Clothing/Gear Introduction

hello and welcome today we'll be introducing the clothing gear and equipment of the Calvary soldier during the Civil War please note that this video is intended only to serve as an introduction to the gear and equipment that you'll need to consider for your impression we'll be doing other videos and other in-depth videos of each piece of gear later on so let's start from the ground up with all of our clothing gear and equipment now the first thing we're going to talk about is your drawers there are pretty much they're the foundation of your impression this is where true reenactors separate themselves from the less committed weakened warriors if you will some reenactors choose to go with the mainstream reasoning that if it can't be seen from the outside then anything goes and still they either wear modern long johns or or whatever your modern leggings or anything like that or yoga pants but one thing I want to strive and let you guys know is your drawers whatever you choose them to be whether it's the military issue ones or the civilian issue our civilian purchase ones now please just start your impression out correctly but by choosing a good and appropriate period pattern of drawers like I said before this is the foundation of your of your impression of your garments and honestly gets you into the mood again why are you in reenacting are you in reenacting to just have fun and shoot a whole bunch of powder or are you in reacting to experience with those guys experience and feel the hardships trust me getting in a pair of these drawers will make you realize and make you appreciate modern underwear or maybe it won't I've seen a lot of guys that actually prefer these especially the military-style ones for their easy easy ease of access I guess if you will versus modern underwear so again your your drawers are a you know that's this it's pretty much your foundation your starting point for your impression secondly in just as important as good prayer drawers is the shirt that you pick for reenacting I know like I said previously we're gonna have an entire episode dedicated to the shirt set but here are the basics many first-hand accounts of filled barrier burials or battlefield carnage indicate that they could identify the side that the dead soldier was on based on the shirt that they are wearing so we have basically three options four to four shirts that we can choose from number one we can get the federal issue wool flannel shirt number two a period-correct civilian private issue a private purchase shirt or three the highly over-represented off-white are white or bleached white type seller row shirt similar the one I'm wearing here when choosing shirts we need a member of the rule of thumb that we filter everything through which was nug wasn't normal was it usual was it general while while white shirts were obviously available during the 1860s a civilian shirts are civilian you know private private issue or private purchase shirts or definitely the wool the gray wool type flannel shirt is your best bet so again stay away from this type of white or off-white type shirt if you can handle the gray wool flannel shirts definitely do that I have a hard time with my sensitive skin but it's it's it's good that's that's what if you can do it that's one you want but otherwise get a is a number two option get a civilian type shirt with a pattern a obvious type you putting them you striped eye pattern or there are a lot of options out there or if you can't do that then then okay get the off-white type shirt you have out there but try to stay away from the bully each white just extremely bright white type shirts the next layer of clothing that is an absolute must as your trousers as a Calvary man you will need the 59 version double layered sky blue trousers and while there are other variants depending on your impression like the dark blue trousers are using infantry variants us the sky blue double layered trousers are the first thing that you put on that is explicitly visible for other reenactors in the public out there a good pair of quality mounted trousers will make a last many many years of reenacting as long as you take care of them the next thing that you need is help solidify the foundation of your clothing is your choice of socks and footwear like drawers this is an area that is easy to cheat on with modern socks especially if you wear boots instead of Rogan's but don't use this as an opportunity to challenge yourself and wearing period-correct socks get a good you know good quality pair of knit wool type socks if you can't do that and settle with the mass-produced brown type wool sock which is what this one is right here and you know there are actually some decent period civillians cotton socks out there but again the issues with cotton or that they you know they retain that moisture and then you make make your foot actually fairly ripe with with smell and disease and other issues easy to blister so getting it with with the foundation of your socks definitely you know if you can splurge on on the hand knit you know wool type socks if you can't do that go ahead and get those mat these mass-produced type wool socks and then go from there but you know use this as an opportunity to actually you know try to wear that the footwear that they wore the Cotton's are the socks that they wore and don't cheat with modern socks again try to be nug with normal usual general obviously not modern socks wear the wool socks now let's talk about your boots you know being a Calvary soldier generally makes new troopers I want to buy those tall private purchase knee flap type boots but again filter everything through nug was normal usual general if you look at you know a lot of pictures and a lot of original photographs of you know groups of cavalry soldiers that were either