AGEOD Forums

Is there a reason why the majority of the Union generals have big, almost goofy looking beards while a lot of the gens. from the south don't?

The really interesting question--one that's been vexing me for years--is why they all START growing beards once there's a war on. The ordinary frontline soldier may find it more comfortable, granted. But what about generals? Politicians, even? Lincoln was clean-shaven before the war ...

And it's quite the same with the Prussians btw. Nearly all of them are clean-shaven right into the 1860s. After 1871 however they all sport these huge beards, extending halfway down their chest in many cases. What's war got to do with beards? apy:

Now this is what we've been needing! a dodgy beard thread.

A shortage of hot water would maybe explain lower ranks but generals?

Maybe its because they could do what they wanted "shave with a big old straight razor? nossir!"

not many as bad as Tom Berenger's tho

Edward Ord wrote:Is there a reason why the majority of the Union generals have big, almost goofy looking beards while a lot of the gens. from the south don't?

All Union generals were just a bunch of JEB Stuart wannabees.

Jabberwock wrote:All Union generals were just a bunch of JEB Stuart wannabees.

Only because they couldn't catch up with Burnside. They had to pick an easier example.

Burny was only trying to keep up with George Crook. Anybody have a better candidate for dodgiest of the dodgy?

ok I take it back this is worse than Toms
JM Schofield

Well, its a good thing AGEod went with a "no hats in the art" rule. Now it is a dodgy beard and hat thread.



Joseph Mansfield, William Vandever, George Stoneman, Jefferson C. Davis

Jabberwock wrote:Well, its a good thing AGEod went with a "no hats in the art" rule. Now it is a dodgy beard and hat thread.



Joseph Mansfield, William Vandever, George Stoneman, Jefferson C. Davis

Very nice

Pure gold

It does seem there maybe was an underlying competition there, of who had the best looking beard. I guess it was just the fashion of the period though.

I agree about Tom Berenger's beard, but also his hair in the Gettysberg film. He did look like a Lion with all that hair, looked like a main

I don't think they were to interested in appearence with war going on, they had strategy, battles to plan.

Jabberwock wrote:Well, its a good thing AGEod went with a "no hats in the art" rule. Now it is a dodgy beard and hat thread.



Joseph Mansfield, William Vandever, George Stoneman, Jefferson C. Davis

You'd think they'd at least find hats that fit them!

Old Peter

Sorry, I know this is an old thread, but I'm bored at work so. . . what else better then to go looking through the posts that are 3 years old! :-)

I personally loved Tom Berengers role as Longstreet in Gburg. . . I guess it was my age (being in my very early teens) when that movie came out, I can't help but think of his portrayal of JL whenever I think of the man himself. It just stuck with me. . . . it's the same with Martin Sheen and Gen Lee sir.
What's his name who played Lee in "Gods & Generals" wasn't nearly as good imho.

Wish Col/Gen Chamberlain was in this game somehow. . . I know he didn't start as a General, so it's not historical. . . but he was eventually moved up to the rank (and I'm sure this is probably discussed somewhere on this message board, so sorry to repeat it).

Old beard thread lives!

Another not so famous George, sporting a disaster of a beard, gets my vote for most over the top civil war beard...

This guy looked like he ate children for breakfast

Epic. . .

This guy should have been a union general.

Hmmm, Pittsburgh .. Steelers .... would have been an artillery officer

I feel Adam Kleeberger (of Canadian rugby fame) deserves a mention too:

Two gratuitous lines of thought on beards:

The 19c German philosopher A. Schopenhauer, just a decade before the Civil War, wrote:

"The beard exaggerates and renders conspicuous the animal part of the face and thus gives it a strikingly brutal appearance. We have only to contemplate the profile of such a bearded man while he is eating!
The atrocious ferocity, given to the countenance by the beard, is due to the fact that a relatively inanimate mass occupies half the face, and moreover the morally expressive half."
[CENTER]-from Parerga and paralipomena, Arthur Schopenhauer[/CENTER]

In contrast to this we have Danny the Dealer's caveat on hair in Withnail and I to which one might add "clean-shaven" in addition to being bald:

"I don't advise a haircut, man. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hairs are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos, and transmit them directly into the brain. This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight."
[CENTER]-Withnail and I (1969)[/CENTER]

These two views are obviously at odds with each other; nonetheless I would hazard Lafayette McLaws' beard to be an exemplar of the former, and Jeb Stuart's beard the latter.