Here is a nice camp scene. As it was very windy and of course chilly (the weather felt like early March, but since Chicago only has winter and summer, we got no spring weather this day!) One would need to keep the water hot so we could warm up from time to time. This event was a living at the Joliet Library. We had fun showing off for the public as they came through. Although it was cold, it was a good event.
Here is my sweet Bethany. She is standing in front of our new dog tent. You can tell it is ours because there is a ton of kid junk in it!
Here I am in my newly completed hat. I cut the edges down, and hand sewed the ribbon edging. It took quite a while. It doesn't look super, but that is as good as that hat will ever look!
There sits the cannon...they would fire it off every now and again for folks as they came through and showed interest.
Here I am enjoying a laugh with my pal, Bill in front of the brigade flag. You'll recognize it as Cleberne's flag. Now he was a great and gallant general!
Little Jimmy looking cold...blue lips and all!
So we put him down for a comfy nap inside the tent out of the wind. He was almost asleep here!
This is a great pic of my little Joe.
Here is my Eme pie, enjoying a snack around the fire.
Here's Tom eyeing something up.
Here is Jacob being...well Jacob!
Inspection of arms. Mine should look pretty good...it is a new rifle!
"Good sir, will you kindly be of service to us, sir?"
"Good sir, will you kindly be of service to us, sir?"
"Mr. Union Officer, Sir...would you be so kind and go look for a lost dollar bill down range?"
Off goes the Yank..."a bit farther...ok, stop and turn around."
We had a good time shooting at the Yankee...
"Order Arms"
Here is Phil having a laugh with Bill around the fire.
Rich is watching Bill dig into some more of his vittles. Rich runs a great camp! I've worked hard to pattern my camp layout after his.
And here is Capt. Paul sitting around the fire, just checking the scene.
'Alright, who stole my cupcakes?! I'll beat the truth out of you if I have to!" Or something to that effect from Sgt. Rich...
A very nice tight stack...with some of the traps laid upon it.
6 comments:
Hi there, I was wondering if you could tell me what rank the two men wearing light blue frock coats are?? Do you know if they are wearing capes, or maybe those are attached to the coat itself? I was watching a movie, "the Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and there is a scene with the Civil War in it. A guy appears --he seems to be the youngest out of everyone--and he says "Captain, all companies are awaiting your orders." He's wearing a similar costume as these two men in your photos, except his suit is in dark navy.
The coat with a cape is called a 'great coat'. It is of course a winter coat. The cavalry actually have a similar style with a more saddle comfortable cut.
In this case, the 2 gentlemen with the great coats were officers. But a couple of those other guys in the photo have great coats, but weren't wearing them that day. It was awful winding and chilly that April day, but not terribly cold, like a winter day.
Any rank would wear that style of winter coat, but a high ranking officer might put shoulder bars (Federal) or collar bars (Confederate) to signify his rank.
The sky blue is a Federal color. Confederates often used captured goods, especially the great coats, when they could.
By the way, in case it wasn't clear from my comment, those in the picture are indeed infantry. I was just trying to say there was even more range in the great coats than you might be aware of.
Thanks for the response! Great to know it has a name. I can find a lot better samples on Google Images now because of that.
The odd thing is, in the movie there was only one guy wearing this coat. Here is a screenshot I took of it.
Can you tell me what you meant by "saddle comfortable cut"?
By the way do you think I could post one or so images from your blog on to mine? To show the coat :)
As for the saddle comfortable cut, it simply is made to work a bit better when riding a horse. I don't own one, but there are definitely 2 different versions. The infantry one (like the ones in the pics) are by far more common. I think at a glance one would be hard pressed to tell the difference. It appears the length of cape (with cavalry being longer to protect more from elements while in the saddle) is the main difference. Also, the cav great coat may just be in a cape instead of coming all around. Here are a couple of links for you.
http://www.blockaderunner.com/Catalog/catpg13d.html
http://www.thecowboycloset.com/site/1518953/product/TS-CS30
I'm not sure how period the cavalry great coat is. It may be later in the Indian Wars and such.
As for using a link on your site from my blog, as long as it is of the great coats in this post, sure that is fine.
Best of luck in your research. I'm heading off to the Army and the officer candidate school here in a week, and won't be able to respond or post for sometime, fyi.
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