Confederates & Cowboy Boots

Part of Civil War @ Charleston Website By Brent Brown1st. S.C. Cavalry
This article discusses the cowboy boot, and how the date of its invention precludes its from having been used by Confederate Cavalry in the Civil War.
Over the years of re-enacting, many correct and incorrect items have been used. One item that stills surfaces is the pointed toe cowboy boot. This item is most often associated with units claiming to be Texas units, especially Terry‘s Texas Rangers. (This unit was not made up of Texas Rangers at all but rather the 8th Texas Cavalry. The nick name was added later.) I have found the cowboy boot Texas Confederate to generally be from states other then Texas and have not noted these boots on Jim Jones‘s Terry‘s Texas Rangers based out of Texas. The following excerpt is from Man on Horseback, by Glenn R. Vernam, copyright in 1964 and originally published by Harper & Row, NY, NY, now reprinted in 1972 by the University of Nebraska Press (Bison Books), Lincoln, Nebraska, page 346.
His [American cowboy] boots fortunately, have not been subject to so much change as his hat. Ever since the familiar cowboy style came into being, only minor variations have marked its course.
In the beginning, of course, he wore whatever he could get. Moccasins, shoes, farmer boots, cavalry boots, and boots of the eastern gentlemen type-all did yeoman service in keeping the cowboy shod. Cavalry and southern planter styles were in the majority until an open-minded book maker and a cowboy got their heads together to create a design with features unique in horseback history.
This event took place at Spanish Fort, Texas, in 1878. The cowboy‘s name seems to be buried under the debris of time, but the bootmaker was a young fellow by the name of H. J. Justin. Justin had shown up in Spanish Fort that year, newly arrived from Indiana. He had two bits in his pocket and a roll of boot leather under his arm. He was looking for an opportunity.
Fortunately, one of the first customers to enter the tiny shed room where he had set up shop was the cowboy who had some revolutionary ideas about boots suitable to his occupation. He, too was looking for an opportunity to get what he wanted. Their conference opened the door to a new era in cowboy footwear.
The product thus born of kindred minds took its departure from old standards by having a slender toe which would not hang in the stirrup, a steel-shank arch for riding comfort, and a uniquely shaped heel built for utmost foot security when braced against a rope, while eliminating most of the old danger of a foot going through the stirrup when mounted.
Those who saw the new creation were quick to recognize the features so ideally devised for range work. As a body, they approved, making Justin‘s style the leader it still is.
This turn of affairs naturally cracked the shell of bootmakers all over the West. By shortly after 1880, the new style was fairly standard where ever men rode. Most of the fraternity considered it a development exceeded only by the invention of the saddle.