Good point about the John Ford trilogy - and he did the same for "The Horse Soldiers" Civil War cavalry film. He had the VMI Cadets, Nathan Bedford Forrest chasing John Wayne's/Ben Grierson's troopers (he was very luck that Forrest was somewhere else then) and Union cavalrymen wearing blue shirts instead of shell jackets and bearing trap-door Springfields instead of other types of CW carbines.

I used to know the guy that did the re-enactor consulting for "Glory," and he told me that Hollywood, while interested in history, does not make documentaries and used this point to show what he meant; John Ford actually hired an expert on US Cavalry in the West post-CW and at a meeting with the famed director to go over things like weapons, uniforms, etc. he stated as his first point that cavalry did not wear yellow scarves. At which time Ford leaned over and said simply, "mine do!"

Greg Biggs