Quote Originally Posted by Galician View Post
It also strikes me that the tunic of his outfit would match that of the Zouave soldiers mentioned as being in fashion for boys' wear at that time.
Yep. The Zouave was the "beau ideal of a soldier", to paraphrase General George McClellan. The Zouave craze came to America after the Crimean War where the Zouaves gained quite the reputation for bravery -- incidently, the Zouaves and the Highland Regiments developed quite the friendship during the Crimea -- Stephen Wood's book on the Auld Alliance devotes a number of pages to this subject.

The man who is generally credited with the zouave craze in the US is Elmer Ellsworth, who took his "Zouave Cadets" on tour across the country, competing in drill competitions with the local militia units. Usually Ellsworth's cadets would show up the local boys, causing them to adopt the zouave name and uniform. Ellsworth, who was one of Lincoln's law partners at one time, later raised the 11th New York Infantry, the famous "fire zouaves", recruited from New York City fireman who also had a brave repuation.

Sorry for the OT post, but there are some strong similarities between zouaves and highlanders, especially in terms of popular perception...

T.