Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From:
HuwG
Date: 28 May 02 - 08:49 AM
ozmacca, quite right re. Roger's Rangers. They were colonials, who dressed much as they pleased. I think a scotch bonnet, which seems to be what you describe, was common among them though not standard issue. As you say, they found green a useful colour; I think I have seen a picture of one wearing Indian mocassins (spelling?) and other items of Indian apparel, including a Tomahawk.
During the French and American wars (I am relying on the invaluable Francis Parkman, "Montcalm and Wolfe" here), there was one regiment, "Gage's Light Infantry", which was the 80th in the Army listing; it was disbanded after the wars. I don't know whether its men were British or Americans or both. It wore brown clothing and had the deerstalker hat which I described in an earlier post. There was also another all-British, regiment, the 55th, which its Colonel, Augustus Howe, converted to light infantry; its breeches and belts (though not their jackets) were dyed brown or green and they cut their tricorne hats down to the dimensions of a bowler. And, as The Walrus said, the light companies of all the battalions in a division or an army were often brigaded together in ad-hoc light battalions (as were the grenadier companies). The light infantrymen would presumably all wear something less clumsy and conspicuous than a tricorne.
ozmacca, teribus and Keith A o Hertford, please don't get me started on the inadequacies of issued equipment, I could go on all day. I do recall that after a few days on exercise, the phrase "uniform" had gone to rats**t, as all sorts of personal items and bodges replaced broken or missing bits, and people devised their own methods for securing awkward loads (mostly using those great roadies' all-purpose items, gaffer tape or black insulating tape). This applied especially to the TA, the Regulars looked a bit more orthodox. However, I love some of the shocked descriptions which the US troops on the Cunning Plan, alias Operation Desert Sabre, applied to British troops. The US soldiers prided themselves on looking and sounding alike; British troops preferred to look unique.
What was this thread about ? Oh yes, white cockades ? I rather suspect that, except for coups and rebellions, cockades were less a device for identifying troops in action, than an affirmation of nationality or allegiance. Wellington apparently had four cockades tacked to his hat at Waterloo; British, Dutch, Spanish and Portugese. (He was a Field Marshal, or honorary Field Marshal, in the armies of each of these countries).
White cockades were apparently sported by supporters of both the French Bourbon monarchs and the British Stuarts (i.e. Jacobites). Reading Prebble, I think the Hanoverian cockades (used during the '45 rebellion) were black and red. Much later, the French Republican cockades were red, white and blue (naturally enough).
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