CHASSEUR KEPI FROM AN ARKANSAS OR MISSOURI CONFEDERATE OFFICER’S SON

CHASSEUR KEPI FROM AN ARKANSAS OR MISSOURI CONFEDERATE OFFICER’S SON

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$4,750.00

Quantity Available: 1

Item Code: 526-68

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We owned this chasseur-style kepi some twenty years ago and it has just come on the market again. It shows wear and use, but rates very good for condition. Still with it is a 2006 letter by textile authority and museum curator Les Jensen analyzing its materials and construction and finding them correct for the period. This cap originally came from an Arkansas estate, near the Missouri border, along with two Confederate officer’s caps, unidentified, but indicating the officer had likely served as a Lieutenant of Artillery and been later promoted to Major, possibly with a transfer to staff or medical staff. This cap, chasseur-style with low crown, band around the base and inset top, was similar to those caps, but considerably smaller is size and likely made for that officer’s son to wear in imitation of his father’s uniform. Jensen deemed it a, “particularly fascinating survival, since very, very few child’s caps are known to have survived.”

The cap is made of dark blue wool, trimmed with gold braid and bullion tape. It stands 2” tall in the front, has a back seam about 5” long. The inset top is 4-5/8” in diameter. It is fitted with a short, flat, visor with bound edge measuring 7/8” deep at the front. The band around the base is 11/16” tall at the front and 1-1/6” tall at the back. The braid runs along the top of the band, up the front, back and sides, and around the perimeter of the inset top, which seems to have been decorated with a button at center as well - there is a small hole about the size of a button shank at center and a slightly shaded 7/8” round spot. A gold bullion tape chinstrap runs along the lower front of the cap, 3/8” wide and clearly more ornamental than functional. It was secured at either side by brass half-domed tin-backed  buttons, one of which is still in place on the wearer’s right. The visor is black on the upper surface and brown on the bottom. It is firmly attached and has a narrow bound edge.

The interior has the sweatband in place, with a pasteboard strip behind it as a stiffener for the band around the base of the cap and a strip of leather between it and the sweatband. The cap lining is gone, but there is a small piece of interlining between the pasteboard strip and the wool on the front of the cap. The underside of the top has a gray pasteboard stiffener under a piece of black or dark brown cotton that shows a small missing piece at center and some smaller holes toward the back.

The blue fabric has some minor stains or dirt, and some small period repairs with no obtrusive holes or tears and retains good color. The bullion has oxidized slightly toward silver. The braid around the top of the band shows some wear at the center of the back – likely from the wearer smoothing the cap down and into place with the palm of his hand-  but there is no missing braid and the seams are good. The visor shows some wear, stains, and wrinkling to the surface with a crease at center, and a very short section on the underside where the binding has loosened, but has good color and is securely in place. Please see our photos and we are happy to supply a copy of the Jensen letter to interested parties. For some examples of the wide variety of caps worn by Confederates, many likely originating as parts of prewar militia uniforms and following varying state regulations, see, among other sources, the Time-Life volume Arms and Equipment of the Confederacy.   [ss][ph:L]

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