Most women just entering re-enacting are unaware that there is more than one type of dress that they need to consider. Most women find the attraction to re-enacting this time period lies in the lovely, graceful, hoop skirts that the ladies wore, and many think of the women of this period dressing only in the lovely ball gowns we have seen in the movies. However, there are really three basic dress types to consider: the ball gown, the camp dress, and work dress.

Most folks are limited as to how much they can spend at any one time, and purchasing dresses is far more expensive than making your own. No matter how you slice it, most ladies will have to choose one dress to make or buy for their first events or events, and add to her wardrobe as finances and time permit. The question then becomes "Which dress do I get first?".

There seems to be a divergence of opinion on even on that fundamental question. In speaking with a number of the men of 5th Company, they opined that the best and most obvious choice of a dress with which a lady would begin re-enacting was a low-cut ball gown, appropriate for everything from bending over to stir gumbo in camp on up to dancing at a cotillion or ball; but especially for bending over to do anything. Ladies, on the other hand, seemed to opt for a camp dress for the first dress if that must be your only dress for a while.

It would be hard to explain the rationale behind the men’s choice, but the ladies’ choice is plain enough. A camp dress is not a fancy ball gown, and so would be appropriate for day wear; and it could be worn with or without a hoop, so it can be transformed into something appropriate for more formal occasions than being in camp. A ball gown, on the other hand, is really limited to the evening hours because it is - or can be, with any luck - relatively revealing. By the same token, a work dress (which may be either a dress or a blouse and skirt) will not accommodate a hoop, and will consequently tend to be less "dressy", or perhaps more bland, than would be a camp dress. A camp dress is arguably one of the more versatile pieces of clothing a lady can have in her wardrobe, especially for a new re-enactor.

Should it be your first foray into re-enacting, you may find it most prudent to work toward the bare minimum with a make-do costume (people of the period referred to their attire as their costume, so it is not inappropriate to refer to yours as a costume, either. The information for this section comes courtesy of Elaine Ludwig). . This will get you by your first event, and allow you a relatively inexpensive entrée into re-enacting so that you can determine if you like it well enough to spend real money on the hobby.  Some folks make the expensive mistake of investing hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to get set up to camp out and dress out in order to re-enact, only to find that they loathe camping out, and re-enacting is too dirty or the climate too uncontrolled for their tastes.

In Louisiana, women's clothing was a bit different from that in much of the rest of the country, owing to the French influence.  While it was atypical for a married woman in most parts of the country to wear a simple blouse / skirt combination, it was common enough in Louisiana.  The costume we would recommend for your trial pass at re-enacting is relatively simple: a long (ankle-length) skirt (which you could even make with about five yards of material, sewing the ends together and a drawstring into what will be the waist of the skirt), flat-heeled shoes with black hose, a relatively plain blouse with a camisole underneath, and some form of head / hair covering. The ladies' hair styles of the day included a center part, but ladies’ hair was controlled; only children wore their hair loose. Use a bun, hair net, snood (the term sutlers and most re-enactors use for a hair net, although it's a term from the 1920's), straw hat, or even a hair ribbon to control your hair. This combination will give you a simple, inexpensive first outfit for your initiation into re-enacting.

(Footnote: With a simple blouse, you are less apt to wind up with a design or pattern that is conspicuously modern. The most obvious sign that you are wearing a make-do modern-day blouse is the shoulder seam. Try to use a blouse with billowing sleeves that has the seam low on the shoulder and that is fairly tight in the armpit area. By all means, though, wear some type of camisole underneath, as absolutely no bra should be detectable.)

Having tried your "starter kit", as it were, and assuming that you are satisfied that you want to re-enact, there are a few items that you will need to acquire early on in the process. The foundational items should be a hoop for your skirt, shoes, and undergarments. Refer to Chemise, Drawers, Footwear, Hoops, and Stockings for details on those articles of clothing.

Hand coverings, of course, go with almost any outfit, whether they are mitts which were usually relegated to day wear or gloves which were more appropriate for evening wear. The most common colors for gloves or mitts appear to have been black, beige, or white. 

There are many arguments that can be made for acquiring any of the dress types previously mentioned, and you must finally choose based on your intentions. If the only reason you re-enact is to attend the dances, balls, and cotillions, then you may want to invest in a hoop skirt and a ball gown, period underwear, and nothing else. If that should be your choice, you should know that your ball gown will be inappropriate for day wear, and those who are strictly authentic will almost undoubtedly have comments to make about your attire (most of them made mentally, of course, but don't bank on them all being silent).  If you have no interest in dancing (and depending upon your impression choice), you may never want to get a ball gown. Your impression may call strictly for work dress of some description. We strongly caution against wearing a hoop skirt around an open fire, especially if it is necessary for you to be very close to it (such as when you may be cooking), no matter what choice you make. Fire was the second most common cause of death for women in the 1860's, second only to childbirth.

Many of the ladies in our Company wear a work dress early in the morning for their trip to the sani-johns and while they're cleaning up the insides of their tents or cooking, and then change into their nicer clothing, hoop skirts and all, after the dirtiest work of the morning is done.  Some ladies have a cloak for the purpose of covering themselves when they have to make those most inconvenient trips to the sani-johns at night or early in the morning so that they don't have to get dressed beyond their sleepwear (and footwear) at that point.

Much has been said by others concerning a "refugee" impression, and that has an impact on your manner of dress. However, you must bear a number of things in mind in shaping the wardrobe of a refugee impression. Some people were able to take virtually their entire household of goods with them when they fled the Northern invaders, and their flight looked more like visiting relatives and friends with a moving van than it did a holocaust.  Read diaries and journals of prominent and not-so-prominent women of the South and you will see that this was so.  At the same time, many suffered horribly, escaping with no more than their lives and the garments they wore when they were turned out.  Neither was necessarily the norm, however.  The "norm" must be somewhat determined by the events you attend and the impression you choose to portray.

What is the "safe" choice? Until you know the ground rules of the people with whom you expect to routinely re-enact, there is no safe choice. Until you know what you really want to portray in your re-enacting, there is no safe choice. Under no circumstances, however, should you watch "Gone With The Wind" or "North and South" or any of the other movies concerning our period and model your manner of dress and their patterns after what you see. That may ultimately be the only truly safe choice - to make sure you do not imitate the movies.

