What was Booth wearing?

[L Verge]

Wool flannel shirts were for warmth and for rough wear and attire. Detachable collars were for finer shirts and were a pain in the neck to attach. They also were more prevalent in the decades after the war when merchants, bookkeepers, professionals, etc. chose them along with detachable cuffs to save on laundry. Why would you want a nice, white, stiff, detachable collar for what is essentially a work shirt -- and especially if you were going to be riding like the wind for hours?

As for the boots, they were custom-made specifically for Booth and bore his name. Therefore, it would not be a case of "Oh well, they are too tall for my shorter frame, but I'll just roll down the top and they'll be okay." They were definitely cavalry boots.

Period fashion magazines can often give wrong impressions of what American styles were. Most of them featured new designs coming out of the continent - Paris specifically. They were more avant garde than what the average American would wear, and we Americans were also usually 1-2 years or more behind the continental styles (if we ever adopted them). Unfortunately, many of the current websites on fashion feature what graphics they can locate, and those are the ones I described. (P.S. Be careful of the Ford's Theatre site sometimes. Users have found problems with some history in the past.)

I feel that our best source for identifying Booth's clothing is definitely Joseph Hazelton's. The fact that Booth had on a BLUE FLANNEL shirt would stand out in his mind because it would not be typical of what Booth or anyone else in civilian clothes would be wearing to the theater (and much different than what Hazelton had seen him in earlier). Likewise, he would NOT mention a tie because wearing one - again, especially to a theater -- would be de riguer. He would have been more likely to mention Booth NOT having one on.

I learned forty years ago, however, in stressing authentic period clothing to our volunteers at Surratt House, to never say never. Just like today, people used what was available and what they felt comfortable in wearing. And, men's clothing changed very little from 1850 through the Edwardian age, making specific claims to dates very difficult.