How Much Of A Difference Would It Have Made If Civil War Soldiers Had Nike Shoes?

So this was a question on yesterday’s critically acclaimed KFC Radio with Kirk Minihane and, quite serendipitously, the above tweet also happened to go rather viral yesterday.

Now, when I initially heard the question I scoffed at the idea that footwear and modern technology, things like Under Amrour Cold Gear, would have had any affect whatsoever. Why did I do that? Well, it’s simple: I played in Nikes and Under Armour and didn’t go pro, so how the hell does it help? I looked good, I played meh, and that was the extent of the influence that these things had on my performance. I’d take the field for warmups wearing a Cold Gear turtle neck with my receiving gloves velcroed around my face mask like Randy Moss, and I’d still spend the game blowing my hands on the bench to keep them warm, reffusing to break Randy Moss character and putting on the aforementioned gloves, just to make the other team think a secret weapon was waiting to be unleashed. If these things couldn’t even get me in a New England prep school football game then how could they turn Walter Dover of the Union into Jon Snow.

However, after talking to some people and seeing just how bad these shoes wear, I will concede it would have been a difference maker. Not a major one, but maybe you survive one more battle because of it. Perhaps you’ll be agile enough to dodge one bayonete and write a goodbye letter to mother before you get your head taken off with a cannonball if you had some ankle support. But I refuse to believe it would be a huge difference maker. If you were awesome at war then you’d be awesome at war in Peter Pan shoes or Air Maxes, if you stunk at war then you’d still stink at war. No one is turning into an Avenger just because they had shoelaces and a swoosh.