Enlisted men are dressed similarly to officers, with the following
differences: tunic with dark blue cuffs, collar and shoulder-straps.
The collar is edged top and bottom, the shoulder-straps all round
and the cuffs along the top edge with yellow for cavalry, light blue
for infantry, &c. The badge of the branch in brass is on the collar.
Lines are worn (aiguillette fashion) as an additional decoration;
these are of the branch colours. The trousers are light blue, with,
in full dress, stripes of branch colours. The white undress, service
dress and greatcoat are similar to those for officers, with certain
distinctions in detail. The full-dress cap is of the officers’ pattern,
but the band is dark blue, edged with the branch or arm colour
above and below, and the badge is brass in a white metal wreath.
The slouch hat has a cord of the branch colours. Rank marks of
non-commissioned officers are long, graceful chevrons (inherited
from France) pointing upwards, 1, 2 and 3 for lance-corporals,
corporals and sergeants, 3 with diamond star, &c., for “first sergeants”
and corresponding ranks, 3 with the lower ends connected
by bars or arcs of the chevron material for sergeant-majors and
staff-sergeants. In full dress these chevrons are of the colour of
the branch facings, in service dress of khaki embroidery.
Naval Uniforms.—The full-dress coat of British naval officers is a dark blue double-breasted swallow-tailed coat with gold buttons, lace and epaulettes, a white gold-edged slashed-flap on the sleeve with rings of lace showing rank. Dark blue trousers with gold stripes, and black silk cocked hat. The undress coats are frock coat, which may be worn with epaulettes, and double-breasted jumper, both having plain cuffs with rings of gold lace. The undress cap is a peaked cap with gold badge. Certain, petty officers wear blue jumpers, the rest and the sailors wear sailors dress (Plate IV., line 3, No. 7). White is worn in the tropics, with white pith helmets in the case of officers and broad-brimmed straw hats in that of the sailors. Royal Marine Artillery and Royal Marine Light Infantry are dressed as artillery and infantry of the army, with certain distinctions; they may always be recognized by the badge of a globe within a laurel wreath. (Plate IV., line 3, No. 1.)
Officers’ Rank Marks.—(a) On the epaulette: Batons in laurel wreath and crown, admiral of the fleet; crown, sword and baton crossed, and 1, 2, 3 stars, rear-admiral, vice-admiral, admiral; anchor and crown, with 0, 1, 2, stars, commander, junior captain, senior captain; anchor and star, senior lieutenant; anchor, junior lieutenant; anchor on fringe less epaulette, sub-lieutenant. (b) On the sleeve (in all orders of dress except white, and greatcoat): flag officers, broad gold ring with 1, 2, 3, 4 narrow rings (the uppermost with a curl) for rear-admiral, vice-admiral, &c.; other officers, 1, 2, 2 with narrower ring between, 3 and 4 for sub-lieutenant, junior lieutenant, senior lieutenant, commander and captain. (c) Shoulder straps in greatcoat and white undress, blue strap with bars and curl as on sleeve in other orders, except flag officers, who have gold-laced shoulder-strap with rank marks as on epaulette. Non-combatant branches have not the “curl,” and between the gold bars or rings there are “lights” or stripes of various colours according to branch. The Royal Naval Reserve officers have similar rank mark, but, instead of bars of plain lace, a thin twist of gold embroidery, and an oval badge surrounding the anchor on the epaulettes.
The uniforms of other navies are very similar to those of the British. The old-fashioned jacket worn over the sailor blouse, and the conspicuous white lapels of the full-dress coat, are the principal peculiarities of the German navy. The Spanish naval officer has red lapels. A very marked peculiarity of the Austrian navy is that the officers, dressed in all other respects similarly to the naval officers of other countries, have the military tunic. The marines, where they exist, conform to the infantry of the respective land forces in most respects; the German marines, however, wear the Jäger shako, and navy-blue uniforms with white collars and cuffs. (Plate IV., line 3, No. 3.)
See Colonel C. Walton, British Army; and British regimental histories; Ottenfeld and Teuber, Oesterreichs Armee; Richard Knötel, Uniformen-Kunde; R. Nevill, British Military Prints; Lienhardt and Humbert, Les Uniformes de l’Armée Française; British Dress Regulations, 1822, 1834, 1846, 1855–64, 1874, 1883, 1891 and 1904; Lavisse, Sac au Dos, and Moritz Ruhl’s handbooks of the German, Austrian, Russian, Italian and French army uniforms of the present day. The particulars given of the United States army uniforms have been obtained, by the kind permission of the United States Embassy, from official plates. (C. F. A.)
