GETTYSBURG — They were the most fashionable troops to fight in the Civil War, and, depending on your point of view, among the bravest or craziest.
They were the Union's Zouaves, who entered the field of combat wearing uniforms that look like they could be worn by women on Fifth Avenue today rather than by troops engaging in brutal and bloody warfare.
"They were elite troops, like the Special Forces or recon Marines of their time," said Will Hutchison, a writer of historical fiction from Gettysburg. "They were known for their courage."
And it may have taken some measure of courage just to wear the uniform made popular by the French military into battle.
"Everyone was just as good a target," said Tom Frezza, a guide at the Pry House on the Antietam National Battlefield who has been a Zouave re-enactor for five years. "Part of it was psychological. What kind of idiot would go into battle wearing bright sashes or a Zouave uniform?"
His battery mate, Larry Clemons, a librarian at the United States Naval Academy who's been re-enacting for 45 years, said, "It really didn't matter. Once you fired three rounds, and the enemy fired three rounds, nobody could see anything anyway."
The uniforms originated with the French Army. Well, before that, it originated with the Zouaoua, a tribe of Berbers in the Jurjura mountains in North Africa. The French recruited the natives in 1831 to fight in its conquest of Algeria. They later saw action in the Crimean War and were lauded for their valor in battle. The French later adopted the Zoave uniforms for their own troops.
Photos of the Zouaves appeared on front pages around the world and their uniform became a style, according to Hutchison, who has written novels set during the Crimean War. The uniforms also caught the eye of American military officers who studied that war. The uniforms later were adopted by local militias in the North, who wore them when they joined the federal army.
In battle, re-enactors said, the Zoaves were deployed as "skirmishers," which is a fancy way of saying they acted as targets. They often went ahead of the main regimental line and were charged with engaging the enemy to find out where they were, how they were deployed and how many were there.
"They were basically a recon company," said Steve Melko, a commercial real estate manager from Herndon, Va., who's been re-enacting for 30 years or so.
One hundred and fifty years later, the uniforms may have changed, but recon Marines or Army Special Forces troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world perform the same function.
"It's pretty much the same tactics, just with more sophisticated weaponry," Frezza said. "They were the shock troops."
The Zouaves used fairly sophisticated tactics and weapons for their time. The tactics were aped from the French. "Everything you see we adopted from the French," Melko said.
The Zouaves were armed with rifles, not smooth-bore muskets. "With a musket, you can hit a man-sized target from about 50 yards," Frezza said. "With a rifle, you can hit that target up to 500 yards away."
The rifles fired massive lead bullets at low velocity, Frezza said. "It's designed to shatter bone," he said. "That's why there were so many amputations, it just shattered the bone. It's a lot like the IEDs in Afghanistan."
A tourist listening said, "Wow, that's pretty cool." He paused a moment and said, "Maybe not cool, but interesting."
By the end of the war, though, the Zouave uniforms had passed, Melko said. As they wore out, or were stained with blood, or ripped apart by cannon fire or musket balls, they were replaced by standard federal uniforms.
The French still used them until 1914, he said, when their troops were running into volleys of machine gun fire amid the trenches of World War I.
"I guess, by then," Melko said, "they figured out it wasn't such a good idea to wear something like this into battle."