"Poll on Continental uniforms ... what's your preference?" Topic

I've been busy painting AWI units, and was wondering what the rest of you are doing when it comes to Continental regiments. With so much variation and changes over the course of the war, it seems that wargamers are left with lots of painting options. What are yours?

(a) Hunting shirts.
(b) Civilian clothing.
(b) Coat/facing colors based on actual documented historical units (e.g. 4th NY had white coats w/red facings in 1778)
(c) Generic units with brown and blue coats with red facings (seems like this was the most common, and also what the French sent over).
(d) 1779 uniform regulations.
(e) some combination of all of the above.

This is an open-ended poll, so feel free to answer it outside of the categories I listed above.

All of the above.

E…with one exception. Given the great variety of uniforms throughout the period I see no reason to settle for C.

All of the above

Not crazy about the 1779 regs as they were rarely followed.

A, both Bs, C

LT

If I know what they wore, I will paint it.
However my Continentals are almost as generic as my militia.
Let's face it. I don't have every single regiment painted and the 6th Pennsylvania has yet to appear as itself. It's been a lot of others though.

E for me, just whatever goes.

(e) some combination of all of the above

E I'm not a button counter & do what looks right for me.

E: Mainly uniformed with occasional figures in hunting shirts/civilian clothes/other uniforms.

E. I like having the different uniforms on the table, even if most *should* be in rather less than uniform dress. It's may game and I do what I like.

E.

E.

Predominantly C, with some hunting shirts mixed in. It helps that I am using them for mid-Atlantic colonial units. I do have some bases that are unit specific.

General Washington wanted his men to wear hunting shirts, if memory serves, which like all such regulations indicates it was probably not being extensively followed!!!

Personally I like hunting shirts for militia, and a mix of uniforms for Continentals, with a few hunting shirts added in.

Mostly blue or brown coats, with red or white facings.

(a) Hunting shirts tended to be pre-1778; there are very few recorded instances of them being issued after that, although a few units (eg the Delaware/Virginia light infantry under Kirkwood) appear to have had them as a uniform. Before mid-1776, they appear to have been company-coloured; after that, colour was by battalion/regiment.

(b1) Theoretically, all Continental units can have some men in civilian clothing, as new recruits would not always be kitted out straight away. The mjority of the Northern Army in 1777 did not receive uniforms until late October, so fought the entire Saratoga campaign in civvies.

(b2) Specific uniforms are ok, but bear in mind that not only did they only last for one particular year, they could also be just one of two or more "official" uniforms worn in that same year (especially early in the war when units were amalgamations of several pre-war militia units, or later on when State Lines were reduced due to lack of recruits).

(c) Generic brown or blue coats faced red were common for the 1777-1782 period, brown possibly more so as captured British coats were often dyed that colour, and blue dye became expensive as Colonial agents in Europe sought more and more blue cloth. Brown and blue faced white were also quite common, especially mid-war.

(d) The 1779 Regs were most likely only seen in 1780 (if then); as mentioned above, the price of blue cloth went up once it was known that Congress wanted lots of it, and brown was still being used in 1782.

(e) The combination of clothing will depend on both the year of the war you are depicting, and the combination of which States your troops come from (and from those two factors, whether it is the Northern, Main or Southern armies). 1775-76 will have lots of hunting shirts and civilian dress, plus the remnnants of some pre-war militia uniforms. 1777-78 will have more distinctive regimental uniforms, still with a good leavening of hunting shirts and civvies. 1779-81 will have mainly blue and brown, a few hunting shirts among light troops, and fewer civvies.

Two things to bear in mind:
(i) where only limited stocks of uniform clothing was available, it tended to go to the NCOs (and poorer officers), so command figures are likely to be uniformed regardless from 1777 onwards; and
(ii) within an individual unit, there would be an attempt to keep each company as uniform as possible, regardless of the overall state of the battalion/regiment (eg if two different types of coat were issued).

Super Max, I have had some correspondence with Don Troiani and his research indicates that the Northern Army was actually well-equipped with new uniforms for the Saratoga campaign (his paintings show this pretty clearly). He indicated that they received new uniforms in Albany as they were marching northward. In fact, they likely looked better than their British counterparts.

I have no idea why I included two (b)'s …! My own response is (c) with some units outfitted in hunting shirts.

I'd be interested in his sources (mine are Katcher, and Zlatich's two-volume Osprey MAA). He may well be talking about the New York regiments, which were indeed quite well supplied from Albany (as one would expect); but of course only two of them fought in the Saratoga campaign itself. Not all of the Northern Army would have marched via Albany, of course; many of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire units were there from early in 1777 (and had many 1776 re-enlistees in their ranks).

In August 1777, the New Hampshire regiments reported that no clothing had come to them and they had been issued "frocks" (I assume hunting shirts) and overalls from Massachusetts (the 2nd NH had its famous light blue faced red [Mollo/McGregor], but that was just for a few companies – other companies had different coats or none at all).

