Arms and Equipment: Cleaning the Firelock, part 2.

This installment of Arms and Equipment will be focused on surface treatments forIron, Steel and Brass.

Two Reproduction Bayonets likely made in the same factory overseas. Typically, many reproduction arms are mirror polished, inconsistent with known artifacts, and tools used by soldiers of the American Revolution. Cleaning arms correctly can be a very cheap way to begin “de-farbing” your firelock.

In 1786, Oxford Militia Serjeant Major Henry Trenchard published a pamphlet entitled “The Private Soldier and Militia Man’s Friend”. The Volume is an interesting look into the ordinary, day-to-day maintenance necessary for service in the militia or the regular Army. Just over 30 pages, Trenchard devotes half of the work to maintaining cleanliness of arms, accouterments and uniforms and contains valuable recipes and techniques used by the ordinary enlisted soldier:

“First you must provide yourself with a hand-vice, screwdrivers, rubbing sticks, and leather free from grease, oil, emery, crocus martis, &c. The rubbing sticks for the arms should be made of deal wood of different sizes,, with leather glued on in the following manner: Make the rubbing sticks very smooth, and on one side of it lay down the hot glue, and on this lay your leather and press it down; then lay some glue on the leather, and on that lay some emery, and press it a little into the glue, them be well dried; with this use oil and emery, brick dust &c; if you apply them properly by rubbing the arms well, they will give your arms a smooth surface you are next to proceed to polish them; take crocus martis, and clean dry leather, rub the part which you want to polish until it is warm, when it will acquire a very fine darkgloss”

Trenchard’s above description of the rubbing sticks, serve as polishing strops, used in sharpening and polishing metal. A hint of what these may have looked like is from the Diderot’s Encylclopédie depicting tools from the cutler or Coutelier. One of those tools, described as a cuir à repasser, which was a “leather board” for polishing.

Another example of such a tool is in the French manufactured traveling case of Frederic Franck de la Roche, who served as an aide-de-camp to Marquis de Lafayette, in the collection of the Maryland Historical Society. From the original pasteboard case, it is clear that the strop was to be used with polishing razors for shaving.

A few years ago I made this little strop, with a piece of scrap wood. Contact cement is a good adhesive if you’ve never used hide glue before. I used a piece of buff leather. I made it small to easily fit in any type of cartridge pouch, or pocket.

Such polishing boards/strops can be extremely useful in getting metal mirror bright. However, such a finish is unnecessary to strive for during ordinary cleaning “in the field.” All that is needed is oil, leather scraps, linen scraps or tow, and brick dust.

First, take two small pieces of brick and rub them together, collecting the dust in a small container. Take your Leather and/or strop and apply a little oil. Apply brick dust into leather by dipping or sprinkling; rub in a circular motion throughout the entire surface you wish to polish.

The Strop is very useful for flat surfaces, and areas of heavier rust. The leather scrap is very useful in curved and hard to reach areas. Experiment with your own techniques. For bigger polishing jobs a “paste” made from oil and brick dust can be very convenient. The more you polish the better it looks!

Sword before polishing:

Typical light rust from carrying in the field.

Sword after polishing:

Once complete, wipe down with a piece of tow, or scrap linen, cleaning out tight spots of brick dust.

Repeat as necessary. A final polishing option is to use rotten stone (a Google search revealed many places to purchase) in a similar manner on a separate clean piece of leather for a final polish, or as Serjeant Major Trenchard put it “a very fine gloss”.

After handling, a quick wipe-down with a lightly oiled rag will help keep rust fromdeveloping.

Thanks to Google Books, Trenchard’s book is available for free online:Google Books

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ANDREW KIRKhas been involved with American Revolutionary War living history since the age of 13. Taking an interest in material culture of the British Army has led to creating reproductions of artifacts for TV, Film and Museum Projects. Trained as a fine artist and educator at Maryland Institute College of Art and has been a secondary art teacher in Maryland for 7 years.

