Attention—To Details
During my 30 years of involvement in the historical reenacting community, I have come to appreciate and to attempt to obey the above “order” as when it comes to the material and social culture of the 19th century. Whether it is “God” or “the devil” in the details (Gustave Flaubert was not that specific), it is important to recognize the significance of historical detail as a goal in one’s presentation (costume, props or behaviors and actions) when portraying a person who lived in the past. This has particular weight when connected to any claim of accuracy. Let me digress briefly to stress my belief that the last “authentic” Civil War soldier or citizen died in the last century. Only the original item can be authentic or the genuine item. My friends Tom Shaw and Nick Nichols, who are serious students of 19th-century material culture, built a strong case for this point in two previously published articles in The Watchdog, so I need not. We can wear and use reproduced items and we can portray persons, but we cannot duplicate them with 100 percent certainty of their or our being identical to the original. However, the details of their structure and their lives are the pieces needed for accurately and effectively building a bridge from the present back to the past and then forward again during any display or performance. Diaries and letters are the very effective tools one can use to study the people and the social culture of the past. Unfortunately the objects of material culture are rather “closed mouthed” and basically just sit there waiting for us to study them, reverse engineer them (if possible and appropriate) and investigate what limited paper trail and documentation that may exist. In some cases, only photographs of objects or people are available for study. What can a photograph or object “say” to us? Here is an interesting example. While preparing a presentation on men’s vests I decided to take a hundred or so images of men and their vests from my collection and enlarge the area between chin and waist. In one instance I was pleasantly surprised to see evidence that one of the subjects has an earring. Magnifying the image further I saw that both ears were fitted sporting jewelry. I am aware that certain sailors (top mast men and shipwreck survivors, to name a few) wore them and the certain Swedish and German ethnic groups did as well during the 19th-century. I have seen several pictures of United States soldiers with earrings. I examined a pair taken from a captured Federal soldier when he arrived at Andersonville prison and read his letter of complaint about the “Rebs taking my earrings.” The image of the handsome young man on this page does not “speak” of whether he was a sailor, or if he came from Sweden or Germany. There is no backmark and only the name “Crocker” on the back. But the image does tell us that it is of the period 1860–66 (and with no revenue stamp, likely the earlier part). The primary detail that we gain is that it is accurate for a young man to wear earrings in both ears — thus enabling some reenactors to leave their ear jewelry in place. The image does not say that all young men wore earrings. In addition, one can see a unique geometric-patterned tie. The vest buttons are not the typical fabric-covered variety. They appear to be of two materials — metal and a pearl or glass center, perhaps? The velvet collar is seen in about 40 to 50 percent of the images of men in frock coats in my collection. The trousers and vest are of the same fabric with an unusual raised square-weave pattern. The coat is a frock coat as a small portion of the skirt seam is visible. No watch or watch chain is visible and there are no pocket details. These observations or non-details may only mean the young man did not possess a pocket watch and that the details are not visible due to the folds in the vest fabric and underneath the coat. The man has no facial hair, which is typical of about half the young men between 1860 and 1870 based, again, on a survey of hundreds of images in my collection. His hair is off the forehead and to the side. No sideburns are apparent, but the hair on both sides sits in rolls shaped by a hat. This one small image has produced a number of details that could add to your knowledge and improve your impression. As we approach the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, it might prove profitable to pay heed to this basic order in the drill manual of an accurate reenactor. |
