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"Accurate Impressions: More Than Money Can Buy"

by John Stiteler

So you have read the articles about authentic fatigue blouses, bootees, and all the rest. You have heard the arguments about why you need to improve your impression. You understand and you agree, but you just cannot afford to shell out the cash all at once for "the good stuff". You're stuck. You want to improve but you cannot afford to, so you're destined to be a farb for at least another season. Right?
Wrong! There are plenty of things you can do to improve your impression without spending a ton of money. If one is willing to invest a little time and energy, one can make significant improvements and set a great example for one's pards. And you will be ahead of the guys who buy great uniforms but miss the point of living history when it comes to other areas.

Starting from the top and working down, below are suggestions for cheap or free improvements to the materiel aspects of your impression.

Take off the hat brass. Yep, just take off all that shiny stuff. Other than maybe a company letter on a fatigue cap, loads of brass is inauthentic. On a slouch hat, do not even wear the company letter. While you are at it, lose the braided hat cord and the corps badge. Remove the harp, Masonic badge, medals, and corps badge pinned to your fatigue blouse. Forget what you have seen in the movies and in post-war GAR photos.

Wear your waistbelt high around your waist, just under your ribs, and shorten your cartridge box sling so that the top of the box is snug against the lower edge of your belt. This is a simple matter of adjusting the strap and buckles.

Polish your brass. Even soldiers on long campaign had pride in their appearance. Do not keep it mirror bright, but do keep the green tarnish off. Do not bother with "Never Dull" or "Brasso" as they leave an artificially bright polish. Wood ash from a campfire is an excellent brass polishing compound.

Shorten the straps on your haversack and canteen. Most veterans have found from experience that a haversack and canteen banging against your hip is a pain in the...hip. You will be amazed how your traps are more comfortable when worn high on the body instead of dangling and smacking against your knees and the knees of the guy next to you. The haversack should be worn high under your arm, the top edge just above your waist belt, and not strapped down under your belt. Do not tie a knot to shorten the haversack strap-either tear out the stitches on the back side where the strap attaches to the bag, cut the strap and re-sew it, or simply double over the strap (in back, where it will not show) and stitch it together. As a general rule of thumb, wear the canteen high enough that it rests on your haversack above the buckle, where it does not bang against your cup if the cup is hitched to the outside of your haversack. Either knot-up the canteen strap or rip out the stitches where the strap is sewn together, cut it, and re-sew it to a shorter length. Pay attention to how the strap material is folded against itself when you take it apart. If your strap is incorrect, this is also a good time to spend a few dollars for a new, correct strap. This is also a good time to replace that dark blue wool canteen cover with a gray or brown jean cloth cover. Finally, take the metal chain off the cork and replace it with a piece of hemp twine, assuming that your canteen was not issued from the New York City Depot.

On the subject of haversacks, remember that the "bread bag" is for bread! What you keep in it is as important as how you wear it. The staples of a Federal campaigner's diet should be hardtack, bacon or salt pork, and coffee. Many reenactors are easily tempted by the idea of comfort foods such as canned meat and peaches, or "foraged" foods such as potatoes. Sure, these items were occasionally known to soldiers, but they were rare occasions, and exceedingly rare on campaign. Having experienced the wonders of three day old un-refrigerated pork in a black haversack on a hot weekend, it is amazing that anyone would want to keep spare clothing or anything else crammed in those greasy, smelly environs, yet it happens. Keep your food and mess gear in your haversack and find someplace else for the rest of your gear.

The best place for large things is the knapsack or blanket roll. Also, pockets are there for a reason. Soldiers loved pockets and often added them to their fatigue blouses. Trowser pockets, shirt pockets, and coat pockets can hold an assortment of small items such as clasp knives, handkerchiefs, small bibles, decks of cards, pipes and tobacco, period wallets, and journals, &c. In fact, most of the things sold by mainstream "sutlers" as "haversack stuffers" would be more authentically kept in clothes pockets or knapsacks, and usually would be even better if left at home or not purchased at all.