In fact, one of the main rules to dressing correctly is to do your own research. In our hobby, there are unbelievably high numbers of self-titled experts who will pontificate endlessly on the subjects of fabrics and clothing without ever really saying much that is valid. Asking other re-enactors will not necessarily result in getting correct answers, either. A lot of re-enactors have made adjustments to suit their own convenience, comfort, or finances, and they may be sufficiently self-deceived to believe that their costume is "close enough" to being correct that no one could tell the difference.

In all fairness to them, there are many works available which they may have consulted that are not written as clearly for the novice (and sometimes the more experienced) as they could or should have been, and the person who is broadcasting their faulty information honestly doesn’t see that they have understood incorrectly. They are sincere, but they can be sincerely wrong. We recently (in 1996) overhead a self-proclaimed expert assert forcefully that a particular event during the War took place 118 years ago in 1861, and a young woman in her group suggested that it would have actually been 135 years ago. The older woman became more forceful and adamant about the year, causing the younger woman to withdraw into silence. You do the math. The older woman was sincere in her conviction that it was 118 years before, but she was sincerely wrong. If you show up at the airport at 9:00 AM for a flight to San Francisco and you are convinced that the flight leaves at 10:50 AM when it really left at 8:50 AM, no matter how convinced and sincere you are of its departure time, you still missed the flight, didn’t you?

But sometimes another re-enactor may give you wrong information about your clothing or positive strokes about your costume because they don’t want to hurt your feelings by pointing out that you have just made a costly mistake.  Seek out the ladies who seem most knowledgable in your Company, and ask them for their help.  And buy some books.

Language - If you are portraying a first-person impression, nothing will reveal ignorance so much as an improper grasp of the language, unless it's an affected accent that sounds false. While none of us can be expected to execute a perfect first-person impression, a sound understanding of the language of the period will do much to aid in making your impression more convincing and authentic. Several good sources for learning the language would include reading the diaries, letters, and journals of the men and women of the period; some may affect more formal or stilted language than they would speak, but reading a variety of those writings will aid in toning down an attempt to speak too formally.

Works such as Joel Chandler Harris’ Br’er Rabbit series or Samuel Clemens’ (Mark Twain’s) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Life on the Mississippi contain potent doses of regional dialect / accent and slang. There are few other authors of the Victorian era that capture the language of the time with anything approximating the clarity and accuracy that those two men do.  If yours is a Southern impression, then you could do no better than to try to read aloud the dialectic portions of Br'er Rabbit or many of Twain's earlier works to get a strong grasp of the language and accents.

Another source of assistance in learning the language would be to refer to the reprint of the 1828 edition of Webster’s Dictionary which is available through several different sources. Words change in their usage, as most of us in our late thirties and up especially can appreciate. After all, we were teenagers when "bad" was "evil" instead of "good", and when "gay was "happy" instead of "homosexual". Re-creating language is nothing new at all, as a brief scan of the 1828 Webster’s will show you. Another source of period language would be the Slang Dictionary, although it deals with far more than phrases and terms current and popular during the 1850s and 1860s. The 1828 Webster’s Dictionary is available through some Reformed Baptist and Reformed Presbyterian bookstores or book vendors. The Slang Dictionary is available at most medium-sized (or larger) public libraries, but will probably be a reference work and not available to be checked out.

An outstanding source of language, although a bit more formal than would have been normal usage, would be to read through the seven levels of McGuffey’s Readers, available in reprint editions fairly readily. It will also give you an appreciation for how much we have lost in the last forty years of "improvements" in our education system and revisionist text books.

Magazines such as Camp Chase Gazette and The Citizen’s Companion carry articles fairly often which deal with the language of the period, and will be very helpful, too. There are also reprints of Harper’s Weekly and other periodicals of the period which will generally help you with the lingo of the day, although we caution against relying too heavily on using too much language of the period for two reasons. One is that the written word will tend to be a bit more stilted and formal, even when attempting to convey slang or normal conversation, than the period vernacular. The second is that the rest of us won’t be able to understand you.

Marking Your Equipment  -  Within re-enacting circles, some question the practice of "personalizing" equipment or personal belongings.  On the surface, given the mass confusion that may reign at times over a military camp or as a result of a battle, it seems only prudent to mark belongings so that, if lost or misplaced, they may make their way back to you.   However, there is military authority behind the practice, too.

In the 1861 US Army Regulations, Article XII, Sections 85 and 86, it states that:

    85.  Every article, excepting arms and accoutrements, belonging to the regiment,  is to be marked with the number and name              of the regiment.
    86.  Such articles as belong to companies are to be marked with the letter of the company, and number and name of the    
           regiment; and such as belong to men, with their individual numbers, and the letter of the company.

In Article XIII in which Companies are discussed, it says:

    94.  The name of each soldier will be labeled on his bunk, and his company number will be placed against his arms and     
           accoutrements.

Muzzle Blast Zone - Whether serving as an artilleryman or not, if you see anyone within the muzzle blast zone of a cannon, it is your responsibility to cry out "Cease Fire" as a warning to the Gunner and the cannon crew that someone is in jeopardy. If you are in an artillery battery, you may see infantry troops take hits in front of the cannons during a period when it is acceptable for them to be in that area. However, if there is supposed to be cannon firing later when those men may still be on the field, alert your Gunner to the "dead and wounded" hazard in front of the piece, and he will instruct you and others on the piece to proceed onto the field and pull those men back out of harm’s way. So long as they occupy the ground within the muzzle blast zone of the cannon, you will not be permitted to fire the piece anyway; so make it look good for the spectators. Drag the silly bastards off the field.

The muzzle blast zone comprehends a distance of fifty yards straight out from the muzzle of a cannon, and covers an area twenty yards wide (ten yards on each side of the tube). Some define the muzzle blast zone as a triangle which begins at the mouth of the tube, going out from the tube at opposing 45° angles from the tube for a distance ranging from 100 feet to 150 feet straight ahead of the piece. The muzzle blast zone does indeed begin at the very end of the tube, which is why cannoneers must take care when firing in a line with other artillery pieces to ensure that the other cannons (and their cannoneers whose hearing we are hoping to help protect) are neither forward of or behind their tube.

