Say what you will about nineteenth one C dress habits : those gentlemen knew how to rock some facial hairsbreadth . The Civil War era , in finical , popularize the stately fashion we refer to as " sideburn . " But back then , the thick side whiskers were called burnsides , after Maj . Gen. Ambrose Burnside , who sported an unbelievable ‘ do that wrapped around his facial expression like a cat ’s tail , leaving only his chin clean and jerk - shaven .
Indeed , facial whisker in universal was quite fashionable at the prison term . With that in mind , one audacious datum - cruncher recently make up one’s mind to calculate out who wore it best when it came to beards : the Union or the Confederacy ?
An article in the journalProceeding of the Natural Institute of Science(yes , that acronym isPNIS ) by the journal ’s editor - in - chief , Matt J. Michel , examines which side of the war romp the beardiest commanding military officer . The article may not be the most serious of topic ( and the daybook is not equal - reviewed ) , butaccording to the Jehovah , the information published in PNIS ’s humorously - title subjournal , PNIS - HARD , is no gag .
Sideburn trailblazer Ambrose Burnside . Image Credit : Matthew Brady viaWikimedia Commons// Public Domain
Michel used a National Park Service leaning of important Civil War battles with data point on the commanders for each side , the casualties , and other data . He used photos found online , on Wikipedia and Civil War sites to collect data about each general ’s beard quantity . When require officers switched up their facial hairstyles in dissimilar photos , he hold up with the more bewhiskered of the two .
Then , he computed each ship’s officer ’s beard - to - face proportion . Looking at the look-alike above , beard - to - face ratio was calculated by tot B1 and B2 , and dividing the substance by F1 . A 0 entail light shaven , and anything nifty than a 1 show a whiskers larger than the face .
How civic War commanders wore their facial fuzz , in one chart :
More than 90 percent of commanders studied had some variety of facial fuzz , most frolic either the foresightful beard or the forgetful beard . Very few kick the bucket with muttonchops or a goatee . However , there were some significant difference between North and South here . More Confederate commanding officer were fair shaven ( 14 compare to five Union soldiers ) and more Union soldiers frolic a brusk small beard ( 29 soldier compared to 12 Confederate commanders ) . Only two battles in the dataset were led by two clean - shaven air force officer : the Battle of Wauhatchie and the Battle of Mobile Bay , both won by the Union .
Overall , the Union was beardier . While PNIS has yet to back up our distrust with data , we mistrust this in all probability had something to do with how things finally shook out .
All image via Matt J. Michel , PNIS - HARD(2015 )
