"A couple of questions about insignias" Topic

Hello.

Researching about the uniforms of the acw units, I found in several illustrations and reenactor sites, seems some Texans soldiers have a star sewn in their hats or have a metal star in the kepis or forage hats. Was this a common practice for all texan units or just a few soldiers?. The star is found only in the hat not in jackets?.

Also about insignias, some kepis and forage hats have metal insignias and for the union the corps identification with the diamonds,clovers in colors. Were this insignias extended in most soldiers of the corps?, the metal ones were also common?

Thank you very much in advance.

For the Union Corp badges – wikipedia has a pretty good breakdown on the badges, colors, and history link

The Texas star was more an individual thing. There was no common issue of stars that I'm aware of. Most soldiers bought or made their stars.

Agree with skedadle.

The Union corps insignias became very popular. Just about every soldier in the their corps wore them.

I believe the Union corps badges were normally cloth. If a solder wanted a metal one, he had to buy it, so probably only officers bothered with that. I assume they had to order it from a jeweler (where it probably became a common item) or possibly a suttler (especially in areas heavily populated with Union officers, Like Washington).

The Corps badges first started in the Army of the Potomac – where they were, as noted, very popular – most other Union armies had them eventually but not always as popular – for example, XIII Corps of the Army of the Tennessee never had a corps badge

Re the Texas star, the Time-Life volume "Arms and Equipment of the Confederacy" has a photograph of a star badge in white metal for use on a hat, so it must have been popular enough for someone to stamp out copies for sale. Troiani's ACW paintings show the badges on some but by no means all slouch hats of Texas troops (looks like about only one in every three or so). He doesn't show it on jackets, and I've never seen an illustration suggesting that either. Given that the CSA used stars as a rank insignia on the collar of field-grade officers (one star for Majors, two for LTC, three for colonels), it would seem to have been wise to restrict the star insignia to headgear.

Other CSA state badges that apparently were sometimes put on hats include the Maryland "Calvert Cross" and the palmetto of South Carolina. All of these would be just dots of silver paint in 28mm or smaller, I think.

As I was reading this post it occurred to me how cool it would have been if each states' regiments wore a shoulder patch for their state (with the number beneath or superimposed). Or imagine if every regiment had it's own design?

Thank you very much gents. I'm mounting a 15mm army in 3D and just learned how to modify the figures digitally. So apart from adding small pieces like the bucktails I wanted to add some insignias as these are far easier to paint than just painting them over a flat surface.

Many thanks.

In 15mm it would just be a dot anyways. Anything large enough to be a recognizable shape would be way oversized.

Indeed in a game is not noticeable, but It's a wonder what a 3D printer can achieve and I enjoy a lot the painting of those small pieces.