- Joined
- Aug 25, 2012
I was going through some Company of Military Collector & Historian Journals that I will be taking to Chickamauga to get rid of. In the winter of 1973 issue it a short article The Cleanliness of Troops 1863.
This covers a letter from Colonel Nelson A. Miles that suggest something be done about the dirty soldiers. It appear that even the London journals were making fun of the unkept filthy Union soldiers. So some questions:
1. Were Union soldiers any more filthy and unkept than Confederate soldiers?
2. Were British soldiers during the Crimean War all that clean on campaign?
3. Even though Miles suggest bathing often, were the Union soldier open to such a thing?
Miles described one group he had just seen. "I observed a detail of soldiers escorting recruits to the depot the other day, and they seemed to be only burlesque of what a soldier should be. One wore a fur cap without a peak, or visor,-the better. I presume to display his hair, which was soap locked in the Ionic style; another sported a cigar in his mouth; another was cress as an artilleryman, so far as head-gear went- wearing the "bonnet" slouched , with the number of his regiment behind, the position being reversed, and his trousers being of corduroy, while a flashy neck-tie was suspended from his neck."
This covers a letter from Colonel Nelson A. Miles that suggest something be done about the dirty soldiers. It appear that even the London journals were making fun of the unkept filthy Union soldiers. So some questions:
1. Were Union soldiers any more filthy and unkept than Confederate soldiers?
2. Were British soldiers during the Crimean War all that clean on campaign?
3. Even though Miles suggest bathing often, were the Union soldier open to such a thing?
Miles described one group he had just seen. "I observed a detail of soldiers escorting recruits to the depot the other day, and they seemed to be only burlesque of what a soldier should be. One wore a fur cap without a peak, or visor,-the better. I presume to display his hair, which was soap locked in the Ionic style; another sported a cigar in his mouth; another was cress as an artilleryman, so far as head-gear went- wearing the "bonnet" slouched , with the number of his regiment behind, the position being reversed, and his trousers being of corduroy, while a flashy neck-tie was suspended from his neck."