Fugawee's Federal or Contract bootee is available in smooth out or rough out .Our leather is staked until pliable before cutting out the pieces for the uppers. This is the reason that Fugawees need no double socks to protect against blisters and no soaking in order to break them in.
Most Civil War bootees were issued
in smooth leather (right) but rough-out (left)
seems to have taken over among re-enactors.
The Fugawee Contract Bootee has four lace holes and is available in sizes from
5E to 15EEE in full and half sizes. Smooth or rough, $95 plus $10.
shipping. Because of a glitch in designating the
widths of our first Bootees, our E width is more like a standard D. Be sure to
allow plenty of room if you wear heavy socks. .
You may order by phone at 1-800-749-0387
Be sure to read, "A few facts about ....." further down this page.
Our standard guarantee applies: Return for exchange if they don't fit. We pay the freight back to you. If you find any problems in manufacture, materials, or if the shoe breaks down, call us. For a small matter, we'll tell you to have it fixed in your home town and send us the bill. If it seems more serious, send the shoes back and we'll either repair or replace them.
Regarding Tom Mattimore’s letter in which he mentioned that several of his customers had ruined new boots by boiling them in order to break them in:
Fugawees don't need much breaking in and our guarantee is quite extensive but every once in a while someone returns a pair of well-worn bootees with cracked and broken soles that look like the bottom of a dry mud slough.
They enjoyed the luxury of warming their wet, wet feet at the hottest edge of the campfire. They sat there with their coffee and watched the steam rise from their soaked shoes and thought how cozy they were until the shoes suddenly became so hot that they had to snatch them off. If this happens to you, you have just prepared a nice mess of cooked leather. The shoes will be stiff and hard to get on, then the bottoms will crack. There is no remedy, so once you see steam coming from your shoes, you might as well keep them cooking a little longer so that they will be tender by breakfast time.
Art Ayotte
Fugawee boots come from the factory with fabric laces but we put a pair of leather laces in every box so that you can have your choice. For civilian impressions and G.A.R. veterans, the smooth Jefferson with the fabric laces works well. Now you can choose the Congress Gaiter for more comfort.
The Southern or Monticello model. also appropriate as a work shoe in periods from the early 1800's until the present day, is built on the same lasts as the Federal Contract Bootee. It has five lace holes and a pull tab on the back of the boot. It's color is russet or natural and the rough-out model takes on a beautiful color when given a coat of Lexol or other oil. Smooth or rough, (I like the rough better) Sizes are from 5E to 14EEE in full and half sizes. Same guarantee, of course. Price is $95 plus $10. shipping.
The Monticello was patterned after the shoes shown on a group statue of Confederate soldiers around a mounted Gen. Robert E. Lee. It is reputed that the Confederates had a shoe factory at a Florida town called Monticello. However, there is also a Monticello r in Alabama. We find no trace of the Monticello, Florida factory.
The Monticello is the closest thing to a ready-made1800s work shoe that you will find. Shoes like these were packed 100 pairs to the barrel and shipped from Boston to the Western frontier and overseas. This type of shoe was worn by the seamen and in the cargo when Richard Henry Dana sailed around Cape Horn to the tiny port of Los Angeles de California.
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You may order by phone at 1-800-749-0387
Questions answered at 1 850 893 8813
Facts about Original Civil War Shoes
Before the war, almost all army shoes were made at Susquehanna Arsenal. The pieces were cut out in the arsenal and then "farmed out" to independent workers who put them together in their homes on piecework basis It was the same system that was used for uniforms.
Historically, shoe uppers always had been considered women's work and this may be all that was done by the home workers but it is possible that the welting and sole stitching was done at home as well.
The largest pair of bootees on record still exists. They are smooth side out, size 17. Three pairs were specially manufactured for a large Swedish draftee. The shoes never reached him at his unit. A target of his size was just too tempting and the Scandinavian giant didn't survive his first action. One pair remains in a museum at Susquehana.
Fugawee calls our Northern or Federal shoe a Contract Bootee because there were slight variations in the shoes issued to the Northern troops.
We have a letter dated January 1862 from Colonel Crossman, Assistant Quartermaster General describing the purchase of 1,102,700 pairs of boots and bootees from contractors all over the North. Contracts were as large as 120,000 pairs from one manufacturer at Sing Sing, NY (did they have the prison then?) or as small as 300 pairs from another factory in Pennsylvania. The shoes apparently included work shoes already on hand. They had been manufactured on lasts (the forms on which shoes are built) already in the factories. You may be sure that contractors delivered variations in design and fit.. This is borne out in the Congressional hearings early in 1862. Some of the testimony is hilarious.
One manufacturer, faced with the fact that he had supplied shoes that foot soldiers wore out in three weeks replied, "But those shoes were supposed to go to the Cavalry." So help me, it is in the Congressional Record.
