"Wabash 1791 - winter gear?" Topic

Just read the Wargames Illustrated article. Intrigued… I have some random castings of Foundry Revolutionary French casualties & have always fancied doing a winter diorama so may do some converting. However…

From the Osprey plates everyone is running round in the November snows in the same clothing as they would wear in summer, including bare-chested Indians. Did people really not wear scarves, gloves, or otherwise try to cover up in frigid conditions?

Yes, 18th century Americans wore heavy winter gear when conditions warranted and when they could get it, but it seems that Wabash was fought with both sides in their street clothes, with many individuals being ragged and/or naked. Here are the factors as I figure them:

18th century folks were generally hardier and less sensitive to climate than we desk-bound, TV-watching moderns, especially on the frontier. They lived more outdoors than we do. Buildings were poorly heated. A man's ordinary outfit included hat, shirt, waistcoat *and* coat, summer and winter; only the hat was removed indoors. Men might take their coats off for heavy labor, but removing the waistcoat left one 'naked' in his shirtsleeves and was not done in polite company. Greatcoats, scarves and mittens were worn only under the most extreme conditions.

Indian warriors were even hardier than whites and generally stripped for battle. There wasn't much difference in temperature between the inside and outside of an Indian lodge. Most of the heat from the fire went up the smoke-hole, while the walls only served to break the wind, had no insulation value.

Wabash was fought in November. That's early in the local winter, just after the end of autumn. Those snow drifts in the Osprey plates aren't very deep yet.

St. Clair had not planned a winter campaign and his army wasn't equipped for one. He had gotten a late start, made slow progress, and stayed in the field so late only because he was desperate to end the campaign with a victory.

There is an anecdote that, shortly before Wabash was fought, a batch of uniform coats was delivered to St. Clair's camp. These were not greatcoats, just ordinary wool broadcloth regimental coats. There weren't enough to go around to all the men who needed coats: the Levies in particular had been issued short, poor-quality coats which were now thread-bare and ragged. So. St, Clair ordered that the new coats should be offered first to the Levies, to any of them who would enlist in the regulars, the First or Second American Regiments. And it is recorded that a number of the Levies then and there enlisted in the regulars, just to get a decent wool coat.

I have the Wabash Osprey, and I believe the plates.

"Those snow drifts in the Osprey plates aren't very deep yet."

Oh, that's OK then!

Ah Ok so it's a case of we-soft-moderns… interesting!

"If you don't get scalped or shot, you'll catch your death!"

Nice summation, Zippy!

Hardier, thinner "survivor" types on both sides. Rawboned and short-lived folks whose conception of life was one of working/existing either a majority of time in the outdoors in ALL sorts of weather or confined (in a town) to a chair in an invariably cold, dark artisan's shop.

Houses relatively small (through the 1940's-50's in the eastern US) not only because of cost of fuel, but because your house was used basically for sleeping and eating (except for the woman of the house who's working life confined them to the homestead like a prisoner in chains). Men were in the fields or at their trade most of the waking day. Exceptions included invalids, elderly realtives and members of any one of numerous clubs and fraternities who could a spend some hours a week at a tavern/meeting hall to enjoy the sort of pastime that isn't easily understood in today's electronically captivated world.

"Field expedient" measures to keep warm, while maintaining 18th-19th century western concepts of clothing "decency", might have included any number of options. Certainly WWI & WWII history is replete with soldiers "making do" by stuffing their regulation coats with newspapers etc. In the ACW not every union soldier was issued a "great coat" and anyone familiar with even a replica union army sack coat can grasp that in the summer heat it must have been oppresive and in the winter it was almost useless against the challenges of a typical North American winter…
Yet how many battles in the ACW were recorded as having been fought in shirtsleeves or with gloves? How many American Revolutionary battles fought the same way? In the winter most european/western armies stood-down in quarters to avoid the additional misery of winter warfare. How many of those that DID fight through the winter 1500's – 1850's were equipped with proper gear?

Again, acceptable to a common soldier (or even officer) when few contemporary civilians had anything better.

Different times, different folks. (Met a man years ago who was a Western Union delivery "boy" in NYC in the early 20th century… wore a woolen uniform which was not only required to be kept spotless, but worn with military-like discipline throughout the hot summer months… Unacceptable – and probably open to litigation now – but the norm back then.)

"Iron men in wooden ships"

Yeah, at the opposite extreme Austrian soldiers were dying of heat-stroke in their regulation great coats in scorching Italy in 1866…

I dug my Revolutionary French out of the attic. They will indeed convert nicely for the purpose. However they wear hairy packs which while fine for the US army in that period are absent from the Osprey plate scene reproduced in the article. It'll be very easy to chop the pack off the seated casualty (I'm planning to back him up against a fallen tree-stump) but the prone pose would take more work… is a pack being worn out of place or can I get away with it?

Also does anyone make Indians in triumphant or scalping poses?

CS: Also does anyone make Indians in triumphant or scalping poses?

In one of the Old Glory F&IW packs, it might be 'Advancing With Clubs and Hatchets', there's a fellow holding a knife in his right hand, waving a fresh scalp in his left hand, and giving a yell of triumph. I have three of them painted up, you can't have them. I might have another one or two still unpainted. Want me to look?

