Model 1858 Enlisted Forage Cap

[major bill]

I need to become more educated about forage caps as this is an area I have not much experience it. I understand these caps had a colored welts until General Order No. 4 February 26 1861 eliminated the colored welts. But I have seen caps referred to as Model 1858 cap without the colored welt. Did these caps have colored welts right up to 1861?

Also I have seen these called M1857/M1861 Forage Caps, and even Model 1859 Forage Caps. The term 1858 pattern enlisted forage cap is also used. What is the correct term?

 

[Robert Gray]

I believe Model 1858 is the correct term. The original 1858 model had a welt around the crown in the branch color. In 1861 this was discontinued in favor of a dark blue welt the same for all branches and the same color as the rest of the cap. The caps were manufactured in six sizes. The inside of the cap has a outer lining of black Silesia cloth and a inner buckram reinforcing layer around the base. Lastly a leather sweatband ran around the inside base. The front of the cap had a leather chin strap held on by two small eagle buttons and joined by two leather slides and a brass buckle. The top of the cap had a cardboard stiffener.

 

[Legion Para]

The Model 1858 Enlisted Forage cap is the correct term and the following example is in the Smithsonian Museum.

 

[Package4]

From Dave Taylor's great Civil War site:

 

[Package4]

I need to become more educated about forage caps as this is an area I have not much experience it. I understand these caps had a colored welts until General Order No. 4 February 26 1861 eliminated the colored welts. But I have seen caps referred to as Model 1858 cap without the colored welt. Did these caps have colored welts right up to 1861?

Also I have seen these called M1857/M1861 Forage Caps, and even Model 1859 Forage Caps. The term 1858 pattern enlisted forage cap is also used. What is the correct term?

Major Bill, no doubt you already have them and are using the thread to initiate discussion, but two references come to mind on this topic, very near and dear to my collecting heart:

US Army Headgear 1812-1872 by Langellier & Loane, in particular the chapter (3) Preserving a Nation 1861-1865
United States Army Headgear 1855-1902 by Edgar M Howell

 

[major bill]

Yes both books are on my shelfs. With so many manufactures making caps early in the war, espaccly for state troops, we have caps that at best might be said to be loosely based on the Model 1858.

 

[Legion Para]

 

[Ralph Heinz]

Here is a McDowell version. What is interesting is that the owner trimmed about 3/8" off the bill because it would have interfered with sighting his rifle. That tells me someone put it to use during the war who was in the infantry. Another interesting aspect is that the brass eagle buttons have the "I" for infantry like those used as cuff buttons on infantry officer tunics. Perhaps those were all that were available when the cap was assembled.

The bill has a coating of asphaltum which made it repel water. Somehow it made it over the many years without moth damage. It still has its leather sweat band which shows honest use.

As a former airborne infantry officer, I tend to collect things that were actually used and show they've "seen the elephant." I come from a family that had a lot of infantrymen starting with King Phillips War.

 

[Ralph Heinz]

In the fifth grade in N.E. Ohio in 1954, one day a school mate brought to class a forage cap, a tunic, and a Springfield rifle that had belonged to an Ohio Civil war ancestor of his. I was so impressed (I had started collecting antique firearms the year before) that I can still see him standing there with his "show and tell" and I never forgot his name though he moved away that summer. Another kid had a pair of CW muskets from his family and later, a family let me spend hours in their downstairs family room going through the storage trunks of a field grade Union officer who was their ancestor. They had a complete set of 10 volumes of the photographic history of the CW.

I examined his frock coat, pants, overcoat, his officer's sabre and sash, and a couple kepis. One was dark blue but there was one that was artillery red. I had the impression that the red one may have been a captured Confederate kepi as I believe the Union officer had been an infantry officer but that was a long time ago, I was only ten and there were no reference books on uniforms, caps, etc. He was not a Zouave.

I sought out an elderly couple (relatives) who could connect me with information on a couple OVI ancestors hoping they might turn up one of those forage caps for me but all they could find was paperwork -- a tear stained letter from a CO telling the parents of one g,g, uncle that their son had died and discharge papers of another g,g, uncle along with his hand written parole when he had been captured after the Battle of Cedar Mountain.

At ten I bought a CW US socket bayonet for $2 in an antique store and a documented Conf. ctg. box that had been captured at the Battle of Rich Mountain for $1.50 from the same antique store in Mentor, Ohio. That was 63 years ago.