One for the Brits! :) Re: Memorial Day Brain Crunches

Quiz Q: What color of coats did Americans wear during this war?

And much thanks to F.Lt. N.J.Alexander Ex 212(D) Sdn, Royal Air Force

P.S. Is the answer "brown"?
May 28, 2007 3:57 PM

You are as correct as anyone can be, Sir. Thank you for traveling this way!



Very little has been written about Revolutionary clothing. The best account is Asa Bird Gardner's "The Uniforms of the American Army," including both state and continental troops, in the Magazine of History (August, 1877), I, 461-492. The latest study of "The Continental Army Uniform" is by John C. Fitzpatrick, Assistant Chief, Division of Manuscripts, Library of Congress, in Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine (November, 1920), LIV, 629-639, reprinted in The Spirit of the Revolution, 117-138. It is based on the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress, which Lieutenant Lefferts knew contained a mass of new and invaluable material, but which he did not have an opportunity of reading through, as he had planned. Uniform of the Army of the United States, 1775-1889 (published by the Quartermaster General, U. S. Army), contains six colored plates of uniforms of the Revolutionary period, by Henry A. Ogden, and extracts relating to uniforms from orderly books, legislative proceedings, and other sources. Additional drawings by Mr. Ogden are reproduced in color in Avery's History of the United States, volume VI, which contains a wealth of illustrative material, including pictures of British, French, and Hessian soldiers.

Brown was the first official color for Continental uniforms, and was adopted by the Continental Congress on November 4, 1775, after consultation with Washington and the New England governors. Regiments were to be distinguished by facings of different colors. (Journals of the Continental Congress, Ford, ed., III, 323.) This recommendation, however, was not completely carried out, and the troops were never all in brown, because some of the early organizations had already chosen other combinations, and regiments consulted their own preferences in choosing uniforms. Early in the war, blue was the officers' favorite color for their own dress, and by the end of 1778, blue was the color preferred by the men, as was shown by the attitude toward a shipment of blue and brown coats from France. (Letters of Henry Burbeck, New York Herald, June 15, 1913; Fitzpatrick, Spirit of the Revolution, 130.) A good example of a blue officer's coat is that of Colonel Peter Gansevoort, of New York, preserved in the National Museum at Washington, D. C. It is faced with red and lined with white. Dark blue faced with scarlet was the recognized uniform of the Continental Artillery as early as March, 1777. ([Boston] Continental Journal, March 13, 1777.)
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