Uniforms Jefferson Guards uniform confusion

Capt7thWvCoA

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Dec 10, 2014
Hello everyone, hope everyone had a great and safe Christmas. While enjoying the Christmas festivities and gifts , I revived a ebook called " John Brown : Avenging Angel". In this book it describes and depicts the uniform of the jefferson guards from Charles town , WV ( then va) as a dark blue frock coat with crimson piping , plain sky blue trousers, and a hardee had with a crimson hat cord with a brass wreath and brass j g on the crown. But someone else has "recreated " the uniform they think is the uniform . Can some one help me determine which is correct ? I have a attached a pic if the recreation .

jeffblue.jpg
 
Lets see what our uniform guru says, paging @major bill
 
John Brown : Avenging Angel was written by Ron Field who is good about uniforms, but everyone can make a mistake or misinterpret a uniform. I am not very familiar with Johnny Shumate who illustrated the book. I do not know who "recreated" the uniform in post # 1. With out any knowledge who made the "recreation" I can not make any real prediction on how accurate it is.

I will have to see what else I can find about The Jefferson Guard.
 
I will have to look a bit more. I do wonder where Mr. Field and the "recreation" person came up with the information. Often this is from a single photograph. The color of a uniform in a period black and white photograph can be seen by two researchers differently. Red and light blue in period images can be being difficult to determine.
 
Its possible they had blue uniforms I suppose, Virginia was big on blue pre-war. Here's a good source on Virginia militia uniforms:

AME Ch 56 Virginia.pdf (njsekela.com)

Virginia had set regulations for uniforms, lots of blue, but the militia had a bad habit, like many State Militias, of ignoring them and companies going with their own uniforms or none at all.
 
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