Are you ready for some Football!?!

[RangerSWB]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

Here's a print currently for sale on Ebay Express: This one is entitled "1865 Civil War Soldiers Football Soccer" by Winslow Homer.

George "Ranger" Walters
Co. D, 27th VA
Stonewall Brigade

[Chuck A Luck]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

Very interesting topic. I don't recall this sport being mentioned in any of the few dozen ACW diaries & books I've read, altho most (but not all) were by Confederates -- and I don't think this sport had taken much to the South of the country by the time of the war (or so it seems).
Great pictures, too, especially that photograph! And this drawing directly preceding, also good! It looks pretty physical, alright -- and like most of the "action" is taking place off the field of play! :p
Also looks like both balls depicted (in the photo & the preceding illustration) are more-or-less spheroid -- tho obviously not perfectly so.

[bAcK88]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

http://books.google.com/books?id=BnXEDLp0ngkC&pg=PA123&dq=3rd+louisiana+infantry#PPA91,M1

Page 90. William Tunnard of the 3rd Louisiana describes football played in the regiment in Camp Jackson, Arkansas in the late summer of 1861.

[Ken]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

Since we are back on the topic, the image once again.

[vbetts]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

Not a description of the game, but a reference which would indicate common knowledge. When Galveston, Texas, was threatened with being bombarded by the federal fleet in May, 1862, Provost Marshal J. C. Massie was charged with moving excess supplies and stock off of the island. He told a local newspaper "after a few more days the enemy can have all that is left; and if they can make much use of it, they may have my head for a football."--Edward T. Cotham, Jr., _Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston_ (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998), 54.

Vicki Betts

[Seamus]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

From a letter to his wife, written by Colonel Robert Bullock of the 7th Florida Infantry,

In camp at Zollicoffer, Tenn. July 17th, 1863.

"The evening of the day I last wrote you, I think I mentioned to you that the In[ ]s stationed at this place would have a ball-play - They did play & entertained me much - about fifty of them came out on ther play ground, divided themselves into two parties - 25 to the side- their play ground was about three hundred yards long - the parties met in the center - throw up a ball, which each party strove to carry back to their end of the ground. They contested very violently with each other for the ball - [ ]d frequently throw each other the hardest falls I ever witnessed - They stripped off [ ] clothing except thier drawers, and when they got through, the perspiration, was [ ]ering off of them. Their play ground was on the bank of a river & immediatly after play, while they were wet with perspiration, they jumped into the river and took a - This ended the play."

[Joe Walker]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

Gen. H. B. Granbury, when imprisoned at Ft Warren wrote to a fellow officer imprisoned at Johnson Island: "we spend an hour every day (except Sunday) playing football and pitching quoit" (March 1862)

From "Lone Star General"-

Joe Walker

[Rob Weaver]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

"Four Years in the Iron Brigade," William Ray specifically mentions men of Co F 7th Wisconsin playing football. A set of rules that I have from the 1820s uses the name football, but it's really more like rugby. American football, in the early days was quite a pushing match. The teams huddled together and tried to force the ball downfield, or at least to breakout into the running game. The forward pass hadn't been invented yet. Thankfully, neither had the flying wedge.

[boreguard]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

Well being from Louisiana I guess I can say "Gooooo Tigers"
Sorry had to do that :)

[Rob Weaver]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

Well being from Louisiana I guess I can say "Gooooo Tigers"
Sorry had to do that :)

"On, Wisconsin..."

[NY Pvt]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

By Mansfield P. Hatch a Musician in the 20th Massachusetts. Written on November 16th 1861 near Washington D.C.

....It is quite cold & chilly here today & the only way I got warm was to go out with the band fellers & play football. We had, I should think, some 30 or 40 at it before dinner. Just got interested in it when the horn was sounded for us to eat grub.....

[paulcalloway]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

Harper's Weekly:




"Holiday in Camp - Soldiers playing Foot-Ball" Sketched by Winslow Homer

Source:
Harpers' Weekly, July 15, 1865

[Mgreer]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

I am reading James Henry Gooding's "On the Alter of Freedom" and he states that the 54th Mass received "a couple of foot-balls". This made me look into the history of football and I found one of the early predecessors to the game we know today was known as the "Boston game", and was played by a group known as the Oneida Football Club who were out of Boston. The Oneida Football Club was formed in 1862 by schoolboys who played the "Boston game" on Boston Common.

[GenuineInformation]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

This website provides some insight into the origins of Rugby. It also suggests that the ball's shape--at least until a rubber bladder was developed--depended completely on the size and shape of the pig's bladder used to inflate it, and was "more plum shaped" than oval. As described, the job of inflating the bladder (through a broken-off clay pipe stem!) does not sound like a desirable one.

http://www.rugbyfootballhistory.com/ball.htm

-JSK

[Matthew Joe Mallory]

Re: Are you ready for some Football!?!

In doing my research on the unit I portray, I came across a mention of "football". After searching the forms for more research, and finding this old thread, I thought to add to it with what little I found. Is anyone aware of a "vintage" team playing this sport today, much like "vintage base ball"?

From "History of LaGrange Military Academy and the Cadet Corps" by John A. Wyeth, published in 1907.
"Our Saturday vacations were often spent in the rough games of “foot-and-a-half” and “football,” the latter of which was a much milder game than the rough and tumble affair of the college life of to-day. We had the same ball, but we were not permitted to fall upon it, or to pick it up from the ground, but to keep it in motion by kicking in the effort to carry it over the enemy’s goal. The ball could be caught in the air before it struck the ground and then kicked, but if it hit the ground nothing but the foot could touch it."

This website has some nice pictures and information on the "Oldest Soccer Ball", used in 1863, and made by Charles Goodyear.[/URL]


This website has some pictures of "melon" type footballs, including one used in 1907, when Dr. Wyeth's book was published.