on campaign in garrison or wherever you'll see that the big knee flap you know type you know tall boots was not necessarily the norm now the standard boot for the Calvary Troopers was a twelve inch tall boot and depending on your unit or the impression you can even go in standard Brogan's you know they'd be a good good choice too and so you know when choosing you the type of boots personally if you want to make it flexible to go between infantry and calorie Brogan's are just fine if not then you know then go with the standard-issue you know twelve inch 12 inch tall boot if you want to go private purchase then you can you know buy the the taller type boots but if you're not going to be an officer or anything like that or on state stay with that 12 inch boot if you're going to be an officer and you have more of an excuse to go outside what was nug and by the you know big tall knee flap tile style boots then definitely go ahead if you have a specific impression that requires those tall external explicitly visible boots then go ahead but again if you want to be the standard trooper in the Calvary during the American Civil or try to stick with either Brogan's or the the 12 inch tall boots and now now to talks about you know particularly tuck in our pants do we not tuck in our pants again look at original photographs a lot of new troopers they like to tuck in their pants and this way I guess this topic I don't really care either way but just know why you're tucking in your pants or while you're not tucking in your pants don't do it because it looks cool and that's what everyone else is doing do it because that's what you would do if it was muddy necessarily maybe or what I do generally I walk around without any my pants tucked into my boots I like it that way that's what I would normally do anyways because tucking in to me is a little bit uncomfortable but again just just use your ear you know your ideas or your mind or whatever specific impression you have on what type of boot you wear what type of shoes you wear and then are you in tuck in your boots or tuck in your pants to your boots or aren't you and why you know just don't do it because everyone else does and it's cool so again that's the boot issue and the pant issue the next article of clothing that we need to add to your kit is obviously the jacket arguably the most visible part of your uniform you immediately have to make the choice between either the mounted service jacket or the msj or the shell jacket or the sack coat obviously as as always it depends on your impression you can definitely get away with the shell jacket in most early wore impressions however in the reenacting hobby the choice to wear either the msj or the sack coat generally is based more on how you look in them than actual historical accuracy most Kevlar reenactors including myself tend to stick with the form-fitting cool-looking shell jacket simply because it looks more cavalier and it looks cooler like I said I even fall into this bad habit many times as the shell jacket with its yellow trim and tapered waist makes you look pretty awesome now however from an authenticity standpoint and from a reenacting flexibility standpoint I would recommend getting a quality sach coat or fatigue blouse there are major reasons why so major reason number one want to go with a sack coat instead of shell jacket number one ask that the sack coat allows you to easily move between infantry and cavalry impressions while using the same jacket without spending any more money saving money and being able to go between infantry and cavalry that's reason number one reason number two the sack coat quickly becomes the most common jacket by enlisted troops and is therefore the most appropriate type of jacket through most impressions throughout the war again the the shell jacket the amount of service jacket definitely you know you can you know overly wore mid war two and even late war but again it gets less nug less normal eyes they just go with the easy easy outfitted type shell a sack coat later on throughout the war yes you experts out there I'm over generalizing but generally that's that's what we go for so again just kind of reiterate with the jackets I strongly going with a good-quality sack coat a good example from what Lambo white versus you know having to get a shell jacket and then maybe later on down the road if you stay in reenacting having to get a sack coat so again sack coat is what might what up my preference would be try to stay away from the shell jacket unless you just really want to get those a yellow trim cool-looking jackets so that's the basics of the jackets in picking your jacket so the next article of your uniform that we must discuss is obviously your headgear this is a very for me it's very fun topic but extremely complex conversation that you need to take a look at in looking at original pictures and trust me you need to look at a lot of original pictures for headgear you're going to find a wide variety of hats and a wide variety of styles and a wide array of how to wear the same hat so what I'm going to say is definitely an over generation overgeneralization of headgear for early wore impressions at least for the eastern units the oh and as for the Western units as well the Hardy had this guy right here would definitely be appropriate most cavalry troopers when they first get into reenacting they get the hardy hat it's called a full dressed hardy hat with the side turned up with the you know clip on the side the feather and the hat the yellow cord on the base of it but from looking at the well you know a lot of pictures you know the undressed hardy hat is definitely more common yes there are portraits and a lot of pictures that show the dressed Hardy for a lot of cavalry troopers but especially on campaign in the battlefield the undressed Hardy