Disheveled, Poor and Shabby, The Average Soldier’s Wife

The hobby of reenacting as whole has undergone many changes in the past decade. I would say those changes were made in leaps and bounds towards outstanding impressions done by women in the hobby. We have had some excellent patterns become commercially available based on extant garments for the female living historian. (I’m looking at you Larkin and Smith. Thank you!) The digitization of museum collections and the sharing of those images on social media on sites such as Pinterest has been invaluable. The social networks have transformed our small and often insular community. We now have the ability to connect to one another in ways we never could have imagined. We can share images of our impressions with the world with a small very powerful computer we carry in our pocket. It takes but a second to have your new kit be the all the rage on various pages. Your image may be shared, liked, tweeted and loved. This past spring an event, attended by the 17^th, at Short Hills produced some images that were happily shared on my wall. One in particular was of some friends of mine standing around a wash tub doing laundry in their stays and petticoats. It is an image that instantly sparked not only admiration for anyone doing laundry at an event but also a sense of recognition that I have seen so many images of working women wearing just such clothing while doing hard laborious work.

                The ability to properly portray Soldier’s Wives as they truly were is really not as difficult as some would have you believe. This is due to the fact that so many images exist from the last quarter of the 18^th century. It also doesn’t hurt that we have some excellent purveyors of goods and craftspeople reproducing the material culture of that era, as well. We also mustn’t forget the excellent scholarly works that look into the common person’s clothing such as Dress of the People by John Styles or Wives, Slaves and Servant Girls by Don Hagist. These excellent books delve deeply into the subject and I highly recommend reading both of these publications to get a greater idea of the fabrics worn and the vernacular used in the period. Such wonderful terms such as Stuff, referring to worsted, Cassimere, referring to tropical weight worsted, Harebine, a wool silk blend that is slightly fuzzy on one side yet smooth and taffeta like on the other, Cherry Derry, a cotton silk blend that shows up repeatedly in merchant’s advertisements.

                I’ve decided to focus in on the visuals that I referred to earlier. In particular I have chosen a few images rendered by Paul Sandby that very aptly show the look of the common working woman. He focused most of his career painting landscapes, encampments and those living in some of the poorest areas of cities around the UK. He was prolific in his craft and gives us an excellent view of what he saw on a daily basis. The last quarter of the 18^th Century was a time almost devoid of social welfare even if it was the “Age of Enlightenment”. These individuals lived in circumstances that would still be recognizable in the third world today. That is what it meant to be the poor working class in a major city in George III’s Britain at the time.  He painted them as they were, disheveled, poor, shabby, and most of all, very human.  This is the same exact social class of the Private Soldier’s wife which made up over 95% of all Followers of the British Army that we represent. The images I have chosen are from the 1750’s-1790’s as working women’s clothing often were not quite as fashionable or are hard to discern cut due to their ragged condition in the images.  The second hand clothing trade kept some pieces of clothing in circulation far beyond the time that a fashionable woman would have worn them.

These women appear to be washing indoors. You should notice that both women are in their shift sleeves, stays and petticoats. Take note the standing figure is wearing her handkerchief, as well. The Royal Collection.

Perhaps my favorite in the series as it gives a highly detailed image of a woman working. Once again, take note of the shift, ferreted petticoats and stays with a handkerchief. Note the details of her windowpane check work apron, as well as the facing on the hem of her petticoat in plain (linen? Wool?)  fabric with a striped petticoat underneath. Her pin cushion hangs from her waist as well. The temporary removal of outer garments seems to have been fairly typical when doing manual, filthy or wet work. It is seen repeatedly in images of women doing laundry and other tasks. The Royal Collection.

 

This image once again shows a woman removing her outer garments such as a Bedgown or Gown to keep her outer garments free of filth or water. This seems to have been a common occurrence and for the working class something that was done in a public area. She also has her apron on and her handkerchief is worn covering her shoulders and chest. The London Museum.

The next undated Sandby Etching shows the simple Bedgown and Petticoat worn by a working woman. She is also wearing flat shoes which we see in many images of women of this class. As we have a General Order saying that Widows and Children of the Regiment may draw shoes and Hose form the company stores, flat shoes can be a valuable interpretive tool. You can see the wheelbarrow behind her which should be of much interest to those who do a laundry or Petty Sutler Impression.  Note the bare feet on the young boy scratching his head. The British Museum.

