In the military history of the US, few things are as strange as American soldiers dressing up as “Zouaves” in Algerian mountain attire. The idea came from the French, and was appropriated by Elmer Ellsworth who was the first Union officer to die in the American Civil War.
A Zouave unit or two fought at Antietam, which I biked through today. A fellow dressed as a 19th Century Algerian, bleeding to death in the corn fields along the Maryland-Pennsylvania-West Virginia border is just .... bizarre.
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