Campaign Clothing: Field Uniforms of the Indian War Army 1866-1871 (Collector's Guide to Military Uniforms) by Lee A. Rutledge (1998-01-08)

Hollywood has given us the image of the American soldier in the Western Plains from the end of the Civil War in 1865 to the closing of the frontier at the turn of the century as a heroic figure clad in immaculately tailored blue trousers with a yellow stripe down the leg, a variety of lighter blue shirts, white hats and big yellow bandanas. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the years following the Civil War, rarely were more than half the 35,000 man Army stationed west of the Mississippi River at one time. And these few soldiers were scattered among a series of primitive forts and posts from Texas to California, from Montana to Arizona. They were ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-equipped and ill-clothed. Millions of uniforms had been manufactured for use by Union troops between 1861 and 1865, all designed for the conditions of terrain, weather and climate found on the Eastern seaboard of the United States. Troops sent to the Rocky mountain regions or the deserts of Texas, New Mexi