What the ________Soldier _________ Like: The Prologue

Busy day Wednesday so I'm posting now. Enjoy

If a guy has been reenacting since 1988, and say that reenactor has been very conscious of portraying an accurate visual and behavioral impression for himself and the public, one would assume that guy has a ton of research on uniform, equipage and behavior of the common soldier. Oh yea, I do. And now that I’m not reenacting much anymore, what am I to do with all this stuff? Yup, share it.

Whenever the mood strikes, or I find some cool primary source material on how the soldier lived, ate and looked like, I will share it. I think, for fun, I’ll break this new slant into various serials: what the soldier looked like, ate like, camped like, lived like, thought like, etc. This oughta be fun.

Here is my first entry into the world of What the Soldier Looked Like: Chapter One

I begin my Confederate description with one that, thematically, tells a lot about the Reb soldier’s physical and physiological make up, and comes from an objective observer. Arthur Freemantle, an English military observer, began his tour of the South in Texas in 1863, and after moving through the Army of Tennesee, eventually arrived in Virginia in time to follow Robert E. Lee and his army into Pennsylvania. Mr. Freemantle may be more popularly regconized as the red dressed tippy-bob in the movie Gettysburg, you know the one with the tea cup and the thoughtful face listening to General Armstead’s soliloquy. Mr. Freemantle’s experiences were put to paper by the gentlemen and is available on Amazon.com and recommended by me: Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863. The following accounts describes Liddel’s Brigade of Arkansas troops in the spring of 1863. Liddel’s men were members of The Army of Tennessee, at this time, engaged in keeping General Roscran’s out of southern Tennessee.


“The men were good sized, healthy, and well clothed, but without any attempt at uniformity in color or cut; nearly all were dressed in either gray or brown coats and felt hats. I was told that even if the regiment was clothed in proper uniform by the government, it would become parti-colored again in a week, as the soldier preferred wearing the course homespun jackets and trousers made by their mothers and sisters at home.
The Confederate has no ambition to imitate the regular soldier at all; he looks the genuine rebel; but in spite of his bare feet, his ragged clothes, his old rug, and toothbrush stuck like a rose in his button-hole*, he has a sort of devil-may-care, reckless, self-confident look which is decidedly taking. This toothbrush in the buttonhole is a very common custom, and has a most quaint effect.


For fun here is another description of the confederate soldier. This one comes from David Johnson of the 7th Virginia Infantry.

“A musket, cartridge box with forty rounds of cartridges, cloth haversack, blanket and canteen made up the Confederate soldier’s equipment. No man was allowed a change of clothing, nor could he have carried it. A grey cap, jacket, trousers, and a colored shirt-calico mostly- made up a private’s wardrobe. The method for carrying our few assets was to roll them in a blanket, tying each end of the roll, which was then swung over our shoulder. A night this blanket was unrolled and wrapped around its owner, who found a place on the ground with his cartridge box for a pillow.”

More to come...