CS "uniform" question

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Why did the CSA have so many different styles of jacket? Why did they never adopt one style?

This is something that has bugged me for years. Is there an answer?

[dusty27]

Re: CS "uniform" question

Robert,

I used the "search" function and got this well-known article that may start to answer your question.

http://www.military-historians.org/c...federate-1.htm

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: CS "uniform" question

Dusty

Valid point, but Jensens article explains to a point the what, but not the why. Why did the CS never standardize its production? Why did every production point have a totally different style of uniform?

[tmdreb]

Re: CS "uniform" question

I would imagine that standardization would have been more trouble that it was worth. Also, once the official uniform regs went out the window, no new ones were ever developed, at least to my knowledge. Probably the biggest obstacle to overcome would be a large supply of similar cloth. The South simply did not have the manufacturing base to weave millions of yards of cloth of identical weave and color. Trim seemed to be equally sporadically available.

Based on the figures I've seen for blockade running in the latter half of the War, the Confederate Army might well have been at its most uniform at the War's end. All three armies (ANV, AoT, Trans Miss) were all receiving large quantities of imported uniforms and cloth. Had the War lasted longer, I imagine the majority of the CS Army would have been wearing Tait or similar jackets, regardless of geography.

Patterns varied geographically by style. I find that collars can sometimes be a good indication of where a jacket originated. Something that can be seen in Jensen's article is the changing shape of the RD collar. It gets much smaller as the War (and styles) progressed. It has been observed that Federal frocks exhibit the same tendency. Many Western CS jackets retain the older style higher and more squared collars, as well as often a pointed "tail" on the back of the jacket. I guess it could be said that the Eastern Confederacy reflected changing styles more than their backwoods Western counterparts.

Something I find fascinating is the theory that perhaps what is called a Columbus Depot jacket may just be the style that was produced by several different Western sources. This could be a possible attempt at what you mentioned in your first post. I'll go with my answer that the lack of standardization came from the lack of ability to manufacture and supply a large quantity of cloth for uniform production.

[VMI88]

Re: CS "uniform" question

To expand on what Phil said, there may well have been regional attempts at standardization. Jackets of a given pattern may have been produced at several manufacturies, but given the low survival rate and lack of documentation, we'd never know. We just assume that similar jackets were made at the same place, but the numerous small variations may actually reflect different sources following a common pattern.

[CJDaley]

Re: CS "uniform" question

Same question goes for the North:

Why didn't the Northern states standardize their state regulations?

Even today the National Guard units have slightly different equipment/uniforms regulations. The answer I believe lies more with politics, economics and military tradition rather than an organized effort to not standardize.

[JimKindred]

Re: CS "uniform" question

Just to add to what Chris has said. Not only do you find variations in the National Guard but even today standardization of uniforms in the Regular Army is not 100%.

Many times the differences today are due to variations between contractors, I know imagine that, nothing we haven't heard of before but for some reason doesn't have universal acceptance among reenactors for Civil War contract items. An example of today's differences may be flight suits originally let on an Air Force contract that are also picked up by the Army which doesn't care if they have extra zippers or not and for that matter nether does the guy it is issued to. Modern cavalry officers have the option of wearing cavalry branch insignia even though there isn’t a “real” cavalry branch. Some CAV units allow the wearing of black Stetson hats with full trim and one CAV unit has the approval for gray Stetsons due to a tradition dating from Vietnam. None of these Stetsons will be found in the regulations, you have to dig into what are called policy letters or letters of exception which are normally filed only with the unit requesting the exception to regulation or policy and the higher headquarters granting the permission. This is nothing new to the military.

I could list numerous other examples but it would only take up unnecessary space. Too many in reenacting only see in black and white leaving out the many gray areas of how the military actually works. The regulations are a fine start but they do not cover everything.

[Company Tailor]

Re: CS "uniform" question

I'll confirm and echo what Jim said and add that the modern day Army operates in an age of unprecedented instant communication. How could one expect the Nashville or Columbus Depots to wait on the Richmond or Atlanta Depots to see what style of jacket they were producing? There was no way to expeditiously coordinate the job and even then, who was to say the materials were on hand to carry out such a determination? I can also add that when a unit gets into the field these days all standardization goes out the window, at least between units. Within a unit you still see a very high degree of standardization right down to what gets carried in what pocket and pouch. But that depends on the unit commander.

What frightens me about this thread though is that someone out there is going to use it as justification for the odd, unusual and outlandish in their impression. I'm always saying that we should not be dogmatic about what WAS and what WASN'T because there is so much yet to be learned. Still, in the living history community we should always strive for commonality and not fall into the "if they'da had it they'da used it" trap.

