Union Kneeling Loading

83rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment. At the beginning of the war the Union Army was short of everything... except men! Weapons... Officers... Supplies and... Uniforms. To help remedy this situation 10,000 sets of complete uniforms were bought from France. Among them a large proportion of French Chasseur Infantry uniforms.

As was the case in the first two years of the War military dress and fashion on both sides of the divide varied from "the weird to the wonderful". Our Pennsylvanian "Chasseurs" were no exception!