Civil War Dog Tags By: Zach Agnew
The first known occurrence of the I.D. tags was in 1863. General Meade's men wrote their names and units on paper tags, then pinned them on their clothing, some men carved this information on tags made of wood. Some of the men marked their personal items.
Harper's weekly magazines saw this idea as a way to make money and started selling "Soldier's Pins." The pins could be made and purchased out of gold and silver. The pins were inscribed with the the person's name and the unit they belonged to. Then it started to branch off into private vendors who followed the soldiers before each war. The vendors sold very ornate tags to the soldiers. This ploy was very lucrative because it played on the soldier's fear of being unknown. Even though vendors followed the soldiers, an estimated 42% of soldiers went unidentified during the war.
Harper's weekly magazines saw this idea as a way to make money and started selling "Soldier's Pins." The pins could be made and purchased out of gold and silver. The pins were inscribed with the the person's name and the unit they belonged to. Then it started to branch off into private vendors who followed the soldiers before each war. The vendors sold very ornate tags to the soldiers. This ploy was very lucrative because it played on the soldier's fear of being unknown. Even though vendors followed the soldiers, an estimated 42% of soldiers went unidentified during the war.
Dog Tags Today
Today's I.D. tags have not changed much from its previous counterparts. The only few changes is that it is given to every soldier by the government,which they government during the civil war had no official issue on the topic. Now they are all made from machining metal, into the shape as seen in the picture to the left. The tags consist of the following information; soldier's name, social security, blood type, and religion (which is optional.) The tags a very loud and are normally silenced by the soldier with a silencer. The silencers are normally made with anything that can keep the tags from clanging with each other. Soldier's also sometimes have their tags tattooed on their body as a safety precaution if they lose the tag they carried on them.