Last Dying Speech and Confession, 1759, from the Twelve Cries of London Series. This

 woman has to be the shabbiest of all of the women pictured here. You will notice her Bedgown, Petticoat and Flat Shoes. Please note she is not giving her dying speech she is selling copies of an executed person’s confession at the gallows, which you can see faintly behind her with a crowd around it. Nothing like a day’s entertainment.

Mackerel Seller, 1768. Lastly, this woman with her hand in her pocket, her blue pinner apron to keep the fish oil off her, scarlet cloak and aggressive expression is a personal favorite. She looks very much like many of us do after a weekend in the field hence this is a very achievable look. The surprising lack of gowns in these images is a bit startling but these seem to be the predominant theme in working women’s garments painted by Sandby. National Galleries of Scotland.

This is but a small sampling of images that are available in digital archives most of which are free or have very little cost in acquiring images. The great hope is that you will investigate these terrific images for yourself, study the details, look at the surroundings and add these small details to your impression. It’s easy to be guided by others impressions but the guidance we should be taking is from period images. I chose these images because they illustrate what a soldier’s wife may have looked like after a while on active campaign. We know they are described as a rather ramshackle lot by the locals when the Convention Army passed through New England. Perhaps we’ll see some more working class clothing at events soon.

* Please note second in series is how Sandby numbered this image. It is the first shown in this post. 

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JENNA SCHNITZERis a a member of the 62d Regiment of Foot. She has been a Historic Interpreter since 1993. When she isn't researching or doing experimental archaeology she is either antiquing or restoring the 18th century home she owns with her Husband Eric and their two very bossy cats Georgie and Charlotte.

Arms and Equipment: Cleaning the Firelock, part 1.

The best and in-depth treatise on cleaning arms is the works put together by John U. Rees, published here: https://www.scribd.com/document/292985859/The-Care-and-Cleaning-of-Firelocks-in-the-18th-Century-A-Discussion-of-Period-Methods-and-Their-Present-Day-Applications

This will be beginning of a series on the blog, highlighting the practical application and use of period techniques for maintaining arms and equipment.  Today’s post focuses on having the essential tools you need to keep your firelock clean.

Turnscrew: of the “Y type” is the more commonly found tools, and provides two blades for different sized slots. Reproduction by Jymm Hoffman: http://www.hoffmansforge.com/

Worm: An essential tool, threaded to fit the threaded end of the ramrod, is the tool use to attach tow, or small bits of rag to clean the inside of the barrel.

Hand-Vise, or Spring Vise: This particular example is a 19^th century vise made for use various muskets and rifled muskets. Similar to others from earlier, though there may have been various types, this type is commonly reproduced. This tool is an extremely important device for “taking the lock to pieces”, an occasional, in depth cleaning of the lock. Trying to disassemble a lock without can result in cracked springs and other damaged parts.

Oil Bottle: A container turned from Horn by Erv Tschanz(http://www.gennisheyotrading.com/), for holding sweet oil for oiling parts for lubrication and rust prevention.

Tin Bottles designed from originals are also available from http://www.hotdiptin.com/

Brick Dust: Stored in a small tin, are several chunks of 18^th century bricks, from demolished buildings of Salem County, NJ. The tin makes using the brick dust very convenient and easy.

Scraps of Leather: Having a leather shop, I have quite a bit of scraps of various leathers. I like to have a small scrap of 2-3oz vegetable-tanned leather in my cartridge pouch at all times. Keeping one scrap as the “applicator pad” and the other as the “final polish” is another approach.  Many leather supply companies sell scrap bags.

Tow: Loose fibers before being further processed and spun into threads and woven. As simple as it gets, great for use with the worm and final wipe-down. Linen scraps/rags also work well for most purposes. https://woolery.com/flax-tow-1-lb.html

That’s it for this installment. Next time I’ll be discussing how to easily use these items to keep your firelock clean and ready for service in the field.

Andrew Kirk

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ANDREW KIRKhas been involved with American Revolutionary War living history since the age of 13. Taking an interest in material culture of the British Army has led to creating reproductions of artifacts for TV, Film and Museum Projects. Trained as a fine artist and educator at Maryland Institute College of Art and has been a secondary art teacher in Maryland for 7 years.