is a good bet to get you throughout the war from early war to late war yes the dressed Hardee hat early war is you know definitely acceptable but from an undressed hardy standpoint definitely good hat in fact what for me personally especially being out west one of the you know what my favorite hats it fits well I know it's good quality and it works pretty well especially with the Sun beating down on you the next hat that you need to consider and think about is the variety of versions I'm just going to sum it all up by saying forge caps or caps in general you have the type one the type two this is the McDowell type forge cap definitely something you want to kind of steer toward as far as basic reenacting they especially the Army Potomac kind of against looking at a lot of different pictures you know you could argue they stayed with the hardy hats but depends on what unit you're you're going to whether they stayed with wide brim hardy hats or slouch hats or whether they went to the the forge cap or the bummer or whatever you want to call them that the cap out there right now here's one thing I want you to understand this is not what I'm talking about is not kept ease Pepys I'm going to address later at the end of this section but Forge caps honestly most re-enactors by Forge caps are easy they look good they're you know ace they're easy to carry and especially easy to stuff in your pack in your saddlebags and your bedroll if you don't want them they're easy to kind of just tuck away somewhere whereas you having a big wide brim hat a little bit more difficult so again you got the hardy you got your forge cap or the the third major option is a civilian pattern or civilian issue hat whether it's you know whether we call it today like a bowler or last one type of hat or I mean there's a wide variety of civilian hats out there this is kind of in my head where it becomes kind of fun because if you look at especially mid war too late war you got a lot hats out there that are the civilian or private purchase type hats and headgear out there so what I did like this hat right here a lot of what we do out here at West is reenact the or portray the 11th Kansas now if you look at something love with Kansas troopers in fact most of the ones that we have I'd say I guess a little less than half of the pictures that I know of at least have this style hat so when I portrayed 11 Kansas I got this style hat because that's what they you know we had documented proof that Adam had pictures and it works good this is one of my favorite hats it works well wide brimmed but definitely not a hardy hat okay so again hats it is kind of a fun option now I'm going to go to talk about Pepe's Pepe's are the non flimsy type I don't have an example here for you but kept these are just the the short top kind of they look like a forage cap for for new reenactors you don't can't quite tell a difference yeah they look like forged cast but they don't have the flop to them they don't have that height and they're just you know sewn you know just blow they're kept ease try to stay away from these unless you're an officer unless you're a high-ranking official your high ranking officer or high ranking individual you're not going to be nug normal usual general wearing a Cappy cappy's were a private purchase item okay they were not issued they were a private purchase item and since anything you know anytime you hear a private purchase obviously the quote nug goes out the window it wasn't nug so again steer away from kippis if you want go with the forage cap type 1 type 2 this is a MacDowell type forage cap whatever go with the the hardy hat if you go with a hard hat stick with the undressed Hardy hat I mean this this has brass up front but definitely try to stay with the undressed hardy hat or you know have some fun and do some research and buy some civilian hats okay the biggest issue with hats is a couple fold here don't buy a flimsy hillbilly farmers looking hat okay your hat can either make or break your impression so you know before you buy private purchase hat or a civilian type hat do your research look at a lot of photos and try an idea to what you really want in your headgear headgear can be fun but make sure you choose the right one because it can make or break your impression now that we have finished talking about the major parts of your clothing let's go ahead and talk about your Sabre belt this item is definitely your primary platform for all your secondary weapons or Sabre your pistol and all your cartridges one mistake new reenactors make is to purchase an infantry style bell of course these are you know reenactors who definitely haven't done the research yet but they purchase an infantry belt with an infantry buckle and they realize that there's no straps for your saber and they obviously got the wrong stuff so definitely don't do that you need the standard buckle the square rectangular style buckle with the eagle and wreath the saber belt should have two straps of different lengths to hold the saber properly and that is kind of the basics of your saber or your saber belt there are many manufacturers who make a variety of belts from low quality to high quality we don't have enough time to really dive into what makes a good quality belt from a poor quality belt obviously we'll make a video just about that but right now we're just going to point out a few items arguably your belt offers the most opportunity in your uniform for individualism and uniqueness for yourself as you ride and sleep with your unit you're going to actually realize that you can identify you and your gear honestly buy your saber belt your fellow soldiers gear by their saber bells other than the pistol there's no formal position of your cap your pistol box your cap pouch or carbine box obviously your pistol or your pistol has to be but