Confederate Impressions

[Son of Eire]

I've been doing a fair amount of research on Confederate uniforms both online and in print and have come to the conclusion that there are 5 main Confederate uniform categories.

-Civilian
-Militia
-Commutation
-Depot Issue
-Imported

This list can be augmented by captured Federal gear as reflected by documentation/time period and it seems more than appropriate to mix and match between each. Are these conclusions, thought elementary:tounge_sm , the essence of this side of the hobby? I'm quite competent with Federal material culture, but CS uniforms seem to require and understanding of a separate system.

I'm looking at a joining a given VA regt. with militia origins. The unit's guidelines do not specify commutation as being appropriate. From looking at issue records where in a time period of 4 or more months, even late war, some soldiers were issued caps, drawers, shirts, but no jackets. In this instance is it fair to deduce that said soldier must have obtained his own be it through scrounging or commutation? I know that the simple answer is to say "Ask your pards!":sarcastic , but I am not yet a member and do not want to overextend myself towards a given unit. Joining a unit and then walking a way can lead to bad blood:baring_te , that I have no patience for.
Thanks,

[Andy Ackeret]

Re: Confederate Impressions

John,

Confederate uniforms can be a very tricky area to get "right." Have you read Les Jensen's article? It's been around awhile, but is very informative.

http://www.military-historians.org/company/journal/confederate/confederate-1.htm

[Terry Sorchy]

Re: Confederate Impressions

John,
Many times the men were issued only what they needed at the time. That is if the officers requests for items were even granted. Then if trousers were needed they were issued. Items late in the war sent from home did come but there was a pretty long wait. Doing Johnny is a totally different beast as opposed to doing Fed.
Cheers:D
Terry Sorchy
Mess 3

[Son of Eire]

Re: Confederate Impressions

Many times the men were issued only what they needed at the time. That is if the officers requests for items were even granted.

I recognize this, but during the period of time reflected any jacket in a soldiers posession would have been in tatters. Some of these soldiers were consistently recieving caps, drawers, and trousers, while no jackets or shirts were issued. It would have been much more feasible to get homespun equipment because the unit's campaigns carried kept them always close to home.

[pipthelimey]

Re: Confederate Impressions

As to the jacket issues, what kind of duty were they on? You haven't supplied a unit designation or a time period, so no real research can take place on your question. It's feasible that perchance they just didn't get issued jackets for the stretch that you are looking at. Maybe there was some serious wear going on, but hey, it's not a fashion show, it's warfare. Tears happened, (you repaired them) dirt happened, (you dried it and brushed it off) but unless you had the means to acquire a jacket outside of the depot system, ( $ and access to a tailor with available cloth, or access to home, ditto the cloth) you lived with what you had.

Or, they might have been stationed somewhere with little or no field service. Thus, their jackets might be expected to last longer.

As for shirts, I've run across two or three letters asking for shirts from home, as well as a Georgia newspaper letter from a regimental commander asking for shirts. I'm completely in the dark as to whether shirts were under the purview of the depot system, or whether donated items were acquired privately, or occaisionally on the unit level and distributed in that manner. I'd love to learn more about that.

Kind Regards,
Andrew Jerram

[tmdreb]

Re: Confederate Impressions

I don't mean to be a jerk, but the best way is to pick an impression and research it to be as specific as possible. Leave the theories for last resort. Remember, records of clothing issues can be incomplete, so we can't know for certain that the men had ragged jackets if any at all. Perhaps the weather was warm enough to where they didn't wear their jackets very often, and so preserved them better.

[coastaltrash]

Re: Confederate Impressions

Shirts were issued in fairly large numbers as well as jackets, about the only thing I can say about the jackets is there is WAY too much jean floating around in the hobby and hardly no cassimere made depot jackets. I would highly suggest picking up 'Cadet Gray and Butternut Brown' for starters, and then move on to something like 'Confederate Industry'. The two best things to classify uniforms are issue and commutation.

If you're doing an ANV impression, pick up a frock or civilian jacket for early stuff and an RDII from on out for starters. Like I originally said- pick up the two above books and make a judgement for yourself. Reading is a lot better than asking.

[Old Reb]

Re: Confederate Impressions

Read? Pat, reading is no fun. Depending on others for information is the way to go.

[coastaltrash]

Re: Confederate Impressions

Yes Tom, but reading in these magical books as I have heard you say, is what gives us knowledge that shirts were issued to CS troops in a variety of materials and colors, from the plain weave cotton to red flannel!

