Enlisted Uniforms and Equipment 1861-1871
The soldiers that marched off to fight the Civil War in 1861 went primarily equipped with Uniform and accoutrements (equipment) that had been approved by the United States Congress through the 1850s. The same items were issued to the men of the 1st Washington Territorial Volunteer Infantry who came in 1863 to build Fort Boise in the new Idaho Territory. The images below, produced by the Army Quartermaster Corps in 1865, became part of a Quartermaster Manual. The assistant Quartermaster General George H. Crosman, who was tasked with the assignment of creating the manual, had the images struck and then hand tinted for color. Crosman’s efforts are a treasure to us that allows us to see the idealized look of the Union Soldier that served during the Civil War and into the 1870s. These images are depictions of a textbook looking soldier while the actual truth was told by thousands of other contemporary images of regulars and state volunteers that fouled this textbook appearance. We can use these images to examine the prescribed uniforms and equipment being worn in the prescribed method as per regulations. We thank the Army Quartermaster Museum for the use of the following pictures.