Concerning uniforms and equipment, an after Seven Days, August 3, 1862 letter from Col. David Wyatt Aiken to Lt. Col Elbert Bland [original captain of Company H, the Ninety Six Riflemen] at home recovering in Edgefield states, “I will…proceed to give you another epistle in detail of the doings of the Camp…We have cleaned up our Campsite and now with a considerable addition of tents we look more cheerful & far more comfortable. In addition to some forty-five flys given us by the department { I also got from Petersburg] twenty very good “bell” and “army” tents…also nearly all of our cooking utensils…I also sent four wagons a day or two since down to the Yankee Camps and have brought up boxes, planks, old tent cloths & many other little article…[such as] stools, tables, tent floor.” Aiken continues, “Kershaw has not done much at drilling, but I think will do very well…Kershaw too has issued an order requiring all officers to be regularly uniformed within a certain time & this too has caused the dry bones of many of the Lieuts to rattle, for really procuring uniforms is a job now of no little import. From $80 to $100 for a coat in Rich[mond] is supremely unmerciful but there is no getting around it now. I went a few days ago & bought twelve swords & belts for them in Rich. The belts are very nice indeed, English, recently ran the blockade; the swords are made eight miles above Rich, and look like rough specimens…”

At Chickamauga in Kershaw’s, 9 officers and 56 enlisted were killed, 38 officers and 400 enlisted were wounded and one enlisted man was listed as missing. Kershaw reported that in the 7th, “ Lieut. Col. Elbert Bland, Seventh South Carolina, fell at the head of his regiment in the first moment of our triumph. A few moments later Maj. John S. Hard, [original captain Company F, Graniteville Riflemen] his successor, was instantly killed. The command then devolved on Capt. E. J. Coggins.”

The 7th for the war lost to disease and combat related deaths 496 men.