“Pleasing One’s Own Taste and Fancy”: Uniforms of the Missouri State Guard

James E. McGhee

Legislation enacted by the Missouri General Assembly in the aftermath of the “Camp Jackson Massacre” of May 10, 1861, entitled “An Act to Provide for the Organization, Government and Support of the Military, State of Missouri,” created the Missouri State Guard as the state’s legal militia.

Different provisions of the so-called “military bill,” particularly Sections 69 and 73, provided that a military board would prescribe patterns for a regulation uniform for the new state army. Until the board acted, Major General Sterling Price recommended, on June 1, that companies forming for service adopt “a gray flannel shirt, gray pantaloons, and felt hat” as a uniform. Under the bill, existing uniformed companies could wear their previously adopted uniforms when first mustered into the Guard, but further provided that the prescribed state uniform would become mandatory when those companies found it necessary to renew their outfits. Since the Guard began actual combat slightly over a month after the passage of the military bill, no evidence has been found that the board ever issued orders regarding a standard uniform pattern for State Guard units. Thus most enlistees joined the ranks in civilian attire and wore such throughout their term of service.

Some contemporary observers insinuated that the Guardsmen had no uniforms whatsoever. Thomas L. Snead, a member of Major General Sterling Price’s staff, and the unofficial historian of the Guard, related after the war that “there was hardly a uniform to be seen” among the state troops, and that officers could only be distinguished from enlisted men by the red flannel or cotton patches sewn onto their shoulders. Likewise, the wife of a Guard officer, Susan A. McCausland, observed the Missouri army enter Lexington at the beginning of the siege there in mid-September, 1861, and noted the absence of uniforms among the state soldiers. Captain Frank Montgomery, a Mississippi Confederate cavalryman who spent several weeks at New Madrid in southeast Missouri during the first year of the war, recalled that the First Division troops he saw possessed no uniforms of any kind.

Other evidence, while quite paltry, suggests that uniformed companies, while certainly uncommon, existed in small numbers. As noted, the companies of the ante-bellem Missouri Volunteer Militia typically possessed uniforms, and several of those units joined the Guard en masse. Such outfits as the Washington Blues of St. Louis, the Independence Grays (who arrived in Jefferson City in May, 1861, in “full dress uniforms”), and the Marble City Guards of Cape Girardeau are examples of older companies that entered the Guard with uniforms, although descriptions of most are unfortunately lost to history.

Militia units organized in early 1861, prior to the passage of the military bill, sometimes possessed sufficient time to have uniforms designed and sewn. Several of the Jackson, Carroll, Clay and Howard county companies that eventually entered the Guard, wore uniforms. Some companies clearly fared better than others, for a writer for a local newspaper noted the “handsome appearance” of the Glasgow Guards in their “semi-uniforms,” whatever that may have been. In Monroe County, Captain R. E. Dunn’s company presented a “fine, soldierly appearance” in its uniforms. The Monticello Grays, a Second Division cavalry outfit, had the distinction of being the only company in its battalion with uniforms, while a Scotland County company was rather “handsomely uniformed” when it prepared for war. In Benton and Jackson Counties local ladies handcrafted uniforms of the appropriate color for the Warsaw Blues, Warsaw Grays, and Independence Grays. Finally, two Saline County companies organized before hostilities began mustered for duty in military outfits. The Saline Jackson Guards reported to Jefferson City in May, and the company appeared to one observer as “well uniformed and drilled, attracting the attention of all who saw it,” while the Saline Mounted Rifles also made a fine impression when they drilled “neatly uniformed in gray.”

Companies that reported for duty with the Guard after the fighting had been initiated sometimes joined the ranks in uniforms. Joseph A. Mudd recalled that while making its way to General Sterling Price’s army that his group “came up with a strong company from Fulton, commanded by Captain D. H. McIntyre…clad in gray uniforms and armed with Enfield rifles.” Another Guardsman, Ephraim McD. Anderson, had a similar experience, for he observed a company from Paris, Monroe County, and recalled that they “were a fine body of men, handsomely uniformed, and with a look decidedly military”; he also noted that during the siege of Lexington, that Colonel Theodore Brace’s cavalry regiment of the Second Division attracted attention because it contained a number of companies that made a “showy and military appearance” in their uniforms.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that more companies possessed uniforms than commonly believed, little information remains regarding the design or color of the uniforms worn by the Guardsmen. The following descriptions of State Guard company uniforms, while not detailed, do reveal the wide variety of military outfits adopted by the soldiers of that army:

Bolivar Company: Brown jeans with a red calico stripe one-inch wide on the outside seam.

Campbell’s Independent Scouts: Gray shirts trimmed on the collar, pockets, and front button row in light blue; dark blue trousers; a dark felt hat turned up and pinned on one side, and decorated with a black ostrich plume.

Columbia Grays: Gray St. Charles coats with dark blue trim and gray trousers.

DeKalb Guards: Black trousers with a yellow stripe down the outside seam to indicate cavalry service, gray caps, and gray hunting shirts.

Guibor’s Battery: Hats trimmed with a red band, bearing a red rosette, and buttons on the side, and white jean suits.
Lagrange Guards: Gray caps and shirts with blue trimmings, white trousers with blue stripes, and black belts.

Moniteau Rangers: Gray cassimere pantaloons trimmed with yellow braid, and gray flannel shirts similarly trimmed on the collar, pockets, and chest. Also, silk oil caps with the initials of the name of the company painted on the front in white letters.

Plattin Rangers: Red caps, red shirts and gray trousers.

Polk County Rangers: Red zouave trousers and gray jackets.

Washington Blues: Dark blue frock coats and sky blue trousers, with white waist belts, and tall shakos as head wear.

Regardless of the existence of such colorful uniforms, most soldiers of the Guard necessarily opted for readily available civilian garb. Thus some soldiers reported for duty in their fine, expensive wardrobes, while the majority doubtless wore the simple homespun clothes of a typical Missouri farmer or laborer. As reported in a contemporary newspaper: “Every man has come from his homestead fitted with the best and strongest that loving mothers, wives and sisters could put upon him…Some are in black full citizen’s dress, with beaver hats and frock coats, some in homespun drab; some in gray, blue and streaked; some in nothing but red shirts, pants and big-top boots; [while] some attempt a display with the old-fashioned militia uniforms of their forefathers.” Thus the clothing of the soldiers appears to have been as individualistic as the soldiers themselves. Indeed, one observer likely hit the mark when he said of the Guardsmen: “For uniforms, each man dressed to please his own particular taste and fancy.”