Fashioning a Soldier: Male Clothing, Union Volunteers, and the Adaptation of a Soldierly Image
Year: 2017

Despite hundreds of images of Union soldiers and countless accounts by veterans of their appearance during the Civil War, little is known as to how and why the soldiers looked the way they did throughout the conflict. The generalized image that emerges from the war centers around the four-button fatigue blouse prescribed in the 1861 regulations that was issued to every Union soldier at some point during the war. In understanding the origins of the fatigue blouse's design and the impact it had on