^1839 FORAGE CAPi^ 



iJOMETIME DURING THE WINTER OF 1838-1839 



Major General Alexander Macomb, Commanding the 

 Army, determined on a change in the leather forage 

 cap which had been regulation since 1832. Macomb 

 had always shown .m unusual interest in all items of the 

 Army's dress, but no reasons for this particular change 

 have come to light. His decision wa.s probably in- 

 fluenced, howe\'er, by the rather unattractive appear- 

 ance of the leather cap, no matter what its practicality, 

 plus the popularity of the flat, cloth \isored cap, simi- 

 lar to the 1825-1833 pattern, in both the British Army 

 as an undress hat and American racing and hunting 

 circles as an infoiTnal sporting or "hacking" cap.^^* 



Following a tour of inspection of a number of in- 

 stallations in the northeast, Macomb went to Florida 

 in the late winter of 1839 where a good portion of the 

 Army was struggling with the knotty problem of the 

 removal of the Seminoles. Sometime before his de- 

 parture for Florida he had proposed a cap change to 

 the Secretary of War and been told to go ahead. On 

 17 April he wrote Major Levi Whiting, then head of 

 the Clothing Bureau, inclosing drawings and a brief 

 description of a new cap he had in mind. The officers' 

 model was to be of dark blue cloth with a chin strap of 

 black patent leather and a silk oil cloth cover for bad 

 weather. Enlisted personnel were to be issued a cap of 

 similar design and cloth, but without ornament except 

 for colored cap bands, red for artillery, white for in- 

 fantry, yellow for dragoons, and sky blue for ordnance. 

 Officers' ornaments were to be embroidered on sep- 

 arate pieces of cloth which might be put on or taken 

 off at pleasure. He instructed Whiting to contact Mr. 

 St. John in New York and ha\e him make pattern 

 caps for officers. ''■' 



Whiting replied that Macomb's drawings had been 

 copied at the Topographical Bureau, approved by the 

 Secretary of War, and were then being lithographed. 

 The Secretary had decided that the caps of the officers 



and men were to be alike, that "bands" — presumably 

 the colored bands — were to be added to the officers' 

 caps, and that the ornaments were to be of metal rather 

 than embroider^'.'"' The lithographs (fig. 34), which 

 were in color, were forwarded to St. John with the re- 

 quest that pattern caps be furnished the Commissary 

 General of Purchases so that he might have patterns 

 made of the enlisted men's model to aid him in making 

 his estimates for the next clothing year.'^^ 



The pre\ious July the former Bureau of Topograph- 

 ical Engineers had been made an independent corps of 

 the Army, and during the fall and winter a distinctive 

 uniform for it had been under consideration by the 

 War Department. In April 1839, Colonel John Abert, 

 Chief of the Corps, submitted to the Secretary of War 

 a description of the uniform complete with carefully 

 delineated drawings of its components and trimmings, 

 one of which (fig. 35) illustrated a forage cap almost 

 identical to that in the lithograph prepared for Ma- 

 comb.^'" Since both were prepared for lithographing 

 at the Bureau, the two caps must be considered the 

 same except for the cap band. In May the uniform 

 regulation for the new Corps was approved and pub- 

 lished. It described a forage cap as follows : 



Of dark blue cloth, with an oil silk cover, to be worn in 

 rainy weather; black patent leather visor; cap band of 

 black silk and worsted lace, two and one-fourth inches 

 wide, with oak leaves and acorn figure. Device in 

 front: a shield between two oak leaves, wrought of 

 the same material and corresponding in form with the 

 device at the bottom of the skirt of the coat. The whole 

 to correspond with the pattern to be deposited in the 

 Topographical Bureau. The forage cap must always 

 be worn with the frock coat . . . . '^^ 



Although the cloth forage cap was approved in 

 principle before summer and patterns of the officers' 

 model had been made and forwarded to uniform 

 makers, it wa.s not until December that the final details 



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