Civil War Uniform

 The uniform of the Army of the Potomac would have been the average blue Union uniform, which consisted of light blue pants, a blue overcoat, a wool shirt, wool socks, shoes, and a cap called a kepi. They would also carry a knapsack and a haversack, where they would bring other tools and supplies. While the Confederate uniform would have generally been made of cotton, the Union uniform would have generally been made of wool. The uniform of a soldier would identify what branch of the army he was in. Blue striping would show that the soldier was in the infantry, yellow was for the cavalry, and red was for the artillery. Officers would wear certain insignia to show what rank they were.   This blue outfit were not uniform though. In the early days of the civil war, the kinds of uniforms varied, and the local militias called upon wore whatever they brought. Not all uniforms they had were blue, and some could even have been gray.

There were some who came dressed like the french zouaves, and others came in wild colors. The confederacy would have had a similar problem, and uniforms might have been whatever they were wearing at their time of coming. During the early battles of the war confusion occurred due to this, and friendly fire was common. Even throughout the rest of the civil war, the uniform varied because of lack of materials.    For our project we will wear blue pants and blue shorts. This was what union soldiers generally wore for battle, and even though ours won’t be consistent, throughout most of the war the union uniform varied. It would have been made of different things because of lack of materials.     Our flag is a maroonish-red flag, which has a swallow tail. Because we are lucky to fight in the east against Robert E. Lee, and that we need all the luck we can get against Robert E. Lee, we have added a 4 leaf clover in the middle.

Crossing the clover we have a pair of rifles, crossed, showing that we are a force of fire.  We have borrowed our design from the many different flags of our regiment. We have taken the color from the headquarter flag of general meade. From him we also took a swallowtail design, and also the basic layout, with a center, a swallow tail, and a solid color. Our four leaf clover on our front gave us luck, but was borrowed from the irish brigade, which was part of our army. We want to honor the brave Irish who fought with our army. We also took the gun crossing idea from the flag of Ambrose Burnside's Headquarters flag, which has an anchor and a cannon crossed.      The main flag we borrowed from, the flag of meade’s headquarters, was a swallowtail flag, will a golden eagle inside a silver wreath in the center. This is on a maroonish magenta background. Burnsides flag showed the american flag, with and anchor and a cannon on a badge where the stars would be. Stars surrounded this symbol. This showed a militaristic version of the american flag, symbolising that we would have to fight to keep the country together. The anchor was influenced by Burnsides history in the navy.

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