Quote Originally Posted by figheadair View Post
The tartan is Cameron of Erracht and the kilt was made by the late Bob Martin based one a 79th New York Highlanders' one from c.1860.
The Full Dress uniform adopted in 1858 when the 79th New York was raised has long fascinated me.

It's been the source of a lot of disinformation, which is inexcusable due to several photos showing men wearing it, and one near-complete uniform at the Gettysburg museum. (Sadly it was no longer on display the last time I visited.)

Bob would have known, my knowledge is fuzzy, but my understanding is that the Gettysburg uniform might have the only surviving pre-war kilt, tunic, sporran, and Glengarry.

Years ago (pre-internet) I was corresponding with a guy who had got permission to examine that uniform. He had made patterns off the various items. He said the kilt was machine-stitched, the pleats random (pleated neither to the stripe nor the sett) and that the kilts had been locally made in New York from cloth imported from Scotland.

The disinformation problem stems from the fact that an entirely new Full Dress uniform was introduced after the conclusion of the war, the original Full Dress having been discontinued when the regiment was brought up to full strength in 1861 for war service. Only the four original Companies had ever been issued Full Dress, the new Companies being issued Service Dress as their only uniform. It was in Service Dress, without kilts, that they marched off to war.

Two museums have near-complete post-war Full Dress uniforms and it's photos of these which usually crop up in books about the Civil War. I don't know anything about the post-war kilts.