Confederate "Uniform" description

zburkett

Sergeant Major
Joined
Aug 21, 2015
Location
Orange County, Virginia
Edward A. Moore, in his book "The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson" list what he was wearing in early February 1862 when he entered Frederick, Maryland. We have a lot of discussions about proper uniform, but this is one of the few detailed descriptions of what one man was actually wearing on a given day. So, for what it is worth.

""My hat..... It had been made to order by a substantial hatter in Lexington, and served through the war on one head after another. It was a tall, drab colored fur of conical shape, with several rows of holes punched around the crown for ventilation. I still wore the lead-colored knit jacket ......This garment was adorned with a blue stripe near the edges, buttoned close at the throat, and came down well over the hips, fitting after the manner of a shirt. My trousers, issued by the Confederate Quartermaster Department, were fashioned in North Carolina, of a reddish-brown or brick -dust color, part wool and part cotton, elaborate in dimensions about the hips and seat, but tapering and small at the feet, in imitation, as to shape and color, of those worn by Billy Wilson's Zouaves at first Manassas."
 
Hope it's not intrusive on your thread? Saved these from an 1861 Harper's out of sheer interest. Please excuse how messy the snips are. Harper's was amazingly even handed for awhile, publishing articles like this on Confederate uniforms.

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enlarged print, left to right

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Same, enlarged descriptions snipped left-right

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Thanks JPK. I am always interested in what it was really like without the overlay of a century. I wonder if those "Mississippi Rifle" pants are similar to the ones Moore was wearing. I should have added that Moore was a member of the Rockbridge Artillery. Rockbridge is a county in Virginia. BTW I'm only half through it but I do recommend the book highly. It is an interesting first person account with a lot of detail that you don't normally run across in a first hand account.
 
Thank you for posting this. This is an interesting uniform.

Years ago the Company of Military Historians published a uniform plate in their American Military Uniforms series. Rockbridge Artillery, Virginia, 1862 by Lee A. Wallace Jr. the artist was George Woodridge. The plate shows the uniform you describe and describes it.

Wallace tells us the jacket you describe was called a Josey. The uniform plate also has 4 other uniforms and an additional 2 in the background. It appears Edward A. Moore's uniform was an individual uniform worn only by him.
 
If he entered Frederick, Md., in Feb. 1862, then he was entering undercover. The border between North and South in Western Maryland was always very porous, but Confederate troops under their own flag did not enter Frederick until Sept. 1862, when they passed through in large number on their way to the battleground at Antietam. Frederick was known as a strong pro-Union town, and Confederate soldier Moore could not have traveled openly there without danger of arrest and imprisonment.
 
Although getting old the Company of Military Historian uniform plate by Lee A. Wallace Jr. the artist was George Woodridge is still useful. They were major figures in uniform study. Note the I scanned this at a very low resolution and the original is much nicer.

Note the enlisted artillerymen wear trimmed and untrimmed artillery jackets. Note the illustration of both hats and caps.
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Although getting old the Company of Military Historian uniform plate by Lee A. Wallace Jr. the artist was George Woodridge is still useful. They were major figures in uniform study. Note the I scanned this at a very low resolution and the original is much nicer.

Note the enlisted artillerymen wear trimmed and untrimmed artillery jackets. Note the illustration of both hats and caps.
View attachment 159155

Great representation!

The guy with the rope in the center, minus overcoat is a spot on description of the OP:

  • It was a tall, drab colored fur [felt] of conical shape, with several rows of holes punched around the crown for ventilation.
  • I still wore the lead-colored knit jacket ......This garment was adorned with a blue stripe near the edges, buttoned close at the throat, and came down well over the hips, fitting after the manner of a shirt.
  • My trousers, issued by the Confederate Quartermaster Department, were fashioned in North Carolina, of a reddish-brown or brick -dust color, part wool and part cotton, elaborate in dimensions about the hips and seat,
 
I found that description interesting because it is the only first hand account I remember of a Confederate soldier in the field saying that on this day this is what I was wearing. I wish he had mentioned his shoes.
Here's another Confederate soldier's description of his uniform in the Maryland Campaign:

"My costume consisted of a ragged pair of trousers, a stained, dirty jacket; an old slouch hat, the brim pinned up with a thorn; a begrimed blanket over my shoulder, a grease-smeared cotton haversack full of apples and corn, a cartridge box full and a musket. I was barefooted and had a stonebruise on each foot. Some of my comrades were a little better dressed, some were worse. I was the average, but there was no one there who would not have been "run in" by the police had he appeared on the streets of any populous city, and would have been fined next day for undue exposure. Yet those grimy, sweaty, lean, ragged men were the flower of Lee’s army."
- Alexander Hunter (Co. A, 17th Virginia Infantry), SHSP 31, p. 40.


And as for other Confederate soldiers describing their uniform, the fallowing is Philip D. Stephenson's account of what he was issued right after he joined Co. K, 13th Arkansas Infantry in September 1861. It sounds like he was issued an Arkansas state uniform, manufactured at the state penitentiary in Little Rock:

"I was about the last recruit for the regiment, at least for a season. When they fitted me out in soldier clothes, it was rare work. All the uniform hats, shoes, etc., had been picked over and only odds and ends were left. Lieutenant Bartlett roared as I tried on one thing after another. I finally emerged-and was a sight! I had on a long frock coat of coarse brown cloth, butternut color, very tight, buttoned up to the chin on my long, rail-like body. My pants, of the same stuff, were a mile too big, baggy as sacks, legs rolled up at the bottom. Our uniforms were mostly the same dirt color, the coats having brass buttons and black cuffs and collars. My hat, a common light colored wool, was passible as to fit, but my shoes, coarse brogans, were a No.9 and a No.8! I laughed it off and was proud of being in uniform."
- The Civil War Memoir of Philip Daingerfield Stephenson, D.D., p. 18.
 
I have never really gone for the Antietam 'ragged reb' scenario; more so now after spending years studying this subject. Many eyewitness accounts must be taken with a pinch of salt due to ignorance, misidentification or even bias. The northern press, after all, had had a field day representing Confederate soldiers as scarecrows; as a consequence that is what Northern folk expected to see. The fact is the entire ANV had been issued new uniforms in June/July/August 1862, with 'top ups' received when required. Entire brigades were dressed in identical English uniforms. Other units were issued Richmond Depot jeans uniforms. At times there may have been 'multiforms', but they were still uniforms. There may well have been soldiers in the ranks with worn shoes but many soldiers in the Federal army were battling the same issues.
 
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