caps look like quarter barrels of beer

major bill

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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This is a piece about a pre Civil War/Civil War Michigan company.

For full dress, the Detroit Light Guard wore tall black bearskins (also called showy bearskin shakos in one period source), which they had recently purchased for $1,500. The fronts of the bearskins were embellished with two gold tassels. Alternate headwear was blue full dress caps with white pompoms and a tiger head badge. One major from the 51st Regiment, had a less shinning description of the Detroit Light Guard’s bearskins; the “Detroit Light Guard in elegant uniforms except the monstrous cap, which is some twenty-four feet - or rather inches high, and as uncouth in appearance, as would be a quarter of a barrel of beer (minus the beer) upon their craniums.”[ii]


Katcher, Philip, American Civil War Armies (5) Volunteer Militia, Osprey Pub. Ltd., London, 1989, p. 16.

[ii] “Military’, Grand Rapids Daily Eagle, January 24 1857, p. 3, col. 1.
 
That is a really strange description, I have seen an illustration of their headgear. in that Osprey volume. It isn't all that weird. Different maybe, not all that strange. I have seen stranger headgear.
 
The Osprey illustration is in Michigan issued uniforms not their militia uniforms. By the Civil War they had added a gray Zouave style fatigue uniform. These are impressive caps.

figure 1 .jpeg
 
As I've mentioned before, I never have cared for most European military eccoutrements. I particularly don't care for bearskin shakos.
These are perticularly ugly....
 
Not sure they look like beer barrels. Well perhaps they look a bit like beer barrels if I had drank the whole barrel of beer.
 
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