The Kentucky in the Civil War Message Board - Archive

Re: insignia
In Response To: insignia ()

The topic is somewhat more complicated than the following generalization, but here goes ...

Confederate Non-Commissioned Officer (corporals and sergeants) insignia consisted of stripes on each sleeve. These stripes were *supposed* to be in the soldier's branch color (by regulation), but many were simply black. The vast majority (in practice) were not sewn onto a separate cloth patch that was sewn onto the sleeve (like modern military stripes), but each stripe was made of a strip of cloth that was sewn on separately. The cloth was usually a woven or twilled wool or cotton tape.

Officers' insignia was a series of bars or stars on each collar side. The vast majority were metallic or metallic-looking cloth bars, or stars made out of gold or metallic wire and/or sequins. Again, these were most usually sewn on separately, not on a patch (of course, there were exceptions). Only rarely were the stars pin-on.

About the only way to get the surrounding design for general's insignia these days, would be to buy reproduction embroidered patch insignia, even though this was generally *not* the way it was done then.

Hope this helps,

Geoff Walden

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