ERIE — Ben Jenkins stocks a fishing tackle box full of bone, rubber, shell and porcelain buttons — some of them American Civil War-era originals — and knows that buttonholes in both Union and Confederate uniforms were hand-stitched in the absence of a mechanized buttonholer then.
“But when people ask me about clothes and fashion today, I’m like, ‘Dude, I don’t know anything outside of about 1750 to 1880,’ ” said Jenkins, 25.
Jenkins, a Louisiana native now living in Erie, enjoys researching clothing worn by the Army of the Trans-Mississippi during that time frame — Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s third army that fought in Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and the Indian Territory that is now Oklahoma.
Seems like a bad business plan for Jenkins, a tailor who learned how to sew at 14 from his late maternal grandmother and hopes to continue making a living at it.
But in an anniversary year — this is the 150th anniversary of many decisive Civil War battles that led to the South’s surrender in 1865 — priority mail boxes litter Jenkins’ couch and kitchen counter awaiting order filling and shipping.
Jenkins works feverishly, sometimes from 8 a.m. to almost midnight, trying to finish clothing.
Jenkins admits kits — outfits of period clothing — can be purchased online for half the price he typically charges. Period trousers commercially produced might cost $75, while his handmade pants go for $150.
But serious “re-enactors” are more than happy to pay those prices.
Fussing over clothing and accessory details first became an issue during the 1961 Civil War centennial, according to Michael Mumaugh, an interpretive ranger at the Mansfield State Historic Site in Louisiana.
“The desire to re-enact was there. The desire to do it in proper costume was not,” he said.
Today, hard-core re-enactors store kits with clothing and accessories specific to various battles — a phenomenon that prompted Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tony Horowitz to write, “Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War.”
From the book came a term — “period rush” — that Mumaugh said captures why so-called authentic re-enactors go to great lengths to wear realistic uniforms and civilian clothing.
“In that, in a fleeting moment, you feel like you might be there, and for two or three seconds, you can let go of reality,” he said.
