holler just talked to a friend that used to portray the 15th and they did some research into the Springfield Rifled Muskets. They were Model 1861s! SWEEEEET!

[PetePaolillo]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

Holler just talked to a friend that used to portray the 15th and they did some research into the Springfield Rifled Muskets. They were Model 1861s! SWEEEEET!

SPRINGFIELD RIFLED MUSKETS

(by Major General William W. Belknap)

With few exceptions, the regiments of infantry in the War of the Rebellion
were furnished with muzzle-loading percussion Springfield rifled muskets.
It has always been a supreme wonder to me how the men, in the excitement
of actual battle, where it was necessary to load and fire rapidly, could
hold their head sufficiently level and thus to keep their wits so well
about them, as to return their rammer to its place before firing.

A battle is a place of din, smoke, oaths, shouting, effort and agonizing
labor, with the muscles of all the limbs in use, and the nerves that
control the brain, or that the brain controls, drawn to their closest
tension. The confusing clamor, the odor that fills the air from burning
powder, wounded men and dying horses and the unceasing rattle and roll
of musketry, is enough to turn the clearest head and weaken the strongest
heart... A rammer is but a simple part of the mechanism of a gun. And yet
its loss would be fatal. Without it, the service of the gun is gone.

The man who fights has left all for his country: wife, children, friends,
sweetheart, and home are gone from him, perhaps forever; there is no
mother's voice to say sweet words, no father's care to guide or lead him;
nothing for him to think of save his country's cause, and in that case he
must kill as many as he can and save himself. And yet this boy, away from
all he loves, save his own comrades -- with a sheet of fire in front which
rivals hell, with bullets whizzing, tree falling, men dying and the air
filled with the oaths of the desperate and excited, and the "God have mercy
on me" of the stricken soldier by his side as the minnie ball cuts through
him -- cool, calm and collected, has the presence of mind, even when the
tumult is the highest, to be unforgetful of the rammer, and each time
before he fires to place it where it should be on his trusty gun.

Addresses by Major-General William W. Belknap, 15th Iowa Infantry
Transcribed & submitted by Diane Korten, korten@ne.uswest.net
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[VA-Patriot'61]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

I haven't seen any mention yet (maybe I missed it), is there a preference for what pattern sack and trousers that were issued at St. Louis? Would it have been SA as per canteens and accoutrements? Any insight from the western Feds here would be helpful for the details some of us look for and maybe a Bullybuy could come out of it for kits, etc. Just a thought.

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

I haven't seen any mention yet (maybe I missed it), is there a preference for what pattern sack and trousers that were issued at St. Louis? Would it have been SA as per canteens and accoutrements? Any insight from the western Feds here would be helpful for the details some of us look for and maybe a Bullybuy could come out of it for kits, etc. Just a thought.

I don't think anybody will object to SA garments.

[Matt Woodburn]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

Runyon and I talked about getting a couple vendors to do a sack coat and Hardee hat Bully Buy. I've been too busy to do it with registration, but we've got the rest of the year. You'll see them. They're coming.

[redjoshman]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

a pair of trousers, and a coat into their knapsacks

I am just curious how we know that the "extra suit of clothes" referred to in the quote below actually refers to a suit of cloths in the extra pair of trousers and coat/blouse sense?

On April 6th, 1862 at “7 o’clock we ate breakfast on board the Minnehaha…” At “10 o’clock we are ordered ashore, with knapsacks, overcoats, 2 blankets, an extra suit of clothes*, haversacks filled with hard tack and a big high hat with a brass eagle on the side.”

*Emphasis added

It seems to me that it would make more sense that they were using it to mean an extra Shirt, Drawers, and Socks, as the term seems to be used and to mean by the Quartermaster Board with their study of Knapsack weight(Quoted Below).

