United States Army Headgear 1855-1902 - Libreria Militare Ares

NUMBER 30 15the sun in the top. The slanting visor fits easily tothe forehead.""" Most complaints referred to thecap's appearance, recommending that it be replacedby the "jaunty cadet" model.'"" The Woodhull Reportspoke of the difficulty of cleaning the cap, the"interference of the oblique visor with vision, itswant of grip . . its want of warmth, the deficientprotection it affords the face and neck against thesun and rain . . . , and, especially, the absence ofventilation.""'The earliest found detailed specifications for thecap, those in the 1865 Quartermaster Manual, state:Forage Caps—are of 6 sizes; the bodies to be made ofdark blue forage cap, or facing cloth. A cap of mediumsize is 15 inches in circumference at base; height in front,4^ inches; in rear, measured from base to crown on acurved line, 5^4 inches; diameter of crown, 5 inches; thebody to be stiffened around the base by a piece of buckram,2% inches wide; a single row of machine stitches, 16 to theinch, sewed through the buckram and body of cap, withblack silk or linen thread, commencing at a point in the centreof front, 1 Yi inches below the crown, and extending eachway, by curved lines, around the sides of the body to apoint in centre of rear, 1 /a inches above the base of thecap; the crown to be stiffened with a stout circular sheet ofpasteboard, and the cap lined throughout, inside, with goodblack silesia; a sweat leather, of good black goatskin morrocco,2 inches wide, to be strongly sewed to the base of thecap and through the cloth buckram and lining; a vizorof stiff glazed leather, best quality, black above andgreen below, in form of a crescent, the outer curved edge 13inches long, and the interior edge 9 inches long, 2 incheswide in the middle, to be strongly sewed on the front of thebase of the cap; a chin-strap, of best quality soft and pliableblack glazed leather, composed of two pieces Ys inch wide,each piece 9/2 inches long, and having sewed on one end ofeach, a black leather loop of same width and material, andon the other end a vest button of brass, strongly sewed tothe cap near the extreme points of the vizor; on one ofthese pieces is to be attached a slide, of No. 19 sheet brass,Ys of an inch long and % of an inch wide, made with abar in the centre, over which the strap passes and fastensat the middle of the chin-straps in front of the cap; at thebase, over the vizor and around the crown, a welt of theblue cloth covering is inserted; weight of cap, 4% ounces."'A number of specimens of obvious regulationorigin '"" have been examined, including one sealedsample, and their general construction and basicmeasurements vary little except in relation to capsizes (Figures 7, 8). This is somewhat to be wonderedat when one considers that these must betaken as a cross-section of several million made duringthe period by a number of different contractors.In those checked, the heights of the fronts varyfrom 314 to 43^ inches, the rears from 5.^ to 6i/^inches, the diameters of the crowns from 4^ to 6inches, and the width of the visors in the middlefrom lYs to 2i/^ inches. The bases of the cap bodiesare stiffened with buckram under the sweat leathersand the interiors are lined with glazed cotton.The crowns of all are stiffened with pasteboard.Many carry makers' labels as "Geo. Hoff M&G,N.Y.,." and "U.S. Army/L. J. & I. Phillips," withthe addition of the contract date in some cases. Allare cut in the rear in such a way as to come to aslight point over the nape of the neck. Althoughthe cap was originally ordered to have a visor "cutto slope,""" that is, somewhat convex, about 50 percentof those examined have visors completely flat.While the 1865 Quartermaster Manual does notprecisely describe the shape of the visor, it does saythat it was to be two inches wide in the center. Ofthe caps examined, all the convex visors are exactly2 inches wide in the center, while the flat visorsmeasure lYs inches in each case. A check of all cleargroup pictures in Miller's Photographic History ofthe Civil War show the convex to outnumber theflat visors in a proportion of something better thantwo to one. The one pattern cap, or "sealed sample,"of regulation style examined carries a convexvisor, two inches wide in the center.This pattern cap is unusual enough to deservea special note, in that its color, rather than theregulation dark blue, is a medium to dark green,carries half-round, blank, composition buttons, withthe red wax "sealed sample" wafer on the sweatband and a pasteboard label attached with ribbonbearing the legend "Sample/Green Forage Cap/(Berdan) and maker s label "Geo. Hoff & Co./Philada" in the crown. In all respects, its dimensionsand construction are very close to the otherregulation caps examined."'Although the green "Berdan" uniform will bediscussed in depth in a succeeding volume, somenote of the 1st and 2d Regiments of United StatesSharpshooters should be made here."' Hiram Berdanof New York, one of the most noted rifle shotsin the country, in June 1861 wrote President Lincolnregarding the possibility of his forming a regimentcomposed of proven marksmen. The letterpassed on to General Winfield Scott (to whom Berdanseems to have appealed personally) throughthe Secretary of War. Scott replied to Berdan thathe was personally "very favorably impressed" withhim and thought that such a regiment of sharpshooters"would be of great value and could be