Massachusetts issued quite a lot of clothing (including about 2,000 hunting shirts) between February and August 1777, but of course many of its regiments were in the east around Boston and the Hudson forts. Most of the clothing issued from Albany to Mass. regiments seems to have gone out in early 1778, according to Zlatich.

Katcher has deserter descriptions for almost all of the Massachusetts regiments which show civilian clothing in every case. One unit (2nd Mass) is noted as receiving its "first uniforms" in December 1777 – from the clothing stores in Albany. Clothing was sent to Bennington at some point, but there's no indication of when, and to whom, it was issued.

Bear in mind that clothing issues might be something other than coats – eg hats, shoes, breeches and stockings, waistcoat etc.

At the surrender, a German officer wrote of Gates' men:

"Not a one of them was regularly equipped. Each one had on the clothes which he was accustomed to wear in the field, in the tavern, the church, and in everyday life."

Paint them based on what they were wearing, avoid generalities because they are often wrong.

In 1775 NE militia are going to be wearing their everyday clothes which does not included the hunting shirt. The hunting shirt was very uncommon in NE at that time. There is an account, from VA, of the difference between the hunting shirt and a smock. The hunting shirt comes down to the hips, and the smock is nearly down below the calf.

In 1780 the 10th Mass were wearing brown coats while the rest of the Mass Line were in blue. Washington sees them and has them broken up and distributed to the rest of the Mass Line. While reviewing the Mass Line he sees all the brown coats sprinkled in with blue, gets annoyed, and reconstitutes the 10th Mass.

For Americans, the way I did it is that I picked a campaign and then painted the units to match documented clothing for the units A, B & B. As for different uniform coats in the same regiment, that just adds flavor.

Rarely do E. Even at Yorktown, some eye witnesses reported that units had not received the 1779 uniform issue.
I paint the southern front more often than northern units.
So civilian dress was very common on both sides as were hunting shirts for rangers and frontiersmen.

My collection is 1750-81 In the south do I go with "c" as much as I can. Where there is no information iguess

Hunting shirts tended to be pre-1778; there are very few recorded instances of them being issued after that, although a few units (eg the Delaware/Virginia light infantry under Kirkwood)

SM there is some doubt about the Kirkwood's Delaware boys getting hunting shirts. It is depicted in a CMH plate by H Charles McBarron (who is usually reliable). This seems to originate in comments about a reinforcement of 85 men sent South in August 1781 "dressed in hunting shirts and ragged overalls" and is referenced as being from Major Caleb Bennett's journal published in PHS 1881.

As far as Ward goes he relates at the end of Chapter 39 the supplies woes of NC but states p 358 (not sourced) that "Each man got one new shirt, a short coat, a pair of woolen overalls or trousers, a pair of shoes and a hat or cap. There were not enough blankets to go around; they were distributed to each regiment in proportion to its numbers." Ward states that Morgan's corps fared better in this issue than most. No mention of hunting shirts – still much to be done but whilst not entirely myth seems to relate to a small number of reinforcements in late 1781 defintely not a Delaware look for Cowpens or Guilford Court House

There was a thread about this on Revlist starting in 2004 and continuing in 2013 link

Thomas – Thanks, I'll look at that.

" woolen overalls or trousers,… and a hat or cap"

Interesting. That passage would lead me to believe that overalls were not trouser, and that hats (cocked) were not caps. So they either got one or the other – at least the way I read that passage.

I don't understand the question. It makes very little difference what you prefer. You do your research, your due diligence and in the end if you do not have any documentation or even here say, then you make an educated guess. Based on the region, what other regiments uniforms etc.

That is probably why the common answer is "all the above."

I think that could be the reason for just about any choice.

I tried to like this period, even painted about 200 continental in various degrees of uniformity, but the more I read on it, the less I liked it. Sold them on TMP to a happy customer, He liked them. I didn't think they were that nifty.

historygamer I tend to agree with your interpretation but the passage you refer is Ward's prose and not a quote from a contemporary document so it is difficult to be sure precisely what he means. Of course Ward knew because he was basing it on something but alas does not clearly reference it but my suspicion is probably on the contents of Caleb Bennett's journal.

I prefer E. I NEVER have an entire unit in regimental uniform. Always hunting shirts and civilian clothes mixed in. and in most cases when uniforms are worn,multiple colors based on deserter descriptions.
Can be especially maddening when doing NY regiments.
I also reenact,and my primary set of clothing are civilian clothes,or a hunting shirt..

Bob C.

C.

Who besides Eureka and Dixon make Continentals in ragged uniforms? King's Mountain appear to be "campaign" rather than ragged or shabby.

E. I guess or all of the above.

Depends on the amount of documentation available on a particular unit.

Most of my variations you will find in my militia units. Some militia units I mix in a continental jacket or two.

It just depends. I can't generalize it to a particular method or scheme. Wrong period for that.

All of the Above