"Grenadier hat bag colours" Topic

Can anyone help me as to the colour of bag in bearskin hats used by the British and French Grenadiers. We're they all red or did they match the facing colours in the French army assuming the French even wore them ?
Painting perry figures at the moment and any pointers would be a great help.

Don't know why this appeared twice?

British grenadier hat bags were red.

British did not have a hanging bag, but as Winston said, the back of the cap was red.

I guess from your post that you are doing the War of Independence and my interest is SYW. Even then French are not really my thing, but from memory the bearskin became common (SYW) from 1759 and I think the bag did largely follow facing colour. At least the few pictures I've seen (SYW) follow that, and gamers seem to paint them that way.

Thanks for your help.

Hat 'bags' and similar bits were made from old coat sleeves. When a new coat was issued the old one was cut down to the waist coat patched with left over scraps and the sleeves were cut to make head ware like Mitre caps,forage caps and such.

I think that might be true for foraging caps in the British infantry. Grenadier caps, however, would have been made up by contractors without access to superannuated clothing; last year's coats, for instance, being the property of the soldier, while grenadier caps belonged to the regiment.

Grenadier Mitre caps, which ended (theoretically) with the 1768 Warrant, were too elaborate, with embroidery and so on, to be made from last year's coats.

The French did not have 'bags' for their grenadier and carabinier bearskins either.

The French dubbed the grenadier patch at the top rear of the bearskin as the 'monkey's butt'.

When the bearskin was 'officially' abolished because the supply of fur was getting scarce and expensive, some units kept theirs for the 'official' wear out period, the 46th Ligne having theirs through 1814.

Post revolutionary ones might not, but earlier they certainly did.

It was the same during the latter Ancien Regime and Revolutionary period-no bags.

The bag probably disappeared after the Seven Years' War with the army reforms.

So this illustration is out of period for the War of the American Revolution.

I believe the French bonnet á poil with a frontal plate of copper, but minus the hanging bag and retaining a vestigial patch*, was introduced in the Ordonnance of 1767 (*This later became the red 'cul de singe' of Napoleon's Grenadiers).

The French army seems to have been quite late in adopting distinctive headgear for grenadiers; among the earliest being the Grenadiers Royaux & Grenadiers de France circa 1755, as in the Courcelle image above, with line regiments following suit in ordering fur caps for their grenadier companies. Most followed the Austrian model with a high fur trimmed front and hanging bag in facing colour.

link

(See also: Mollo/McGregor, 'Uniforms of the Seven Years War').

Officially, the fur grenadier cap was abolished by the Ordonnance of 1776 but some regiments retained them, e.g. the Soissonois in America. It was officially restored around 1791.

Have to ditto olicana Brechtel198, at least as far as Project Seven Years War is concerned. The "standing grenadier" battalions such as Grenadiers de France had "bags" in the facing color just like the nice illustration above. In addition, PSYW also says that from about 1759 onward more and more grenadiers began wearing bearskins.