A young man shows up at a small authentic picket post event wearing his new commutation jacket.  He had ordered it four months in advance, nevertheless there was still some nail biting coming down to the wire, but the box arrived the Monday before the event and now he’s beaming with pride as he wears it to its first event.  In the parking lot his sergeant sees him pull in, wanders over, says hello, and starts chatting.  As our hero begins pulling out his gear and putting it on for the march into camp, the sergeant sees the young man’s new jacket and says “What’s that?”

“My new commutation jacket,” the young man replies, “took forever to get it but isn’t it cool?”

“Well,” says the sergeant, “it’s okay but you’ll need to wear something else this weekend, we’re portraying Company D of the 39th Virginia this weekend, and so we’re all wearing the John Speck jackets.  You’ll have to get a loaner or something, because they weren’t wearing those.”

“But I bought this jacket specifically for this event.  It was the most non-descript one I could find that would cover me for the most impressions.  I thought there must be some guys who had plain jackets, and I don’t have a lot of money to buy a coat for every event.”

“Well that may be.  But in this unit we do things correctly, which means portraying a unit as they looked at a specific time.  And if that means having to own a few different jackets, then that’s just the price you pay for an authentic impression.”

Crestfallen, the young man goes with the sergeant to a friend’s truck, where the friend just happens to have another jacket for sale, the young man reluctantly buys it, with the promise of a check going out Monday, and puts on his newest jacket, made from brown jean with red check lining and rifleman buttons.  He enjoys the rest of the event, and Monday sends out a check to the fellow in his unit, “Well, that 1842 Springfield will have to wait.” he says.

Which one of our characters are correct in this discussion?  Which one is the farb and which one is the true hardcore?  The answer is: Both and Neither.

Now, for the sake of argument let’s say that we as observers now have the chance to see beyond the few sentences written about Private John Speck on a page in the Virginia Regimental History Series.

John C. Speck enlisted in Company C of the 39th Virginia cavalry battalion on November 1st 1863, right about the time of his seventeenth birthday.  The young man from the Staunton area inevitably volunteered for the more glamourous cavalry servince, hoping to avoid the infantry.  His mother made him a superb looking uniform that included an overcoat, pair of lined trousers, two vests, and a superbly made kerseymere jacket.  The value of the woolens in these clothing alone could have likely fed their family for a month with the inflated price of wool growing ever higher.

The jacket itself was made from a dark brown wool kerseymere, woven on an indigo blue warp.  Lined in a baked red wool check, and closed with nine eagle "R" buttons.  It featured two welted "vest" type pockets with another interior welted pocket.  It is entirely hand sewn with black silk thread, and though not professionally constructed, the topstitching alone counts out to an astounding 14 stitches per inch!  Surely loving hands constructed this jacket for their young man off to war.

Speck was highly thought of in the 39th.  Assigned as the Army of Northern Virginia's Provost guard and as General Lee's "scouts, guides, and couriers" it is certain that Speck saw more excitement than the normal soldier.  His overcoat alone tells an interesting story, as it has the exact number of New York State muffin style buttons as a New York State jacket.  One does not need to stretch their imagination far to imagine Speck relieving a federal prisoner of the buttons on his jacket to replace the civilian buttons on his overcoat.

On the last day of June, 1864 John Speck died of disease at Chimborazo hospital in Richmond.  His effects consisted of $27.00 and baggage, which were sent home to Staunton with his body.  Speck was laid to rest in Hebron Presbyterian Cemetary two miles west of Staunton, and there he lies today.

On July 15th, 1864 a "Tribute of Respect" was published in the Staunton Vindicator.  It read:

"The members of Company C, 39th Battalion of Virginia Cavalry, met to pass resolutions in memory of Private John C. Speck of Augusta County. Captain S. B. Brown was appointed President, and Sergeant W. H. Christian, Secretary. Lieutenants A. H. Pettigrew, J. H. Lionberger, and A. Broaddus drafted resolutions, which were unanimously adopted and which praised the young private, extended sympathy to his parents and friends, and called for publication of the resolution in the Staunton Vindicator, Spectator, and Rockingham Register."

Just over one hundred years later a young college student happened upon a box of clothing in a junk shop in Staunton.  The clothing was Speck's uniform, complete with clothing, accouterments, and hat (everything except his boots, side arm, and belt buckle.)  The student purchased them for a princely sum, and today Speck's uniform survives together and in tact as one of the most complete Confederate enlisted soldier groupings in the world.