[LWhite64]

Re: Confederate Impressions

To echo what Pat said, Cassimere is way under represented particularly where Columbus Depot Jackets are concerned. The Eagle Mills, one of the chief suppliers of cloth to Columbus churned out tons of the stuff compared to the jean that they made.

Lee

[DougCooper]

Re: Confederate Impressions

John,

Confederate uniforms can be a very tricky area to get "right." Have you read Les Jensen's article? It's been around awhile, but is very informative.

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

The single best place to start on-line is above. To that I add:

http://www.geocities.com/capitalguards/research.html by Tom Ezell

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Qu...d/cdjacket.htm by Geoffrey Walden

http://www.rootsweb.com/~orphanhm/uniforms.htm by Geoffrey Walden

http://members.lycos.co.uk/lazyjacks/article.htm by various members of the Lazy Jacks - superb articles by folks who take research very seriously

http://www.uttyl.edu/vbetts/homespun.htm compiled by Vicki Betts

http://www.nsalliance.org/uniforms/csuniforms.htm compiled by various smart folks as prep for the Corinth 2005 event

Join the Company of Military Historians

Buy/borrow the following books:

Cadet Gray and Butternut Brown by Tom Arliskas

Echoes of Glory, by Time Life

Regiments and Uniforms of the Civil War by Don Troiani

Johnny Reb, The Uniform of the Confederate Army, 1861-1865 by Les Jensen

Brassey's books on Confederate Uniforms

and eventually grab all of the Portrait of Conflict Series, each volume on a Confederate State.

anyway, the above is a good start.

[Son of Eire]

Re: Confederate Impressions

Always fun to be lampooned as being illiterate! I have been reading the Tom Arliskas book amongst others. I would not be pretentious enough to say that reading a book makes me an authority on the topic and so the purpose of this post was to affirm if my conclusions were plausible. Last time I checked referencing primary source documents was not reflective of lack of research. When creating my Federal impression I augmented looking at my unit guidelines by cross-referencing with text and observation of original equipment. Some responses have been respectful, while others have been downright scathing. I am the young blood of this hobby. Continue to mock and your messes and companies will age and ultimately disappear. Let’s pull this thread back into a more civil realm

[Michael Comer]

Re: Confederate Impressions

With all due respect, I think your definition of 'scathing' must be pretty broad. I don't think you have been ill treated at all here. Perhaps you misunderstood some banter between two reenacting pards about reading books as directed at you. And I don't think what Mr. Graf said would qualify as scathing.

Young blood or not, it's best to take the chip off the shoulder when looking for assistance. You ain't seen scathing yet.

[NC5thCav]

Re: Confederate Impressions

The single best place to start on-line is above. To that I add:

http://www.geocities.com/capitalguards/research.html by Tom Ezell

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Qu...d/cdjacket.htm by Geoffrey Walden

http://www.rootsweb.com/~orphanhm/uniforms.htm by Geoffrey Walden

http://members.lycos.co.uk/lazyjacks/article.htm by various members of the Lazy Jacks - superb articles by folks who take research very seriously

http://www.uttyl.edu/vbetts/homespun.htm compiled by Vicki Betts

http://www.nsalliance.org/uniforms/csuniforms.htm compiled by various smart folks as prep for the Corinth 2005 event

Join the Company of Military Historians

Buy/borrow the following books:

Cadet Gray and Butternut Brown by Tom Arliskas

Echoes of Glory, by Time Life

Regiments and Uniforms of the Civil War by Don Troiani

Johnny Reb, The Uniform of the Confederate Army, 1861-1865 by Les Jensen

Brassey's books on Confederate Uniforms

and eventually grab all of the Portrait of Conflict Series, each volume on a Confederate State.

anyway, the above is a good start.

I recently posted a thread with links to many of those very same articles, just to help out beginers. I see that it did little good.

[coastaltrash]

Re: Confederate Impressions

Mike pretty much summed up what I want to say, but this all redirects a point made on a post started not that long ago- when people stick their hands out for advice and it is given, it really pisses me off when people take things the wrong way, mainly when it's not even directed at them. Being a jerk wouldn't have been a benefit to the conversation, and my time is too valuable to waste by just throwing snide comments to someone I don't know.

Also, I wouldn't count militia uniforms as a part of a confederate impression, since once they joined the Confederate army, they were military.