The Confederate Army 1861–65 (1)

State quartermaster issue uniforms, 1861–64
With the assistance of volunteer aid societies, regimental uniforms were also supplied by the state to its volunteer forces. That received by Gregg’s original regiment of 1st South Carolina Volunteers consisted of frock coats and pants of “dark grey cloth,” and was made under the direction of the Rev A.Toomer Porter, an Episcopal priest and proprietor of the Industrial School for Girls on Ashley St, Charleston. In his memoir, Four Years in Rebel Capitals, Thomas Cooper DeLeon recalled the “dirty gray and tarnished silver” of Gregg’s regiment arriving in Richmond during April 1861, which would indicate that they wore white metal state buttons, in line with those prescribed for officers in the Volunteer Forces regulations. Based on a photograph of Pte Joseph Brunson of the Edgefield Riflemen (Co C of Gregg’s regiment) the frock coat supplied with this uniform was single-breasted and fastened by nine buttons, and had half-inch dark tape trim around the collar, with plain cuffs. A gray chasseur-style forage cap bore “1” above the letters “SCV” over “ER”.

Having established his school in 1858 to teach “plain sewing” to the “poor girls” of Charleston, by April 1861 the Rev Porter had contracted with Col Lewis M.Hatch, Quartermaster General of South Carolina, to supply uniforms for troops in state service. City tailors undertook the “pressing and cutting” of the cloth, while 59 women operated 32 sewing machines on the premises. These labors were supplemented by upwards of 350 “out-workers” who presumably sewed by hand. At the end of July 1861, the Industrial School was taken over by the South Carolina Quartermaster Department. Assisted by Col S.L.Glover, Col Lewis Hatch had “constantly employed… under the foremanship of Messrs H.Koppel [“Merchant Tailor” on King Street] and D.H.Kemme [“Draper and Tailor” on Broad Street], forty experienced cutters, who supply about 1500 needlewomen, who make a fair weekly salary.” These two tailors received payment between December 14, 1861, and January 31, 1862, for cutting “3019 frock coats, 1157 overcoats, [and] 113 pair of pants.”