"Highlander dress in the Peninsular War question" Topic

Hi Guys,

For some reason I'm under the impression that Highland infantry didn't wear kilts and bonnets in the Peninsular. I'm not sure why I think this but for some reason it's firmly lodged in my brain.

However, I've just come across a picture in Osprey's Fuentes De Onoro that shows a unit defending the village in that dress – it is supposed to be the 79th Cameron Highlanders.

I know the other pictured battalion in the pic is the 71st Highland Light Infantry, which wore a simpler 'blue bonnet cap' and no kilt, because I've just started painting it, but the brigade I'm doing (Maj. Gen. Howard's) also comprises the 92nd Gordon Highlanders so I really need to know.

Can someone please clear this up for me. Did Highlanders, especially the 92nd, wear kilt and bonnet in Spain?

Thanks.

James

As far as I am aware, no, no kilts and bonnets in the Peninsula, other than colonel paid for pipers perhaps.

The 71st and 74th had stopped wearing them in India before coming out to Spain.

They did wear the checkered band around the base of the shako though.

According to Bryan Fosten (well respected author and artist of uniforms), in Wellington's Infantry (2) Osprey 119; "The 42nd, 79th and 92nd all wore the kilt in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. After 1808-09 officers discarded the kilt for active service and adopted pantaloons or trousers of white, grey or blue, worn with Hessian boots or gaiters."

"Officers of the 92nd are said to have worn dark grey pantaloons."

"In the latter Peninsular campaigns replacement clothing was so scarce that kilts were not replaced when worn out. There are several records of units being ordered to make their kilts up into trews, for warmth in very cold weather, and once in trews a regiment might retain them for long periods."

Further details can be found in pages 31 and 32 of the ref.

So, it would seem that depending at what stage you are gaming the Peninsular war there is scope for kilts and or trews. Plus variations eg… "During the Peninsular War most bonnets were gradually denuded of feathers, and by the end of it many had none."

I hope this helps. If there are further needed details let me know.

According to 'Peninsular Armies 1080 – 1814' by C A Sapherson they wore ordinary grey trousers on campaign with the banded shako. That written I'd want to find another source to confirm that as I have found one or two errors in this book.

I think Sapherson is referring only to the Highland Light Infantry. I'd go with Fosten on this. Three kilted regiments. The 74th (Wallace's Brigade? With Picton in the Peninsula, anyway) wasn't kilted, but did have a kilted piper, and not, as I recall, in Government Sett.

But let's all keep in mind that there is no such thing as Peninsular uniform. If you wanted to be strictly accurate, you'd need three or four British Peninsular armies--with stocks for Rolica and Vimerio, without stocks for Talavera, in gray trousers by about Barossa and in black knapsacks by Salamanca. If you want Belgic shakos, you're up to five. I don't know about anyone else, but I feel when I've painted one British army for the French Revolution and a different one for the Napoleonic Wars, I've done all historical miniatures gaming can reasonably expect of me.

Oh, and you can do the same game for the French, who enter Spain in bicornes and/or white coats and leave in Bardin jackets. Historical accuracy is all very well, but we aren't painting dioramas.

I am painting Highlanders at the moment. I kind of wish I had gone for a campaign dress 42nd.

Philip Haythornthwaite ("Uniforms of the Peninsular War, 1807-1814." Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press, Ltd., 1978) confirms that by 1814, the 42nd (Royal Highland, or Black Watch) was the only Highland regiment still wearing kilts in the Iberian Peninsula. The 79th (Cameron) and 92nd (Gordon) Highlanders had been issued gray trousers to replace their worn out kilts.

However, it is not quite so simple because from 1800 to 1809 there were 11 regiments of Highlanders in the British army. These included: the 42nd, 71st, 72nd, 73rd, 74th (Argyll), 75th (Stirlingshire), 78th (Ross-shire Buffs), 79th, 91st (Argyllshire), 92nd, and 93rd (Sutherland) Highlanders. Any of these which served in the Peninsula in 1809 or earlier would have worn the kilt, except the 71st, which served in the Corunna campaign wearing either tartan trews or grey overalls because it had just returned from service in South America.

In 1809 the British Government "de-kilted" (sounds kind of kinky, eh?) six of these regiments and they officially lost their Highland status, except the 71st, which only became a light infantry unit at this time. The other affected regiments were: the 72nd, 73rd, 74th, 75th, and 91st. The reason for this was that recruiting had been so heavy in the Highlands, that the population was insufficient to maintain so many regiments. By 1799 actual Highlanders were only a minority in many of the existing regiments. In fact, in that year, of 702 men of the 79th (Cameron) Highlanders only 268 were even Scottish. Since many non-Highlanders objected to wearing kilts, the measure was intended to facilitate recruiting of other Britons and Irish into these units. My source for this is "Highlander" by Tim Newark (London: Publishing News, 2000).

Of the remaining five regiments of Highlanders, the 78th and 93rd never served in the Peninsula. The 93rd, by the way, wore tartan trews at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815.