Thursday, April 12, 2012

Al Sieber's Hat and Buckskin Clad Denial

April 12, 2012

A friend of mine, Wayne Jorgenson, is doing a self-published book on Al Sieber and the Men of the First Minnesota (Sieber fought in this unit in the Civil War and was seriously wounded at Gettysburg). Wayne sent me a couple photos asking where the originals might be and who to credit. One of them I had not seen before. This is Al Sieber with his Apache Scouts at Camp Verde in 1880:



Here is a close up of Al and his great hat:



Love the hat and I think this is probably the style of hat Wyatt Earp wore on the so-called Vendetta Ride. Now what's interesting to me, is he seems to be wearing the same exact shirt as in this 1877 photograph:


And, the hat is pretty close as well. I also think it's interesting that Al is wearing full blown buckskin pants and jacket, yet years later, when he was defending Tom Horn as a character witness, Sieber claimed:


"In regard to my picture, I have none here, and have no show at present to have one taken, and as for my scouting costume, it was ever the same as that of any roving man; for, during my twenty-one years of fighting and hunting Indians, I never wore long hair or buckskin clothes."

—Al Sieber, Roosevelt, A.T., April 7, 1904


Really, Al? What the hell were you smokin'?

Anyway, here are a couple sketches I made this morning trying to ferret out his style:



And here is a tighter one:


"I'm not interested in accuracy, I'm only interested in the truth."
—Kid Burns

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