Work in Progress

Hurtling along the production line is my next regiment, the 41st NYSVs (aka the De Kalb Zouaves), raised by the fiery Leopold von Gilsa, a former Prussian officer.  The De Kalb Zouaves are probably best known for being on the extreme right of the XI Corps at Chancellorsville, in which position they were the first Federal troops to receive Jackson's assault.  For a thorough and impartial history of the 41st and its actions at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, please see this post from Michael Bell's excellent (and, sadly, seemingly defunct) blog on the XI Corps.

The 41st began the war with a highly unusual uniform that merged the cut of US Army fatigues with the traditional colors of German Jäger uniforms: a dark green frock coat, trimmed in red and with Prussian cuffs, grey trousers striped red, and a dark green kepi.  By '62, however, the regiment had been issued a new uniform consisting of the typical dark blue short New York sack coat and trousers, Prussian half-boots, imported Prussian cartridge and percussion cap boxes (both worn on the belt), and a distinctive metal cap-badge for the dark blue kepi.  (Both of these uniforms doubtless pleased von Gilsa with their Prussianness.)  Like the 8th NY (and so many German regiments), the men were issued with the 1842 smoothbore musket, in spite of the soldiers' avowed emphasis on marksmanship.

History has left us a remarkable photograph of Company C, 41st NYST in Manassas, VA only a few weeks before Second Bull Run.  Apart from being an excellent visual reference for the uniform, it's somewhat haunting to see the faces of the very men one is trying to bring back to life in miniature.

Here are some greens and the test scheme for the 41st.  The boots came out rather too bulky (compare to the photo), and I decided to leave the cartridge boxes as they were because it would have been a terrible pain to cut them off even the plastic miniatures, let alone the metal ones.  Overall, though, I think they give a good approxmiation of the regiment's appearance in '62.

Company A of the 41st, however, had existed before the war as a kind of para-military fraternity.  It had its own uniform, zouave dress with a unique pattern of yellow embroidery on the sleeves; once again, Don Troiani's painting, copied after a jacket in the Smithsonian, served as a model.

The regiment is nearly complete, but while I wait for a new draft of recruits to arrive in the mail, I'm making progress on the brigade's next unit, the 27th Pennsylvania, which will make an appearance shortly.