Brigadier General James Lusk Alcorn (Confederate) Beards being so popular during 1860s America, prom

Brigadier General James Lusk Alcorn(Confederate)

Beards being so popular during 1860s America, prominent individuals explored a variety of styles in their attempts to look both fashionable and distinguished. Here, Alcorn shows off a bushy beard-and-moustache combo without any sideburns. With his hair still dark around the sides, you imagine his grey beard must have looked quite striking.

Alcorn himself wasn’t really a soldier. A lawyer and politician in Mississippi, he was an opponent of secession but joined the Confederate Army anyway, serving as a Brigadier General. Not having any military experience, he spent most of his time in uniform engaged in raising recruits and garrison duty, although he was a prisoner of war for a time in 1862. Given parole by the Union Army, he went back to his plantation and made a lot of money trading cotton. After the war he was a notable Scalawag - a Southern supporter of the Republican Party and its Reconstruction policies - and served in the US Senate and as Governor of Mississippi.