Un-blouse your trowsers. Don't know what this means? Good! If you do know, don't do it. Except in rare cases, there is no need for blousing your trowsers into your socks and it looks sloppy. Besides, it wrecks your socks, which probably are not accurate enough to be shown off anyway. If you are worried about dirt or bugs getting on your tender legs, blouse your drawers, but not your pants. (No drawers? That's your personal choice! The rest of us do not want that much information about you.)

Want to save some money? Stop dry cleaning your uniform. Shake off the dust, brush off the mud and grass, but do not wash your uniform. Dirt was an authentic fact of life for a soldier on campaign. If you must have your uniform cleaned, whatever you do, do not crease your trowsers! It was not done then, and it looks silly now.

Making these simple changes to the uniform and equipment that you have now could make a great change in your appearance and greatly improve your impression. You will look like a veteran, but how do you act like one?

Aside from making free and inexpensive changes to one's appearance, another area that tends to be ignored is behavior. Most of us are guilty of many infractions of basic military custom and discipline, not to mention flat-out farby behavior. In the army of the 1860s, a man who talked back to an officer or NCO, or did not respond quickly and correctly to orders and commands, would have been dealt with harshly. Speaking as a sergeant, there were plenty of times the writer would have preferred having a man hung up by his thumbs, bucked and gagged, or given a sharp smack across the backside with a rifle butt to hurry him up. Our hobby frowns on this level of authenticity however, so we are left with the responsibility of acting as if we fear such punishments, and behaving accordingly.

When ordered to fall in, do it quickly and act like you know what you are doing. Once you know your place in ranks for the weekend, get there and stay there-quietly. If a latecomer shows up and throws things off, let the NCO take care of it-handling such matters is the NCO's job, and he can handle it without your suggestions. The job of the private soldier is to fall in and shut up. This includes not telling your pards where they belong or reminding them to be quiet. Ever notice how much noise is made by men telling others to be quiet?

Follow commands quickly and confidently. Your officers and NCOs commands are not suggestions or invitations to discuss the idea. If the officer makes a mistake he will correct it. If the guy next to you screws up, let an NCO correct him. You really only need to worry about getting yourself to the right position at the right time. Nothing ticks a guy off more than having half a dozen know-it-all privates pushing and pulling and telling him what to do. Let the officers and NCOs do the training. It is their job. Your job is to pay attention, and maybe you'll learn something too.

Do not smoke in the ranks. Smoking is unsafe around powder and it is against regulations. This is not referring to cigarettes, which is another area of farbdom altogether-- pipes and cigars have no place in ranks, nor does chewing tobacco. If there is time for a smoke or a chew, the officer or NCO will order, "Break ranks!"

At all times while in ranks, be quiet. "Parade rest" is not actually a "rest" but is rather a different form of attention and requires silence. "In place, rest" allows a soldier to relax somewhat and, if need be, to talk quietly while maintaining his position in the ranks. "Rest" means that soldiers must stay in the immediate area, but are allowed to sit down, talk freely, and generally relax. Talking is permitted on the march, but do not make idle chatter. How many times does someone miss a command to change rifle positions or a marching command because he is talking to his pard? This happens all the time and there is no reason for it. When allowed to talk freely on the march ("Route step"), keep the conversation appropriate to the scenario. Gripe about officers, brag about your exploits in battle, reminisce about "home", sing period songs, or engage in other period-correct, scenario-specific conversation. Do not talk about the car trip to the reenactment, or your new hardcore shirt, reenacting politics, or the football game you are missing. Save modern conversations for modern times. Doing so will add to the experience for you and for those around you.

