Belt buckle question

photoman475

Sergeant
Joined
Nov 13, 2015
Location
Fargo, ND
We have a discussion going in my reenactment unit about belt buckles. Did CS soldiers wear US belt buckles upside down during the war, having gotten the belts from the Union Army in whatever way?

Or is this something that reenactors have done? I request the assistance of more informed people than I am.
 
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/north-carolina-rebel-1-6th-plate-tintype.108150/

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Due to a couple portrait images of Confederates wearing US plates inverted... some reenactors in years past thought the display was a political statement... and some started to replicate the same on the field..... Even though these were only found in studio type portraits... a few known images of CS dead on the field still retaining US accoutrements... you don't usually see this being done...

However we find US soldiers in portrait images frequently doing the same thing.... We also take note that in many early war portrait images we can see many of the guys took great lengths to reverse how the gear was worn and held... since the image is a reverse... the finished product may appear "normal"... we see the cartridge box, cap box, bayonet scabbard, etc intentionally placed on the opposite (wrong) side of where its typically worn for the same reasons in the same images... Along with this occasional photo habit is inverting the waist belt plate... yet instead of just being reversed... it ends up reversed and upside down... go figure what they were thinking... but we see a fair number of these images.... We also occasionally see other CS troops wearing CS state plates that are similarly inverted....

In post #2 above take note the image is reversed as normal... as a good example.... yet the subject has placed his cartridge box, cap box, bayonet scabbard intentionally on the wrong sides for the photo... so it appears to be on the correct side in the image... case in point...

Conclusion... most historians and reenactors have long ago determined the reenactorism issue was the result of misinterpreting the purpose of reversed/inverted gear worn in such period images...
 
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