Confederate uniform

“ Ah! the lovely, joyous, hopeful, patriotic days of that summer of 1861. The Confederate gray was then a thing of beauty,—the outer garb of true and loyal souls. Every man who wore it became ennobled in the eyes of every woman. These boys in gray were strangers to none. Their uniform was a passport to every heart and every home. Broad Street was thronged with them all day long.
Officers of all grades rode hither and thither, or congregated on the steps of the hotels. Squads of soldiers promenaded, gayly chatting with acquaintances whom they chanced to meet. ”

“ My pass, my Confederate uniform, would only serve to increase the peril of possible capture. There might be those back yonder in Hot Springs who would recall our passage through the village, who would describe the artillery sergeant to Harwood's questioning cavalrymen. A change of clothing would throw them off the trail. ”

“ Some of them wore the blue, and some of them the gray—about equal numbers in each uniform—but all of them were Americans and the memory of their heroism is the common heritage of all the people of the great Republic. ”

“ It was contended that our being dressed in citizen's clothes instead of Federal uniforms, which was the only unmilitary incident in the whole history, ought not to weigh against us, because this was nothing more than the Confederate government had expressly authorized in the case of their own soldiers, and that making war without uniform was practised by all the guerrillas in the Confederate service,—by some from necessity, and by others because they were thus able better to escape detection, and inflict more damage upon the enemy. ”

“ The Winter was cold and dreary, and we had some difficulty in keeping a supply of rations, which had to be transported from the junction six miles away by wagons over a road deep in mud and mire.
Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing our Virginia state flag from many flags of other states carried by the enemy in the battle of Manassas, whereby we had been threatened with serious consequences, such as occurred with our own brigade on that field: it became necessary to have a flag uniform in design for all the Confederate army. ”

“ Scattered in groups, through the large room, were men in uniform and civilians in broadcloth and fine linen. So peculiarly constituted were the Confederate armies that it was usual to find here a goodly number of private soldiers mingling with old schoolmates, friends, kindred wearing the bars and stars of lieutenants, captains, majors, colonels, and brigadiers. But to-night all privates and all company officers were with their regiments ”

“ Some used emblems denoting the State or city of the wearer, others a small Confederate battle-flag. Young faces framed in these pretty hats, or looking out from under a broad-brim, appeared doubly bewitching. Ladies worked early and late, first upon the fabric, and then upon beautifully-stitched homespun shirts, intended as gifts to favorite heroes returning to the front. During the winter nights the light of pine-knot fires had sufficed, but now Confederate candles were used. It did seem as if the bees were Southern sympathizers, and more faithfully than usual "improved each shining hour." ”

“ In fact, without this arm of the service, the Confederacy could not have so long maintained the unequal contest; nor the Federal Army have prevailed as quickly as was done. The story of the campaigns of Stuart, Wheeler, Morgan, the Lees, Forrest, Hampton, Ashby, Mosby, Green, Van Dorn, Shelby and Marmaduke, and their associates, gave war a new glamour, opened to chivalry a wider field for operation, painted to adventurous genius more entrancing visions, and made the service of men who rode to battle a transcendent power of which warriors had hitherto not even dreamed. ”

“ We have grown into a habit of depicting all our revolutionary forefathers, both privates and officers, in beautiful buff and blue uniform as if we were from the start a regularly organized, independent nation, fighting regular battles with another independent nation. There were, I believe, at times a select few, more usually officers, who succeeded in having such a uniform. But the great mass of our rebel troops had no uniforms at all. ”

“ He remarked that in a serious action and close fighting, or in night work, it would be very difficult to prevent serious mistakes, and even disasters, owing to the officers of the Confederate States’ troops wearing the same distinguishing marks of rank and similar uniforms, whenever they can get them, to those used in the regular service of the United States, and that much inconvenience will inevitably result from the great variety and wonderful diversity of the dresses of the immense number of companies forming the different regiments of Volunteers. ”

“ General Lee as she looked out from her knitting in her Richmond home, or, later on we could see behind it the sad, mourning sleeve of Stonewall Jackson’s widow. I tell you, my countrymen, the bonny blue flag or the Southern Cross was the banner of the soldier on the battlefield, but the little white handkerchief was our sacred banner behind the battlefield. The one, in the hands of the color sergeants, guided our movements in the army; but the other, in woman’s hand, inspired our movements everywhere.
Put here a knapsack, the rough, old, oil-cloth knapsack of the Confederate soldier. ”

“ This nation will never forget the service of those we lost at Fort Hood, just as we will always honor the service of all who wear the uniform of the United States of America. Their legacy will be an America that is safer and stronger – an America that reflects the extraordinary character of the men and women who serve it. ”

“ It is needless to say that no better soldiers ever bore rifle or sabre than the men of the Southern Confederacy. They were, like most of their northern antagonists, Americans of the same blood as those who carried the redoubts at Yorktown and stormed the hill of Chapultepec, and their courage in the Civil War fully maintained the prestige gained in battle against alien foes. In intelligence, or at least in education, however, the rank and file of the Confederate armies were inferior to the native Americans in the Union armies. ”

“ There is no attempt either to conceal or parade the grief we, as Confederate soldiers, felt at the furling of the “conquered banner.”
“For though conquered, we adore it,
Love the cold, dead hands that bore it.” But while we do love so dearly the battle-flag of “Dixie,” we regard it only as the emblem of the “storm-cradled nation that fell,” and as the winding-sheet of its dead and buried glory, over whose gloomy tomb the brave, true-hearted men of the southland have raised a monument of noble deeds, which will defy malice, oppression, and time. ”