forward on your right side your sabers on your left side but as far as where your cap pouch is going to be where your cartridge boxes are going to be there's no real formal regulation on that if you look at original documentation you're going to find a lot of different configurations out there one thing to note however is the practice of putting your carbine box strictly on your carbine sling while this is not strictly prohibited by documented rules there is little to no documentation on this and from hundreds of original photographs it definitely wasn't nug and of course what we try to do whether it's our you know everything we do whether it's our clothing gear behavior whatever is you try to find original documentation and go with that if anyone knows of a picture or photograph or a diary indicating that they put the cartridge box on there sling I would love to do that because definitely it's a lot easier to access here than reaching back some of our older guys obviously have a hard time reaching back and so it's a lot easier here but again this video is on what was nug was normal what you should be doing and obviously we kind of vary based on each individual person when it comes your pistol box it should hold at least two wooden pistol blocks of six rounds per box your carbine box should be outfitted with the appropriate wooden block or ten inserts in Reenactment it's easy to take the one block out or at least want to take the wood block out and just give yourself enough room to shove all those cartridges in there but again why are we in reenacting re-enacting to try to experience the life of a calvary soldier or experience the life of a soldier then honestly when you're in combat when you're in a battle and you you actually have a actual good cartridge box with ten in shirts or block inserts and you have those twenty or thirty rounds then that's that's what you wanted that the experience of trying to get to your saddlebags to get your extra rounds is party experience so I recommend keeping your ten inserts in there keeping your wood block in there and actually experiencing only having twenty rounds in your cartridge box and then having to go to your saddle by our saddle bags to get those get those extra rounds now your cap pouch is simply that your cap pouch you know it carries your caps for your carbine if you don't have a carbine then there are some documentation some documents and some first-hand accounts that say they put extra rounds in here you know that's kind of vary impression specific but as far as we're to carry it like I said earlier that's wherever is most comfortable for you look at Alya courage you to look at a lot of original photographs they carried it you know a lot of lot of guys carried here a lot of guys carried it here as the infantry did the next I'm going to discuss is your carbine sling like like your shaver belt there's a lot of manufacturers both poor quality and good quality and medium quality all that good stuff but for now let's make sure that your sling is over your left shoulder okay with the tail end pointing down so just like so over your left shoulder to wear your carbine hangs on the right side make sure you have a good swivel unfortunately there's not a lot of good reproter repro swivels out there but you want to make sure that definitely when you open it it closes fairly easy fairly regularly it's common for these to wear out and allow the spring just to stay open and your car being a drop for the ground so therefore make sure the spring is on your hook the spring on your hook closes quickly closes easily because you don't want to drop your carbine in the mud of course after talking about the carbine slinging we must obviously talk about the carbon itself well this obviously will have its own video to own episode dedicated for all the carbines out there for now let's just cover some basics to help the new reenactor make a choice into what carbine to get the type of carbon you choose is really very very very dependent on the type of impression you're doing and honestly it's one of the most important decisions you make because is the single most expensive thing in your kit for one it can be for you know for one look says is the most expensive thing your kids but number two it's also easy to buy the wrong carbine depending on your impression which then throws your entire oppression out of the window you know for instance I've seen a civil war re-enactor who didn't really didn't know what he was getting into he got a trapdoor 4570 carbine that was used in Indian Wars in 76 for Civil War impression obviously that doesn't work no so let's go through these carbines real quick the first one I have here is these Spencer carbine the Spencer carbine is uh definitely you know it's a it's a good weapon of a definitely late war the first time if I believe correct if I understand correctly the first time that Spencer's were used were with Custer's a Custer's group in Gettysburg and I believe they had Spencer rifles the Spencer carbine is easy it actually loads a seven seven around magazine with a tube follower in the rear and of course all you need to do is cycle a round in the chamber go to half [ __ ] full [ __ ] ready aim fire good to go easy to get some you know some pretty heavy firepower out there in the field with a Spencer carbine one thing that is kind of an issue with Spencer's is they tended Jam real easy especially with the plastic cartridges and number two this limits your impressions to what you what you can do so definitely you know it's one of my favorites out there you know number one our unit the eleventh Ohio had Spencer's from the mid war on but you know definitely limit your ability to do impressions not for early war like Manassas and those type of deals so again this is the Spencer carbine the next carbine now we're going