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RARE MAINE GRAY FORAGE CAP; STENCILED HAVELOCK RAIN COVER AND STENCILED KNAPSACK; US HAVERSACK AND CANTEEN: PERLEY WHITTIER CO. K 24th MAINE

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This grouping from Perley Whittier of the 24^th Maine includes some very scarce material and his gray forage cap with Maine buttons on the chinstrap is downright rare. With this is his privately purchased long, havelock-style, caped rain cover - clearly stenciled inside with his name, hometown and unit; his knapsack- stenciled inside one shoulder strap with the same stencil used in the cover, and with the pack also still faintly showing his name and unit stenciled in white paint on the back as well, and his regulation US haversack, scarce in itself, and his canteen. The regiment was a nine-month unit that campaigned in the deep south and took part in the siege of Port Hudson, helping to open up the Mississippi. Perley served with them from muster in to muster out of the regiment. The grouping as a whole shows just expected and desirable signs of field use.

ITEMS

1) CAP: A forage cap, gray in color, fitted with two small Maine rimmed buttons on the two-piece chinstrap, and with flat, bound visor about 1-3/4” deep at center, black on the top and green on the underside. The flat, circular top rises about 4” in the front when fully extended with a back seam of about 6-inches. The interior is fully lined in brown cotton, and has a brown sweatband 2” tall, showing cracks and losses, but 80 or 90 percent there, with a buckram band behind it. The exterior is dark gray, in very good condition. We see just two very small bits of moth tracking, 1/8” wide and ¼” long on the lower front of the top, and a half-dozen or so pencil-point size moth nips that blend in well are not very noticeable. There is some wear to the nap of cloth on the rear of the cap, but that too blends in well producing a sort of mottled light and dark gray color, much like the rest of the cap.

The cap is a particularly tough item to find. Maine had no official uniform for its 35 companies of volunteer militia when the war started and had to scramble when they  passed the “Ten Regiment Bill” in 1861. The first six regiments were issued gray uniforms and the rest apparently a mixture of gray and blue, state and federal, fatigue and dress, according to Todd, with subsequent regiments “believed to have worn US reg inf clothing and accoutrements,” but as this group makes clear, coming from a soldier who served only in the 24^th Maine, some state material made its way into higher numbered units also. The cap follows the known earlier issues in using state buttons and in its gray color, which varied quite a bit, being described as, “Canada Gray,” “light gray,” “dark gray,” and “cadet gray,” as well as “Garibaldi mixture.”

2) RAIN COVER: This is a scarce, privately purchased item. See Langellier and Loane, US Army headgear, page 110, for some similar examples. It is made of a thin, waterproofed fabric, black on the exterior, made to fit over a forage cap, having a flat round top, about 4-1/2” in diameter with tall front 4-1/2” down the front seam and 6-1/2 down the back seam of the cap portion, not intending to fit over the visor, with a long broad cape, reaching down about 23” from the lower edge of the cap portion on either side of the face opening, and intended to drape well over the shoulders and upper body with the rear portion 30” long at center, down the back, from the lower edge of the cap. Fabric ties were sewn into the front edges of the opening 5-1/2” and 11” down from the lower edge of the cap portion to tie it closed. They have pulled out from the cape on the wearer’s right taking some small pieces of the fabric with them. They are present on the left edge. The edges of the opening seem to have been turned under, but not sewn. The lower edge seems have been left raw, though it is possible Whittier trimmed it. There are two narrow leather tabs sewn at the back near the lower edge. Their purpose is unclear-perhaps to anchor a cord around the waist to simply keep down the thin fabric. The stencil is about 6” from the lower edge and 10” from the opening on the wearer’s right. It is in black ink and legible except for some of the letters on either end, reading, “PERLEY WHITTIER / VIENNA, Me. / Co. K. 24^th.Me.Reg.” Please see our photos and note that Whittier used the same stencil to mark his knapsack strap.

The condition is very good, with wrinkling and some wear spots to the finish, but no large bare spots or holes, though there is a straight 6” tear running in from the join of the cap and cape at front on the wearer’s right. This is straight, with no fabric missing and could be mended or backed. It appears to be along an old fold line. Overall this is in very good shape and is a rare survivor. The waterproofing may be a thin India rubber or gutta-percha, but there were a number of compounds used to create a glazed waterproof surface, some applied by brush to the cloth. See both Langellier and Loane, and also Woshner on India-rubber and gutta-percha Civil War era products.

3) KNAPSACK: This a regulation, issue “soft-pack” or double-bag knapsack, made of tarred canvas with leather straps and metal buckles, etc. Overall this is in good shape, but does show small tears and separation lines, mostly along edges that were flattened by years of storage with the tarred leather cracking in places. The middle fastening strap on back of the pack is missing is lower end, but the shoulder straps are complete and all there, as are the  fastening straps and buckles to secure the four triangular flaps closing the section of the pack resting against the soldier’s back. The bag of the pouch section is complete and in good condition, but its flap and rawhide ties are gone, perhaps removed intentionally since buckling up the pack would effectively close the top of the pouch section.

