"39th NY at Gettysburg" Topic

Could someone please enlighten me as to what uniforms this famous regiment wore during the battle, am planning a diorama around their attack on the 21st MS and want to get it right………..thanks in advance.

Famous regiment? Never heard of them. I'm being serious. There are a lot of regiments out there, and I know a lot of them by name and by fame. The 39th NY doesn't spring to the forefront to me.

That being said, I have a pretty good handle on which regiments at Gettysburg wore non-standard uniforms. The 39th NY isn't one of them that I recall. So, I'd say they just had standard sack coats and forage caps.

You've never heard of the Garibaldi Guards?

By Gettysburg, the 39th had traded in their famed Garibaldi-inspired uniform and black-green cockerel feathers for the standard Federal sack coat and forage cap. They may have kept their three standards that late though

Heard of them vaguely by that name. Can't say I remember anything famous they did in a battle.

I have a single account of a man seeing a Garibaldi in a red shirt at Pickett's Charge.

It's possible they were wearing NY issued shell jackets, but I don't know for certain.

Love the original uniform. I have the Friekorps 15mm version of them. I have them carring both Stars and Stripes and Italian colors. I don't care one bit how long they wore the uniform, it looks cool.

garibaldiguard.com

link

I seem to remember Mort Kunstler depicted them in a Puckets charge painting

I've also seen references to a forage cap with a red upper part and blue band as well as dark blue, rather than light blue, trousers.

Maybe this was something left over from the initial issue.

Or not.

Eric

Dark blue trousers were still produced up through the end of the war. Period images show them from time to time in either entire issues for a regiment, or in partial issue. To the QM, trousers were trousers.

There is also, FWIW, quite some debate as to how many, if any, federal regiments at 1st Bull Run were wearing saxon blue trousers. The regulations specifying the change from dark blue to light blue weren't issued until December of 1861, 6 months after the battle. Even then, it would take time to swap production from dark blue to saxon blue and gain sufficient inventory to begin issuing the new color.

Just food for thought.

Interesting to note that of the ten companies in the
regiment, only one was of Italians. Three were German,
three were Hungarian and one each of French, Swiss and
Italian. The last company was mixed Spanish and
Portuguese.

I beleive they wore pretty much a generic AOP uniform of sack coat and sky blue trousers. They did still fly their Italian inspired flag, so that would look very cool in a diorama.

The 39th was famous in 1861 for their colorful uniforms and their reputation for being nothing but trouble to have around. After a rough start (and at least one mutiny) they seem to have settled down and served with ably for the rest of the War.

By Gettysburg they were down to 4 companies.

Ok so I guess to depict any of the men in the unit with the original uniforms at Gettysburg would not be correct, perhaps a few here and there and maybe a few with head swaps and wearing the original hats vs the forage caps then…………thanks everybody for your input.

One account of the 39th at Gettysburg
"In June, 1863, it became part of the 3d brigade, 3d division, 2d corps, and moved to Gettysburg, where it fought valiantly in the front of the left center, with a loss of 95 killed and wounded, the brigade losing six field officers killed or seriously wounded. Three battle flags were captured by the 39th, a Mass. battery was recaptured, and the regiment received official commendation for its valor." From link

Also
link

The 39th was captured in the Battle of Harpers Ferry in mid September 1862 along with the entire Union force there at the time of the battle. They were later paroled and eventually ended up outside Washington at Union Mills later that winter as part of the defense of the capital while the bulk of the army was involved with Burnside at Fredericksburg. While stationed there on Dec 20 1862 the regiment received orders to discard their unique uniform in place of the standard Union infantry uniform. Based on this it would appear they fought at Bull Run and Harpers Ferry in their unique dress, but by the time of Gettysburg they were most certainly in standard uniforms.