"Highlander loyalists at Moore's Creek: uniform? " Topic

To my surprise a search did not reveal any posts about this topic. I've read about the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge a bit and it features in the novel "The Scotswoman", but can a bone fide AWI gamer or uniform buff tell me how the No. Carolinas loyalists ("Tories") from the Scottish Highland communities were garbed at this engagement? Was Highland dress in either military or civilian fashion a norm, and did pipers play?

I'm trying to separate fiction from fact in my own mind. It's an intriguing period and campaign to me, but I've never had the chance to truly research it or get involved in any AWI games -- just no one doing this in my area.

Don Troiani thinks they looked like this:

link

Coincidentally I just finished assembling and priming figures for them last night.
I used the King's Mountain "Over Mountain Men" with the heads for the 71st. In other words, hillbillies. And I am not sure about the military hat.

I am not sure about Troiani's plate for several reasons.
First I don't think that the North Carolina hillbillies had access to Highland garb. The industrial base for one.
Secondly, the wearing of tartan was supposed to be illegal, particularly for Jacobite refugees.
Thirdly, these were civilians and he is wearing the military bonnet in 1775.

Having said all that I have trolled out all my Highlanders with broadswords to use at this battle because I want to get them done and NOBODY makes "hillbillies with broadswords wearing flat bonnet".

Btw I have always laughed at the idea of a civilian or militia "uniform ".
Particularly Highlanders.

I see occasionally references to Gaul or Viking "uniform" too.

The battlefield is nice to visit. My wife's grandparents lived nearby so we have stopped several times.

Did the prohibition on wearing highland dress even apply to the colonies?

I'm fairly certain from my research that the NC Loyalists at Moore's Creek had no uniform. Some may have had various Scot influenced pieces of clothing but it's highly highly doubtful that anyone was dressed as well as the man in Troiani's painting, let alone entire groups of men. The men at Moore's Creek were recently recruited Loyalist militia, they were marching to Wilmington to join with the British forces located there for the first time. Other than their commanding officer leading the march how would any of these men been uniformed in anything from the interior of North Carolina, let alone in specialized Scot garb? They would have looked like any other militia man from the period, that is to say without a uniform.

I would recommend if you wanted to recreate this battle to use standard AWI era militia figures for the vast majority of the units, with a sprinkling of hats or maybe a kilt or two for color. I would not make the units look uniform and I would most certainly not do them up as akin to a Highlander Regiment.

JPIPES, Agreed. There is no chance that all of those men had that spiffy costume that Troiani portrays. Where would they have obtained them?
Maybe an article of Scottish clothing, most likely a hat, would have made an appearance for old times sake.

Can you really imagine men dressed in that garb? Remember, these were everyday people, living on the edge of civilization. How could they have afforded such items? And where did they get them from?
Perhaps the commanding officer and a few of the wealthier officers could have dressed like this, but the average soldier ….no chance.
I think that Don may have gotten this one wrong.

Winston, You refer to my figures as Hillbillies. Unless they were the Beverly Hillbillies, how could they afford unforms of any kind? Hillbillies are poor folk living off the land. Not English poofs, parading around in a matching costumes.

Winston tastes good,(knock,knock) like a cigarette should.

There, I said it.

Here's a few threads re Moore's Creek

TMP link

TMP link

TMP link

TMP link

Bonnet making was quite a specialised trade, concentrated in and around the Ayrshire town of Kilmarnock. Highlanders adopted the cap from the Lowlands, so it's moot point how many would be available to inland settlers in the Carolinas.

Ditto woven plaid cloth- although a hand loom weaving tradition may have survived among Scottish settlers.

I doubt the ban on wearing of Highland garb would have affected the production of home spun plaid cloth much if they had the means and so wished. It seems the edict was not enforced with any great vigour after the first few years following the '45. They would have had to improvise dyes as many of the traditional plant dyes would not have been available.

I am not familiar with the battle of Moore's Bridge. I am curious where did the supply of broadswords, with which the Loyalists were armed, come from. These were expensive items not available to the common man. Were they from military stores?

Good answers, thanks all! 42flanker is better at working the TMP search engine than I was. And many other good observations.

Some of the Highland Scots who settled in those No. Carolina communities were very recent immigrants (e.g., the famous Flora MacDonald and her family arrived in 1774), and presumably the notion is that many brought traditional clothing or cloth with them, and maintained a sense of tribal identity for a good while. (This seems to be Inglis Fletcher's context in "The Scotswoman", anyway, which is very evocative if not 100% accurate.) So some of the traditional accoutrements may have been at hand, either in common use still or having been put away for special occasions. It is not hard to picture Highlanders only away from their native hills a few years pulling out some treasured weapons or plaids or even bagpipes from the chests and cabinets when militia were raised. Were any items supplied to the loyalist militia from official stores or were they entirely self-dressed and equipped?

The ban on Highland clothing does not seem to have been enforced too strongly even in Britain by this time, if it ever was more than a very selective ban (this is a serious matter of discussion among Scottish cultural historians and there is a lot written on the subject), and I very much doubt it carried any clout in the colonies. So I'd rule this out as an influence, personally.

I would imagine that any plaid garments that arrived with emigrants in North America would have been worn as a matter of course till they wore out, rather than being tucked away in a press. Highland folk wore 'tartan' because that was how they wove their cloth (and wool was readily available).The notion of wearing Highland dress only for special occasions is very much a post-Walter Scott phenomenon.