In early 1862 Crossman reported his purchases to Congressman E.B. Washhburn, Chairman of the House Committee to Inquire into Government Contracts (Page 1569, Record of the 37th Congress, 2nd Session) click here to read the letter and apologized for having accepted a small quantity of pegged bootees which had been accepted only because of the urgency of the situation. Regulations called for sewn shoes but cheap work shoes for the immigrant trade and those for the plantation (slave) trade had been pegged together since a machine that set nine pegs to the inch came into use.
Which is correct, pegged or sewn?
The army did everything it could to force the contractors to deliver sewn shoes. While a pair of sewn shoes brought the contractor about $1.80 to $2.00 per pair, the Government paid only $1.25 for pegged shoes. With Cavalry boots the prices were $3.25 for sewn and $2.50 for pegged. (265 out of 183,997 pairs of Cavalry boots purchased. Out of a total of 1,102,700 pairs of shoes and boots purchased by Col. Crossman only 5.43% were pegged. And he felt that he had to explain that he had bought the inferior pegged shoes because of the exigencies of the war, even though they cost the Gov't one third less.
Here is a picture of the sole of an
original Civil War issue pegged boot. The split-apart pegs are diamond-shaped (remember the machine?) and are
in two staggered rows that total nine pegs pr
inch. 
Although it is hard to tell, this is a left/right shoe.
The shank is riveted in place and the heel has a close-set row of cut nails to extend wear. The boot is machine pegged, nine pegs to the inch
No, that is not stitching, it is two rows of pegs. They are staggered for strength and to get as many pegs in the row as possible. Note the rivets on the shank and the close-set nails in the heel.
Forty percent of Civil War shoes were made on a pegging machine invented in 1838, It was much like a two needle sewing machine and almost as fast. The first station was an awl which made a hole, then the second station drove a peg into the hole.
This machine took a block of wood that had been cut across the grain and was of a thickness equal to length of the pegs. The end grain was scored in both directions, making a "card" full of diamond points. The card was then split by the machine to free the hundreds of pegs. These fed directly into the next step in the machine which inserted them in the shoes.
One of the big differences between the nine-to-the-inch machine-pegged shoes actually used in the Civil War and the three-or-four-to-the-inch pegging seen on Sutlers' Row is the fact that machine-set pegs were driven all the way through the leather until they were flush with the sole. The points that went into the interior of the shoe were then cut off with special tools before the insole was glued in. Those pegs were square and straight-sided all through the leather.
Most of today's reproduction shoes are made with round, polished pegs which are actually made to hold the shanks of modern cowboy boots. The pointed ends of the pegs are driven in only until they encounter the metal form inside the shoe. When the points of the pegs reach the metal, they are cut off on the outside: This means that the smooth, pointed peg is in a tapered hole. Thus, the shoes have three or four round, polished and tapered pegs instead of nine straight-sided pegs to the inch . The shoe is held together mainly with glue. The pegs are mostly cosmetic.
Fugawee made "pegged" shoes until our research showed that the sewn shoes were not only appropriate, but had been preferred by the military.
About forty percent of all boots and brogans made for the US Army during the Civil War were constructed with the less expensive pegging process.
During the days of the Soviet Bloc, the East Germans and Poles used some machine-pegged boosts in their armies. I don't know where you would find a pegging machine today. Fugawee Jefferson bootees are all sewn as per the basic military regulations during of the Civil War. Fugawee Jefferson bootees are built on lasts taken directly from an 1865 boot.
Here are some of the sutlers and tailors
who stock Fugawee Bootees
Frazer Brothers
Loafer's Glory CSA Galleries
96 Fabrics North-South Tailors James Country
No Name Sutler Milk Creek Uniforms of Antiquity
The Fugawee guarantee follows the shoes, no matter where you bought them.
For a copy of Colonel Crossman's letter about 1,102,700 pairs of Brogans click here
See a Confederate bootee from the Charleston Museum of the Confederacy
Brogans or are also called Jefferson Bootees.
The Army used the term "Jefferson". The reason goes back to Thomas Jefferson:
Before the French Revolution, excessively extravagent fancy shoe buckles were considered the mark of the Aristocrats and their supporters. The Compte de Artois, brother to King Louis wore shoe buckles so extravagant that he was reputed to "Wear a farm on each foot."
"Down with the big buckles !" came to be a call to revolution; and soon, wearing any shoe buckles at all could cause your head to leave your body. Shoe buckles went out of style in a hurry.
In the United States, Thomas Jefferson was a strong supporter of the French Revolution so, at his inauguration in 1801 he wore laced-up shoes.. All laced shoes soon were called "Jefferson Shoes." The term "Jeffersons" continued to mean laced shoes until the early twentieth century. "Bootee" is a diminutive of "Boot" and signifies a short boot. "Brogan" is derived from "Brogue", an English term for a rugged shoe that did not cover the ankle as opposed to a shoe which was lower and a boot which did cover the ankle. The Brits still use that distinction today.
The majority of Confederate shoes came through the blockade and were made much in the fashion of an English military boot and of riveted, screwed, or nailed construction. The British did not make many shoes with pegs until the 1870's when they started to use them in cheap leather sea boots because they were not corroded by sea water.
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