The Greatest Facial Hair Civil War Officers Had to Offer

Not breaking any incredible boundaries here, as it’s close to a standard beard. Where Meade deserves applause, however, is the impeccable sculpting. The same precision that gave him that perfectly apportioned mustache and polygonal chin protrusion must have come through in the precise tactics he employed to win the battle of Gettysburg.

This isn’t an achievement of restraint, but of pure, impressive volume. Porter’s beard is running wild here, a tamed deluge not unlike the seas he navigated as a Union naval officer. He’s credited with “opening the Mississippi,” which sounds like exactly what he might have told his barber to do.

Nothing like a classic soup-saver to add an air of authority. Now, let’s get ahead of the friction: Yes, Waddell was a Confederate officer (boo!), and he's not the only one on this list. For the purposes of my rankings, though, we must separate the mustache from the man. In which case we must agree this is a glorious, classic entry indeed.

Not content to simply let those two beautiful mouth curtains quiver in the brisk American air, Joshua Chamberlain added a small, jazzy soul patch to the equation. His bravery in the war, including his service as a colonel in the Battle of Gettysburg, earned him many accolades — a Medal of Honor, to start, as well as the top-notch nickname “Lion of Little Round Top” and fame that carried over to make him the Governor of Maine after the war. 

Could he have achieved all of this with a more boring face? Possible, but I’d argue this lovely little number definitely didn’t hurt.

In the same breath, sometimes a bit of restraint and re-apportionment can do wonders. The asymmetrical mouth-do that Chamberlain rocked was eye-catching, but George McClellan was confident to keep things in proportion, and it paid off. This is a Van Dyke the devil himself would be proud of. From the day this man enlisted, they hoped he would become a hero just so this portrait could get its proper due, and McClellan provided. 

I’d also like to point out, though not our primary focus, those immaculate eyebrows, built for a battlefield staredown.

Speaking of going outside our listed criteria, I fully understand that, by the letter of a law, I shouldn’t be considering headwear. But when a man dons a hat like this, at a tilt like that, it cannot be removed from the overall vibe. This would come in the same package with that soaring seagull positioned beneath his nose, with a sticker that read, “Not to be sold separately.” It’s also a look that has to be earned, which Sheridan did, along with the personal respect of Ulysses S. Grant.

Now, while impressive, this might be the first entry that at the same time is less than flattering. It’s a little bit Wilford Brimley, a little bit Anthrax’s Ian Scott, a clash that you can feel. Perhaps we can look at it in that very light, as an allegory for the war itself. Rigid tradition up top; freedom and new thoughts on bottom. The country certainly saw a little bit of themselves in Hancock, — he almost won the seat of the presidency in a race against James Garfield in 1880.

I may have referred to a previous mustache as a soup-saver, but here, despite the lack of mustache, is an absolute soup prison. Welles served as the Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln, and wielded all the power that this beard would suggest. His face even looks like the prow of a powerful warship, cutting through the salt and spray that his beard represents.

Not to overly belabor the turn of phrase, but we’ve shot past soup-saver and soup prison to CIA soup black site. This soup is never seeing its family again, and as far as the civilized world is concerned, never existed at all. It takes a powerful man to pull off looking like he’s halfway through swallowing a live skunk, but when you're Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of War, who the hell is going to say anything about it? 

In stark opposition to the restraint he showed choosing lenses at his optician, he let his chinstrap grow loud and proud into a veritable salt-and-pepper ascot.

Now we’re getting into sideburn territory, perhaps the bravest choice of all. Emphasizing cheek growth when you’re going for a facial statement is giving voice to the voiceless, power to the patchiest, riskiest strands your piehole has to offer. If beards are glamour muscles, a solid sideburn situation is a testament to testosterone’s foundational strength. This man was a general in three separate wars, and didn’t give a good god-damn how his hair naturally wanted to grow. The only reason he’s not ending our list is because of the sheer power of the final two entries.

A cliche inclusion, but for good reason. There’s no way you can, in good faith, document the facial hair of the United States and not acknowledge the chin-strap that saved the union. To do so would be dishonest, a trait Abe himself would disapprove of from on high. And yet, he doesn’t grace our headlining spot, because there is a man who means more to the world of facial hair.

No man with a beard regimen dares approach the throne of Ambrose Burnside. When someone, with the help of a bit of historical telephone, is the literal namesake of the sideburn, where else can you put him? It’s also proof-positive that this list has been made in a hair-forward fashion. Burnside’s actual military career can't hold a candle to many of the others on this list, yet, he remains their unimpeachable, hirsute leader. An icon in the world of creative razorwork.