Half-resoled Bootee.

[PieBoy96]

I was going through some LOC photos for an article, and noticed that the shoe in the famous "Cold Harbor, Va. African Americans collecting bones of soldiers killed in the battle" photo had been half-resoled.

Wasn't sure if this had been seen by most people before, but I found it interesting to see repair done on a worn out bootee.

LOC# LC-B817- 7926

[J.H.Berger]

Re: Half-resoled Bootee.

Great detail view Paul! It is not necessarily a resole but can be as some shoes/boots were already made with a half sole. But in this case considering the double layer sole at the instep it is possible that it is a repair sole. Intersing too that the uppers are pretty high and the pattern seems to be not the typical upper pattern you see so often.
I love those close up pictures if you find more about shoes etc. let us know please!

[jacobite8749]

Re: Half-resoled Bootee.

Well noticed, looks like a repair, nailed too. I wonder if the top has been repaired with a patch?

[Bushrod Carter]

Re: Half-resoled Bootee.

Paul,

GREAT photo!

I can substantiate that Federal army boots/shoes were sometimes resoled. How? Because I actually found one about 10 years ago under the Masonic Lodge building in Franklin, Tennessee while looking for termite damage! The shoe was dry rotted, though intact, and had a double row of pegs right across the sole right at the ball of the foot. Unlike your photo this shoe didn’t have a reinforced sole, but rather, a flat sole as most of us have on our shoes.

It is the only example I have ever seen. Unfortunately the shoe didn’t survive. I did my best to preserve it, but it eventually fell into hundreds of pieces.

I figure the show was left there sometime during the war when the Lodge building was used as barracks for Federal soldiers and as a Hospital after the battle of Franklin.

Wish I had a picture of it. :(

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Half-resoled Bootee.

Half-soles and a new heel.

[Moonshine]

Re: Half-resoled Bootee.

Mr. Boccadoro,

When searching these forums for this EXACT image, I found what I was looking for. Thank you for posting this and doing the work on getting the close-up and cropping it.

After downloading this image and playing with the highlights and shadows in Photoshop, you can get more detail and get a good idea how this shoe was re-soled. It appears that the outer most part of the sole has pegs placed evenly apart followed by an inner ring of smaller and tightly spaced nails. It appears that these stick out of the sole almost like hobnails?

I tried looking at the heel too and I see something that appears to be a heel plate but I could be wrong - there's too much grass right where that portion of the shoe falls on the ground. Maybe someone with better Photoshop skills can clean this up more?

Seems this poor guy had his trousers tucked into his socks too! THAT'S A NO-NO!!! Somehow I feel this look will be starting to come back in vogue in this hobby...maybe after this post???