U.S. Civil War History bits

Thanks USMCPrice for all that great information! I´ve learned never so much off the Civil War as i did it now! And Buster Keaton is really a Star!

 

Thank you Ulrich! Yes Keaton was pretty funny, if I can find a link to the entire movie I'll post it.

 

It wouldn't have been his fault. He would have played the victim card and sued the National Park Service. He would have had to have run out elsewhere because at the time he wasn't going to have run around me.

 

Louisiana Tigers

The appelation "Louisiana Tigers" morphed over time. Initially it was applied only to company of volunteers in Wheat's battalion of Louisiana troops. Company B, 1st Louisiana Special Battalion. They were known as the "Tiger Rifles".

Wheat's Tigers at Winchester.

By First Manassas the entire 5 company battalion of Major Chatham Roberdeau Wheat, CSA, officially the 1st Louisiana Special Battalion, had acquired the nickname "Louisiana Tigers" or "Wheat's Tiger's.

Major Chatham Roberdeau Wheat

Major Wheat was himself, quite the colorful character.
from Wikipedia:
Born in Alexandria, Virginia, (April 9, 1826) the son of a preacher, Wheat moved with his family to Louisiana as a young boy. Growing in size to 6 foot, 4 inches tall and weighing 240 pounds, Wheat's physical stature was impressive. He was elected a Lieutenant then later as a Captain in the First Tennessee Mounted Regiment under General Winfield Scott in the Mexican-American War. He left the military due to illness and returned to Louisiana where he was elected a representative of New Orleans to the Louisiana State Legislature in 1848. He was admitted to the bar in 1849.
Subsequently, his wanderlust inspired him to undertake a series of international mercenary and filibuster adventures. He was commissioned a Colonel by Narciso Lopez in his Cuban filibustering expedition. In 1855 he joined the Juan Álvarez campaign against Santa Anna where he was commissioned a Brigadier General in charge of artillery by the State of Guerrero. He travelled to Italy to serve under Garibaldi but soon left when his state seceded from the Union.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Wheat returned to New Orleans. Financed by backers of his previous Nicaragua adventures, he scoured the wharves of New Orleans to organize what became known as "Wheat's Special Battalion", or the "Louisiana Tigers", a hard fighting, hard living unit that performed well on the battlefield but was renowned for its lack of discipline. The battalion, which numbered 500 men, consisted of immigrants from Ireland and Germany, as well as natives of New Orleans. Most of the men were "street toughs". They were generally considered to be at the "bottom of the barrel" socially. They were very loyal to Wheat, who was a charismatic and remarkably humble leader of men.

Actually this only applied to the first four companies, the fifth was made up of priviledged youth, as described from this excerpt from Historeynet.com. Unlike the rest of the battalion, the Catahoula Guerrillas consisted of sons of wealthy planters, doctors and lawyers from Catahoula Parish in northern Louisiana. Outfitted in dark-gray battle shirts and blue kepis, they were complete social opposites from Wheat's New Orleans dockworkers.
Anyway, unable to recruit the requisite number of companies to become a regiment, they departed for Virginia as a battalion.

Will continue this. The son wants to take the dogs to the battlefield and I'm hoping to find Biak's information.

 

Sorry for such a dumb question, but over here if you see an Union soldier they have blue uniforms and the Confederate soldies had always their grey ones! And now it seems that they all had their own "fashion". Was there an typical uniform for each side?

 

Ulrich,
You are correct as far as I have ever known or been taught. The actual photos I have seen the Union wore blue and Confederates had Gray. I love learning about the Civil War and was just given a gift of 3 THICK books that explain each battle and all the details that are known in detail. I could see what it would cost to send them to Germany if you are interested.

I have read alot about General Lee and General Grant, I think both were great in their own right and Lee an excellent human being in just about every aspect...but Grant was a well known expert horseman and has alot of my respect. I have really enjoyed the memoirs on both of these soldeirs.

 

Krystal, thanks for the great offer! PM you.

 

History by Hollywood or TV is not a good medium of instruction, but it does simplify things in the eyes of ignorant viewers who doesn't know sh1t from shinola, and could really care less after the movie is over!

Early in the war, many Confederates provided their own uniforms, weapons, horses, etc. Of course back then homespun cloth was the norm and not the exception, so that wasn't so much of a big deal. The predominate color for the Southerners was grey (shirts, trousers and headgear), but later in the war grey cloth and dyes was hard to come by, so they resorted to dying uniforms by soaking them with boiled walnut shells. This created a slightly dark khaki appearance, called butternut. This was supplemented by appropriating uniform items from whatever source was available from departed Yankees from the battlefields and captured stores, wagon trains, etc to civilian garments. The next time you get the chance to watch "Gettysburgh" or "Gods and Generals" look closely at the uniforms of the Confederates. You'd have to look long and hard to find two that are the same. If there was a book that displayed all the Confederate uniforms, it would be as big as a New York City phone book.

Anyway, back to the start of the war. Just about every regiment, and many companies that filled it out were differently dressed. Many zoave units were raised by both sides as well. Some Confederate units mustered in with blue uniforms (taken from siezed US armories) in addition to what is described above. The official color scheme of the Confederate uniform was to be a grey jacket/shirt over a white undershirt, and sky blue trousers. Very few, if any units adhered to this decree. I had always wondered why the color grey was so popular with southern troops, and I stumbled upon some information explaining this several years ago. Many southern officers were graduates of West Point, VMI, Citadel and other military schools around the south, and the cadet uniforms were all grey (duh). Simple idea, and it makes sense to me now. And grey is a neutral color that goes with just about anything you know!

