Mr Hunt – agreed, if there was a fellow just starting out it would be excellent to steer him on a good course no matter what his end-state impression will be. So, here’s my idear for a candidate of a good shirt style (not a 'dress' shirt) for a new guy to the 1870s/80’s…
Perhaps a good, basic – called ‘generic’? – shirt would:
1) be made of light or medium cotton of a subdued color (pattern; window pane or vertical stripes if any), 2) have small shell, white glass, pressed cardboard, japanned tin, vulcanized rubber, or gutta-percha buttons - he would have to frequent an antique store or two to find original buttons that likely will not come with a shirt from any supplier, 3) be a pull over with ½ length front placket, 4) have band collar with small button to on the back to hold a detachable collar and small, circular holes in the front for a collar stud, 5) Button & collar stud holes: All hand-sewn using a proper button-holing technique and I’d say button holes vertical as that is what the pics of originals I’ve seen so far bear our in the majority. As CW discussion came up earleir on this thread regarding button holes, I did a quick look at both the original US & CS shirts in Echoes of Glory to see what the button hole situation was. The Fed shirts were all vertical (with the exception of the horizontal collar band button hole from what I could tell), the CS shirts were vertical holes (again, horizontal for collar band) but there was a clear example a ‘homespun’ shirt with all horizontal button holes on the placket shown in the CS book.
No matter what the ‘generic’ shirt turns out to be, there are always variations. But, hopefully, the ‘generic’ shirt described above would be a good start and likely prove useful even after the new guy bought/made other shirts, etc for his impression. I figure a shirt like that detailed above would be a good, basic shirt for just about anybody.
This is a good thread – looking forward to other inputs.
YMH&OS,
‘Monterrey’ J. Brass