Union Generals' Uniforms  "Stars On Their Shoulders"

U.S. Army regulations during the Civil War called for the general officer's dress uniform to include a double-breasted dark blue frock coat with gold buttons, epaulets, and sash. The frock coat had a standing collar and a skirt front and back that extended halfway between the hip and the knee.

The rank of the general could be identified by the arrangement of the double row of buttons down the front. A brigadier general's buttons were arranged in four groups of two and a major general's in three groups of three.

For field duty, generals usually wore the looser-fitting sack coat. The button arrangements remained the same on the sack coat, but with the sash and epaulets were generally not worn with it. Rank was denoted on gilt-edged shoulder straps: one star for a brigadier general, two for a major general, and three for a lieutenant general. A major general commanding an army could also wear a three-star shoulder strap with the middle star larger than the other two. On full-dress occasions, generals would replace the shoulder straps with gold-fringed shoulder epaulets. General officers wore a variety of types of hats but the most popular were slouch hats, kepis, and forage caps. Regulations also called for generals to wear plain dark blue trousers and Jefferson boots.

Generals tailored and altered their uniforms as they saw fit to suit their individual tastes. Gen. George A. Custer's outrageously gaudy nonregulation garb caused a fellow officer to exclaim, "He looks like a circus rider gone mad!" Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, on the other hand, was notoriously unkempt and maintained that he disliked military uniforms. When he met Robert E. Lee, resplendent in his dress uniform, at Appomattox, Grant wore his usual mudstained private's sack coat with his rank stitched on the shoulder.

Fascinating Fact:  Few generals had need of a sword for other than ceremonial reasons, but a sword was part of the dress uniform of a general.


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