"Paint Scheme for the 73rd New York (2nd Fire Zouaves)" Topic

All

I've searched online looking for the uniforms of 73rd New York at Gettysburg, and I have seen two different examples. The B&W of the veterans don't help much. They wore kepis instead of the tasseled beanies other zouaves wore atop their head. That's all the photos could tell me. Thanks ahead of time.

From the image of the veterans, it looks very much like they have a standard blue Zouave jacket with sky blue trim, sky blue trousers, and sky blue kepis. Red would appear a greyish shade, and yellow appears as black in those types of images, so sky blue looks to be the color.

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There is also an image of a seated SGT which appears to show a NY state issue jacket, or perhaps a "volunteer" or "Ohio" type shell jacket, also trimmed in light blue, though red cannot completely be ruled out. What this image DOES show is a dark band at the base of the kepi, probably dark blue.

I've seen the same photo but couldn't discern the colors. If the pants are sky blue, then what about the stripe along the legs? Thanks.

According to everything I have found, only _ONE_ company had their Chasseur uniforms. The rest had standard issue Sack coats and sky blue trousers.

Don

Interesting. Only one company.

Yes according to Coates and Winey both. So… that's all I know. I have nothing else to go by.

Don

Thanks

The stripe is likely gold, a metallic bullion. Very popular with pre/early-war units on both sides of the conflict

One other point. Note how clean the canteen strap is, as well as the straps on the knapsack, etc. I'd bet dollars to donuts that these items belonged to the photographer, as props for his subjects.

These were common in all photography studios, and is one reason why I caution folks about drawing conclusions on soldier's equipments in studio images. Soldiers didn't take their weapons and accouterments with them when they went off-post or out of camp. The image-makers supplied them for that "warlike" countenance for the folks back home.

Having said that, there ARE a handful of "studio" images where we know the gear belonged to the soldiers. The knapsacks, for example, have the unit's number stenciled on them, they are wearing gear known to be issued to those troops, etc. Mostly this is because the photographer had rented a parlor beside the camp or had a series of flats built to simulate a parlor or room which could be broken down for transport. Anything to gain access and make a few dollars, etc.

My guess is that the cap is red with a dark blue band around the bottom -- standard French (and thus Zouave) style. It appears to be a slightly darker shade of gray than the trousers.

Thanks everyone for the input.

This is a wet collodion plate print. The shades of grey in a collodion print are not rendered like modern film. Warm colors are dark and cool colors are uniformly light. So lemons and tomatoes are black. The judgements on color need to reflect this. So what happens is that a lady in a bright yellow dress would appear as if in a black dress.

Then why is his "cool" blue jacket dark?