- Joined
- Feb 23, 2013
- Location
- East Texas
It may come as a surprise to some, but the Confederacy actually drew up and published regulations for uniforms for their military forces in a slim volume that these prints state was published in Petersburg, Virginia in 1861. Now very rare, it was republished in New Hope, Pennsylvania in 1952. Although I have seen copies of this reprint in libraries, at some time I acquired these two prints from the book that were probably made at or around the same time. They're typical of the lot and depict above Confederate cavalry officers and below artillery enlisted men. The color difference is puzzling because there was NO difference in color or shade called for in the text and is/was likely merely a by-product of the hand water-coloring done to the original plates.
Of course, YELLOW is the trim or branch color associated with the cavalry service, as RED is with the artillery. Note especially that BY REGULATION ALL uniforms, both officer and enlisted, were to be double-breasted; officers and NCO's were prescribed to wear sashes in full-dress. To my knowledge, NO uniforms conforming exactly to these regulations were ever produced during the war! The only time they or anything like them appeared was over thirty years after the war when a noted and notable Memphis, Tennessee-based United Confederate Veterans' drill team formally adopted them for their performances, as seen below in a cabinet card dated '97 showing one of their members, Corporal J. J. Brown.
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