Dixon has a two-figure vignette of some poor sod in a British regimental coat about to get a haircut, while an Indian warrior pulls on his hair and aims his knife for the cut. It's in their F&IW catalog.

Yeah sure- I could do you a pair of the 1791 US conversions by way of return?

Zippy & CS!

Wonder if you two could update me on your efforts on "St. Clair's" campaign figures. Some years ago I started trying to convert Perry AWI – regulars and hunting shirt militia with some Conquest indians. Kept the tricorne for the US regulars but gave up after some disappointing painting efforts.

Thanks!

Charlie

Sorry Steve, I checked my stock but the unpainted scalpers didn't turn up. I'll let you know if any do. I can't be sure which Old Glory bag they're from. There are no pictures of most of the F&IW Indians on the Old Glory 24s site.

Charlie, I don't know if you want to follow my example re miniatures. I'm pretty liberal when it comes to uniform details.

I'll use whatever bluecoats I can lay hands on for Harmer's regulars, St. Clair's regulars and Wayne's regulars. I justify my laxness by theorizing that corrupt contractors and long supply lines left many frontier garrison troops of the early Republic without their full uniform allowance, and led to use of field expedients.

The correct headgear for the regulars at Wabash was a round hat with fur crest and plume, very similar to the Wayne's Legion hat a few years later. The Levy hats were noted to be very poor quality, and some men at the battle must have worn non-regulation replacement hats and caps. Pointy tricornes would have been very old-fashioned by 1791.

Hunting shirts are a good choice for 1790s American frontier militia. I have a couple hundred frontier militia painted up, figures from many different manufacturers, a motly mob. I like them motly.

Likewise my Indians are a couple hundred figures from different manufacturers with as much variety as possible. If a warrior or two turns up in an F&IW regimental coat, I justify it by theorizing that he inherited the coat from his grandfather.

link

This Crusader pack seems a good one for the diorama. The signalling hand could easily be converted to be brandishing a scalp…

"The correct headgear for the regulars at Wabash was a round hat with fur crest and plume, very similar to the Wayne's Legion hat a few years later."

Z,

Had not come across that one before. Was it something that came in with Harmar's & St Clair's regulars?

Thomas, I rely on the usual secondary sources.

Company of Military Historians plate "The U.S. Battalion of Artillery, 1786-1794" quotes Harmer asking specifically for cocked hats for his troops in 1788. This could imply that some other headgear had been issued, but it's only an implication. That CMH plate shows all officers and men in cocked hats of the late AWI style, with the front point so blunted that the hat is almost a bicorn, except for one matross in a jacked leather jockey cap, with fur crest and red plume on left. I have a lot of questions about that jockey cap. There are no specific year dates on any of the figures.

Osprey MAA 352 The United States Army 1783-1811 and Gregory Urwin The United States Infantry both show the 1st American Regiment in blunted cocked hats as late as 1787.

I think cocked hats are the likeliest headgear for Harmer's men in 1790. But some might have worn round hats, with or without crest and/or plume, some might have had 'expedient' felt light infantry caps, with or without plumage, and some might even have worn that odd jockey cap.

MAA 352 and Osprey Campaign 240 Wabash 1791 both show round hats, pinned up on left side, with fur crest and red plume on left for 1st American Infantry under St. Clair in 1791.

Wayne's Legion headgear is well known and the round hats seem to have been standard for all infantry, light infantry and rifles. Except that in 1792, Wayne specifically ordered the whole legion to make light infantry caps. The issue of hats must have been late, or of bad quality that year. Wayne once ordered the entire Pennsylvania Line to make themselves light infantry caps out of their worn-out cocked hats when they were under his command in the Revolution.

A cocked hat is nothing but a slouch hat with the brim pinned up. A round hat is a slouch hat with a narrower brim. One way to extend the life of a worn-out cocked hat is to trim the ragged edge off the brim. Or cut the whole thing up into a light infantry cap. A fur crest could cover a worn-out crown, and bearskin was easy to get in the Ohio country. Good officers tried to keep their men in regulation uniform, but I'm sure the frontier army used as many expedients in the 1790s as later.

No two modern artists completely agree on the details of any of these hats or caps. Brims are wider or narrower, pinned up or not, crowns higher or lower, trim details vary. I don't know of any surviving original examples. I've never seen one in a contemporary picture.

That's all I know, and quite a bit that I guess.

Zippy

I was aware of the Urwin and Kochan treatments for the early US Army and of course the Legion is well known. But the pics showing St Clair's men in crested round hat gave me pause. I was expecting men in cocked hats. However the round hat & crest is entirely credible within the threads of civilian and military fashion for the late 1780s – 1790s.

Mad Anthony's pension for cutting down hats into LI caps is well know, I am amazed he managed to supress it so long when in command of the Legion.

As to contemporary renditions, there is a version of Trumbull's Yorktown painting in which the LI officers at front right are in crested round (top) hats

link

That said the version I am most familiar with shows LI caps
link

The levies in the background of the painting of Washington reviewing the troops in the Whiskey Rebellion are supposed to be in round hats although you might need a microscope to make it out in any version I have seen!

You are right that good officers would attempt to ensure some kind of uniformity – I suspect the quality of the hats provided may have explained Wayne's cap fetish. Simcoe's memoirs in the AWI comments on the poor quality contract hats, hence at least some parts of the QAR being in caps.

Thanx for the pix Thomas.