"Deserter descriptions reliability " Topic

Making up a regiment… Let's call it the 13th Maryland.
Let's say it officially had a brown coat with red facings. This is not uncommon. Brown was common because the French supplied a lot of coats and cloth.
Regimental coats also had a distinct cut as opposed to a civilian coat.

Let's also suppose that I am a disgruntled Continental soldier. If I am still wearing my civilian clothes after 4 months and have not received my uniform issue, I am probably even more disgruntled. My pay is also in arrears and the food sucks but that's another matter.

I suggest that a soldier who has gotten his uniform is less likely to desert.
And if he has been issued a uniform he is more likely to steal or borrow civvies if he is planning to desert.

Lefferts did a fine job of collecting deserter descriptions. Where he is on less firm ground is in assigning these as descriptions of actual uniforms.
Would you really paint up a unit of men wearing purple smoking jackets? Maybe one guy…

I have often wondered what was the purpose of publishing deserter descriptions in newspapers. Did the people really care? Would they report suspicious characters?
Were they for sheriffs?
I'm curious about them.

Just the facts, ma'am…

> Just the facts, ma'am…

Not in a Colonial Paper. Fact were not even inconvenient things back then..

IIRC there was a bounty on deserters. Not totally positive of that. But at the least, they were wanted to be brought back to the unit for punishment and/or to pay back the enlistment bounty they had received and/or to return clothing equipment that they had received. I have to agree, though, that deserter descriptions are not necessarily representative of the unit they deserted from. The proof is in the pudding – occasionally you come across descriptions of multiple deserters in the same ad and they are dressed differently. They could also have been wearing regimentals from a unit they were previously associated with and again, not at all be representative of the unit they were deserting from.

The deserter descriptions in Lefferts to me are simply what they are, a description of what specific soldiers were last seen wearing. I do believe in most instances this reflects what the soldier wore when he was serving rather than an outfit he donned to escape.

Since I mostly do generic AWI rather than trying to model specific units, I usually use deserter descriptions to identify trends to be reflected, rather than as specific outfits to paint. Based on the descriptions I believe at times certain units had substantial numbers of troops wearing civilian clothing. I also think in certain units at certain times, we should speak of "formal uniforms" rather than "the official uniform".

One other point I have noted was that "sailor's jacket" was commonly mentioned. Perhaps it is just a coincidence, but it may also indicate that some units were issues a single breasted jacket without tails instead of regimental coats.

Phillip Katcher's book takes Leffert's stuff to the next level. You might also want to look at his work.

Hard to say about deserters and supporting descriptions. I do seem to recall reading something recently about the American army at Yorktown basically without uniforms.

Over the years the Company of Military Historians has printed many additional collections of deserter descriptions. In a number of instances multiple deserters from the same unit are described as wearing the same type of clothing. For lack of more detailed information, I accept these as being more representative of a unit's issued clothing.

Context is everything. As Winston points out, a lot of men deserted because army life turned out not to be that much better than starving in the gutter that it made up for having to take orders, and part of that was not receiving the clothes you were promised. Equally, a man wanting to desert from a well-clothed unit would want to change his clothes to avoid drawing attention to himself.

There are indeed descriptions of groups of deserters, which fall into two categories: those wearing similar clothing that sounds like a uniform, and those wearing a hotch-potch of items and styles. And both groups give us a clue as to what their regiment was wearing, because a group of men in disparate garb suggests that no uniform had been issued, as much as common items suggest a uniform (of sorts).

Someone mentioned the number of "sailor's jacket" items; it was not uncommon for working men in urban areas to own such items, especially if their work was messy and/or involved lifting/carrying. Hence, it is not necessarily a regimental issue garment – rural workers tended to wear smocks or labour in their shirtsleeves as laundering garments was easier in the countryside.

What surprised me was the number of men wearing leather breeches.

So you turn your regimental coat inside out and become……..

…a musician with reversed coat and facings?