Uniforms Identifying uniforms using medals.

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One way to identify if a unidentified uniform is Civil War or post Civil War is by looking at any medals the soldier in the image is wearing. Next is to come up with a state and year. This book is a great help in this. There are drawings of 633 state medals and descriptions of many more in this 530 page book.

Here is an example of how this works. These are California marksmanship awards and the years they were issued.

Using this we would know that the National Guardsman is from California and the earliest year that the marksmanship award he is wearing were issued. These "ladder" awards were issued by state National Guards for marksmanship, years of service, and things like attending the annual encampment.