"khaki questions: Federals and US" Topic

I'm trying to tell from Ospreys and museum pics – is the American uniform of the Pershing expedition an olive that leans towards green or towards brown?

Any recommendations for a Vallejo paint color?

RE: Mexican Federal uniforms, same question.

Also, Federal uniforms – did they have any colors that indicated branch [e.g. Red for Infantry, Yellow for cavalry, etc] on the lapels, shoulder straps, etc?

I'm not seeing anything, and it seems odd since that was the European and American trend, and Mexico seems like they usually followed uniform trends in general.

Pretty certain they wouldn't have had regimental colors as most nations phased them out in favor of branch colors 20-30 years prior to the Mexican Revolution.

Sources appreciated!

I want to say the American uniform leans towards brown.

You can try emailing the folks at the 45th Infantry Museum.

45thdivisionmuseum.com

The surviving ones I've seen lean toward a yellow-brown, but you have to factor in possible facing over the years.

Rick

I can only speak to the US Army uniform. The wool uniform tended to a more greenish olive drab. The cotton tended to be a more yellow-brown khaki. Wool was overwhelmingly worn.

The good news (or bad news, depending on how you view these things) is that it's really difficult to get the color wrong. For starters, the US Army was constantly tweaking the specs for what colors they wanted in this period. This not only led to variations of color in new uniforms at the depot, but also differences in how quickly and dramatically the newest dye formulations faded. One consistency was they all faded quite badly. It was not uncommon for uniforms that started as a OD to end as pinkish khaki, not unlike the "pinks" of WW2. A "two-tone" look is pretty common in period photographs, where a man's trousers and shirt or tunic have faded to different shades. Officers were not immune to these defects, incidentally.

Hope that's useful.

A couple of stills from Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" (1969)
showing the gang in stolen U.S. Army uniforms ca. 1913.

Nice! Clean as only Hollywood or the parade ground could make them…

But the brown-ish campaign hats stands out, as does the general tone of the uniforms.

There are two nice color pics below of – seemingly – reconstructed uniforms, but they do give some inspiration:

link

The color reminds me a lot of WWII British tweed brown.

Clean as only Hollywood or the parade ground could make them

To be fair they had only just put them on, for the purpose of robbing the bank, having acquired them from an obliging Quarter Master.