Confederate officers were expected to
provide their
own uniforms, and while they were
certainly better
dressed than
most of the enlisted men, their
clothing was
equally nonuniform. The standards set by
the War
Department in 1861
for military officer attire were
generally
observed, but they were subject to the
tastes and
circumstances of the
individual. Coats were of many
different cuts and
materials, but after the first year of
the war, they
were
usually a shade of gray. Officers'
coats, whether
tunics, frock coats, or shell jackets,
featured
standing collars
and were double-breasted, with two rows
of seven
brass buttons down the front. Generals
could be
distinguished from
other officers by the eagles on their
buttons,
which were distinctively spaced in
pairs. The
regulations made no
distinctions among the uniforms of
different grades
of generals, but some major generals
adopted the
federal custom
of spacing their buttons in groups of
three. The
rank insignia for generals was found on
the collar;
for all grades,
it consisted of three stars encircled
by a wreath.
Cuffs, collars, edging, and sash of a
buff color
also denoted the
rank of general. Officers had gold
braiding on
their sleeves in the configuration of
the "Austrian
knot." Generals'
uniforms had four strands of the
braiding; lesser
ranks had fewer strands. Dark blue
trousers trimmed
in buff were
standard for Confederate generals.
Soldiers in all
ranks wore a wide variety of hats, with
no
particular distinction
for generals, except possibly for the
four-stranded
gold braid.