“ The women throughout the States were set to work, spinning and weaving rough cloth, and making uniforms from it. Leather, however, cannot be produced all at once, and indeed with all their efforts the Confederate authorities were never throughout the war able to provide a sufficient supply of boots for the troops, and many a battle was won by soldiers who fought almost barefooted and who reshod themselves for the most part by stripping the boots from their dead foes. ”

“ A people less brave and patriotic would never have consented to incur such a risk with so strong an enemy at its doors. The governor exposed his own capital to save that of the Confederacy. He finally left only one regiment of infantry, one of cavalry, and two or three batteries of artillery between him and an army then estimated to be about 20,000 strong. At the close of this campaign North Carolina had forty regiments in Virginia. ”

“ They had met in an open field the best troopers the army of General Lee could send to conflict. Against these brave and experienced riders of the Confederates they had held their own, and for fourteen hours they had fought with a courage and an intrepidity that not even the Confederate legions could surpass. They had demonstrated that the Federal cavalry, when the conditions were equal, was not inferior to the men who rode with Stuart, and who had rendered his name and theirs illustrious. ”

“ You have shown that the Confederates on the other hand were highly civilized, with national, State, and municipal institutions to maintain, and, being cut off from supplies from the outside world, obliged to extemporize varied manufactures of powder, cannon, small arms, clothing, shoes, hats, and every sort of material needed by their railway systems and their people at home as well as the armies in the field. ”

“ FOREWORD Forty-eight years and a half have passed, since the last drum-beat of the Confederate States was heard and the furling of their flag forever closed the most wondrous military tragedy of the ages. Numbers and character considered, the tribute the South paid to War has no equal in human records. ”

“ The individuality of the Confederate soldier was never lost, and this with his self-possession and intelligent thought made him well nigh invincible. The Army of Northern Virginia as a whole was never driven from a battlefield, although confronted by as good soldiers as were on the continent. No danger could appall these men of Lee, no peril awe, no hardships dismay, no numbers intimidate. To them duty was an inspiration. They had devastated no fields, desecrated no temples and plundered no people, always respecting woman, and feared no man. ”

“ The soldiers of this Division are a remarkably fine body of men, and look quite seasoned and ready for any work. Their clothing is serviceable, so also are their boots; but there is the usual utter absence of uniformity as to colour and shape of their garments and hats: grey of all shades, and brown clothing, with230 felt hats, predominate. The Confederate troops are now entirely armed with excellent rifles, mostly Enfields. When they first turned out, they were in the habit of wearing numerous revolvers and bowie-knives. ”

“ The rear guard was the front of the fighting, and there the plucky and indomitable Federal leader was pleading with his soldiers to stand firm and beat off the pitiless onslaught of the relentless Confederates, who seemed devilish in their vehement and impetuous charges. He had chosen men of valor for this work, and they nobly responded to his every call. ”

“ He was no less true to the living Union because he was faithful to the dead Confederacy. Visitors used to love to see General Lee at the Finals of Washington College in his full suit of Confederate gray; it became him to wear it in the midst of the draped flags and stacked arms, for while he was teaching our young men to love our united country and to reverence the Stars and Stripes, he did not want them to fail in reverence to the past. None can want us so to fail. ”

“ It is that we have no line of division between the States; it is that these impulses of freedom and enterprise, once limited in their operations, are now common in all the States. We have a common heritage. The Confederate soldier has a full, honorable, and ungrudged participation in all the benefits of a great and just Government. [Cheers.]
I do not doubt to-day that these would be among the readiest of our population to follow the old flag if it should be assailed from any quarter. ”

“ That such considerations operate in the selection of colors for uniforms, is proved by the fact that the uniform of the United States corps of cadets, a corps instituted and kept up with a view to foster and preserve military knowledge in our country, instead of being of the national color, blue, is gray trimmed with black. This color for the uniform of that corps was chosen in 1815, out of compliment to the services of the brigade commanded by General Scott at Chippewa, &c., in the war of 1812-14. ”

“ Only a hundred and twenty men in gray were on the north side. All others were safely over the unfordable stream. Federal cavalry riding in hot pursuit could be seen galloping down the highway, and between them and the raging river was only a small column of brave riders clad in gray. The Confederates safely on the south bank looked across the water and grieved at the fate of the one hundred and twenty comrades who stood and held the pursuers at bay until all the others were safely over. Their courage and their generosity appealed to the better instincts of the courageous soldiers. ”

“ So, I think, the Confederate infantry assailed, with jokes and gibes, anybody in motion by their camp, or column. They had nothing against him; they attacked him because he was passing by. “It was their nature to.” Of all living men, General Lee, alone, was sacred to them in this. The cavalry always had their full share, and never suffered for want of notice.
This account of the false idea that prevailed, the fun that came of it, and the way it was dispelled, is part of the history of the time. It went to make up the life in the Army of Northern Virginia ”

“ Those who study the actions and characteristics of General Forrest and who looked upon the faces of the men following him could but realize that by his bearing, example and dash he got the best and bravest that it was possible for human nature in war to give.
Romance, patriotism and love of adventure inspired the cavalry of the Confederacy to follow their renowned leaders. ”

“ "If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone, 'Died of a theory.'" General Lee was brought before a committee to state his opinion as to the probable efficiency of negroes as soldiers, and disappointed the probable expectation by his unqualified advocacy of the proposed measure. ”

“ In the assaults of the Federals the cries were regular, like "Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" simply cheers, lacking stirring life. But the Confederate cries were yells of an intensely nervous description; every man for himself yelling "Yai, Yai, Yi, Yai, Yi!" They were simply fierce shrieks made from each man's throat individually, and which cannot be described, and cannot be reproduced except under the excitement of an assault in actual battle. I do not know any reason for this marked difference unless it was in the more pronounced individuality of the average Confederate soldier. ”