Personal Hygiene - For the love of heaven, please don’t try to be authentic in this area. Toothbrushes were used and baths were taken - with soap - and even clothes were washed, if not with the frequency we wash clothes today.

Pocket Watches - Your modern wrist watch instantly destroys the persona of an 1860 soldier or civilian. A pocket watch certainly is one of those objects that should eventually become part of your kit.

Pocket watches were available long before our period of interest. The first pocket watches developed in the mid-1600s were heavy, awkward devices. Inconveniently, they needed to be wound twice a day, and had only an hour hand; the minutes went untold. Since time had been measured mainly in fortnights, months and years up until then, pocket watches giving the hour represented a quantum leap forward. Queen Elizabeth I was among the first owners of a watch. Indeed, only the wealthy or highly prosperous could afford a watch then.

By the time of the War Between the States, pocket watches were still a symbol of wealth and one of a person’s more expensive personal possessions. Expense still drives off many would-be owners from purchasing a period time piece. A common assumption is that period time pieces are terribly expensive. Too, many unanswered questions concerning period time pieces prevent many of us from considering the purchase of a period time piece. Where do you go to buy a good time piece? How do you know if it's a watch from our period? What's the right kind to buy? Who can repair it if it breaks down? Shouldn't I buy an inexpensive reproduction like the ones sold by Wal-Mart and other discount stores?

These are all good questions you should consider before you go out to make such a purchase. Most watches of the period were silver or silver alloy, and were wound by a key, the time being set with the same key. Watches known as stem-wind, pin-set watches were made then, but they were rare and not likely to be owned by the average soldier or civilian. The stem-wind, pin-set watch is the sort found at discount stores such as Wal-Mart.

Period watches characteristically are approximately two inches wide and can be as thick as three-quarters of an inch. Normally, they will weigh four or five ounces. A knob on the top is typically pierced by a ring to which the chain is to be attached. Backs of period pocket watches are double hinged, and utilize two covers. The first cover is opened to reveal the second cover, which has a hole through which the key is placed to wind a stem. As the watch is wound, you will be able to feel the increased tension of the spring. The watch should always be wound completely, although you should be careful to never force the winding beyond the initial point of resistance. The main springs of these watches are durable, and, with reasonable judgment, cannot be over-wound. The inside back cover - the first cover, that is - may contain the manufacturer's name, a jeweler's mark indicating a repair, or even a marking such as a lion or shield, which are manufacturer’s marks and may also indicate the place of origin.

Setting the watch may be accomplished by lifting the front crystal with your fingernail placed in the notch provided on the edge or bezel. The key fits over the center post, and may be rotated right or left to set the time.

Watches for the period typically have a lower dial with a small hand to indicate seconds. More often than not, the face of the pocket watch will have Roman, rather than Arabic, numerals. In most cases, the number four will usually be indicated as IIII, rather than the correct Roman numeral IV. The V for five is usually upside down since numbers were to be read from the center post.

Watches with a cover over the watch face are called "hunter" cases. These watches were used by gentleman outdoorsmen who exposed themselves and their watches to nature and the elements, consequently requiring a protective cover. Watches face on hunter case watches are offset from the knob on top, placing 12:00 where one would expect 9:00 to be. By the same token, watches with the crystal exposed will have 12:00 in position under the knob and ring.

The face may or not have the manufacturer's name; a name on the face of a pocket watch could just as easily be the name of the jeweler who sold the watch. The manufacturer's name is most likely to be found under the second back lid, on the watch's back plate. The name of the company, the watchmaker's name, the place of manufacture and perhaps even a serial number that can be used to help date the piece might be found there.

The center for American-made pocket watches was, at that time, Waltham, Massachusetts, a company that still manufactures watches. Originally called the American Watch Company, the Waltham Watch Company produced thousands upon thousands of pocket watches during the War Between the States. Many other companies came and went during that time period, all located within a hundred mile radius of Waltham. While it is true that watches were made by individual jewelers in other areas, including metropolitan regions such as Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York, the Waltham Watch Company was the only company to mass-produce pocket watches during the War.

In the 1860's, a good pocket watch would cost in the neighborhood of $4, the equivalent of two or three days’ pay for a working man. In 1997, a Waltham pocket watch will cost somewhere around $125 to $150. The average price for a good pocket watch will most likely be in the range of $200 to $250.

Jewelry stores that deal in estate jewelry, antique stores, and sutlers are the most likely sources for pocket watches. Watch makers and clock repair shops should not be overlooked as a source of supply, either. Often, they can offer the best prices because of their low repair cost, and because they actively purchase from others within their industry. Purchase a watch from a dealer you know, one who will sell the time piece in working order at a fair price.  And don't be afraid to dicker. 

A period pocket watch is durable. You should be able to wear it daily. As a matter of fact, a good watch keeps better time when it is kept running and wound every day. If you don’t wear it regularly, then wind it at least once a month to keep the lubricating fluids and parts operating smoothly. Take your pocket watch to a jeweler or watch repair shop once a year for routine cleaning and lubrication.

You will find it easier to locate a good period watch than it is to find a period watch chain. Watch chains (or an "Albert") of the period were a heavy, open-link design, strong enough to take the jolt of the watch should it fall from the pocket. Watch cables made of braided human hair taken from family members were fairly common. Most watch chains were made of silver, however, to match the watch. Gold key-wind watches were a rare item, almost exclusively found among the very rich, making gold watch chains far more rare. One end of the chain had a snap-swivel hook to attach to the watch ring, while the other end had a small metal bar meant to pass through the vest button hole. An additional small piece of chain was attached to the bar end to hold the key. Most soldiers had no fine watch chain, but had to be content to secure the watch with a leather shoe string sometimes called a "fob".

Most of us have the image of a watch being carried in a vest pocket, but not every soldier wore a vest. In place of a vest with a pocket, many would wear a small leather pouch or pocket made to fit that pocket watch. The leather pocket had a tab with a button hole, and was buttoned inside the pants waistband to the suspender button. The leather thong on the watch ring would be tied to the suspender or run up to the button hole on the vest where it could be tied on or attached to a small stick and passed through the button hole.

