"What colo(u)r is a regimental officer's saddlecloth?" Topic

Or, pistol holster flap… thingies?

Is it the facing color? And what about the trim?

I have the Kings Mountain 71st Highlanders, and got a mounted officer!
Up until now, I have confined myself to generals.

You cannot go wrong with blue. for either side.

Facing colour with lace in the official button colour (silver or gold).

Good question

Thank you. That's why I asked.

Humble? Yes
:)

I'm not sure there is any rhyme or reason to what color they were. I've seen dozens of portraits of officers, but most show them on foot, not mounted. There were no official warrants on this, so it might be up to the colonel and the officers' purses. During combat, only the officer commanding the battalion would likely to be mounted – which of course marked him out right away. Brigadiers and above would be mounted, but many brigadiers were simply colonels and below commanding a brigade, in their regimental uniform.

Let me rummage around on that one a bit.

It's for the 71st, so the facings are white.
I would not want a white saddlecloth.

Just have a plain grey blanket – the saddlecloth would be an expensive item and the officer might not want to risk it on campaign (in the same way that officers often wore a converted soldier's coat to avoid wear and tear on their regimentals).

I have a feeling that supra-regimental officers would have a red saddlecloth, laced gold if they were generals (even though nominally a Lt Col), or silver if they were from the Adjutant General or Quartermaster General staffs, but let's see what historygamer comes up with.

Quick response on the staff officers – it has been shown in portrait after portrait that ths staff officers serving in NY wore gold, not silver – and very contrary to the regulations. Go figure.

Didn't get a chance to pull this thread last night. Hope to tonight.

Really, the question only comes down to a handful of men on horses during a battle – the generals and maybe the battalion commanders.

I enjoyed reading in Ewald that when Clinton hit the shore for the siege of Charleston he had no horse at all for a while, as I guess they all died during the trip.

I like your grey blanket answer, and suspect any worn in the field were rather small and not fancy.

The figure has a saddlecloth, with a border.
I would have preferred a blanket.

Rub a bit of putty over the border to delete it and, hey presto, you've got a blanket.

Here is the answer from one of the leading authorities on British uniforms:

Cavalry officers used a regimental pattern. General officers appear to have followed their own tastes. We see variety among field officers of different line and militia infantry regiments. I would not be surprised if there were regimental patterns, but we do not have enough examples to establish that as fact.

I think the reason we don't know more is that there are few surviving portaits of officers pictured with a horse. Regiments did seem to have a "pattern" for their coats, swords, etc, but most of this was connected to their best uniform. Probably likely for an saddlery too, but either the records have not been documented in research and writings, or it hasn't been found.

This is the only example I have been able to find. It depicts two mounted officers of the 25th Foot whilst in garrison in Minorca, around the 1769-1771 period. Just to be annoying, the views of the horse furniture are unclear and could be either facing colour or red, judging by the pistol holsters, with the main shabraque obscured in both cases. Just to further complicate matters, the year – 1769 – is the one immediately after the Clothing Warrant, when many regiments were simply attempting to do whatever they could to try and interpret the new regulations (the troops of all ranks still have the SYW-era red waistcoats, for example – however, the 25th had already been wearing bearskin caps for some time before they became official).

link

Strachan's book on 1768-1796 uniforms has a mounted officer (a Lt Col St Leger, but not the Stanwix one), whose shabraque looks like it is facing colour with officer's metal lace, but it is hard to be sure as it is b/w.

The King's Mountain Colonel comes with a saddle cloth and border trim. It also has a monogram on the corner.
I guess I will bite the bullet and paint it white, with red trim.
I guess I will paint the monogram black too.

BTW, the Old Glory command pack has a similar "Simon Fraser" as another Scottish officer, with trousers and a bonnet. One arm has a strange pose, with a clenched fist behind his back. Very odd pose for a mounted officer, I would think. He is in the "primed but not yet painted" box.

Most of my generals have blue cloth with yellow borders, if they have them visible.

Here is Colonel John Hayes St. Leger about 1782:

link

Appears to be fur over a red saddle cloth with metal lace trim.

Incidentally he started the war as a Captain in the 55th Foot and is often mistaken for Barry St. Leger.

Here is Captain Orme from the prior War, Braddock's aide if I recall correctly:

link

Appears to be blue, which is also his facing color.

Captain Cousmaker, of the Guards in 1782, appears to be an at home painting:

Appears to be fancy and primarily red with blue device.

These are the only other paintings that come to mind other than the Minorca paintings.

I am going to check some photographs I took at the British National Army Museum to see if any more pop up.

Did a quick check of my photos from the National Army Museum and found the following:

Painting of Cornwallis in India with red saddle cloth trimmed in gold.

Painting of George III reviewing troops. His Majesty is wearing an army uniform and has a fairly plain red saddle cloth with gold trim.

Painting of another British officer probably in India with Cornwallis, red saddle cloth with gold trim and some sort of jaguar patterned material where pistols would be stowed.

Minorca painting of officer riding with lady, red blanket with gold trim, but he might be riding a donkey or mule!

I have a canvas reproduction of this painting: link In it one of the officer's pistol holders is red with ornate blue and gold trim. It is too dark in the painting to make out the rest.

That's the St Leger picture I was thinking of – didn't realise it is actually fur. Very hard to tell, could be a red shabraque, could just be red borders around the lace.

The leopard pattern was not unusual, and often fake. It was usually painted onto a fabric, or so I am lead to believe for the dragoon unit that used it on their helmet.