"Fighting 15th Uniform at Gettysburg - What was it? " Topic

I've started researching the 15th Alabama as they seem the natural antagonist to my 20th Maine Force. I've read in a couple of places that the 15th were sometimes called "Oates Zouaves" for the colorful uniform they had, but would they still have this at Gettysburg?

Unfortunately, not in the slightest. Just grey uniforms. Although they weren't ragged. They would have actually been fairly uniform in appearance.

Do you know whether the 15th primarily used forage caps or the wide brimmed hats?

How uniform would they have been really? I always thought the popular view of the confederacy at thks time was that they were quite ragtag in appearance.

I believe many of Hood's troops had been issued new uniforms thanks to the largresse of North Carolina. As noted above, gray probably with a majority of hats rather than forage caps.

The "Ragged Reb" is a bit of a myth. From my reading the "rag tag" appearance is more because the *units* did not match. Most units, in fact, were pretty well clad most of the time, allowing for normal wear and tear. But the CSA never had a centralized supply system so states supplied the uniforms.

The shoeless reb in rags fighting bravely on is part of the post-war myth making of the Lost Cause, among other things…

A lot of the new uniforms would come with forage caps, but in a veteran outfit like the 15th Alabama I would bet a lot of the troops would keep their hats

According to British Lt. Col. Freemantle, Hood's troops looked pretty ragged just before Gettysburg, and included a lot of shoeless men. But an eye-witness to another division, I think Rodes', thought its men were pretty neat and well turned-out.

Yeah, I'm not sure when Hood's men received new uniforms. Troiani says before the spring campaign. Ragged might be a bit overdone. But I think they would be fairly uniform in appearance. A few different color pants or jackets here and there for variety. Definitely the majority wearing hats instead of kepis.

My plan is to outfit them in various different colored pants, and stick to grey jackets but different shades of grey.

Just don't go too crazy.

I keep the same gray for each unit, but every unit gets a different gray. In a regiment of 24 I'll give 3-5 figures non-uniform pant.

All my soldier have shoes :-)

I'm using similar sized units so I'll go with your suggestion.

I will also keep shoes on all of them!

The seminal work on Confederate uniforms a three-part article by Les Jensen in Military Collector and Historian. The three parts can be found here:

link

link

link

A good summary of Confederate uniforms, which builds on Jensen's study, is Thomas Arliskas, Cadet Gray and Butternut Brown: Notes on Confederate Uniforms (2006). According to Arliskas the system of Confederate Depots operated by the Quartermaster Department really only became effective after Gettysburg. That would mean you want to have at least a certain degree of variation in the colour of both the jackets and the trousers worn by the 15th.

A Union observer from the 146th NY wrote in June 1863: "They were all clad in either butternut or gray clothes and were generally well dressed as far as comfort was concerned, but they didn't present a very military appearance. Some wore hats of black, some of gray, and some caps which we recognized as having been intended originally for use in the Union Army, but had been passed into the service of the Confederacy by right of conquest."

At the same time Pender's Division was described as having "serviceable clothing, as far as their boots, but there is the usual utter absence of uniformity as to color and shape of their garments and hats, gray of all shades, and brown clothing with felt hats predominate."

Jubal Early wrote just before the move north that in his division "There was a great deficiency of shoes for the infantry, a large number of the men being indifferently shod, and some barefoot."

Last of all, the 15th Alabama's flag carried at Gettysburg survived the war, but was buried with the flag-bearer (John Archibald) after the war. It is not certain what pattern it was, but most likely was an unmarked 3rd Bunting Issue ANV Battleflag (48 inches square, 13 stars and a white border).

That's fantastic information, thank you Ryan