Daughter of the Regiment Uniforms

[sharpsman]

My wife is interested to know if there are any female skirmishers wearing "Daughter of the Regiment" or "Vivandiere" uniforms on the line. If so, do you know of reference material, perferably with pictures, on these uniforms for women in Union Regiments?

[Minieball577]

Peggy Shaw, of the 7th Wisconsin, wears an outfit (I am not sure these could/should be called "uniforms" per se) with approval from the Uniform Committee, that is based on the the Daughter of the Iron Briagde shown with the Tiffany Flag presented to that body of men.

Not all regiments had a "Daughter of the Regiment" or a vivandiere or anything like that so this type of thing would be very unit specific, as Peggy's research was. The images of actual "daughters" seem to show that the "zouave" style was common, such as this image


One place you might want to start a search is at http://www.vivandiere.net/

And I am sure Peggy Shaw would give you guidance if you got in touch with her.

[Lou Lou Lou]

I was under the impression that since we had to "re-register" our official uniforms a few years back that such a non-standard one-off uniform would be prohibited. Again, that is just mho.

[Greg Ogdan, 11444]

Lou,
Perhaps this is for the Miller Award Competition and not to be used on the line.

[John S. Robey]

This question came up when the BoD first proposed membership for women in the late 1980s. The issue of women shooting in dresses or in Vivandiere costume was settled by deciding that anyone who came to the line as a member of a unit must wear the uniform of that unit. To my knowledge that decision was never rescinded or altered. No provision was made for the Uniform Committee or anyone else to approve anything other than the uniform of the unit. Roger Williams had a sign on his shooting box that summed it up perfectly: N-SSA - Where the Men Are Men, and the Women Are, Too."

[Lou Lou Lou]

Thanks, the question was wheter any female skirmishers were wearing Daughter the Regiment uniforms "on the line" hence my response.

[Wilson Rhodes]

During the last uniform revision, some of the forward thinking teams worded their uniform requirements to include a phrase worded like this one.....

"Uniform to consist of any uniform or article of clothing known to exist or been worn prior to 1865"

That leaves alot of room for uniform choices without locking a team in to just one style forever.

Donna Coney wore a camp dress and second style federal zouave jacket online many times while shooting with the 11th Indiana zouaves, although no vivendiers were known to be attached to the 11th.

But that was a relatively laid back region and simpler times.

[Gary/CO]

Black runaway ex-slave Susie King Taylor was taught how to shoot a springfield rifle musket and was quite good at it. Like any good fille d' regiment, she did laundry for the boys. I don't think she ever wore the Union blue.

[Scott Kurki, 12475]

[quote="Wilson Rhodes"]During the last uniform revision, some of the forward thinking teams worded their uniform requirements to include a phrase worded like this one.....

"Uniform to consist of any uniform or article of clothing known to exist or been worn prior to 1865"

I am certainly no authority and I don't want to give the impression that I think anyone should be listening to me, but for me personally, I don't like the idea of wear what you want period attire "uniform" codes. In my mind, we (each of our teams) are supposed to be an impression of an actual civil war unit, not all of them in one. I do agree with the Confederates mixing it up a bit because that was the reality. Many of the women that fought did so in disguise. personally, I believe we should be trying to live the history a little more. Even though we are a shooting organization, we are after all trying to do so in an historically accurate manner as much as we can safely. I know I am subjecting myself to a "flame war" so please understand that this is only my opinion and I know next to nothing about the actual history. I do enjoy learning about it and participating to the best of my ability though.

[Jedi252]

thank you for sharing, It is a great post.