How Much Is Enough?

[BobSullivanPress]

In reading through the post on drawers and many other posts where research is debated, the following question keeps coming to mind: How much (documentation) is enough?

We see jaguar trousers, but we dismiss them as a one-of-a-kind. Yet, there they are in a photograph, documented proof that some crazy cavalryman wore them at least once. We find a note or a CDV with an article of clothing in it, or a cravat tied a certain way, or a particular piece of equipment, and we say, "There! There is proof!" Yet, others will say, "Well, that's one, but was it common?" We begin a slow crawl from one, to rare, to some, to many, to frequent, to standard, to universal.

As many of you know, I research paper. Just found a federal morning report the other day. A sheet-of-paper morning report, roughly 7 x 16 inches. Never seen another one. And so I ask myself, is this a typical example, or is it a one-of-a-kind? I own two original Special Requisitions (QM Form 40). One is 8 x 10.5 printed on standard federal paper. One is 8 x 14, printed on laid paper. Which one is typical? Don't know. I own three Forms for Unserviceable Ordnance Stores. One is printed, two are completely hand-written. Statistically, I'd have to conclude the hand-written ones were more prevalent (by a 2 to 1 margin :) ), yet we know differently. Well, we assume differently. I had been searching for an original Confederate enlistment for over 10 years before someone posted a picture of one on this forum a few years ago. So we have one. There were several hundred thousand printed and we have one. Was it typical? Rare?

And so when we choose to reproduce something, are we reproducing something typical, rare, one-of-a-kind? Quite likely there are items in our living history world that are far more prevalent on a percentage basis than were around from 1861-1865. Because we have several surviving examples, there is often a leap-of-faith assumption that the percentage of surviving examples closely mimics the percentage of items that were "around". Yet we could be totally wrong, because perhaps the uniqueness of something was the reason it was saved, not because it was typical.

For military items, we have reams of paper that tell us what was issued. But all of us carry items in our knapsacks that have been reproduced from everyday items, items that were not meticulously documented and written down by War Department clerks. Like, let's say, toothbrushes. They exist in museums and private collections. There are several different styles and designs. Which was typical? Which was rare? Did someone perhaps save a particular toothbrush because it was different and unique, a one-of-a-kind? Or was is saved because it was a terrible example of a toothbrush, and was never used? Are we in fact using reproduction toothbrushes that were never used because they were extremely rare or terrible, but somehow survived?

And one day, someone found the means and the money to reproduce this toobrush. We have one that we can document as existing from 1861-1865. We have (drum roll) documentation. But in my inquisitive nature, I find myself asking more and more, "How much (documentation) is enough?"

[Hank Trent]

Re: How Much Is Enough?

One big problem is that we're not portraying actual, specific people, or if we are, we're guessing so much about them that we can hardly be said to be portraying them, maybe a few genealogical statistics, a short bio, and that's it. If we're really lucky, we'll have a diary or letters that still don't say exactly what someone had in his pockets or was wearing or ate on any given day.

So it goes back to statistical guesswork on what might have been typical, and by definition, that's going to be fuzzy. The answer to what's enough--what's truly the end of the line--would be to learn exactly what each specific person being portrayed was wearing, carrying, saying, doing, etc. at the moment being portrayed. That's so completely impossible, that we'll always be stuck in a broad fuzzy gray area.

There's also the problem that even if we know, for a fact, that 1% of all soldiers were wearing jaguar-skin trousers, who gets to be the 1%? In practice, it usually comes down to simply discouraging everyone from doing something that would be popular otherwise because of modern demographics, like smoking cigarettes, wearing sunglasses, etc., and then hope that the fraction of people willing to ignore heavy peer pressure and do it anyway will be at period levels.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Stonewall_Greyfox]

Re: How Much Is Enough?

I had been searching for an original Confederate enlistment for over 10 years before someone posted a picture of one on this forum a few years ago. So we have one. There were several hundred thousand printed and we have one. Was it typical? Rare?

Bob,

IIRC, the Miller-Kite house Museum in Conrad Stores (modern-day Elkton, VA) has a copy of a local CS Enlistment form...it is B-I-G, and sits atop a tanned horsehide (hair on) which was said to have been used as a groundcloth (seriously, two brothers owned a tannery - when brother @ war left home, he left his favorite horse...horse died, and other brother tanned the hide and sent it to the front for use as a groundcloth). I suspect that this secondary item would most certainly fall into the rare/never category...

Paul B.

[Chris Fisher]

Re: How Much Is Enough?

My comment on that particular thread was to encourage research as to a reason perhaps that all the accepted existing long drawers show no evidence of being cut short. Was it done perhaps, however science has shown that the decade before the war that temperatures around the northern hemisphere were cooler than the mean average. Now we know through primary source documentation that there were extremes in both spectrums.

However if you, the common soldier where issued say 4 pairs of drawers a year and from photographs and period accounts of the men streamlining their kits to reduce weight, would you cut down your drawers for comforts sake of a few days when the next issue is uncertain, or just roll them up or not wear them on those hot days and preserve their length for those cold days.

As pointed out, our purpose is to base our assessments on known facts, that appear in several different accounts to establish a base line of common sense. Ready made private purchase items such as tulma's, rubberized hoods and even tooth brushes were common in the civilian world but at $18 a month would the common average soldier have purchased these items, or as I do, would he just use a twig of willow crushed on one end to scrape his teeth.

As a Medical researcher I have found many examples of darkened glass used in eye glasses. This was a treatment for light sensitivity brought on by several diseases and treatments, however to the untrained "they had sunglasses so I can wear them".

There is one documented photograph of a Surgeon wearing an apron, during an operation, so is that proof that all followed this practice or perhaps they just removed their coat and rolled up their shirt sleeves. There are after all India rubber physicians aprons in the GoodYear catalogue, yet none has been found in the supply tables, requisitions, personal effects or documented as being used save that one photograph.

I say less is more, I for one don’t plan to develop the habit of inspecting the length of a mans drawers, at anytime let alone to verify authenticity.

So where do we draw the line, with one example or with solid research, and using the scientific method of proving a theory by continued successful repetition to prove something as fact.
This is the Authentic Campaigner and there are people who will take what is posted here as gospel so IMHO the standard should be prove and reprove, and document. Anything less is a dicredit to why we are all on here in the first place.