Fugawee often gets requests for "civilian" shoes of the Civil War period. If you study photos of the time, you will find that almost all of the men wore shoes that were very much like Fugawee's smooth Federal bootee. I have used them for years, both as a correspondent and as a Senator whose coat has a tail pocket for the Congressional flask. But whatever shoes you choose, avoid metal eyelets in the lacing holes. Patented in 1892. One of the exceptions to the usual ankle-high shoes in civilian photographs is a picture of General Robert E. Lee wearing a pair of low quarter or Oxford type shoes with either two or three sets of lacing holes. After receiving an inquiry about such shoes, I remembered my Navy boot camp. The Navy was issuing only high-quarter shoes. However, the shoe repair shop on base would cut down the high-quarter shoes for twenty-five cents. The same will work well with Fugawee's smooth Federal bootee, but expect to pay the cobbler a lot more than a quarter. I would suggest that anyone wishing to alter the Federal bootee have it done by his local cobbler after first making sure that the shoes fit. Fugawee will not do this work unless the customer has tried on the shoes.