Ladies' watches did exist during the War Between the States, but they were not very common, again due to expense. A well-to-do person’s wife might proudly sport a small gold watch. Such watches were the size of a quarter or so, and generally worn on a bar pin or on a chain around a lady's neck. Most watches for women were imported from Europe or England. Since the average soldier's wife enjoyed a modest income, it would have been unusual for most women to have a watch.

Raising a Wall Tent with Just Two People  -   Most folks who have a wall tent or hospital tent also face the dilemma of how they are to erect the tent without engaging the help of half their Company.  There truly is a simple way for two people to erect the wall tent by themselves, and in less than twenty minutes.

First, there are a few tricks that should be considered by anyone who has that task in their future.  First, we recommend that iron tent pegs be painted white for at least the lower half; should you erect your tent in the dark, or near dark, it makes it much easier to locate the tent peg in the dark. 

Second, let your wall poles serve as tent pegs.  By that we mean that the portion of the wall pole that will rest on the ground should have a good-sized nail driven into it that will serve as a tent peg when inserted through the loop at the hem of the tent.  As for the top peg in the wall pole, we recommend that the top of the wall pole be drilled slightly oversized to accommodate the typically 3/8" diameter iron or steel peg, cut from rod.  Paint the lower portion of the peg that will slide into the top of the wall pole so that if one of them falls to the ground as you're erecting the tent, it will also be easier to find in the dark.

Now you're ready to begin erecting the wall tent.

Spread the tent out on the ground with the bottom down, and the roof of the tent spread as if it had already been erected but someone let the air out of it (and the poles, too).  Whether the tent has front and rear flaps, or only front flaps, be sure to tie them tightly closed at this point.  That will ensure that, once you erect the tent, you won't have to re-set it in order to allow the tent flaps to close.

Sex - We don’t really have any comments to make on this subject, but just wanted to see if you had read this far. Well, there may be three things we have to say on the subject.

First, tent walls are not well insulated, so conversations and other...sort of...noises can often be heard far beyond the confines of your canvas home. Try to keep that in mind of you are of the vocally passionate persuasion and in an amorous frame of mind while in camp.

Second, be mindful that the lighting in your tent may be someone else’s silhouette peep show. Not everyone may want to see your puppet, even in silhouette.

Third, the expression "put a sock in it" may not be such a bad idea after all, as silencers go. Clean socks only, of course. Unless you are a dyed-in-the-wool authenticist and want to cultivate that "poor oral hygiene" aspect of your impression.

Sex  -  Yes, if you read the same-named section in the "Equipment" section, you may feel as if you have been led down the garden path on this topic once already.  For that, we apologize.  Should you determine to offer a first-person impression and be knowledgeable concerning period thoughts on the subject, or simply want to know what our forebears would have had as influences on their regard for the procreative (and dare we say recreative) act, that is the purpose of this section.

When we dealt with the Candies and Confections of the War Between the States, we mentioned the health craze set off by Sylvester Graham, former minister and inventor of the Graham Cracker.  Graham had some distinct thoughts on diet as well as the subject of sex and its place in the lives of men and women.

Sylvester Graham's concerns were not entirely misplaced with regard to the American diet.  The diet of the average American in the first half of the 1800's included large amounts of bacon, lard, and salt. Lest any be deceived into thinking that most of our forebears were teetotalers, the average American also consumed 6 gallons of hard alcohol - whiskey - a year. Our forebears were not insensible of the fact that corn was a relatively easy crop to raise in most parts of the country, but it was somewhat expensive to ship.  It made a great feed for pigs (one of the boasts concerning well-fed hogs is that they are "corn-fed") and humans alike, and a great drink for humans.  It wouldn't be until the 20th century that we would learn that too much corn is not a good thing, however, when we discovered that an excess of corn in the diet could well lead to pellagra; corn simply lacks the niacin we need, while wheat has it in abundance.  What does all of this have to do with sex?

Graham thought that people's eating habits were ruinous to their health, so he leapt into the battle against foods bad for them (as he understood it) by promoting a diet that was based on plenty of water, whole-wheat flour, vegetables, and fruits, a diet devoid of the presence of meat; not too far off the mark to this point, as we've come to know.  He abhorred the consumption of alcohol.

Graham also thought that people's sexual habits were ruinous to their health.  It grieved him to think that men not only would eat meat, but might also bea....errr....might also masturbate.  Graham was personally convinced that masturbation was, along with a bad diet, the cause of most diseases that plagued mankind, including venereal diseases.  Having come to that opinion in 1834, he was successful in persuading many men in the medical profession of the rightness of that view until a large number of them owned that belief by the time the War broke out.  Bear in mind that folks then were not ignorant of the fact that venereal diseases were transmitted by consorting with prostitutes; however, they also believed that venereal diseases could be transmitted by wearing the trousers of a venereal-disease sufferer, as well.

Masturbation was not simply morally repugnant to him, but physically repugnant as well.  Graham might be said to have been not only a proponent of the "You Are What You Eat" mindset, but that "you are what you excrete".

Masturbation, Sylvester Graham was convinced, also led to mental illness.  He once wrote that "Among the hapless inmates of the lunatic asylum, none is more incorrigible nor more incurable than the wretched victim of this odious vice! What of the fragments of his shattered reason he is still capable of gathering up from the sexual wreck, he craftily exercises in devising means and securing opportunities to elude the vigilance of his keepers and to indulge his despotic lust."

More plainly put, the more a fellow masturbates, the crazier he gets; the crazier he gets, the more he wants to masturbate; the more he masturbates, the crazier...  It was a vicious circle of masturbation-craziness-more masturbation-greater craziness, to Sylvester Graham's way of thinking.  Some part of that may have been a result of personal observation of inmates in insane asylums of the period; it may also not have taken into account that, other than the universal toy, what playthings or diversions were provided to such inmates? 

Graham was capable of making logical extensions of thought.  If masturbation made you crazy and opened the body to all sorts of diseases, what was masturbation but simple ejaculation?  Did the immediate agent that caused ejaculation - that is, the individual himself, or a partner who engaged in sex with him - have anything to do with the results of ejaculation? 

