Civil War Fashion, Part 1

What is fashion? The word is most closely associated with new and popular trends in clothing. But someone may also be considered fashionable for their manners, behavior, and personal style. The same was true during the Civil War. As the following photos show, many men and women of the 1860s stood out through their dress, hairstyles, and personal flair—whether intentionally or not.

Soldiers in the 34th Ohio Infantry don the regiment’s distinctive uniform: dark blue jackets with red trim, sky blue trousers, and tricorn hats with tassels. Based on photographic evidence, these colorful uniforms were worn by the men of the 34th until at least 1863. (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

This dapper sergeant—presumably from the 7th New York Militia, whose members wore gray uniforms—oozed flair, from his stylized facial hair to his impeccably draped camp blanket. (The Medford Historical Society Civil War Photograph Collection.)

These two young Confederate soldiers don matching “battle shirts” of an undetermined color. The attention-grabbing shirts’ buttons, presuming the person who hand-colorized the image was correct, were gold. (LOC)

Sideburns find their way back into popularity every so often. This distinctive style of facial hair was originally known as “burnsides,” after the person whose name was most associated with the look, Union general Ambrose Burnside, shown here in a wartime photo. Nobody did it better. (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.)

This Confederate soldier had a particular style—fez-like hat, loosely knotted tie, baggy pants, and single-shot percussion pistol. (LOC)

James B. Swain, colonel of the 11th New York Cavalry, wears an attention-grabbing (and presumably non-regulation) fur-trimmed coat. (MHS)

This photograph, made in a Boston studio, is of a patriotically dressed Miss E.A. Marsh, who served as a Vivandiere, or “daughter of the regiment,” during the war—a position in which she and other chosen women performed a variety of roles for various frontline regiments, from tending to the sick and wounded to serving as cooks, laundresses, and seamstresses. (LOC)

An extra-long tassel from an otherwise unremarkable hat surely set this unknown Confederate soldiers apart from his comrades. (LOC)

Union officer John McArthur’s glengarry bonnet speaks to his Scottish birth. McArthur, who would enter the war a colonel and finish it a brevet major general, commanded the Second Brigade, 2nd Division of the Army of the Tennessee at the Battle of Shiloh. The brigade’s members also donned Scottish caps, earning them the nickname “Highland Brigade.”

This unidentified woman, photographed in Mathew Brady’s Manhattan studio, strikes a tricky pose—in roller skates. Her determination to remain perfectly still paid off, and the resulting image is crystal clear. Since Civil War era cameras weren’t able to capture motion, any movement on her part would have resulted in a blurry image. (NPG)

While Union general Alfred Thomas Archimedes Torbert (center) strikes a confident pose, it’s his two unidentified friends’ dapper dress and casual styles that grab the camera’s attention in this wartime photo. (MHS)

While David Lowry—who served in both the 25th Virginia Cavalry and the 41st Virginia Infantry during the war—establishes his martial and religious bona fides by holding a rifle in one hand and a bible in the other, it’s the corsage pinned to his uniform coat that shows he also had a sensitive side … or an unconventional fashion sense. (LOC)