I think, too, that any bagpipes that travelled over with emigrants would have been played regularly by their owners – ("Practice, practice, practice!"). I'm fairly certain there wasn't a ban on music since there was a considerable overlap between Highland and Lowland. Perhaps I am mistaken.

As I say, there can't have been many swords tucked away since only the higher status folk would have had these expensive heirlooms- and presumably most of the Jacobite diaspora, other than fugitives of the '45 itself, arrived minus plaid and weapons as a result of the ban on Highland dress and the bearing of weapons.

It's interesting to consider what the differing attitudes might have been between Jacobite settlers and Scottish settlers of the Whig persuasion, loyal to the House of Hanover ('Tory' and 'Whig' had diametrically opposite meanings in Britain to what was understood in America)

Presumably, Jacobite exiles would have ignored any attempt to extend the government edict to the colonies (unlikely though that may have been) and sported plaid clothing where and when they chose, while Scottish Whigs emigrants would have considered that the ban did not apply to them, since they were loyal and need not suffer any suppression of their identity. However since most of the Wigs would have been Lowlanders this is straying into the realms of theory. Discharged men from Highland regiments after 7YW would be a case in point. It would be interesting to know what specific research has been done into differing attitudes among Scottish colonists in America.

yes, I'd find this fascinating reading myself. It's very intriguing how so many Scots who might have had Jacobite sympathies once, or been from Jacobite families, rather surprisingly, one might think, remained loyal to the Hanoverian crown when the American Revolution broke out. (Flora MacDonald is a case in point, altho' she married the son of a Hanoverian clan militia captain.) But Scottish colonial loyalties in the AWI are all over the map, for all sorts of reasons and from all types of backgrounds.

Reading some of these posts you'd get the idea that the Moore's Creek Loyalists were living on the edge of civilization up in the mountains. My understanding is that many came from the area around modern Fayetteville. At the outbreak of the AWI that region was at least a generation removed from the frontier. In addition the Cape Fear River was somewhat navigable up to that point. Merchants came to the area not only to serve the locals, but also to buy and sell with those living further west.

Taking up your point, Bill, I suppose the question would turn on whether 'made' items of Scottish dress, such as bonnets or chequered plaids, were in demand enough for a local industry to produce them or for such goods to be shipped from Britain.

None of my research showed any uniforms except for the odd veteran's uniform worn by a militiaman. As in the Regulator War, blue bonnets seem to have been a mark of the men. I am not sure if field marking were used but white tuffs or green springs were common for Scots.

Except for the coat, the costume in Troiani's plate is similar to a dancer in David Allan's painting, 'A Highland Wedding at Blair Atholl', painted in the 1780s:

MIRROR SITE
Clothing in the Scottish Highlands, 1600 – 1800 CE

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Possibly not a coincidence.

Blair Atholl is a small town in Perthshire, Scotland so it doesn't have a lot of relevance to what Scottish immigrants serving as Loyalist militia in North Carolina would be wearing in their first combat.

Indeed

Only a small town yet "spiffy" clothing is worn, there is tartan clothing despite a prohibition and the bonnet does not appear to be restricted to the military. Immigrants have to come from somewhere and Troiani has to have some sources.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

Perhaps the dancing lad is a young officer in an "official" Highland regiment. This the military style bonnet.
So he would be exempt from the restrictions.

Whatever. The figures I'm painting have backwoods dress and the same bonnet. Since nobody makes hillbillies or militia armed with broadswords I am going with the legend.

Blair Atholl in those days was a small hamlet in the policies of Blair Castle. The wedding party in Allan's painting were presumably tenantry of the Atholl estate. Weddings, of course, were occasions when folk would wear the best clothes they had but these folk are relatively prosperous. The fiddler is said to be the celebrated musician and composer, Neil Gow; the cellist, his brother Donald.

In 1777 the Duke of Atholl had formed a regiment, the 77th Atholl Highlanders, which was sent off to Ireland. In June 1781, instead of being discharged as expected, the men of the 77th learnt they were to be sent to India. They effectively mutined and the regiment was broken up.

The young man dancing wearing a diced bonnet could be associated with the 77th in some way if not a former soldier himself. The man in uniform with green facings to the right appears to be a soldier of the 77th.

It is interesting that there are four men in the Allan painting shown wearing bonnets with diced bands.

In the course of the 1780s we begin to see civilians wearing diced bonnets in Scotland, although generally they are of higher status than the guests at the Blair Atholl wedding- for instance in John Kay's Ddinburgh caricatures. A cocked bonnet with dicing would be considerably more expensive than a traditional blue bonnet.

In 1777 the Duke of Atholl had formed a regiment, the 77th Atholl Highlanders, which was sent off to Ireland. In June 1781, instead of being discharged as expected, the men of the 77th learnt they were to be sent to India. They effectively mutined and the regiment was broken up.

The descendants of Allan MacLean – the first CO of the Royal Highland Emigrants – have a set of colours with the regimental number "77" (the regimental colour is clearly dark blue). Apparently, when the authorities decided to take the RHE onto the Regular Establishment, they were to be numbered 77th, and colours were ordered on that basis. However, there was some sort of delay and they were eventually listed as the 84th. I have no idea if the actual colours were ever carried in the field or not.