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Reenactors Forum A discussion for reenactors of the blue and gray era.

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  #1  
Old 11-26-2006, 11:41 AM
gary's Avatar
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Default Canvas shoes?
Here's something I've never seen in any other book or at any museum. Can someone help me with this please? I'm sure Converse wasn't around back then.
Quote:
Campt at Franklin, Tenn. May 12, 1863

...Today is just three years since I asked a certain young lady to share my fate with me. I worked hard all that day.Wore blue jeans pants & shirt & straw hat & poor shoes. Today that same young lady is mine, I wear blue pants, gray shirt, felt hat & canvas shoes...
Canvas shoes were around back then? BTW, the letter is from George E. Dolton to his wife, as published in The Path of Patriotism: Civil War Letters of George Edwin Dolton, ISBN: 1-4196-0707-3 (page 46).
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Old 11-26-2006, 02:11 PM
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Canvas shoes were around; they were issued in numbers to CS troops... were of considerably lower quality than the standard brogans but were cheaper and easier to produce as well as freeing up leather for other uses.
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Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
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Old 11-27-2006, 01:16 PM
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Default hemp
A lot of canvas, in those days, was made of hemp. Nowadays cotton is used. Hemp would outlast cotton by a long shot. They were probably more comfortable than leather brogans (mine still hurt after two years). However, any shoe is better than none.

Calicoboy
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My dear mother:- I have come safely through two more terrible engagements with the enemy, that at South Mountain and the great battle of yesterday (Antietam). Our splendid regiment is almost destroyed. We have had nearly 400 men killed and wounded in the battles. Seven of our officers were shot and three killed in yesterday's battle and nearly 150 men killed and wounded. All from less than 300 engaged. The men have stood like iron....Maj. Rufus Dawes, 6th Wisconsin Volunteers
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Old 11-27-2006, 10:17 PM
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Thanks guys. Dolton was a Union soldier with an Illinois Battery.
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Old 11-28-2006, 01:32 AM
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I seen a few pictures of canvas shoes.. so a search on google may turn up a photo.

As for the info I see the guy is in Franklin, Was he in Fort granger.. or part of the force that fought forest at Thompson Station?

regards, steven
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Old 11-29-2006, 06:05 PM
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This outfit makes some.

http://www.robertlandhistoricshoes.c...et/Detail?no=3
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