Now I do apologize for the long narrative, but it was necessary to establish several keys points concerning this jacket, namely context. With the information above we can easily establish that in our discussion between our hero and his sergeant, he is correct and the sergeant (and the rest of the unit) is very wrong.  The trouble is that we almost never have this kind of detailed information.  There are always holes to be filled in concerning our impressions, always gaps in the research that can lead to any conclusions we reach being based on a certain amount of conjecture.  The fact remains that it is nearly impossible to get a picture of what a certain unit wore at a specific time because that was often not considered important to the soldiers as long as they were clothed and warm.  This means that little, if any descriptions of uniforms survive to supplement the even more sparse photographic evidence.

So what are we do to as living historians?  Which camp should we choose?  The strict “only documented clothing” camp or the “I’m just a generic rebel” camp?  Well again the answer isn’t easy: both and neither.  There is certainly a place in our hobby where exact stitch for stitch copies of particular originals are needed, but only within a certain context of time, place, unit, and most important: commonality.  That is, how representative of common features of clothing of the time is this garment?  (More on this later.)  There is also a place for relatively “generic” garments among the ranks of living historians: garments that epitomize commonality and basic widely used construction methods and features of clothing at that time.

Establishing a concrete knowledge or even a “feel” for what makes a garment relatively “common” is difficult to say the least.  Years of research of surviving original clothing and pictures of soldiers can only really scratch the surface.  Yet this is still the most effective way understanding period patterns, construction techniques, and fabrics.  As of this writing I have saved nearly four gigabytes of photographs of original uniforms and soldiers.  That’s enough to choke an entire hard drive made circa 1995, just in photographs!  Only through countless hours of reading and studying, not to mention viewing original collections, can a person see trends begin to form in the garments worn by the soldiers that fought in the war.  No two pieces of clothing are exactly alike, but neither are they entirely different.  A homemade jacket from 1861 made in Alabama will be different from a homemade jacket from late 1863 made in Virginia.  Even clothing from the same depot will have slight differences!

Nevertheless, it is possible to establish some generalities about uniforms of the period, even CS ones.  Six piece bodies and two piece sleeves in jackets were common.  Wool/cotton blend materials such as jean cloth, cassimere, or satinette were common.  Some sort of military brass button was common.  Statements such as these are relatively broad, general, easy to defend and can likewise be repudiated with examples of specific originals.  However, generalities such as these can give us something of a jumping off point when it comes time to select a jacket for an event.

Using Private Speck’s jacket as an example, we can see clearly that the decision for an entire unit portraying Speck’s company to wear a jacket based off of his was a wrong choice, and that if they had further delved into the history of the unit (if it had been at all possible), they would have seen that a much looser interpretation of “uniform” was held in this particular unit.  Furthermore, the wearing of this specific jacket would have been appropriate for only ONE member of the company, the man portraying Speck himself, because it was not representative of something even a few of the men wear wearing, and certain features (such as the exterior pockets, or checked lining) make that particular jacket unique, and not necessarily representative of a “common” CS garment.  The wearing of this jacket to portray Speck at a living history, or as something representative of mid war homemade clothing would certainly be appropriate and very authentic, but thirty men dressed as Private Speck, and essentially all portraying one young man in one company who served for a few months before passing away from disease and never seeing battle, well, that is a completely different story.

So what are we as living historians to do to portray soldiers authentic and give a good representation of a soldier or of a unit at a given time and place?  Research your unit.  Read letters, histories, learn about their neighboring companies, regiments and brigades.  Were they receiving clothing from a depot or from home?  Were some men writing letters home asking for clothing?  What were others in the army doing at this time?  Were supplies short or were there massive shipments coming in from the nearest depot?  Every tidbit, every morsel of information helps.  Sometimes you can only answer one or two of these questions, but by overlaying these answers on top of a general understanding of period clothing and uniforms, what was common and what was not, a picture can begin to form of the unit you are portraying, and how the soldiers in it most likely looked at the time you are portraying.

This is a complicated issue, but through open, level-headed discussion and asking honest questions we can all avoid the inevitable blood pressure spike from forum and parking lot know-it-alls.