archieclement
Colonel
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2011
- Location
- mo
The popular belief is that they wore no uniforms at all or captured Union ones, but its rather complicated.
There were several times Texas made uniforms, "Penitentiary uniforms" usually made out of white kersey wool, or brown-to-white colored jean cloth uniforms made it to them on several occasions, but them being behind enemy lines so often, as the lines were fluid and the same "I want something from home syndrome" as I call it that was a widespread thing. Basically it was the soldiers, on both sides early in the War, but extremely common throughout the Confederate Army as a whole where they would throw away an issue uniform and wear clothes sent from home, even if in rags, over something issued to them. That habit did however die by the last year of the War as on the Homefront cloth was either unavailable to the public, or they were within Union lines and they couldn't get it to their loved ones in the field. Thus by the end of the War Confederate soldiers as a whole were usually better uniformed than at any other time, and sometimes looked pretty regulation, depending on where their uniforms were coming from.
For Confederate Indians, I'd say they got issued at least one uniform during the War, but for the most part they wore stuff from home, a lot of it quite colorful, (they liked multi colored vertical striped fabric as a fashion, but made into the same kinds of sack coat, and frock coats as whites wore), and I believe the fabric itself was woven at home, so I'd say they had that most of the time. While they did get supplies, it was seldom due to many, many factors, but not out of lack of effort on some quartermaster's parts. I've read some sources that state uniforms had been stockpiled at Middle Boggy Depot along with other supplies, for Confederate Indian troops in the Territory, but it can be presumed that this was only a short period of regular supply, as Union troops defeated the tiny garrison in a small forgotten fight near the depot, and subsequently, burned the Confederate Depot there.
Heck in "A Creek Warrior for the Confederacy" Grayson makes mention of one soldier under his command firing his flintlock squirrel rifle off in Grayson's face in 1864 leaving him with a powder burn scar on his face under his eye for the rest of life. This is indicative that modern arms were never in abundance for everyone, when they were getting rifles from Texas and Federal "sources". So one can infer that where uniforms are concerned a similar dynamic happened, in essence they got some, but never enough.
According to several sources when Watie's troops took the J.R. Williams on the Arkansas River, (if I remember right on the specific river), the ship had a large amount of black dinner coats, or tailcoats along with top hats, and this was looted to the effect of giving Watie's troops a distinctive uniform for a while late in the War.
I'm still researching the subject so, I don't have a clear hundred percent picture, but I can take solace from the fact I've never seen anyone else have a definitive study on it, so that makes me feel better.
Theres also the estimated 1.5 million in supplies they captured at 2nd cabin creek, besides the J R williams