 

That's not a dumb question at all Ulrich. In fact the uniform situation varied depending upon the time period and unit in question. The vast majority of troops on both sides were state's troops and the clothing and equipment fell upon the individual state government's early on. As the war progressed the Federal/Union uniforms became more standardized, the confederates less so. As Bobby mentioned, Mid to late war confederate uniforms tended to be butternut in color because of shortages in dye's. The cut of the uniforms also changed. Early war frock coats were common.


Federal soldier in frock coat. Dark Blue coat with sky blue trousers.

Later on due to material shortages the Federals went to the sack coat as their standard pattern, infantry uniform.



Union soldiers in sack coats. Dark blue jacket with sky blue trousers. The officer in front wears a frock coat.

The shortage of wool became quite accute and suppliers of material started using a material called shoddy. Shoddy was a woollen yarn obtained by tearing to shreds refuse woollen rags, wool scraps, etc., which with the addition of some new wool, is made into a kind of cloth. This was called shoddy cloth. Anyway, uniforms made of shoddy cloth tended to unravel on the wearers back and when wet simply fell apart. This is where the modern expression shoddy, meaning something substandard or wothless comes from, as in shoddy worksmanship.

Confederate unifoms came in the same styles described for the union but as the war went on tended to be predominately shell jackets, because they used less cloth. Early on they tended to be wool, later due to shortages in wool they used jean cloth a cotton/wool weave.


Grey wool shell jacket.



Butternut, jean cloth shell jacket.



Picture of confederate soldier in shell jacket.




Grey jean cloth shell jacket.



Butternut, jean cloth shell jacket.




What appears to be wool butternut shell jacket.



Confederate prisoners 1864.

 

Great information there. Between us we might know enough to know something.

 

Hi Price, thank you much for the clips from Buster Keaton in: The General. Also for the mention of Fess Parker in: The Great Locomotive Chase. Keatons movie was the first one I ever saw of his and loved it since day one. Both of these movies are out on DvD. Also, Fess Parker played a Confederate in a great movie with Gary Cooper, Lon Chaney Jr, Alan Hale Jr & Martin Milner, called: Springfield Rifle.

 

This is a nice book regarding Confederate Uniforms. Especially interesting because much of information comes from personal accounts.

Civil War News Book Review

 

Bobby, USMCPrice and Melissa,

Many thanks for your help on my question! Glad to have you all! Over here the Civil War is known but not well teached or discussed, so i´m happy to learn a lot of it from you all. Its an interesting area of history and the more information i get, the more questions i have and the more fascinating it is to me.

 

Same here, Gebirgs.

 

At the start of the war no. Indeed there wasn't even a typical uniform for troops from a given state. Their was a cardgame based on the ACW available some time ago that was a pretty good source for uniforms. Turns out grey was fairly common in the North and Blue in the South although US regulars used Blue.

One of the things people tend to forget about are the "trained bands". Basically militia organized on a comunity level. They had their own uniforms and drilled periodically (or not) and were incorporated into the armies on both sides pretty much as is.

 

Thanks lwd, are you referring to the town or county-militia´s like they had against the Brits?

 

The civil war is one of my favortie conflicts to read about and I have great respect for the men fighting on both sides of the conflict.....heyyy errrr can i join the secret club?

 

I second your comment Mark4, particularly the part I placed in bold and italics. I'm out of salutes for today but here's some reps. You are now officially a member of the club, you'll have to get with Carl though to get the secret handshake.

 

Well guys, before I get back to the Louisiana Tigers, and since we're discussing uniforms. Here's a little info on the rest of the uniforms and equipment.

Each branch of the military, both sides, had branch specific colors. The primary ones were red for artillery, blue for infantry and yellow for cavalry.


Here's a union shell jacket with cavalry branch piping.


Union sack coat with cavalry branch chevrons (stripes).


Colorized photograph of Union Infantry sargent in a frock coat, note the blue chevrons and cuff pipings.

Confederate jean cloth shell jacket with branch color cuffs and collar.

Confederate 1st Lieutenants, wool shell jacket with red artillery cuffs and collar.

Then we have hats:

First the Kepi a French inspired hat.

Confederate officers red artillery kepi.


Confederate infantry kepi.
(note: in a lot of movies you see confederate infantry with kepis with yellow trim, I guess because they think it looks good. WRONG!)


Federal infantry officers kepi.


Forage cap also called a "bummer"


Federal Hardee Hat, model 1858, named after CS General Hardee (see post#27 if you've forgotten who he was). This hat was worn by the Federal "Iron Brigade" one of the best units on either side and by U.S. Regulars, among others.


Federal officers slouch hat.


Confederate slouch hat, center, and kepi, left.

Then we have shoes, the main shoe worn by both sides was the Model 1851 "Jefferson" brogans, or "Jefferson" bootees. This shoe was adopted by then U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (later Confederate President). Prior to adoption of this footwear, military shoes were straight cut with no specific left or right foot. Regulations called for the soldier, to daily rotate, his shoes from foot to foot to insure even wear. They were also quite uncomfortable. Civilian footwear at this time was generally custom made by cobblers. So the predominant type of footwear would be the brogans, miscellaneous civilian custom made, or imported european, mainly English, who were at this time mass producing shoes. Cavalry of course were issued boots.



Well that's a quick look at uniforms, next equipment.