He was forced to conclude that the answer was "No", it didn't matter what caused the ejaculation.  Therefore, ejaculation was the problem.  As a consequence, it stands to reason that all ejaculation - including sex between lawfully married partners - was necessarily harmful to a man's health, and shortened his life.   From this, Graham came to teach that married couples should have sex no more often than once a month, and all others, of course, should have no means of ejaculating.   Graham's view of marriage was not an idealistic one, it should be pointed out.   Graham believed that monthly sex between married partners carried relatively little long-term risk, as one would become bored with one's spouse before too long, and at that point both would abandon sex entirely. 

Sex led to shortening a man's life, he taught.  He was strangely silent as to why a long life without sex would be desirable, though.

Ladies were not exempt from the concerns of me like Sylvester Graham.   While officially and publicly they ignored women's sexuality, it was not altogether unnoticed.  Women did indeed have sexual feelings and urges.  Those who had seemingly uncontrollable sexual feelings and urges usually wound up in the streets, plying the old trade, so conventional wisdom of the day said.

What of married women, women who were esteemed as "ladies"?   Did they have sexual feelings and urges that were recognized, too?

Just as etiquette manuals flourished from the 1820's through the War and beyond, so, too, did home-makers' manuals and sex manuals.  Some manuals recognized that ladies did have the same sort of sexual desires that men did (and condemned those feelings, too); they saw those as being masculine traits, not befitting a woman, or simply as sinful.  The majority of the sex manuals advocated the "grin and bear it" philosophy, as long as the "grin" was not an indicator that the lady was enjoying sex.  The role of sex in the lives of men and women, they were taught, was procreative - making babies.  Heaven forbid that anyone should actually enjoy s...e...x...  A lady was expected to shut here eyes, grit her teeth, and brace herself for her husband to...ummm...do his duty, and all for the joy of having children - and nothing else.

One authority just before the War's outbreak asserted that he could spot women who masturbated, even though they were fully clothed, just by the way they walked: they had a wiggle in their walk, a wiggle in their hips.  Apparently, it escaped him that the group he identified as female masturbators would have included every woman who was not painfully thin - a rather suspect conclusion, one would think. 

Another anti-masturbation radical like Sylvester Graham was Frederick Hollick.  In his work which went through some five hundred editions from 1850, he noted his knowledge of the existence of the clitoris, and was convinced that, when stimulated, it felt good.  Hollick was even more forthcoming in his discoveries: he recognized that women had orgasms, and that they were pleasurable to the ladies.   However, the only way such stimulation and completion of the sexual act could be proper, healthy, and legitimately pleasurable for a woman was when it was achieved with a man.  Self-stimulation, or self-abuse as it was then termed, was so much an evil that Hollick believed that certain women became addicted to self-abuse.  Women so-addicted, in his view, needed to have their clitorises cut off.

Were there more moderate views on the subject?

In one such manual circulated in 1859, a gentleman by the name of Seth Pancoast offered the standard fare on beauty tips, hair-dressing, and personal hygiene.   Like Hollick, Pancoast knew that there was a clitoris; unlike Hollick, though, he had only good things to say about it.  Pancoast devoted a surprising number of pages to the excitement and thrills to be discovered there, and what he termed the "voluptuous sensation" of sex (so long as it was with a man; Pancoast hated lesbianism).  Going a step further into absolute scandal, Pancoast had nothing negative to say about the act of masturbation.  In a departure from conventional wisdom, Pancoast allowed that ladies' problems originated most often with child-bearing, the most common cause of death in that age.  He felt that women generally had too many children, and they were born too soon after one another in a family.  To seal his departure from convention, he was in favor of ladies' getting an education and pursuing professional vocations. as long as they didn't get the privilege of voting.  

In short, there were divergent opinions concerning sex and Onanism, but the prevailing official opinion was that either was not necessarily a good thing.   Among the majority of those who allowed that sex was perhaps a necessary evil of some sort, the vast majority still condemned self-abuse.  The number of "free-thinkers" who publicly saw little or nothing wrong with either was small indeed.

Smoking - Does it necessarily follow that, having dealt with the subject of sex, we should now discuss smoking?  Blame it on the alphabet.

Whether you are involved with an artillery battery or not, never smoke in the vicinity of the limber chest, especially when it is open, in use, or if you suspect it may immediately be in use. Also, smokers may want to take up cigars or the pipe during re-enactments (if you can handle them) in order to maintain a more authentic look. Cigarettes were not widely popular at the time of the War, and filtered cigarettes (using a filter other than one’s own lungs, that is) were a thing of the future at the time of the War Between the States.

How popular were cigarettes during the period? Plug tobacco (chewing tobacco) and snuff were the dominant (dominant almost to the point of exclusive) forms of tobacco used up through about 1850. Pipe smoking would reach its peak from about 1850 through the early years of the 20th century when pipe tobacco came to constitute about eighty percent of the market for tobacco products. Cigars ascended in rank of use through the latter half of the 19th century, unchallenged in favor over cigarettes until 1920 when cigarette tobacco consumption finally equaled that of cigars. It was not until 1938 that cigarette consumption comprised even half of the tobacco consumption in America.

The use of tobacco in the form of cigarettes came about early in the 16th century when beggars in the streets of Seville, Spain would collect discarded cigar butts from the street and crumble them into scraps of paper they had scavenged, making them into makeshift cigars called cigarillos (later to be called cigarettes); these would not achieve any measure of respectability until late in the 18th century in Europe. French and British troops at war with each other on Spanish soil in the Napoleonic campaign of 1814 became familiar with them, as well as with cigars. It was in France that they acquired the name of "cigarettes".

Later, individuals would come to roll their own with tobacco and paper produced for that purpose. Early manufacture was by hand, either by the smoker or in factories, and eventually moved from using just any available paper wrap to using paper imported from France that was made of reworked linen. Cigarettes would not be commercially machine-produced on any real scale until 1853 when a steam-powered cigarette factory was opened in Havana, Cuba, but it was not until after the end of the Crimean War (1854 - 1856) which introduced British soldiers to Turkish cigarettes that cigarettes would begin to gain widespread use in the English-speaking world. The first English cigarette factory, still rolling cigarettes by hand, was established in London in 1856 and used Turkish tobacco. British taste switched later to straight Virginia cigarettes with tobacco grown in Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Curiously, although America grew tobacco that was much in demand in the English Empire, Virginia tobacco did not achieve great popularity in America until it was blended with the Turkish tobacco made popular as a result of the Crimean War.