• 100 biscuits and ten days' sugar and coffee, and it then weighed, with blanket. - 17 lbs.
• Without blanket - 11 3/4 lbs.
• With a change of clothing--shirt, drawers, and socks* - 18 1/2 lbs.
• With coffee, sugar, and desiccated vegetables - 20 1/2 lbs.
• Three days' rations of biscuit, bacon, and small-stores were put into a haversack, and it weighed - 5 3/4lbs.
• The average weight of blanket - 5 1/4 lbs.
• The average weight of overcoat - 5 1/4 lbs.
• The average weight of half shelter-tent - 1 3/4 lbs.
• The average weight of change of clothing* - 2 lbs.

*Emphasis added

It just seems to me, that it would make more sense to for a unit that is going on campaign to be carrying not another coat/blouse and trousers but another set of Drawers, Shirt, and Socks. However I could be wrong and I could be misreading it, I am just curious how do we know what type of change of clothing they are referring to.

Respectfully,
Joshua Kerner

[Iceman]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

Hey Josh,

Read up on Army regs and what a soldier was issued. They had both a dress uniform and a fatigue uniform, along with shirts, drawers, socks and in some cases an extra pair of shoes, all inside their knapsack. Not to mention the ground cloth, blanket (in this case two blankets), and shelter half. These guys were issued gear by the Federal books, and were even mistaken for being Federal Regulars by other soldiers of the field at Shiloh when they got off the transports and went right into the fight. This isn't mid-war Western Fed; the impression is that of brand new Federal volunteers, so yes, they have an extra uniform in their pack.

[dixieflyer]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

I will admit to not having done any reading on Shiloh in a couple of decades. However, my feeling is that when the 15th Iowa stepped off of that steamboat, they were not going on campaign so much as heading to what had already become a major staging area for Grant's operations in the West, there fore all of those camps full of goodies that were over-run. Then again, I like Joshua's interpretation of this.
BLUF: I won't be carrying an extra pair of trousers in my double bag at this event.

[Hairy Nation Boys]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

They did not have shelter tents. Those were just being issued out east and the western soldiers did not get them until late summer early fall.

[Arch Campbell]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

I would echo what was said above, the "extra set of clothes" probably refers to extra socks, drawers, and undershirt, as well as whichever uniform coat is not being worn at the time. The army regulations allow for multiple pairs of trousers per year, but it is exceedingly unlikely that multiples were issued at one time, with the possible exception of garrison situations.

It is the mention of shelter halves above that has prompted my post. McClellan had only adopted shelter halves for the Army of the Potomac weeks (or maybe a month or two, I'm certainly no Potomacker scholar) before. No infantry regiments at Shiloh- including the 15th- would have had them yet.

In fact, Crocker's Iowa Brigade (which the 15th would become part of soon after the Shiloh fight) was one of the last units in the army to receive them. Because the 4th Division of the 17th Corps was one of the very last to have their veteran's furloughs, they weren't with the Army of the Tennessee when they were first issued to most of them (February '64, while refitting prior to the Atlanta campaign.) Crocker's brigade were first issued shelter tents at the end of the campaign- in September 1864, as supplies flooded the rails for Sherman's armies as they prepared to march to the sea (and into history.)

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

My main question is why we are specifying dress hats with only the eagle plate? Why not fully trimmed hats? I know we are going for uniformity first and foremost.

[Arch Campbell]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

Simply because the eagle is the only part of the trimming we have primary documentary evidence for. I'll admit, when I first read Boyd describing "a big high hat with a large brass eagle on the side," my mind went to- 'oh, fully dressed dress hats.' But after he mentions them three times, each time specifically calling out the eagle and not mentioning any other dressing, it seems like it can't be a quirk of sentence writing- he seems to be indicating that the eagle was the only distinguishing thing about the hats.

It could be argued either way, but the eagle-only policy is safer.

[Hairy Nation Boys]

Re: Uniform Guidelines

Cyrus Boyd (whose diary that was used) only mentions that the hats were pinned up with an eagle. No mention of feather, company letter, regiment designation nothing.