Hayes Lowe
Uniforms
Sat Jul 7 10:02:12 2001


While no expert on this matter, I have done considerable research into one area of it, and that is the textile materials coming out of Tuscaloosa.

I have documented Tuscaloosa as the largest textile producing town in Alabama. And, only one day's production went to civilian use, the rest went directly to the Confederate Government. While I have not been able to document this yet, my considered guess is that most production went directly to the Tuscaloosa Depot. I have also documented that the factories were still in full production at the end of the war. There was no shortage of materials in Alabama in 1865.

I have also documented that Forrest's units were in this area extremely frequently during the war.

Given the above, I think that it should be considered highly probable that Forrest was able to uniform his troops at will from the Tuscaloosa Depot [the same goes for the Selma Arsenal and the Columbus, Miss. Arsenal, as well]. It is also a known fact that Forrest got pretty much whatever he wanted in the way of equipment, even at the expense of other troops. He felt his troops had earned the right to be the best equipped, and he took action to insure this.

So far, I have only been able to find an example of the hats being made at the Olmstead Hat Factory in Tuscaloosa. I have not found an example of the other uniform items. However, I have found examples of the Military Cadet uniforms used at the University of Alabama, which I theorize were the uniforms in production at the local facilities. It would have been simple to just keep making the same design, possibly with some variations, and supplying them to the Government. I have only seen black and white photos of these, but they were trimmed in some light color.

So I have to disagree as to the likelihood that Forrest's troops did not have access to new uniforms on an "as needed" basis.