Last month we talked about the various kinds of gear which are available, and how much of what we can buy is simply not correct. This is a problem with no easy solution, but one which we each need to consider and decide for ourselves just what we want to do about it. For some the answer will be "nothing" while others will not be satisfied until they are as close to an actual soldier as they can be. We promised that this month we would talk about the effect of authenticity on an entire unit, so here we go!

When clothing was issued to a Confederate unit, it was rare that enough was issued to outfit the entire group of men. Typically the new clothing would be given to the men who 1) were most in need and 2) whom the new clothing fit. However, the next time that an issue was received, the men who received none on the previous issue would almost certainly be in rags, and so be near the front of the line. The result of this would be that the majority of the men would have uniforms from the past two issues at most, with only a very few hanging on to older clothes, or having jackets or trousers from home. This means that there would be only two types of jackets, and at most two types of trousers in the unit at any one time. Let's take Jackets as an example to show what this would mean.

These jackets would not just be "sort of" the same, but would be nearly identical. Suppose that out of a 100 man battery, 70 had newly issued Richmond Depot Type II shell jackets. These jackets would be made from the same cloth, cut from the same pattern, and even have the same buttons. Thus the term "uniform". Probably 20 more would have a different jacket from the previous issue, but those would be identical to each other. That would leave 10 to have odd jackets from various other sources.

The problem which this poses for us is that while any individual member of the unit may look quite good in his uniform, when we assemble as a group we don't have that subtle "sameness" which would have been present with the jackets all being in the same issue. Fortunately we have a means to cure this problem. It is as simple as finding a single source for our uniforms and sticking with it. Several other units have done this and it shows.