Zouave troops were common on both sides of the Civil War, ordinary Americans who chose to distinguish themselves by unusual and presumably expensive uniforms: baggy red pantaloons, embroidered jackets and fez or low turban hats cocked on the backs of their heads.

The 13th Regiment had its own unit of them in the Zouaves of Lauderdale Station, Mississippi. One of them, Michael Quinn, apparently is the only 13th Regiment soldier who is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Their original captain was Kennon McElroy, in 1861 a 21-year-old University of Mississippi graduate who would command the regiment after Gettysburg and be killed at Knoxville, Tennessee on Nov. 29, 1863.

Their romantic uniforms commemorated the French colonial soldier who distinguished himself in the Crimean War of 1855. Of which it was written in 1862:  “…he knows he is looked upon by his officers, by France, and by the world, as a soldier to whom nothing should be impossible; and he would rather die than disappoint the expectation formed of him; his is a corps d’elite, and every Zouave considers himself a ‘death or glory man.’”

Via The Zouave Archives.