New York Cockade Device

New York Cockade Device - Very ornate Cockade Device.  Black silk cockade with dark blue wool field bearing the New York State Seal in brass. 

By the time of the Civil War, cockades came in many colors depending on the wearer’s particular views.  Wearing a cockade could be dangerous.In some places, the government actually outlawed cockades. In Baltimore on September 7, 1861, the Public Ledger reported, “The Government is determined to put a stop to the Secession cockades and other emblems which have been so unblushingly exhibited in Baltimore for months past and those found wearing them in the future will be arrested as traitors against the Government.”Cockades were the outward symbols of the underlying passions of the war. Harper's Magazine declared in 1861, “The passengers in the streets wear badges, rosettes, and cockades of the trinity of patriotic colors. In shawls, in cravats, in ribbons, the same tricolor appears. . . You feel something in men's motions; you see something in the general manner of the throng in the street before you read it recorded upon the board or in the paper. There is but one thought and one question. The people are soldiers. The country is a camp. It is war.” (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 23, June - November, 1861).

Cockade display continued through 1865, gaining popularity during political events such as the 1864 presidential election. And when President Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, thousands wore black mourning cockades, or re-used presidential campaign cockades now edged in black to show their public grief.

Inventory Number: UNI 029