Imagine going into battle fearing that your loved ones might never know about you in the event you were wounded or killed.This was a real fear for Civil War soldiers as neither the U.S. or Confederate governments provided their soldiers with identification tags. Soldiers that understood that they may very well be injured or killed prepared for the worst by making their own "tags."
Many soldiers stenciled everything they were issued. This served two purposes: 1) It helped prevent theft of the item and 2) it served as a means of identification if wounded or killed. If the fallen soldier did not stencil any equipment, the mortuary workers used the notebooks, letters and diaries the soldiers carried to help in identification. Some soldiers even wrote their names on strips of paper which they then pinned to the backs of their coats.
The soldiers that really prepared bought identification items from non-government sources before going off to war. Harper's Weekly, Leslie's and other popular magazines carried advertisements for ornate gold or silver pins that could be worn on a man's coat. The pins were usually shaped to suggest a branch of service and engraved with the soldier's name and unit.
Men who could not afford such pins could purchase brass or lead machine stamped tags from sutlers that followed the armies around on their campaigns. Selling from roadside tents, the sutlers would sell many goods at highly inflated prices.
But hope the info helps... I'll see if I can find anything else.