The same ideas hold true for talking during sham battles. First of all, don't! You should be paying attention to safe loading and firing procedures and listening to your officers and NCOs. Most reenactors get excited during the "battles" and surely the original soldiers did, too, and some exclamations are to be expected. However, reciting lines from Gettysburg or Glory is not authentic in the least and can really destroy someone else's "moment". If you feel the need to recite, try something appropriate from Shakespeare-it's period-correct. And for heaven's sake, if your officer gives the nonexistent command, "Fire at will", do not respond with "Which one of 'em's Will?" We've all heard it before, it was funny the first dozen times, now it's just stupid. Besides, you can rest assured someone else will say it for you before the weekend is over. Everyone has a job to do during "battle". A private's job is to be safe and follow orders. NCOs and officers will be watching for safety and giving commands-let them do so. Remember that your officers have orders from their commanders about which they may not have consulted you. Not knowing the whole plan in advance is unfortunate but authentic, and very often the average private in the ranks gets no vote about the tactics that the commanding general employs. Generals and colonels believe they have the right to give orders and have them followed by battalions and companies, while captains are of the opinion that they command companies of enlisted men. So it goes. We do what we are told, when we are told to do so, and the brass doesn't care a whit if we think them right or wrong! Time in camp provides excellent opportunities to improve the authenticity of personal and unit behavior. The same ideas discussed above about conversation in the ranks also hold true in camp. In addition to what you talk about, think about what you do in camp. One major change to consider is to actually be in camp! Civil War soldiers did not make a beeline for "sutler row" or "the civilian camp" after a long march or hard-fought battle. Most likely they collapsed from exhaustion, as we sometimes do as well. After a brief rest period, then what? For starters, clean your rifle and get your gear ready for the next time you are ordered to fall in. Replenish your cartridges and caps. Repair or adjust anything that needs it. In short, be prepared to fall in again at a moment's notice. NCOs may have fatigue details to lead. While we do not go so far as to suggest that you volunteer for such things, responsible members make themselves available to help their pards in such instances-for example, when the Sergeant orders your squad to collect firewood or fill canteens, only a skulker looks to duck out of it.

After the routine tasks are taken care of it is time to eat. This is an area where living historians can make significant improvements in authenticity. Whatever is in your haversack, get together with a few pards and pool your resources, cooking efforts, and cleaning duties so no one has to cook and clean up at every meal. This also eliminates the problem of everyone trying to cook over the same fire at the same time. If event rules allow it, have several small fires rather than one fire for the entire company. One small fire for each mess of, say, five pards is both efficient and authentic.

Once the day's work is done you may have time on your hands... how do fill it? Write letters, read letters from home aloud to your pards, whittle a stick into a toothpick, sleep, sing, gamble with dice or cards, tell lies with your pards, sing songs, stare into the fire, be bored out of your mind. All of these are free or cheap and are very authentic.

At day's end it is time for sleep. All you really need is one wool blanket and a rubber blanket for a ground cloth. If you have a shelter half ("half": singular, not two halves) you may join up with a pard to make a tent, or join with the pards in your mess to make a small shebang. Three or four shelter halves make a fine authentic shebang; more than that and a degree in engineering along with a building permit is required. A well-made shebang also offers protection from the sun while allowing the breeze to blow freely on hot days. On dry nights try sleeping around the fire, when your shelter half can be used as an additional layer for protection from a chill.

In the morning, do not leave your blankets scattered about the fire. Instead, as the first item of the day's business, pack up and be ready to strike camp, even if you are in a fixed camp for the weekend.

Who says authenticity is too expensive? The ideas suggested here are mostly free and are just some of the many things that can be done to improve your Civil War impression. By and large, they will cost you only some effort and a willingness to change. Authentic gear is indispensable to achieve the look of a common enlisted man in the Civil War, but a picture-perfect uniform and traps, worn wrong and with anachronistic behavior, is just as incorrect as pure polyester and plastic. Accuracy in behavior and attitude, along with accurate equipment, make a truly more-authentic impression.

John Stiteler is the 2nd Sergeant of the 2nd Minnesota Volunteers/River Valley Rangers of the Western Brigade. He is also the editor of The Ranger: Newsletter of the River Valley Rangers