What were those odd-looking black helmets with spikes or plumes and brass decorations that appeared in historic photographs of American soldiers on parade or in portrait studios during the western Indian wars of America's Victorian Age?
Gordon Chappell, after more than thirty years of extensive research, identifies an array of helmets and answers questions about when, where and how such helmets came to be manufactured and worn.
Using specimens from museums, private collections, and historic photographs, Chappell has completed the definitive work on American military helmets from 1872-1904. Detailed and extensively illustrated with over 160 photographs, Brass Spikes and Horsetail Plumes is a must for any collector of American military headgear, as well as those interested in military photography of this period.