"AWI sergeants" Topic

So I got the Perry plastic AWI sets and was going to make some sergeants and looking at the booklets gave me the general idea but I wanted to ask here to be sure before I built them. What were the uniform distinction of the British and Continental sergeants from the rest of the enlisted men. Seems the British wore sashes and had silver hat lace, and the Continentals had an epaulette on the right shoulder or maybe both shoulders later as well as a sash and maybe a sword? Sorry I'm better with ACW uniforms than I am AWI ones. Thanks for any help.

My reenactment unit uses red epaulets for Sargeants and green for corporals.

American rank insignia:

link

The hat lace (if any) would be silver, but often on campaing British soldiers (including officerss) wore round hats with no lace or tape.

Here are the Royal Warrants:

The coats of the Serjeants to be lappelled to the waist, with the colour of the facing of the regiment. The button-holes of the coat to be of white braid. Those on the waistcoats to be plain. The Serjeants of grenadiers to have fuzils, pouches, and caps. Those of the battalion to have halberts, and no pouches.

Serjeants' Sashes. The sashes to be of crimson worsted, with a stripe of the colour of the facing of the regiment, and worn round the waist. Those of the regiments which are faced with red, to have a stripe of white.

The hats of the Serjeants to be laced with silver. Those of the Corporals and private men to have a white tape binding. The breadth of the whole to be one inch and a quarter; and no more to be on the back part of the brim, than what is necessary to sew it down. To have black cockades.

fifedrum.org/crfd/1768.htm

Sergeants likely exchanged their halberds for muskets on campaign. Officers likely carried fuzils instead of an espontoon.

How common would pole arms have been among sergeants in the British and Continental armies on campaign?

Continental officers seemed to carry espontoons more than British officers during campaigns. I believe there is a passage in an American soldiers diary of officers even carrying a bayonet mounted on a pole in liew of a proper espontoon.

British officers usually carried a fuzee or at times nothing at all, other than a sword. Had an interesting discussion with Eric Schnitzer (park historian at Saratoga Battlefield) on this topic the other day.

Sergeants definitely carried a musket, sometimes a fuzee, for the British. I am not aware of American sergeants carrying halberds.

There are numerous orders before the start of the war for British officers and NCOs to give up their pole-arms and obtain fusils from the Royal Artillery (which made me wonder if the sergeants at least got artillery carbines). This was not always a good thing – Sgt Sullivan of the 49th mentions a British attack at White Plains coming to a halt when the officer commanding a company stops to load and fire his fusil at the enemy. It is also quite likely that one of the assaults at Bunker Hill fails for this reason, too.

I can also remember an order from Washington (can't recall the year, but it was the latter half of the war) reminding company commanders and above to equip themselves with spontoons, so that they would not be distracted from the command of their men by loading and firing their own fusil.

Joseph Plumb Martin was the one who referenced doodle officers using a pole mounted with a bayonet in lieu of a real espontoon.

The artillery carbines are not cut down Brown Bess muskets (for those of you who think they are based on re-enactorisms). They were a light, smaller caliber musket, not a cut down one.