confederate and Union (Yankee) tartans

**sailortats** · 16th January 12, 07:31 PM

I recently ran across this pic showing a "rebel" in his confederate memorial kilt. That got me to wondering if there is a Yankee kilt. Has anyone here see one?
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**Blake Roth** · 16th January 12, 07:42 PM

Why yes there is. Search around for Union Memorial; though you'll find its restricted I'm afraid.

**Spartan Tartan** · 16th January 12, 07:43 PM

There is a Union Memorial Tartan: ( http://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tar....aspx?ref=4396 ).

**kiltimabar** · 16th January 12, 08:02 PM

I am unaware of any restrictions on this (Federal Memorial) tartan--Matt Newsom made a kilt of it for me and nobody asked for any credentials.

**OC Richard** · 17th January 12, 05:55 AM

Originally Posted by Spartan Tartan

There is a Union Memorial Tartan: ( http://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tar....aspx?ref=4396 ).

Looks like it was designed by an Artilleryman- definitely not by a Cavalryman!

Since the Union uniform was an extremely dark blue jacket with sky blue trousers, the buttons on the jacket being brass, one might expect a Union tartan to be mainly those two shades of blue, with some prominent golden yellow as well. Infantry's and Cavalry's branch colours thus taken care of, there would have to be some red for Artillery also. (Of course there were many more branches than that: Medical, Engineers, etc.)

On my computer at least, the ground colour of that sample looks purple rather than the extremely dark blue of the Union jackets.

BTW ditto the Artillery comment on that Confederate tartan shown at top: if I had designed the Confederate tartan, I would have used, on the grey ground, the branch colours Sky Blue, Red, and Yellow in the approximate percentages suggested by the membership of those branches. One would think from these tartans that both the Union and Confederate armies were 90% artillery!

**macwilkin** · 17th January 12, 08:33 AM

Just an FYI, but both tartans were designed by & for (primarily) members of the Sons of Union Veterans & Sons of Confederate veterans, fraternal societies that are made of up of descendants of Civil War soldiers and are the heirs of the Grand Army of the Republic and the United Confederate Veterans. Neither tartan is really designed to be "historically accurate" per se, or worn with historically accurate living history/reenacting kit.

I had to chuckle a bit at the title of this thread, since my Iowa great-grandfather, the son of a Union veteran, hated being called a Yankee -- he was a Hawkeye or a Mudsill -- "Yankees live in New England, not the Midwest", my grandmother would say.

T.

**Kilted in Maine** · 17th January 12, 01:01 PM

Originally Posted by cajunscot

"Yankees live in New England, not the Midwest"T.

NO! Yankees live in New York - New England is Red Sox Country!

LOL

**macwilkin** · 17th January 12, 05:10 PM

Originally Posted by Kilted in Maine

NO! Yankees live in New York - New England is Red Sox Country!

LOL

To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.

-- attributed to E.B. White

**Riverkilt** · 17th January 12, 07:09 AM

Would guess that Dr. Phillip Smith - who's designed many fine tartans - had his head in the right place when he figured this one out.

If you go over to the Scottish Tartans Authority their swatch for $4161 "seems" to have much wider sky blue stripes.

Its on my list to honor my two great great grandfathers who fought to preserve the Union.

**RockyR** · 17th January 12, 07:32 AM

I had a great (X 3) grandfather in the Union army, but I was never fond of this tartan. Had I designed one, it would have been mostly dark blue with gold stripes and would have been based on the Grant tartan (for obvious reasons).

With a bit of quick mucking around (Grant tartan, with a few colors changed):