to talk about our sorry next weapon is the Spencer rifle again if I believe correctly Custer and the his men had this in Gettysburg a nice cavalry field obviously it's the longer version the rifle version of the Spencer carbine definitely we ride with it if you can get one with the saddle ring now you can do that as well same issues you know same you know nothing nothing different between the Spencer rifle and Spencer carbine on the the length and the weight the next thing we're going to talk about is the Smith carbine the Smith carbine is personally my favorite because it's one of the cheaper carbines out there it's extremely simple to operate opens basically like your daddy shotgun break open right there opens the breech you put a india-rubber or a rubber black rubber type cartridge in the back you close it go to half [ __ ] put a cap on the nipple full [ __ ] ready aim fire and then all you do is open the breech again pull out the rubber cartridge throw it away put a new one in and theoretically apparently supposed to be able to shoot fourteen rounds a minute with this guy really easy really like you know one of the cheaper carbines you can get out there and best best part for us is when we portrayed you love with Kansas this is what the 11th Kansas had out west the last carbine that we're going to talk about is the workhorse of the the Civil War calorie carbines this is the the sharps carbine this is definitely by far in numbers will go into another video but by far numbers the most common carbine out there during the American Civil War if I remember correctly looking at the numbers the sharps outnumbered almost every carbine significantly so the issue with the the sharps though is that because of the complex flash channel now you go down you go over and you go perpendicular to that so there's basically three directions that that flash has to travel to read or to reach and ignite the powder in the breech the issue with that is if you have some of the cheapo or flimsy type caps they're not going to have the power the the initiating force to to spark that that powder charge and you're going to get a lot of misfires okay so that's the one drawback they will they will get clogged they will gum up pretty quick but as far as a carbine that you can get that will transcend the entire war almost no matter what what era what unit you're doing the sharps carbine is a really good bet again a little bit more expensive I remember I'd about 1,200 1,300 bucks similar to the to the Spencer as well they're all right around the 1200 you know $1,300 price tag other than the Smith which is right at 900 - right out of thousand dollars so again my recommendation if you can if you can afford it go with these sharps it transcends a the most the the widest variety of impressions that you can have so like getting a sack coat go with the sharps finally let's talk about your canteen I'm actually personally looking forward to our episode that is in the works right now about all about canteens this one item has a large number of variations and is important to note what Arsenal our depot your unit was issued from because there is a significant difference between a New York Cincinnati Philadelphia canteens for now though let's go ahead and talk about some basics or for you well-informed guys out there some gross over generalizations leather straps with sky blue or grey covers tend to be more early war than late war cotton straps and dark blue covers are more late war metal chains now that you see and sell ro canteens are definitely only from the New York Depot all others had strings to retain that cork and most important never hang or clip your canteen on your saddle while this dock is documented during any Moore's I don't I mean again I want to be surprised to find a number of documented cases during the Civil War if you're want if you're going for the standard trooper again what was normal usual in general then don't attach your canteen to your saddle it should be on your person always alright now you're ready for battle well kind of you'll notice that we didn't cover personal items like hammer sacks or you know personal items like housewives I didn't have I didn't cover tack or your the saddles or bridles or halters anything horse related on this episode we just want to cover what you actually wore on your person the kind of the start of your kit for reenacting if you will will definitely like I said before we're going to do an entire episode on each of the articles we talked about today we're an entire episode on just the drawers we're an entire episode on on canteens I'm excited about that one I guess because mainly I learned more than I ever have in the past year or two or three years of canteens combined and it just passed probably weaker so I've got a hold of an awesome book but definitely you know this is just that kind of a start and grow so virginal overgeneralization of where to go how to make decisions when you first get into cavalry and acting stay tuned for the other videos on the kind of generalized what to get for saddles and tack the generalized videos on what to do for private purchase items like your haversack can't plates cups stuff like that but also more importantly and actually more hopefully more fun is getting into the details of each one of these things so again hopefully you enjoy this video I appreciate a little law definitely but hopefully it was worth your time again thank you so much for watching this channel please subscribe if you haven't already like us on Facebook and thank you again for watching the 11th Ohio volunteer calorie have a great week

Channel: 11th OVC

Views: 82,354

Keywords: civil war cavalry reenacting, cavalry uniform, sack coat, shell jacket

Id: ov5wZ-gfQxc

Length: 29min 24sec (1764 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 03 2016