On The March: A Few Notes on Shoes & Boots

Since the new blog series focuses on marching, I’ve been thinking about shoes and other footwear for the past week. Here are a few notes and primary source excerpts that might be helpful to keep in mind as the discussion of moving long distances by foot continues.

Ideally, the average infantryman had leather shoes called brogans, which by definition are “a coarse stout leather shoe reaching to the ankle.” Mass produced, these shoes were not famous for their comfort, arch support, or the difference between right and left. Thick wool socks added some padding to the footgear, and the rate of worn out socks kept the homefront women on both sides busily knitting replacements. According to C & C Sutlers (modern), the standard version of brogans during the Civil War was an “Modern 1851 Jefferson” which featured a squared toe and foot eyelets for the leather laces.[i] For Federal soldiers, brogans were part of the issued uniform, and in theory, the Confederacy practiced the same.

Boots were typically worn by officers, cavalrymen, and some artillerymen. There are some references of infantrymen finding/keeping/wearing “boots”, but whether these were traditional boots or just a word the veteran later used is sometimes questionable. John Billings gives a colorful description of boots in his classic text, Hardtack and Coffee, while poking fun at the soldiers who arrived with their own purchases and visions of military grandeur:

“Then, their boots! Such masterpieces of elegance and extravagance! Of the cavalry pattern, reaching above the knee, almost doing away with the necessity for pantaloons, sometimes of plain grained leather, sometimes of enamelled, elaborately stitched and stamped, but always seeming to mark their occupant as a man of note and distinction among his comrades. They seemed a sort of fortification about their owner, protecting him from too close contact with his vulgar surroundings. Alas! It never required more than one day’s hard march in these dashing appendages to humble their possessor so much that he would evacuate in as good order as possible when camp was reached, if not compelled to before.”[ii]

Check out J.E.B. Stuart’s tall boots in this photograph for a classic example of “stylish” cavalry boots:

Billings also noted that some boxes from the homefront occasionally contained custom ordered boots or shoes along with shoe nails for repairs. Confederate officers’ letters also contain requests that particular pairs of boots or other footwear be sent from home to camp. Perhaps it was a pair of custom-made boots that caught the eye of Sam Watkins on Murfreesboro battlefield:

“In passing over the battlefield, I came across a dead Yankee colonel. He had on the finest clothes I ever saw, a red sash and fine sword. I particularly noticed his boots. I needed them, and had made up my mind to wear them out for him. But I could not bear the thought of wearing dead men’s shoes. I took hold of the foot and raised it up and made one trial at the boot to get it off. I happened to look up, and the colonel had his eyes wide open, and seemed to be looking at me. He was stone dead, but I dropped that foot quick. It was my first and last attempt to rob a dead Yankee.”[iii]

As the war progressed, the Confederacy struggled to keep shoes on their soldiers. Depending on the region and the regiment, a Rebel soldiers’ best hope might be captured Federal supplies…or robbing the dead. One question that frequently comes up at New Market Battlefield in the Shenandoah Valley is “what happened to the shoes in ‘Field of Lost Shoes?’” (Field of Lost Shoes was a big, muddy grain field that suction-pulled the shoes off the feet of charging Confederates — and probably Union soldiers, too.) The short answer is that the Confederates collected the shoes after the battle. In fact, some of the Virginia Military Institute cadets later wrote that when they were pulled out of the battle after their famous charge, they retraced their steps, looking for their shoes and haversacks or knapsacks with food.

While most historians placed the “going to Gettysburg for shoes” story in the “nice myths” category, it is true that the Confederate army and individual soldiers took advantage of the Maryland and Pennsylvania invasions to get new shoes and other needed or desired supplies during the campaign. Alfred M. Edgar of the 27^th Virginia Infantry (Stonewall Brigade) did a little “shopping” during the 1862 Maryland Campaign to procure new shoes:

“We have the most stringent orders against straggling or depredations on private property, but as I am almost without shoes, I ask permission of Col. Grisby to be allowed to go ahead of the army and do some shopping, but he says it will be directly against orders for him to give me permission and that he is obligated to refuse. Now I cannot march barefooted when there are shoe stores in reach, so I must “maneuver” some. I have a friend, Lieutenant Yarrell of Wheeling, who is in need of some clothing, too, and he agrees to go with me. So by fast walking and flanking we get in advance of the command and reach Frederick City in time to do some shopping without…notice sufficient to call down discipline for disobeying orders.”[iv]

During the forced march to Sharpsburg later in the campaign, Edgar noted:

The physical effort required is greater than most of the men are equal to. So many of them are without shoes and are foot sore…. Night comes on and we have made as much as twenty miles or more. All of us are very tired and some have fallen out of rank, and many others are weary and footsore, that it seems that they will not be able to get much farther…. I congratulate myself that I succeeded in getting my shoes whilst in Frederick City, otherwise I might now be among the number who had to fall out of the ranks, and that is something I have never had to do yet.”[v]

While I have not had the experience of marching 20 miles in flat-soled brogans, I had the unfortunate experience last autumn of a severe case of plantar fasciitis. If I’d been a soldier, I would’ve been out of the ranks. On a few particularly days, the pain was so bad that every step was like a knife driven into the bottom of my foot with the nerves screaming all the way up my leg. In the midst of hobbling around and trying to hide the severity from my parents who were houseguests, I kept thinking about Civil War soldiers. Yes, I had injured my foot and I already knew it would take a long time for the muscle to heal and re-stretch properly again. But I had the benefit of ice packs, arch supports to put into my shoes and boots, and modern medical advice. Civil War infantrymen didn’t. Reexamining their flat brogans and knowing that a prime cause for plantar fasciitis is lack of arch support made me wonder how many soldiers were marching or going into battle with that type of foot pain.

Thinking about the quality (and lack thereof) in Civil War brogans and then keeping that in mind when looking at the distance of marches, the wet or icy road conditions, or scarce supplies brings a helpful, physical perspective to marching. What type of shoes were they actually marching through? Could footsore have meant something more serious than blisters and aches? How did shoes or the scarcity of shoes affect campaigns? Did shoes make a difference in the outcome of a battle based on how many soldiers actually reached the field after a long march?

To loosely adapt the old proverb to the American Civil War and infantry shoes, is it possible that…

For want of shoes the regiment’s strength was halved or lost.

For want of the full strength regiment the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the campaign was lost.

And all for the want of shoes.

Sources:

[i] C&C Sutler, Civil War Shoes. Accessed on 4/6/2022. https://www.ccsutlery.com/store/civil-war-shoes-boots.html#:~:text=Brogan%20a%20term%20generally%20applied,four%20eyelets%20and%20leather%20laces.

[ii] John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee (1887). Accessed through Google Books, Page 206.

[iii] Sam Watkins, Co. Aytch: A Confederate Memoir of the Civil War (New York: Macmillan, 1962) Page 64.

[iv] Alfred Mallory Edgar, My Reminiscences of the Civil War with the Stonewall Brigade and the Immortal 600 (Charleston, 35th Star Publishing, 2011). Page 90.

[v] Ibid., Pages 91-92.