Melinda R. Cordell - Gentlemen! Accept This Facial Hair Challenge

Gentlemen!

Accept this Facial Hair Challenge!

Epic Beards & Moustaches of the Civil War

(My son looked at this picture of this amiable Medal of Honor recipient

and said, He scares me!)

By Melinda R. Cordell

Rosefiend Publishing

Copyright 2017 Melinda R. Cordell

All rights reserved. Although the author has made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from eclipse totality, crazed roosters, punching white supremacists, ant invasions, the hot water going out for two weeks and you cant take a shower, the plumber getting a concussion while installing the hot water heater so you have to call the ambulance and then wait for hot water for another two weeks, really bad hygiene, or any other cause.

Foreword

W HEN I WAS WRITING my first book, Courageous Women of the Civil War: Soldiers, Spies, Medics, and More , I was digging deep into online photographic archives to find suitable pictures of the women I was writing about, as well as locations that appeared in the book, and to see the faces of the commanders they worked with. In the course of my research, I came across some of the most interesting facial hair Ive ever seen.

Now, Ive never been a huge fan of beards. Minnie Pearl once said, "Kissing a man with a beard is a lot like going to a picnic. You don't mind going through a little bush to get there!" Well, as much as I like walking through the woods, Id still rather have my husband shave.

But, these pictures! And those beards! I started posting old pictures of magnificent Civil War facial hair on Facebook, saying GENTLEMEN. ACCEPT THIS FACIAL HAIR CHALLENGE and everybody would come over to check out the cool beard. (One of my high-school buds even took up the challenge and twisted his beard to look like General Reveres. A win!)

One of my FB friends said, You ought to publish a coffee table book on Civil War beards. Well that sounded like a great idea. So I went crawling through the Mathew Brady collection in the National Archives, as well as the Library of Congress. Most of the pics in this book are from the Natl Archives Brady collection, simply because their pictures download in a much larger size than the Library of Congress pics, and I wanted to make sure I printed sharp, good-quality photographs. You might try spending an afternoon wandering around the online photo archives. Its fascinating, and youll see that I havent even scratched the surface.

I noticed a curious thing: Elaborate beards are fairly common among the generals and officers, but they are rare among the common soldiers. I included a few nice soldier beards I found, but for the most part, soldier beards are fairly average. When you think about this difference in facial hair styles, however, you see a few ways that the lives of the soldiers are much different than the lives of the officers.

One reason that you might not have seen as many beards among the soldiers is that the rank-and-file had to deal more with lice and other tiny critters, which would have discouraged some of the facial hair. (The officers had laundresses on staff to boil their clothes and uniforms to kill the lice and their eggs, while the average soldier had to boil his own.) Also, soldiers didnt have the kind of money that you needed to keep a dedicated barber at their beck and call the way the officers did. Barbers are probably the main reason why many of those generals beards look so fine.

Of course, you had a lot of egos among the officers, and its easier to swan around when you have a magnificent beard leading the way. If you can grow it, you should show it, seems to have been an attitude common among the officers.

At any rate, heres the result of my searches. I didnt want to just throw a bunch of pictures out there, so some of the bearded folks will have a little story written about them. Ill be gathering more stories to add to the heap of photographs I already have so there will be a sequel to this book, I promise.

Enjoy!

Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele, Col. of the 8th Infantry

H ENRY B. HAYS, CAPTAIN , 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry.

I entertain myself by imagining what that moustache must have looked like, streaming in the wind while he was on horseback.

General George Meade related a story about Col. Hays that the colonel had never mentioned in public: The Union and Confederate armies were lying before Williamsburg, Virginia, with an open field between them, when suddenly a Confederate officer rode out and waved his sword defiantly at the Union army. Col. Hays, without saying a word, put spurs to his horse and dashed away to meet his daring enemy. The Rebel officer charged, and the two met with a terrible shock, while both armies looked on in amazement. After a desperate struggle with their swords, on horseback, Col. Hays struck the officer a terrible blow that shattered his skull, then leisurely rode back to his place. Gen. Meade considered this one of the most gallant exploits of the war.

G EN. ALFRED THOMAS Archimedes Torbert

In the beginning of the Civil War, Confederate officials commissioned Torbert as a Lieutenant in the Confederate Army. However, Torbert declined and chose to serve in the Union Army. Tolbert is the only documented officer to hold commissions in both Union and Confederate armies simultaneously. In honor of the honor, he grew out his sidewhiskers and struck this badass pose.

On Christmas morning in 1864, General Torbert was riding through Warrenton, Virginia with a large force of cavalry, when he stopped to visit a gentleman whose house hed used as his headquarters. Three men of the Black Horse Cavalry (Company H, Virginia 4th Cavalry), a Confederate outfit, discovered his whereabouts and came rushing in to capture him. (The Black Horse Cavalry rode around in black outfits and black plumes on their hats, hence their name.) The Black Horse Cavalry nearly caught General Torbert, but he leapt on his horse without stirrups and galloped off. The three cavalrymen went thundering at his heels straight up the main street, emptying their revolvers at Torberts back. He managed to escape, but in later years, Tolbert often spoke of this as the most trying event of his war experience."