Cigarettes, commercially-produced or rolled by the smoker, did not reach their fullest 19th century popularity until the 1880s and 1890s when machines capable of rolling up to 100,000 a day were perfected and put into use. That dropped the cost from 80¢ per thousand to 30¢ per thousand, making them more affordable to the masses. The advent of machine processing and rolling resulted in production leaping from five hundred million cigarettes in 1880 to four billion in 1895.

The point is this: plug tobacco and snuff were losing their stranglehold on the tobacco market in America by the time of the War, while both pipe tobacco and cigar consumption were in a rapid ascent to the top of the tobacco consumption market. For men in the field on military duty, however, tobacco traveled and lasted best in plug or twist form as chewing tobacco. Cigarettes were a small, almost statistically insignificant portion of tobacco sales, and therefore an almost statistically insignificant portion of tobacco use at the time of the War.

While a case could be made that relatively few women of the period smoked cigarettes, it is true that many women dipped snuff as a secret and private vice, and in some areas of the country women smoked pipes and chewed plug tobacco rather openly, most especially in regions where tobacco was grown and harvested by women (the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountain regions; Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas in particular). We are not advocating that the ladies stop smoking, take up carrying around a "chaw" to work over, or begin dipping snuff or smoking a pipe, however; we are just mentioning one of the habits / vices of women and men of the period and discussing how to make your impression more authentic.

(Footnote: That’s not to say that there were not exceptions, for there certainly were, although it does seem to have been localized to pockets of society and geography. R.T. Trall, a commentator on the social scene of New York, New York, complained in 1854 that some of the fashionable ladies were "aping the silly ways of some pseudo-accomplished foreigners in smoking tobacco through a weaker and more feminine article which has been delicately denominated ‘cigarette’." The prejudice against women smoking would first be broken in World War I, but it was not until the late 1920s and 1930s that smoking by women gained widespread acceptance.)

In a book titled Adventures in the Wilds of the United States and British American Provinces by Charles Lanman, published in Philadelphia in 1856, he remarks upon the prevalence of tobacco use in the South. Speaking of Montgomery, Alabama, Lanman remarks that"...as [Montgomery is] the law-making place for the whole State it is a fashionable city, and, as the fashions of the South are somewhat peculiar, I will touch upon a few of them in passing. Everybody is highly dressed, and while the gentlemen confine themselves to black, wear massive gold chains, and always support their dignity with a cane, the ladies dress in the brightest colors obtainable. The size of the canes used by the former is graduated by the size of the gentleman, in an adverse ration, and occasionally you may meet a small dandy with a club large enough to frighten Hercules. The use of tobacco is almost universal among the men, and not uncommon with the other sex; the former devoting themselves to it in the shape of cigars and fine-cut [tobacco], and the women, hailing generally from the country, in the form of snuff."

‘Dipping for snuff,’ as they express it, is a prevailing practice with ladies in several of the Southern States, and is used ostensibly as a dentifrice. While traveling I have met at the hotels and in private houses females carrying in their hands a small bottle of snuff, and, instead of using it after the common mode, they apply it to their teeth by means of a soft pine stick, prepared for the purpose. That this habit affords an exhilarating pleasure to those who practice it, is undoubtedly true, but to the mere looker-on it caps the climax in the way of tobacco abominations.

But the city ladies of the South, if they do not use tobacco after the forementioned fashion, often follow another fashion which is hardly less offensive to good taste - the fashion of powdering their faces and painting their cheeks and lips; and instances have occurred where a mother has actually ventured to paint the lips of her infant child. Let but such facts as these become obsolete. The poet says, ‘a thing of beauty is a joy forever,’ and the remark is true; but I could never see any more beauty in a painted white woman than I could in a painted Indian man. Were it not for the practice alluded to, more beautiful women could nowhere be found than in the South; and it is to be hoped the day is not distant when all such unhandsome habits will be abolished."

Staying Cool - Unless it is cold outside, you will not be able to stay cool. We may as well disabuse you of that notion right now. But there are some things you can do to try to cool off a little bit.

Ladies who have both camp dresses and hoop skirts will almost universally agree that a hoop skirt, even with all of the layers of undergarments, is generally going to keep you cooler than a camp dress. Odd as this may sound, the reason behind it is that a lady in motion causes the "bell" of the hoop skirt to sway, creating a little breeze up in there. Also, the hoop helps to keep the clothing farther away from the body, allowing the heat to dissipate rather than to be trapped within the clothes.

Some women (we use the term "women" here rather than "ladies" because ladies would not speak about this subject around men, and certainly not when men will be apt to read the ladies’ comments) would tell you that there is an advantage to wearing the open-crotch pantaloons (which were not intended to be worn with modern underpants). Not only is it easier for them to make use of the powder room with them, but it improves ventilation because you have removed another layer of cloth (the underpants) and added a large air vent. If you are clumsy, though, you may be better off wearing the modern underpants and not worrying about being that cool.

Need we draw a picture?

Many of the dresses are lined, or the patterns for dresses call for a lining. Many of the materials used then, including muslin and wool, were far thinner than the versions we have today. Given that most of our re-enacting is done when the weather is fairly warm or hot, you may want to think twice about whether you will have a lining in your dress. If you do not or don’t expect to have outer garments for cool or cold weather in time for the cooler season, this may not be a viable alternative for you. You can always remove the linings after you have the outer wear, of course.

Straw hats will allow a more free passage of air over the top of your head than would a bonnet or a felt hat. While parasols may seem more Gone With The Wind than anything, they are a good way to keep the sun off of you. They are also real spectator-pleasers.

Ladies also have the option of carrying and using a hand fan. Fans can be as inexpensive as a few dollars, or as expensive as several hundred dollars. The more expensive range seems excessive for something which is not rated in terms of thousands of BTUs and does not keep your tent cool, too, so we recommend that you work on the lower end of the financial scale for something that is apt to fall out of your reticule on the hottest day of the re-enacting season, never to be seen again. Many sutlers carry a sandalwood fan which has a nice fragrance. You may want to have a scented fan, for the scent (when fanning your face, of course) will cover your own body odor from yourself, and will also mask over the fragrances emitted by others - hopefully. That, at least, is the theory. If you find your fan loses its pleasant scent, simply sand it lightly with a fine grit sandpaper and it will be restored to its former pleasing smell.

