Thanks for all the great info on TST! I've been cobbling together a fatigue/field service uniform for the Lone Star Republic Texas army, ca. 1837-1839. There was a dress uniform too, which is mighty complicated. I've finished the cap and I am working on the uniform jacket, although I have to skimp on some features, like the epaulets or shoulder straps and so on...
As I age, a home guard or TST impression becomes a possibility to remain in the living history neurosis, erm, nerd spiral, uh, hobby...
Am I seeing things on the 1850s-era fatigue uniform? It looks a deeper blue than the sky blue of the Mexican War roundabout jacket and trowsers? Or is it the same color...? I know that at least one Pennsylvania Union volunteer regiment requested--and got!--the Mexican War-color for its uniforms instead of the much, much more common dark blue jacket and sky blue kersey trousers. Apparently some used dark blue wool for pants as well...
Great thread on less formal military service during the Civil War!
the "sky blue" jackets and trousers of the ante-bellum army were probably darker than most reproductions, or most modern artists, choose to depict. Consider blue cloth was then colored by indigo, where modern dyes vary in composition and application. .Here are a couple antebellum paintings for comparison of the color.
A detail from an 1840 painting of a soldier in camp at Sarasota, FL by Capt. Seth Eastman of the 1st Infantry:
Gen. Taylor's Headquarters during the Mexican War, notice the dragoon NCO at left:
And here is a photograph i took of an original 1832 pattern artillery fatigue jacket at the Smithsonian many, many years ago...
James Marshall,
Hernando, FL.
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