"'The long beards of the grenadiers'" Topic

"The same evening he was introduced to the trench guard, and he was led as close to the fortifications as was safe for him to watch the firing of the besieged without danger. "To the thunder of the guns frightened him very much, and his friend McIntosh had to urge him strongly to walk forward, but he liked the flying shells. He observed with astonishment the long beards of the grenadiers and was allowed to touch them, for he believed that these beards were put on merely for ornament."

Visit of the Creek chief, 'Ravening Wolf' to the British lines, Charleston 1780

Ewald, 'Diary of the American War.p.232

Egad! All my figures are wrong!

Well, indeed, sir.

I had always thought british soldiers were clean shaven?? Wonder if this was just something unique for that unit or circumstance??

Any chance "beard" should be "hat"?

Or something else, some piece of siege equipment or something? The bit at the end, where the Creek chief believes the "beards" are put on only for "ornament" suggests that whatever these were, they were not merely ornamental.

My only thought would be to go back to the original German and see ifthe original is ambiguous, and possibly refers to the equivalent of grenadier 'whiskers.' Not being a topic of which I have detailed knowledge, I am not sure whether 'Hessian' grenadier battalions were part of Clinton's force at Charleston, 1780.

I do not recall where I am remembering this from, but I seem to recall that this quote was about the Hessian Grenadiers mustaches.

Looks like there were some German grenadiers present.

link

Need more than one source.

According to Greg Novak's OOB, there were four German grenadier battalions:

Linsing (348)
Lengercke (387)
Minnegerode (349)
Graff (437)

That's a lot of German grenadiers.

It does seem likely that 'beard' might well be a mistaken translation of something equivalent to 'whiskers'; particularly in the case of a modern editor dealing with a late C18th text, perhaps with regional variations.

Somewhere between the words Schnurrbart, Schnurrbärte Schnauzbärte (moustache moustaches, whiskers) and Bart (whiskers, beard) there is some room for confusion.

Naturlich, Ewald's originsl text would make al klar

Exactly what 42Flanker said, although I've seen at least one description of the Hessians after Charleston looking like a 'bunch of gypsies' (apparently their uniforms got trashed) so it's possible, there, in that time and place, guys were wearing beards.

The problem is generalizing across the entire war. And that is always a problem.

Well, I don't think we got as far as extrapolating beyond 'southward' circa 1780, yet

Between the voyage south and conditions in the siege lines, moustachioed grenadiers who had forgone shaving might indeed look particularly hairy, and this might explain why it was grenadiers, rather than any old soldier among the besiegers, that attracted the Creek chief's attention. The anecdote suggests that the Creeks at least were not, at that date, familiar with unshaven Europeans.

I think that he mistook Sappers for Grenadiers. Sappers always wore beards.

Easy mistake.

"Sappers always wore beards"

Quite a broad statement. The wearing of beards by pioneers is a fairly grey area before 1800. Before the 1780s-90s we tend only to see elaborate whiskers with the moustachiosmeeting the side whiskers but the chin clean shaven.

It may be that this custom was borrowed by the British from the French. Even so, Pioneer (sapeur') beards did not become regulation among certain elements in the French army till after 1800.

As far as I am aware pioneers of Prussian or other German armies had not adopted the custom of wearing beards earlier in the century. Is there evidence that pioneers of German regiments in British service during the AWI wore beards?

I think that he mistook Sappers for Grenadiers. Sappers always wore beards.

Not in this period. I've done some research on this, and I can say that sappers were clean-shaven during the AWI and before – all contemporary illustrations of them show this. At some point in the 1790s, there is a move towards facial hair by some British Army units that have been exposed to service alongside European allies (particularly the Light Dragoons), and this is probably where the custom starts. The AWI is probably the first war in which all British infantry battalions (or all of those engaged at least) have pioneers; prior to that, numbers of workmen were at the CO's discretion/pocket.