Whittier marked his knapsack twice. On the exterior he used a white paint stencil producing two lines of 1” letters running just above the pack’s three narrow closing straps. Most of the white paint is missing, and there is a short vertical and horizontal tear in the middle, but the lettering can still be made out in the right light and the first line was clearly the soldier’s name with “P” starting off the line and “WHITTIER” on the right, with the second line harder to make out, but the company letter “K” at the center. In addition, he used the same stencil he used in his rain cover on the underside of the left shoulder strap, showing some natural rubbing from use, but clearly showing his name, hometown and unit. Please see our photos. (We note there is some string tied to the hanging loop and shoulder strap assembly, indicating Whittier or a family member had it hanging up at some point.)

4) HAVERSACK: A scarce regulation US haversack, tarred canvas in good condition with full-length 2-1/8” wide shoulder strap, buckle and latch tab, and three tinned iron buttons inside for the separate liner, now missing. The surface shows wear, mainly on the back and bottom, revealing the use of striped fabric, before tarring, for the bag, which shows inside on the untreated interior of the bag portion. The strap shows some surface losses from flexing and there are short tears where it joins the bag. The leather fastening strap and buckle are secured by sewing only. The strap has a tear in the upper fastening hole. The bag itself shows just aa couple of small holes at the bottom right corner. It displays very well and we like especially how the use and wear have revealed the striped fabric used by the manufacturer. Civil War haversacks have always been scarce. They were too common, plain, or too useful in postwar civilian life to preserve.

5) CANTEEN: The canteen is a smooth-sided New York Depot pattern with stopper and chain in place. The strap was broken and knotted five times and is consequently shorter. The cover is brownish-gray wool, about 40% there, with a deep push to one side that has partially undone the soldered overlap of the spout collar on that side. A few small areas of bright tin remain. Most of the metal shows as gray with some crusty brown on the seam where it is exposed by losses to the cover.

Perley Whittier (1839-1918) is picked up in the 1860 census living and working on his parents’ farm in Vienna, Maine.  He joined for duty and enrolled at age 23 on September 10, 1862, mustering in for nine-months’ service as a private in Company K of the 24^th Maine at Augusta on Oct. 13. The muster roll covering Sept. 10 to Oct. 31 was apparently incomplete and his presence or absence is simply “not stated,” but he is listed as present on all subsequent bi-monthly rolls through June 1863 and mustered out with the company on Aug. 25, 1863.

Dyer summarizes their service as follows. The regiment was mustered in October 16, 1862, left State for New York City October 29, and was posted in “East New York” until January 12, 1863, when they moved to Fortress Monroe, Va., and from there to New Orleans, arriving Feb. 14, 1863. They moved to Bonnet Carre, La., Feb. 26 and were on duty there till May as part of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division, 19th Army Corps, Dept. of the Gulf. The took part in the following actions and campaigns: Expedition to Ponchatoula and Amite River March 21-30. Capture of Ponchatoula March 24. Amite River March 28. Expedition to Amite River May 7-21. Civiques Ferry May 10. Advance on Port Hudson May 21-24. Siege of Port Hudson May 24-July 8. Assaults on Port Hudson May 27 and June 14. Surrender of Port Hudson July 8. They were ordered home July 24, and finally mustered out August 25, 1863.

Whittier states in his pension file that he was never hospitalized while in the army, but was excused from duty at times because of sickness, disease or injury, claiming to have suffered from fever, ague, chronic diarrhea, and back pain from “putting up sandbags” in the entrenchments during the siege of Port Hudson and also to have been sick on his return home, missing the official mustering out ceremony of the regiment. Much of this he blamed on the southern climate and exposure, as did most sufferers at the time. The regiment’s Colonel chafed at delays in getting the regiment home when their term of service was about to expire, noting the vicissitudes of their service- they had been, “often under a severe fire” during the siege and were frequently called upon to “build roads and bridges. Nearly every night the men were ordered to work on earthworks and rifle pits,” and even after the surrender they were doing guard duty in the blazing sun. Whittier, himself, mentions being “obliged to sleep in the mud and water in the trenches without any shelter except a blanket . . .” in his pension file, though a later doctor’s certificate mentions malaria, or “malarial poisoning,” as a factor. Indeed, the regiment as a whole illustrates dramatically the fact that Civil War units lost far more men to sickness and disease than enemy bullets. They had left the state about 900 strong. Only 570 returned. At least 184 men had died of sickness or disease and another 100 or so had been discharged for disability. Indeed, numbers of sick were left behind in hospitals on the way home. Others died soon after reaching home. Battle casualties might have reached a dozen. (See Brian Swartz’s excellent 2022 online article on these points.)

Whittier suffered a number of health problems after the war that he attributed to his army experiences, but preserved these pieces as mementos of his service. He spent nearly his entire life in Vienna, Maine, with the exception of three years in Illinois and his time in the army. By 1870 he was married and a cooper by occupation, a trade he followed the rest of his life. He seems to have had at least seven children and passed away in Chesterville, Maine in June 1918, survived by his wife and six of his children. He was interred in Vienna, where he had enlisted more than fifty-five years earlier.

This is a great, untouched grouping that displays well and was formerly in the Texas Civil War Museum collection.  [sr][ph:L]

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