U.S. Navy and C.S. Navy peacoats and greatcoats

Billy1977

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Mar 18, 2016
Location
Flippin, Arkansas (near Yellville)
Hello everybody, I was wondering if anyone had any photos or illustrations of the U.S. Navy enlisted rating's peacoat and that of his counterpart in the C.S. Navy, and the U.S. Navy officer's greatcoat and that of his C.S. Navy counterpart. (I'm presuming the officers in both navies wore greatcoats, as I've always thought of peacoats as being an enlisted man's coat). Many thanks in advance to whomever can help.
 
You ar e thinking of the round jacket. The US and CS navies didn't have P-Coats. The Watch coat, a full length coat resembling an officer's great coat, was owned by the ship and issued to sailors on watch. The round jacket, basically a double breasted shell jacket with a rolling collar, was issued to enlisted men.

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You ar e thinking of the round jacket. The US and CS navies didn't have P-Coats. The Watch coat, a full length coat resembling an officer's great coat, was owned by the ship and issued to sailors on watch. The round jacket, basically a double breasted shell jacket with a rolling collar, was issued to enlisted men.


According to this history of the pea coat it has been around in the US since the 1720's. Do you have anything showing that the US Navy (at least) did not have pea coats during the war?

BTW, the pea coat was my favorite piece in my uniform. This was amazing how well it helped against the cold winter nights on deck. I still have two of them, including my original from boot camp, but have not worn either in many years.
 
You ar e thinking of the round jacket. The US and CS navies didn't have P-Coats. The Watch coat, a full length coat resembling an officer's great coat, was owned by the ship and issued to sailors on watch. The round jacket, basically a double breasted shell jacket with a rolling collar, was issued to enlisted men.
What to wear sailors in cold climates if they had no great coats and pea coat and only few watch coat?
 
Early in the 1800s drab pea jacket were worn by both petty officers and enlisted men. Starting in 1843 the navy started to issue "Blue Pea Jackets "to23 both Petty officers and enlisted men.These were used though the Civil War. For example in 1862 the Navy used both "Blue Pea Jackets" and Blue Seamless Pea Jackets". In 1863 the Navy purchased 12,00 pea jackets while in 1864 only 10,00- were purchased.

The garment called a pea jacket or pea coat during the Civil War was of medium length, double breasted overcoat with eight large-one-piece hard rubber buttons. They were made out of a type of "pilot cloth" known as "beaver cloth". Basically this was dark blue kersey like cloth which was heaver than normal kersey and with a shorter, closer nap.

Prior to the war the Navy tested some rubberized pea jackets. The Navy also used sou'westers, usually cloth, but rubberized ones were tested. The sailors would add heavy sweaters to help them stay warm.

I will try to find a photograph of a Civil War pea jackets.
 
I remember the first day we got our pea coats they had us cut all of the buttons off. It had large black plastic button and they gave us smaller silver buttons to replace them. They also had us sew on the new ones so that they hung slightly loose and would be less likely to pop off. My coat still has those same buttons 35 years later.
 
Billy1977, that is a good question. The available information on CSA naval uniforms is somewhat limited. To the best of my knowledge I have never seen any information about Confederate pea coats. I do not believe that very many books have been publish about Confederate Navy uniforms. I will review my Company of Military Historian uniform plates on Confederate navy uniforms to see what I can find information.
 
A review of my Company of Military Hisorian plates and articles in the Company of Military Historians Journal articles show very little information about Confederate petty officer's uniforms and seamen's uniforms.
 
Thanks Jk225, CivilWarinColor, Unicornforge and Major Bill! So was the C.S. Navy equivalent to the jacket in the above photo steel gray in color?

And Major Bill, is that Bluejackets book available for a decent price used?


Billy1977, that is a good question. The available information on CSA naval uniforms is somewhat limited. To the best of my knowledge I have never seen any information about Confederate pea coats. I do not believe that very many books have been publish about Confederate Navy uniforms. I will review my Company of Military Historian uniform plates on Confederate navy uniforms to see what I can find information.

Pure speculation on my part, but with a very few exceptions most of the CS Navy was riverboats that never left the inland coastal waterways. From a practical standpoint I would think that the ones in the CS Navy that really needed pea coats in the same way that Union blockade ships sitting in the Atlantic would. The exception would be those handful of ocean going ships that the South had. They may have just used Union coats or even British when they acquired the ships in England. Again, nothing to back this up, but I would suspect that if a CS pea coat does exist it would probably be among the rarest of CW uniforms in existence.

If anyone would know it would probably be someone at the National Civil War Maritime Museum at Port Columbus.
 
I'm working on a book about the organization and uniforms of the Confederate navy, the most difficult part is the winter uniform of sailors and petty officers, your information is valuable. The length and the cutting of the Pea-Coat was a big question mark for me, Many Confederate uniforms were very similar to those in the north, so I can elaborate on that of the Union, posted by #major bill. Compared to what I had drawn last year I have to do some minor modifications:
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The only thing I have for Confederate pee jackets or pea jackets is information from the Daily Delta (New Orleans's) from May 17 1861 asking for sealed proposals for furnishing 25 Pee (sic.) jackets. The next day proposals for clothing C.S. Navy were given out for 199 Blue cloth pea jackets. This article was printed in The Company of Military Historians Journal in the winter of 1997 issue. I have not met Mr. Brooks and can not state is status or expertise on this subject

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The tailors in New Orleans had certainly seen U.S. Navy pea coats and unless some C.S .Navy official told them differently, the tailors would have probably made near copies of the U.S. Navy pea coats. I am not sure how long it was before the C.S. Navy switched to gray cloth.

I know that some people in the Company of Military Historians would be very interested in C.S Naval uniforms. The Company has recently done plates on C.S. Marine uniforms and plates on C.S. Navy officer uniforms in their Uniforms in America Plate Series. The C.S. Navy officer uniform plates are plate #880 and plate #885 with David M. Sullivan as the author and Ronald E. Spicer doing the art work. Mr. Sullivan is our full time Company Administrator and he is very interested in Civil War era naval and marine uniforms. He is considered an expert in these fields. He might be interested in doing an article in the Journal or a uniform plate on enlisted C.S. sailors in the Uniforms in America plate series. You can contact him on the Company of Military Historian's web page. Be aware he might try to get you to join the Company and do the art work for the plate. You can send me a private message on this forum (goes to my email) and I could contact Mr. Sullivan for you. I know him fairly well and I think he owes me a "red pop" next time we meet, or perhaps it is I who owes him a "red pop", I forget.
 
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