The Things We Carry: On the Strength of the Army

A couple weeks ago we had a member of the 17th Regiment of Infantry, Damian Niescior, write about all the things he carried during a weekend in the 18th century as a soldier in the British Army... this week we have a follow up post brought to you by Carrie Fellows, who has been working and recreating 18^th century domestic arts for more than 25 years. A year or so ago Carrie did a symposium with Kimberly Boice's: Historie Academie, which I happened to attend where she did a talk and workshop on how to pack for an event. So upon request it reminded me that she'd be the perfect fit to talk about what a follower of the army would bring with them.

Read Damian's blog post here.

- Mary S. an attached follower of the 17th Regiment of Infantry

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It can be difficult to explain to people what I do for fun. I combine my passion for history and the outdoors by interpreting the lives of women who, out of necessity, followed the Continental Army (and occasionally, the British army) during the American War for Independence.  I have portrayed a laundress, an officer’s servant, a refugee, and a soldier’s wife, but regardless of whom I portray, the things I carry with me may vary slightly according to season, but remain essentially the same. Over the years, I have refined and limited the number of objects I carry, lightening my load for travel on foot over long distances, rough terrain, and the occasional river ford.

Records of what women carried are practically nonexistent, but one can find clues in runaway ads, military records, and the occasional primary source. Women attached to the army had only what they brought away with them, or acquired on the road.  Women “on the strength” of the army were entitled to a half-ration of food (children received a one-quarter ration.) I am always hungry, and as rations aren’t always available, carry enough food to get by.

Tied about my middle, under my gown, a pair of pockets (1) is suspended. These contain both modern items (pocket on right) and period ones (pocket on left). I often leave my phone in the car unless I need to take photos for a talk or article, or will be in the deep backcountry.*  My car keys (40) are pinned firmly to the inside bottom corner of my left pocket.  In my right pocket: a sewing kit (2) or “housewife” – a roll of cloth with pockets to hold sewing supplies and tiny items like sleeve buttons, also a linen handkerchief (3), pocket knife (4), linen or woolen mitts (5), period scrip and real cash in a reproduction pocketbook (6), lip balm in a tin container (7).

I carry most of my gear in a wallet (8) – a rectangular cloth bag with a slit opening in the center. One places items in each end, then twists the entire thing at the center, closing the slit and forming a kind of narrow strap, then slung over the shoulder. I try to segregate the two ends into food/related items and clothing/personal items.  The food side holds a small bag of cornmeal or rice (9), cheese wrapped in 2 layers of linen (10 - the inner one dampened with vinegar); a cured sausage wrapped in brown paper (11), a small bag of walnuts (12), bread (13), tea (14), salt (15), seasonal vegetables (16), a spice bag, grater, candle ends and extra corks (17), paper packets of flour and pepper (18), and sometimes I even remember my fire kit: flint, steel, charcloth and tow in a tin box (42). Food-related items include a turned wooden bowl (19), which can serve as both drinking and eating vessel, an eating spoon (20), and a linen towel (21).

In the other end, I carry extra clothing items tied up together in a large kerchief (22): moccasins (23) and a man’s wool cap (24) for sleeping in, stockings (25), neck handkerchief (26), and a small paper notebook (27).  Some also carry a clean shift, but I do not, as I am rarely in a situation where there is privacy sufficient change it. Also: a tiny modern first aid kit in a red linen bag (28), personal toiletry items in another small drawstring bag: a tin box with soap and mirror (29), horn comb and bone toothbrush (30), handwoven wash towel (31), spectacles (32), allergy meds &, contact lens case (not pictured). Reenactor etiquette requires one to manage any non-historic personal care out of view as much as possible. Optional items, depending on the planned activity: a small bundle of mending patches and yarn (33), and a darning egg (34) to occupy time and to trade (mending skills have value), a large wooden cooking spoon (35), and a small axe (36). If there’s room, “luxury” items include a ceramic cup (37) and a big linen wallet that doubles as a straw tick (38).

I usually carry just one blanket (with a wool petticoat and cloak inside) rolled up, tied together at the ends to form a “U”, and carried across my body. I put on the wallet first, then the canteen (39) - the wallet cushions the strap - then the rolled blanket over that. The blanket helps keep both wallet and canteen secure, close to my body, and quiet as I walk – or run.