Men who do a military impression are pretty much stuck with wool. When in camp and not in formation, they may wear vests (military or civilian style) in place of their wool jackets. If you do not have a vest, you would not be committing a breach of etiquette by wearing the jacket with only the top one or two buttons buttoned; that was considered acceptable. In the hottest of weather, you may go about the camp in shirt sleeves (not your Union suit top- undershirt, that is), although some ladies may object to that as a breach of period etiquette. It is indeed a breach of period etiquette, but we see no benefit in having a contemporary heat stroke to avoid violating period etiquette.

Just as with the ladies, the period underdrawers were not intended to be worn with modern underwear. You may find it far more cool and comfortable if you wear only the period underdrawers (or pajama bottoms).

When in camp, consider wearing a straw hat in place of the kepi or forage cap. The dark wool of the kepi or the forage cap is going to draw sunlight to it rather than reflecting it off of you, and the lining will help to trap the heat inside right on top of your head. You need to wear some form of head covering in camp, however, as it was the custom and the correct thing to do in the period (besides, many of us men tend to get sunburned now where once we had more hair; it may hurt a little to comb your hair after a weekend in the sun, but it will probably hurt your feelings more).  A straw hat allows more free passage of air over the top of your head, keeping it cooler. Another advantage of the straw hat is that its brim will also protect your face and ears and neck, while a kepi or forage cap bill will protect a lot of your forehead only.

Drink lots of fluids during the course of the day, and think about taking salt tablets. Don't be so fixated on the idea of being "absolutely authentic" that you reject the idea of bringing along an ice chest and plenty of cold liquids to last you through the entire event.  A heat stroke will not add one thing to your appreciation of an event.  Swooning is more a romantic notion than an attractive reality, especially for men.

Taking The Colors - For many reasons (detailed in The Washington Artillery’s Articles of War and Military Etiquette), taking the enemy’s colors was seen as a vital and important act. The scene in the movie Glory in which the color bearer is shot and his place proudly taken by another who is then also shot down is not a matter of artistic license with the film maker, but points up the importance of the color bearer and the honor and distinction which attended that function. Taking an enemy company’s colors could well serve to demoralize them, as well as to throw their command staff into a state of confusion for lack of ability to identify the companies in the field from their distant observation point.

However, when we re-enact, it is important to keep in mind that we are only playing at war. It is certainly a matter of pride to us not to lose our colors, and we would be livid if our re-enacting "enemy forces" attempted to take our colors. Unless it has been previously arranged with the command staff in the scenario that one or more company’s colors are to be taken, it is never advisable to take anyone’s colors, or to even think about doing so. That is one belligerent act which is almost certain to result in true bloodshed upon a re-enactment field.

Tents - This is your home away from home. No one has the right to go into your tent without your permission, whether they are a re-enactor or a spectator. If a spectator should transgress, be mindful that many of them assume that the tents, uniforms, and all related equipment belong to the site owner and not to us, so throw them out kindly and gently (unless you catch them stealing, of course, in which case you may feel free to tie them to the front of a cannon in preparation for the next firing).

In your little canvas home, remember that the walls are thin and not well insulated, being made of canvas only. Sound carries well, and a lantern in your tent may turn out to be a back light to you enabling all of us to watch the silhouette play going on inside your tent. If you must fuss or gossip about others, you may want to save it for another time or place where you won’t be overheard by most everyone in camp. If you argue, you might want to take it back to your car or van. If you cavort and act frisky (these are euphemistic terms, naturally), try to do so silently and without back lighting.

Even innocent activities can take on a whole new dimension when heard through the thin walls of a tent. Should you rig up a shower in your tent, for example, and the water is relatively cold or feels especially good, your moans and groans of delight may lead others to believe that you are having a lot more fun, or fun of an entirely different nature, than you really are. While this may not be so problematic generally speaking, it may be quite difficult for other adults who are unaware of the actual activity to explain away to their small children. And do you really want all of the teenagers in camp to snigger behind your back at every event from then on?

Time Pieces - (See Pocket Watches)

Tobacco Use - (See Smoking)

Watches - (See Pocket Watches)

Wounds - Few things in re-enacting are more blatantly preposterous than lines of soldiers facing each other across a field, firing volley after volley at each other, and few ever seem to be hit. One thing even more preposterous is the sight of a line of soldiers charging into the blazing mouths of cannons and not one man gets hit. Many subtleties of inaccuracy escape the spectators, but this is not one of them.

In an article in Re-enactor’s Journal, Ms. Lynn Vlcek wrote an article entitled "Oh, My Lord, I’ve Been Shot!" in which she gives some fundamental guidelines in portraying a wounded soldier. Her article points up a number of statistics which we assume were supplied to her through the Society of Civil War Surgeons, of which she is a member. We have taken the liberty of presenting the essence of her article in truncated form.

It should be noted that her article contains a good amount of references to theatrical devices. We have not attempted to provide that information fully, as you will be far better served to read a book about stage makeup and special effects.

Wound Location (Based on Wounded Soldiers Only)

Arm or Leg Wounds                                71%                
Torso Wounds                                         18%                    
Head / Face / Neck Wounds                    11%

Of a survey of statistical information available on 44,000 men killed in action during the War, she notes that 82% of the fatalities were a result of wounds to the head, neck, or chest. Based on that, she advocates that those who choose to die on the field affect a wound to the head, neck, or chest.

Of the estimated 970,000 military casualties on both sides, 560,000 died in combat or as a result of their wounds and illness, while another 410,000 survived. Of those who did not survive, about 67% died from disease, often from post-operative infection as a result of the unsanitary conditions under which the operation was performed; for not only were operating instruments not sterilized, but they were not even cleaned between patients other than wiping the excess blood from them in too many cases. The other 33% would die in combat or from wounds received in combat. Bleeding and cauterization were common practices that invariably led to the high death rate.

Another source reported that gunshot wounds exceeded saber and bayonet wounds by a ratio of 250 : 1.

