"any books on the american army 1775-83" Topic

looking for uniform information for the various regiments, I am parade ground painter so no anything goes please.

Ospreys are a good start, General Washington's army 1 and 2 are a good source. link

Katcher, Philip. Uniforms of the Continental Army

Outstanding book, incredible research. One of t h e few must have books if you really want serious historical research.

The Lefferts uniform plates are available online and are a great resource: link

"Soldiers of the Revolutionary War" by Stuart Reid. This book combines 5 Osprey books, the two on Washington's Army and the three on The British Army. And it's WAY cheaper that Katcher's book (which I am sure is a great book too).

My $0.02 USD cents---I second 'Uniforms of the Continental Army', by P. Katcher. Of all the A.W.I. uniform books that I own, it is the one 'Must Have' for the Continentals. Be aware that this book does not contain any color plates. It is written descriptions.
I own many books on A.W.I. era uniforms. This includes all (5) of the Osprey books by Stuart Reid and 'Soldiers of the Revolutionary War', by the same author. They are good, but don't come close to the information contained in Mr. Katcher's book!

For flags, I recommend Richardson's 'Colors and Standards of the American Revolution'.

Tom Semian
Avalon, PA. 15202

Avoid Kiley's book. It's a perpetuation of many errors and could use a proper edit.

Leffett's is okay, but understand that a "deserter" may not have had a proper uniform.

Anything by Brendan Morrissey it good and I'd wish he'd just publish a comprehensive book based on the research we have currently.

My two shillings worth.

Eric

Agree with Eric on all his points.
Very few of Lefferts' deserter descriptions mention true regimental uniforms. They are usually descriptions of civilian clothing, some being downright odd.
I wonder if deserter descriptions ever succeeded in getting deserters caught? If he can't leg it out if the area before a weekly Gazette let's readers know he has deserted, he's pretty dumb.

Troiani also has some good and accurate plates, but is not complete.
Mollo is rather comprehensive, but like Lefferts relies too heavily on deserter descriptions. He also carries forward a few of Lefferts' errors.

Wright's The Continental Army, Royster's A Revolutionary People at War, and Harold Peterson's The Book of the Continental Soldier are all excellent.

Unfortunately American uniforms were anything but parade ground. Uniforms were varied, incomplete, sometimes non existent. So if you want accuracy…..

As you live in Denmark I second the Leffert web link above. Not perfect as noted, but still reasonably accurate, especially if you are looking to parade ground looks.

With Continental forces part of the "fun" is that uniforms depended on which unit and when. There were times when regiments were well outfitted with one (or more) uniforms. For example the Maryland Continentals received significant clothing issues on their march southward in 1780, and again later in the year, suggesting that at Camden and Cowpens they probably came close to a parade ground appearance. Katcher is the best single resource for times like these, but Mollo or the Ospreys may be preferable for some because of the color plates, price or availability.

There were also times when units were approaching an "anything goes" state. This is where IMO Lefferts is helpful. While I think he does provide more true regimental uniforms in his deserter descriptions than Winston Smith gives him credit for, those deserter descriptions also indicate what else troops might have been wearing at the time.

Also, without Leffert's efforts our knowledge of AWI uniforms for the continentals would be much, much smaller. And without his work no one would be correcting his errors. Speaking of which, has anyone ever compiled a specific list of the errors in Leffert's work? We so often here the cry of errors but I don't really recall a single, specific error being pointed out.

I agree about the Katcher work, though.

I can't comment on textual errors but surely some of the Lefferts illustrations are very outdated, to say the least.

Found both Katcher and Leffert on amazon,

Many thanks.

I used to think that Osprey's were the gold standard, until I spoke to an author who confirmed that several of the illustrations in his books were incorrect.

In truth, every single volume mentioned has flaws.

No one knows with absolute certainty what the Continental wore.
Read them all and make up your own mind.