[JimKindred]

Re: CS "uniform" question

Pat,

You voiced one of my concerns as well, that this thread might be used as an excuse to deviate from the common. One thing about the modern military, while things may not be strictly by the regs there is a high degree of commonality with in it which is what we as reenactors should strive for - the common.

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: CS "uniform" question

What frightens me about this thread though is that someone out there is going to use it as justification for the odd, unusual and outlandish in their impression. I'm always saying that we should not be dogmatic about what WAS and what WASN'T because there is so much yet to be learned. Still, in the living history community we should always strive for commonality and not fall into the "if they'da had it they'da used it" trap.

I totally agree

I never considered that when I started this thread, but I also would expect the people that would be attracted to this fora could be held to a higher standard. (....I would hope)

[tmdreb]

Re: CS "uniform" question

I see the available information and the lack of standardization as a wake up call that there is no one "common" out there. "Common" depended from where you were being supplied. "Common" in Georgia would often have been much different from "common" in Missouri, Virginia, or Louisiana. "Common" would also have a lot to do with which unit you were in, as newly clothed units often served alongside commands wearing old, worn out clothing. PEC is good for a reason to
keep the exception from becoming the rule, but it's too often used as an excuse for folks to have a "generic" impression.

[JimKindred]

Re: CS "uniform" question

I agree. Some like myself who have been at this a long time tend to take some things for granted when we write which can cause a little confusion for the new guys. In this case, I took it for granted that people understand that common in the CS army varies with the territory. That common in the Trans-Miss area would not be common in the area of operations for the ANV and the same for the AOT's area and supply. The idea of a common impression being what was common for a particular unit or area and time period, not a generic impression good for the entire war or country.

[LWhite64]

Re: CS "uniform" question

Just to expand a little more on what Phil said. Common would also change from Battle to battle and from campaign to campaign, AOT troops at Chickamauga would look different than those at Resaca, and those at Resaca would look different from those at Bentonville. There really is a generic common even for regions for broad periods of time.

Lee

[billwatson]

Les did touch on "why"

Les did offer some of his own insight into why there were no standardized patterns for the jackets:

"The important thing to keep in mind about the Clothing Manufactories is that, in common with the decentralized nature of the war and the overall Confederate policy of each army supplying itself from its own departmental resources, the products of each depot varied depending on local resources. The patterns of the uniforms themselves also varied. Despite the fact that the Regulations called for "tunics" in 1861 and "frock coats" thereafter, the uniform prescribed by the 1862 issue system was the "jacket." There is no evidence that any of the central government depots produced frock coats in any numbers, although apparently some of the state operations did. 43 More importantly, at no time did the Quartermaster General detail to any of the depots exactly how the jackets were to be made. Thus, materials, cut, number of buttons, pockets and the presence or absence of trim were determined by each depot on its own, and probably changed as circumstances dictated."

Several themes in there:
1. Decentralization as a deliberate policy or overarching belief system that mitigated against standardizing anything.
2. Armies supplying themselves as a policy (that is, organizing their own resources, an idea that carries with it the corollary that if they are being told to do it themselves, they have some say over what it is exactly they are doing, within the broad mandate to clothe their troops).
3. "as circumstances dictated," ie., depending on what kind of cloth was available. The other place you can see this at work, besides the uniforms, is the depot-issued flags. One of the reasons the battle flag changed in the ANV from wide blue stripes and small red field to narrow blue stripes and wide red field was the changing availability of those materials in those colors. Just a simple thing, changing the proportion of the materials used in the flag to match the proportion of red and blue material on hand.

Anyway, just wanted to point out that Les did tackle the "why," although I acknowledge it took a really close reading to ferret this paragraph out of it. I'd read it long ago, but it really holds up well.

[dave81276]

Re: CS "uniform" question

But one thing is for certain. Within a single company, men would be issued jackets of the same style and with only minor variations, due to dying imperfections, of color. For instance, the majority of enlisted men in a typical ANV company in 1863 would be wearing RDII's. My unit, in the throes of struggle between progressives and lesser beings, exhibits a motley cornucopia of cuts (RDI's, II's, III's, frocks, sacks, etc.) in a plethora of cloths and shades from a pink butternut kersey to a sky-blue denim (we're the Rainbow Company). The progressives are stigmatized for all wearing RDII's in light grey or natural jean. While regulations were not enforced strictly, Confederate units were much more uniform than most units portray.

-Dave Eggleston