Of course, not all wounds in the chest or abdomen resulted in a fatality. She states that half of the wounds received in the chest or abdomen were flesh wounds, and consequently had a low mortality rate. Wounds which penetrated the lower abdomen "invariably led to peritonitis and death within a few hours or two to three days" at most. Men wounded in those regions were dragged by their friends (when possible) to a shady spot, often referred to as a "dying tree"; so named because death was an apparent certainty.

In many of the period photographs of the dead in the field, it is common to see a number of men whose jackets and shirts appear to have been torn open. This was not altogether uncommon, and was not always the result of scavengers picking over the bodies of the dead for loot. When a man was wounded, especially a man who had seen his share of wounded and dying men on the battlefield, if he had the strength he would check to see how badly wounded he was. Depending on the placement of the wound, many men could identify readily whether they had a prayer of surviving their injury or not. Tearing open their jackets and shirts to take a look at their wound gave them a ready means of determining what their chance of survival probably was.

Wounds of the upper chest cavity which failed to strike the heart called for a simple surgery: remove the bullet, close the wound, and apply a dressing or bandage over the wound. Approximately 66% of those wounded in the upper chest cavity and who also received medical attention dies within days or weeks of the initial wound, often from pleurisy or pneumonia as a complication of surgery.

Superficial head wounds bleed profusely. Anyone who has ever watched "rasslin’" (known as "professional wrestling" in some circles) or has know a professional wrestler will have noted that the participants tend to bleed profusely when struck in the head. This affect is most often accomplished not with concealed "blood" capsules smashed against the forehead, but by the wrestler making long, thin razor slices across the forehead, barely slicing the skin apart. Upon impact with a fist or foot or the mat of the ring, it allows the skin to separate further and expose and break the many little blood vessels so close to the surface in the forehead. Our purpose in mentioning this was not to instruct you in self-mutilation, but to give you a reference point for understanding that head wounds do bleed profusely.

(Footnote: And now you know why professional wrestlers so often wear their hair in bangs over their foreheads. Bangs conceal the scar tissue from their having sliced themselves to achieve bleeding from the forehead when they are struck in the forehead. Bleeding gives the appearance of a serious wound, and a good superficial head wound can bleed almost as dramatically as a sliced artery.)

Most common of all wounds were the arm of leg injuries, and those are also the easiest to portray. A bullet could pass through the soft tissue of a limb without striking bone. That being the case, the wound could be readily bandaged and you could still be in good enough shape to continue playing "War" even though you are also playing "wounded".

For chest wounds, she advocates the use of blood capsules to recreate the appearance of "blood ‘leakage’ through the breathing passages". Ms. Vlcek recommends a blood capsule burst in the mouth and allowed to trickle out or the application of stage blood to the nostrils for "a realistic touch".

Wounds to the arm or leg should be promptly bandaged with white cotton strips about three inches wide and between two and three yards long. Lint (shredded cloth, not the mess found in navels and pants pockets) was used as an absorbent in that time, and therefore lint probably should be applied to the wound before wrapping it with the bandage, She also suggests that a blood capsule can be broken inside the lint and allowed to seep through the lint and the bandage for a more realistic look.

Should you choose to use stage blood or blood capsules, available through theatrical supply houses or costume shops, be sure to try it on some fabric swatches you may have of the material of the clothing in which you will be using the fake blood. You may regret having used fake blood if it stains your uniform or clothing permanently. Do not assume that because the label says it is water-soluble that it also means that it will not stain.

In portraying a wounded soldier, Ms. Vlcek suggests that you play the part well. You may be nauseous, in shock, disoriented, dizzy, scared, and afraid you will never see home again - and that’s just if you saw the prices some of the sutlers charge. Now imagine if you had been wounded, too. Should you be removed to the field hospital, remember that although the theory of germs and their affects was not known then, anesthesia was used. The first surgical procedure done with a patient under anesthesia was performed in 1846 at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. By the time of the War Between the States, ether and chloroform were used routinely in performing surgical procedures as long as supplies were at hand. Of course, the problem in Southern ranks was that ether and all medical supplies were, by mid-War, in dreadfully short supply all too often.

The method of applying the ether was to pour it into a cloth and clamp it over the patient’s nose and mouth, re-applying the ether-soaked cloth each time the patient seemed to rouse up or appeared to begin to feel pain. Laudanum was also applied internally, the opium-alcohol mixture given as a drink to the patient. When you are being operated on, the doctor will subtly signal you when you should be rousing from your ether-and-laudanum induced stupor so that you can issue your moans or groans or cries of pain.

Finally, the question arises as to when a person should take a hit. The best answer is that a person should take a hit when it is appropriate to the battle scenario, which would include when an officer in your Company directs you to take a hit, or you find yourself in a setting in which it is inescapable that you would be either killed or wounded. Sometimes that means altering the planned scenario slightly, or even significantly, but that may be the only way to not appear totally ridiculous to spectators.

Whether you are wounded, or in the presence of enemy wounded, by no means should you execute the enemy wounded, or expect to be executed by the enemy if they overrun your position and wound you. The prevalent strong Christian ethic of the day required the kind treatment of enemy wounded on both sides with rare exceptions to that practice. Whether Federal or Confederate, soldiers regarded the deliberate abuse of the enemy wounded as being cowardly and criminal. Several Confederate soldiers were hung at the order of General Robert E. Lee for exactly that sort of abuse, demonstrating the depth of his disapproval of such behavior. General A.P. Hill reputedly executed a Confederate soldier by his own hand in a summary execution for abusing a wounded Federal soldier. Both General McClellan and General Meade shot a number of Federal soldiers who had been convicted of killing wounded Confederate soldiers. President Davis and President Lincoln both invariably withheld their powers to grant clemency or commutation of sentences in such cases - without exception.

An excellent illustration of that point comes from the diary of Rice C. Bull, a young Federal soldier whose wounds caused him to be taken captive. Facing them in battle, he said that he had seen "the famous Washington Light Artillery of New Orleans....[T]their officers were mounted and handsomely equipped...[T]heir men were more uniformly clothed than any other Confederate troops we saw...[F]rom what I saw, the discipline of this battery was excellent...". After he was taken captive by the Washington Artillery, he said, "Not one word was said that would wound our feelings...".

Not even a word was said to hurt the feelings of enemy wounded.