Dear Timewalker,
[Laughs so hard had right myself on the chair and glad I did not have liquid in my mouth as to loose it over the fragile keyboard of lap tops]
My, my --
Facts about Original Civil War Shoes
Before the war, almost all army shoes were made at Susquehanna Arsenal. The pieces were cut out in the arsenal and then "farmed out" to independent workers who put them together in their homes on piecework basis It was the same system that was used for uniforms.
Historically, shoe uppers always had been considered women's work and this may be all that was done by the home workers but it is possible that the welting and sole stitching was done at home as well.
The largest pair of bootees on record still exists. They are smooth side out, size 17. Three pairs were specially manufactured for a large Swedish draftee. The shoes never reached him at his unit. A target of his size was just too tempting and the Scandinavian giant didn't survive his first action. One pair remains in a museum at Susquehana.
Fugawee calls our Northern or Federal shoe a Contract Bootee because there were slight variations in the shoes issued to the Northern troops.
We have a letter dated January 1862 from Colonel Crossman, Assistant Quartermaster General describing the purchase of 1,102,700 pairs of boots and bootees from contractors all over the North. Contracts were as large as 120,000 pairs from one manufacturer at Sing Sing, NY (did they have the prison then?) or as small as 300 pairs from another factory in Pennsylvania. The shoes apparently included work shoes already on hand. They had been manufactured on lasts (the forms on which shoes are built) already in the factories. You may be sure that contractors delivered variations in design and fit.. This is borne out in the Congressional hearings early in 1862. Some of the testimony is hilarious.
One manufacturer, faced with the fact that he had supplied shoes that foot soldiers wore out in three weeks replied, "But those shoes were supposed to go to the Cavalry." So help me, it is in the Congressional Record.
In early 1862 Crossman reported his purchases to Congressman E.B. Washhburn, Chairman of the House Committee to Inquire into Government Contracts (Page 1569, Record of the 37th Congress, 2nd Session) click here to read the letter and apologized for having accepted a small quantity of pegged bootees which had been accepted only because of the urgency of the situation. Regulations called for sewn shoes but cheap work shoes for the immigrant trade and those for the plantation (slave) trade had been pegged together since a machine that set nine pegs to the inch came into use.
Which is correct, pegged or sewn?
The army did everything it could to force the contractors to deliver sewn shoes. While a pair of sewn shoes brought the contractor about $1.80 to $2.00 per pair, the Government paid only $1.25 for pegged shoes. With Cavalry boots the prices were $3.25 for sewn and $2.50 for pegged. (265 out of 183,997 pairs of Cavalry boots purchased. Out of a total of 1,102,700 pairs of shoes and boots purchased by Col. Crossman only 5.43% were pegged. And he felt that he had to explain that he had bought the inferior pegged shoes because of the exigencies of the war, even though they cost the Gov't one third less.
The shank is riveted in place and the heel has a close-set row of cut nails to extend wear. The boot is machine pegged, nine pegs to the inch
No, that is not stitching, it is two rows of pegs. They are staggered for strength and to get as many pegs in the row as possible. Note the rivets on the shank and the close-set nails in the heel.
Forty percent of Civil War shoes were made on a pegging machine invented in 1838, It was much like a two needle sewing machine and almost as fast. The first station was an awl which made a hole, then the second station drove a peg into the hole.
This machine took a block of wood that had been cut across the grain and was of a thickness equal to length of the pegs. The end grain was scored in both directions, making a "card" full of diamond points. The card was then split by the machine to free the hundreds of pegs. These fed directly into the next step in the machine which inserted them in the shoes.
One of the big differences between the nine-to-the-inch machine-pegged shoes actually used in the Civil War and the three-or-four-to-the-inch pegging seen on Sutlers' Row is the fact that machine-set pegs were driven all the way through the leather until they were flush with the sole. The points that went into the interior of the shoe were then cut off with special tools before the insole was glued in. Those pegs were square and straight-sided all through the leather.
Most of today's reproduction shoes are made with round, polished pegs which are actually made to hold the shanks of modern cowboy boots. The pointed ends of the pegs are driven in only until they encounter the metal form inside the shoe. When the points of the pegs reach the metal, they are cut off on the outside: This means that the smooth, pointed peg is in a tapered hole. Thus, the shoes have three or four round, polished and tapered pegs instead of nine straight-sided pegs to the inch . The shoe is held together mainly with glue. The pegs are mostly cosmetic.
Fugawee made "pegged" shoes until our research showed that the sewn shoes were not only appropriate, but had been preferred by the military.
About forty percent of all boots and brogans made for the US Army during the Civil War were constructed with the less expensive pegging process.
During the days of the Soviet Bloc, the East Germans and Poles used some machine-pegged boosts in their armies. I don't know where you would find a pegging machine today. Fugawee Jefferson bootees are all sewn as per the basic military regulations during of the Civil War. Fugawee Jefferson bootees are built on lasts taken directly from an 1865 boot.
Brogans or are also called Jefferson Bootees.
The Army used the term "Jefferson". The reason goes back to Thomas Jefferson:
Before the French Revolution, excessively extravagent fancy shoe buckles were considered the mark of the Aristocrats and their supporters. The Compte de Artois, brother to King Louis wore shoe buckles so extravagant that he was reputed to "Wear a farm on each foot."
"Down with the big buckles !" came to be a call to revolution; and soon, wearing any shoe buckles at all could cause your head to leave your body. Shoe buckles went out of style in a hurry.
In the United States, Thomas Jefferson was a strong supporter of the French Revolution so, at his inauguration in 1801 he wore laced-up shoes.. All laced shoes soon were called "Jefferson Shoes." The term "Jeffersons" continued to mean laced shoes until the early twentieth century. "Bootee" is a diminutive of "Boot" and signifies a short boot. "Brogan" is derived from "Brogue", an English term for a rugged shoe that did not cover the ankle as opposed to a shoe which was lower and a boot which did cover the ankle. The Brits still use that distinction today
The majority of Confederate shoes came through the blockade and were made much in the fashion of an English military boot and of riveted, screwed, or nailed construction. The British did not make many shoes with pegs until the 1870's when they started to use them in cheap leather sea boots because they were not corroded by sea water.
www.fugawee.com/Civil%20War%20Shoes.htm is "Reference site and cut and pasted from that site permission just for posting in this forum."
I will have to also add, there are pictures and other links in this afore mentioned web site.
Another site says this:
GETTYSBURG. Just the name of this little farming town, located in South Central Pennsylvania, is enough to stir the emotions and set the imaginations of millions of people, around the world, to running wild. You see, Gettysburg is more than a town, it's the stuff that legends are made of. A quiet little farming town with a few Carriage Shops and a Shoe factory prior to July 1, 1863, is now the object of vast pilgrimages of Civil War History buffs because of what took place here 140 years ago.
[2003]
civilwartheater.com/Gettysburg.htm [Reference site] They also have a slide show on their site.
Sincerely,
M. E. Wolf
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