UNION (known locally as Union Hill and officially as Town
of Union), a town of Hudson county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on
the Hudson river, adjoining West Hoboken and Weehawken,
and opposite New York City. Pop. (1900), 15,187, of whom
5179 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 21,023. In the
foreign element Germans predominate. The town is served
by the railways passing through Weehawken and Hoboken.
The principal manufactures are silk goods, shirts and malt
liquors. In 1905 the factory products were valued at $3,512,451.
Originally a part of the township of North Bergen, Union was
incorporated as a separated township in 1861, and as a town,
under the name Town of Union, in 1864.
Town of Union must not be confused with Union township (pop. in 1910, 3419), Union county, incorporated in 1808; Union township (1910, 2756), Bergen county, incorporated in 1852; Union township (1910, 982), Ocean county, incorporated in 1846; and Union township (1910, 930), Hunterdon county, incorporated in 1853. Union township, Camden county, became Gloucester City in 1868, and Union township, Hudson county, became West New York in 1898.
UNION, a town and the county-seat of Union county, South Carolina, U.S.A., about 66 m. N.W. of Columbia. Pop. (1900) 5400, of whom 1701 were negroes; (U.S. census 1910) 5623. Union is served by the Southern and the Union & Glenn Springs railways; the latter connects at Pride, 16 m. distant, with the Seaboard Air Line. The city is situated in the Piedmont region near the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It is the seat of Clifford Seminary for Young Women (opened, 1881; chartered, 1883), and has a Carnegie library. Union is in a rich cotton-growing, farming and fruit-growing region, and deposits of gold, magnetic iron ore, marble and granite are found. The town has several large cotton mills and a large knitting mill. Union was settled about 1755 and was incorporated as a town in 1872.
UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA, THE, sometimes called the Loyal League, an organization for political purposes of Northern whites, later of Southern blacks, which originated in Ohio in 1862 when the Confederate military successes and political disaffection in the Northern states made the outlook for the North seem doubtful. Within one year it had spread over eighteen Northern states and among the Unionists of the South. The order raised troops, paid their expenses, sent supplies to the field and distributed political literature. At the close of the war it worked for radical reconstruction of the Southern states, punishment of the Southern leaders, confiscation of property and negro suffrage. The Southern Unionists hoped to make it the nucleus of a new political party, but this was frustrated by the admission of the blacks for political purposes, after which the Southern whites generally deserted the League. After the Freedmen’s Bureau agents and other Northern whites obtained command of the League in the South it became simply a machine to control the votes of the blacks. The League ceased to be important in the North, though headquarters were in New York City. Each Southern state had its grand council and each county one or more councils. A constitution and an elaborate ritual were adopted, making it an oath-bound secret order, whose members were sworn to support one another on all occasions, to vote in elections only for negroes or Northern men, and to overthrow the Southern “white oligarchy.” No ex-Confederate and few Southern Unionists were permitted to join. At each meeting the members were taught from a catechism prepared by Radical members of Congress that they must beware of their white neighbours as their worst enemies, that the Democratic party, to which the Southern whites belonged, had opposed emancipation and was still opposed to any rights for the negro. In order to prevent moral control of the negroes by former masters, the League, by an “exodus order,” required all negroes who were still living with their former masters to find other homes. The negroes were taught the equality of men and the right of the negro to his master’s property. The votes of blacks, during reconstruction, were controlled by the few white Radical leaders. No negro could safely break away and vote independently. Negroes who voted with the mass of the Southern whites were persecuted, beaten or (as in a few cases) killed. The League died out about 1870, but not before it had succeeded, with the Freedmen’s Bureau and other forces, in permanently arraying the blacks and whites into opposing political parties. (W. L. F.)
UNIONTOWN, a borough and the county-seat of Fayette
county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., about 40 m. S. by E. of
Pittsburg. Pop. (1900) 7344 (449 foreign-born); (1910) 13,344.
Uniontown is served by the Pennsylvania and the Baltimore
& Ohio railways. Coal, iron and natural gas are found in
the neighbouring region. The manufactures include glass
products, iron, steel, enamel, radiators, coke, flour and bricks.
