"Converged Grenadiers" Topic

A question for the experts.

I am building a British Converged Grenadier battalion, and one company of grenadiers comes from a Scottish parent battalion.

My question is, would that company of Scottish Grenadiers still wear their kilts and standard Highland uniform when deployed in a Converged Battalion, or would they change to a uniform similar to the English grenadier companies?

Hope that makes sense……

Depends on the theater. In His Britannic Majesty's Army in Germany (northwest Germany against the French), the two converged grenadiers battalions only consisted of regular line regiment grenadier companies. The grenadier companies of the two Highland regiments stayed with their regiments. Don't know that much about the American colonies grenadier organization.

For Germany it was Maxwell's Converged Grenadier Battalion: 12th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, 37th, 51st Foot's grenadier companies and Daulhautt's Grenadier Battalion (5th, 8th, 11th, 24th, 33rd, 50th Foot's grenadier companies).

Jim

Thanks Jim. The info I got about those two converged battalions was that they each included a Highland Grenadier company. Obviously wrong info!

But in answer to the original question, it was in the AWI that Highland grenadier companies began to wear breeches or trousers (as did the battalion companies of their parent regiments).
In principle, the grenadiers of the 42nd wore bearskin caps from the late 1740s. Whether these would have been worn in the field is another matter.

Looking at it the other way, those converged battalions weren't a point of uniform issue. On paper at least, the companies should still have been issued uniforms through the parent regiment, and maintaining all regimental distinctions.

That begs two questions at least--what the uniform of the parent regiment was, and what "field modifications" might have been in effect. On that last, absent eye-witnesses, we're down to Inherent Military Probability--i.e. informed guesswork. On the latter, I'd note that such changes rise the closer you are to the firing line and the further from the flagpole--and that it's easier to stop wearing something than to start wearing something else. So stocks are "lost" and coat-tails cut off more easily than one finds a new set of unauthorized breeches or hats--which is not to say the latter don't happen.