Slide #5
Frederick Lythson
Governor's Guard
2nd Wisconsin Infantry

Early in the war, the generalization that Union soldiers wore blue uniforms and the Confederates wore gray was not always true. In fact, the first eight Wisconsin volunteer infantry regiments who served in the Union army were issued gray frock coats by the state because there was not enough blue material to make uniforms for all the new recruits. Gray had also been the traditional color of state militia units since the end of the War of 1812.

Frederick Lytheson of the Governor's Guard served with the 2nd Wisconsin of the famed Iron Brigade. In this photograph, he wears a cadet gray frock coat with eagle buttons, a white linen cross belt to support his cartridge and percussion cap boxes, a smooth rectangular brass belt plate, a brass breast plate embossed with script "G.G." for Governor's Guard, and a gray forage cap with a spring insert to keep it upright or down. He also carries a model 1816 smooth bore musket, an outdated weapon by the time of the Civil War, but one that was often issued to state militia companies.