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How Should You Wear Your Civil War Uniforms Slouch Hat
Author: Paula McCoach

Small features like how you wear your slouch hat will enhance your Civil War uniform impression – without spending another dime. If you look at original photographs, you will discover that Civil War soldiers wore the brim up. The Indiana Jones brim turned down cannot be found in photographs of the period.

Common colors of slouch hats were black, silver gray, brown and tan. Any felt hat of the period will do. Generally speaking, they wore their hats on their heads. Sometimes they cocked it off to one side – but they did not push it back.

Men of the Victorian period wore their hats all the time when they were outside – unless they were taking them off as a sign of respect. Winter or summer – they wore their hats. Wheel hats and straw hats were also worn in the summer. I found I could not find many photographs of winter hats. My theory is that the cold temperatures interfered with the chemical reaction in the photography development.

I try to stay away from anything fancy on my hat. Hat brass, cords, pinning the side of the hat up would be the exception to the rule. I believe generic is the best. A generic felt hat with a medium size brim worn wither with a flat or bee hive top possibly with some type of crease or the hat tilted off to the side is what I have observed in photographs most often. Wearing the brim up was the rage during that time period.

Coach McCoach has been a Civil War reenactor in the 4th North Carolina Infantry, 2nd Virginia Regiment, and 21st Virginia Company B. Coach has received the “Authenticity Award” from these companies several times for his Civil War Uniform Impression. Coach’s Civil War uniform designs have been seen in the movies GETTYSBURG, Antietam Visitors Center, ANDERSONVILLE.

For more information, contact coach@civilwaruniforms.net or go to http://www.civilwaruniforms.net

2005 permission granted to reprint this article in print or on your website so long as the paragraph above is included and the contact information is included to coach@civilwaruniforms.net and http://www.civilwaruniforms.net