Bearded Elegance

I'm pretty used to beards...not on myself, of course, but on my loved ones.  My hubby is growing a goatee, a move initiated by Hurricane Allison's confiscation of his razor's charger cord.  My Dad has always had a beard since I can remember.  The weirdest part of him having chemo was losing his facial hair.  I don't know if I would have recognized him walking by on the street.  Of course if he had driven by with his Casey's coffee cup on top of his car, I would have known him right away, but that's beside the point.

Anyway...this labored introduction is meant to bring about the comment that I just read of an interesting reader's poll at Smithsonian.com.  I, thanks to my bearded Pops, am a faithful subscriber to Smithsonian magazine where they cover all manner of interesting things.  The poll had eight rebs and/or yanks to vote on according to who had the most likeable beard hair.  Who comes up with this stuff?  Isn't the Smithsonian supposed to be really intelligent and staid?  Hmmm...Maybe I could get a job as a Smithsonian blogger...

I've always been fascinated by the uniqueness of the facial hair during the Civil War.  You can almost always place the soldiers in the correct era by that alone, and I should know, because I've seen Ken Burns's The Civil War multi-volume documentary not one, but two times.

Here are the pictures of the nominees.  I've pared the list down to the six most magnificent and striking candidates.  They also had free pictures to use on Wikipedia, an added benefit. Cast your vote below for the beard hair that makes the biggest impression on you...I'll announce the winner in a week or so and do a brief biography, with the help of my historical buff hubby. (I thought about putting a comma between those modifiers, but didn't want to get too seedy.)  And if you're rolling your eyes right now and thinking that I'm just plain weird, remember that this was the Smithsonian's idea first, not mine.

All disclaimers covered, we'll get to the nominees.

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER!!!!

Nominee #1:

George Crook
Quite Impressive

Nominee #2:

Adelbert Ames
A sophisticated way to hide an incisor gap.

Nominee #3:

Alpheus Williams
A bird lover's built in perch.

Nominee #4:

Ambrose Burnside
He'd have been a better barber...
Got a great story about his bridge at Antietam, but I won't tell, in order to protect the guilty...you know who you are!!!

Nominee #5:

Christopher C. Augur
Whiskers of wispiness...

And finally, Nominee #6:

J.E.B. Stuart
I'm sure there is a pistol hidden in there somewhere.

Add your vote to the comment section, I'll tally and post the results next week along with a bio...really, this is educational!