A RARE PAIR OF U.S. ARMY ISSUE CIVIL WAR ERA DRAWERS (UNDERCLOTHES), EXCAVATED AT FORT PEMBINA

ONE OF THE FEW AUTHENTIC,  SURVIVING EXAMPLES 

United States, Civil War–early Indian Wars period, circa 1860–1880. Unbleached cotton (likely muslin or Canton flannel), hand and machine-stitched; straight legs with ankle ties; front opening with waistband ties and two buttons. Leg: 36 3/4 in., waist 18 in. across.

A matched pair of regulation drawers of the type supplied by the U.S. Quartermaster during the Civil War and early post-war years. Constructed in undyed cotton with flat-felled seams, reinforced seat, and simple faced waistband with internal ties; the fly formed by an overlapping fall closed by one or two small buttons. The lower hems retain original cotton tape ties for blousing within brogans in cold weather.

Textiles seldom survive in archaeological contexts in the United States; underwear, made of inexpensive cotton and worn to destruction, is rarer still. Fort Pembina’s far‑northern location, long winters, deep frost, and cold, relatively anaerobic ground conditions created an exceptional micro‑environment that retarded the decay of organic materials. As a documented recovery from a named post, and in such extraordinary condition, the drawers constitute an important and seldom available specimen for collections of nineteenth‑century military uniform and frontier archaeology.

Fort Pembina (1870-1895) was set in the Red River Valley of what is now Pembina County, North Dakota, only a few miles from the Canadian border. The fort was established in March 1870 and occupied until 1895. Earlier activity at the site centered on the fur trade; the first U.S. military presence was a temporary post garrisoned by Minnesota troops in 1863-64 following the Dakota (Sioux) Uprising of 1862. The permanent post was built south of the Pembina River and roughly 200 yards west of the Red River; completed in July 1870, it was initially named for Gen. George H. Thomas and redesignated Fort Pembina in September. The first garrison, two companies of the 20th U.S. Infantry, wore and carried the typical mix of the early Indian Wars: Civil War surplus, private‑purchase items, and later regulation patterns as they became available.

The fort’s stated purpose was to protect settlers concerned about Sioux parties returning from Canada, but its soldiers chiefly escorted international boundary surveys along the 49th parallel and helped deter Fenian raiding attempts into Canada. The reservation contained enlisted men’s barracks and officers’ quarters, a guardhouse, ordnance storehouse, company kitchens, a root house, laundresses’ quarters, housing for civilian employees, a hospital with a servants’ house and a barn for the “hospital cow,” as well as quartermaster and commissary offices and storehouses, stables, and a wagon shed. Strength peaked at about 200 troops in 1878, with an average of roughly 125 enlisted men and 8 officers. An October 1885 return lists 97 men, 2 field pieces, 1 mountain howitzer, 100 rifles, 19 pistols, 23 mules, and 9 wagons. By 1890 only 23 soldiers remained, and after a fire in 1895 destroyed nineteen buildings the Army elected to close rather than rebuild; the last detachment departed in September. The reservation passed to the Department of the Interior and was sold in 1902. Recent, owner‑authorized excavations on private land at the site have yielded artifacts of exceptional preservation. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Militaria, Accouterment, Equipment, Uniforms]