Stripes or No Stripes?

There has been a controversy for a long time over musicians' stripes. Are they authentic? When are they appropriate? Why musicans' stripes? Here, I will try to set the record straight.

Musicians' stripes (also known as birdcage trim) are frequently seen in photographs of musicians from the Civil War. They run horizontally across the chest, level with each of the buttons on the coat or jacket.

If you own the Confederate Echoes of Glory book, please turn to page 234 and look at the photograph in the center of the page. It shows a Confederate frock coat with musicians' stripes on it. They are not in the style of "birdcage trim" with tape running up the sides of the stripes. Instead, they are "looped" around each button in an oval shape. Also note that the caption for the image states that the frock coat was from a drummer boy who was captured in 1862.

What does all of this tell us? Several things can be gathered from the information given on tis page. For one, the coat pictured there is an early war artifact because of the date that it was captured. Also, the boy who wore the coat was an average regimental drummer boy, not a member of any kind of band or drum corps.

I did a survey of perid photographs of field musicians, examining ten union ones and ten Confederate ones. Out of the ten Union photographs, I found that only two musicians wore stripes. Furthermore, the stripes only appeared on frock coats. Those with roundabouts or sack coats remained stripeless. Out of the ten Confederate photographs, I found that only one field musician had stripes. Those were on a frock coat.

Repeating this study with a different set of photographs, I found the result to be much the same. Union musicians had two who had stripes out of every ten and Confederate musicians had one who had stripes out of every ten.

From looking at the results from my survey and the frock coat from "Echoes of Glory", I can fairly determine that musicians stripes were not uncommon, but they were certainly not common. Judging from the information given with the photographs, most musicians' stripes dissappeared by the end of the war. The statistics would probably be dramatically less.

(Image courtesy of the Authentic Campaigner)

When I did a survey of band musicians, however, the statistics were vastly different. Out of ten Union bands, five of them had all of their musicians in musicians' stripes. Once again, all of the stripes appeared on frock coats. In Confederate bands, all ten of the bands surveyed were stripeless.

The book, "A Pictoral History of Civil War Era Musical Instruments and Millitary Bands" by Robert Garofalo and Mark Elrod is a great resource for band musicians. It shows a great number of photographs of musicians and even more of instruments. Much of my research on band music was done from this book.

From this research, it is safe to say that Union field musicians should have a good mix of stripes and no stripes. Confederate musicians in bands and in the field should stay away from stripes at all costs unless they appear on a frock coat. Musicians' stripes should never be put on anything other than a frock coat. Also, there should be more musicians stripes at early war events and as few as possible at late war events. If you are in a band, follow the band's regulations and you will be fine. Good Luck.

Comments

[Sandy (justplainsassy)]

You are an amazing young man!

[william]

Thanks!

[Pvt. Ben Miller]

Will, I think you ment page 224 in the Echoes of Glory:)

-Pvt. Ben Miller