The last thing I pick up is my small iron pot (41), with its sheet iron lid tied on so it doesn’t rattle or become lost. If I have eggs or fruit, I pack it in the pot. It goes to every event with me. I hadn’t thought about it before, but that little pot – representing security, hot food, comfort (and home?) connects me to the women I portray who carried what they most valued when they followed the army.

*Nothing ruins an accurate setting faster than when the smartphones come out and glow blue at night.

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CARRIE FELLOWShas been interpreting 18^th century domestic arts for more than 25 years and is the Sergeant of Women for the progressive living history group, Augusta County Militia. She has held positions in history nonprofits and museums as a curator, educator, director, and board member, and is currently the Executive Director of the Hunterdon County (NJ) Cultural & Heritage Commission. She and her husband Mark are addicted to old houses.

The Malicious, Morose Malady and the Vindictive, Vagrant Vixen: A 17th Regiment Story, Part 2

In this week's blog entry, we return to finish the tale of Private Thomas Mallady's post-war adventures, initially chronicled this past May by guest author Don Hagist. While the documentary trail might not give us all the information we could hope for, there are some clear messages about the nature of marital disharmony in post-war New England that should give any would-be deserter food for thought. For more soldiers' stories, check out Don's blog: British Soldiers, American Revolution.

Click here for Part I

-- Will Tatum

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Part II

The next week's issue of the Western Star, on 18 September, carried Thomas Mellalew's response, this time datelined from Pittsfield:

"To the Publick.Whenever the character of an individual is notoriously attacked, it is incumbent on him, if he has any regard for his reputation, or respect for the opinion of the world, to come forward in his own defence. The writer is sensible that a private controversy between a man and woman, is not a very pleasing subject for the attention of the community: His only excuse is, that he write in his own defence.

"In the Star of last week, was published a piece under the signature of Hannah Mellalew - a performance in which my character is represented as black as the pen wielded by the hand of falhood [sic] could possibly describe. A publication, signed by a woman, the blackness of whose character my modesty will not permit me to lay naked to the view of the world - a woman with whom had it have been possible for any man to have lived, would not have been under the necessity of strolling about after a second gulled companion, while the first was still living. Let any ingenuous mind read the performance to which I allude, and then say, if any but an abandoned prostitute could ever have come forward with such a publication in the face of the world. No, not a woman on earth, who is not totally devoid of every species of virtue, could have assumed the impudence to publish such brothel ideas of a man, whom she claims as her companion.

"The charges alledged against me in that piece, it is in my power, at any time to confute. But I do not conceive that a Newspaper is a proper place to produce affidavits to establish the character of any man.”

"Neither do I believe that the publick are so strongly inclined to believe any man a villain, as, without proof, without witnesses, or even the appearance of truth, to give credit to the aspersions of a malicious, vindictive, vagrant vixen. Thomas Mallady.Pittsfield, Sept. 1792."

It didn't end there. The next week's issue of the Wester Star, dated 25 September, contained Hannah's next volley, this one a barrage including statements from other individuals:

"To the Publick.Thomas Mallady (or Mellalew) having asserted in the paper of last week, that the charges I have exhibited against him are not true, the following are submitted to the inspection of the publick. Hannah Mellalew.

"Middletown, February 18, 1778."These may certify that Thomas Mellalew and Hannah Andrews were married on the day of the date above, according to the form in the office for the solemnization of marriage, in the book of common prayer, by me, Abraham Jarvis, Minister of the Church of England.

"These may certify whom it may concern, that Thomas Mellalew (or Mallady, as many persons called him) some years since lived in this town with his wife; and, while he lived in this town, he advertised his wife in the Springfield Newspaper, lest she should run him in debt when he was absent; and afterwards put in another advertisement, wherein he manifested his sorrow for the first, and said he had no foundation or just cause for publishing the first.

 

Furthermore, while he lived in this town, he made an appointment to meet a Negro's wife, at a certain place in the night time, in a certain barn; and the Negro's wife informed Mrs. Mellalew of the appointment, who procured sundry persons, one of whom was dressed in a woman's clothes, to meet at the time and place appointed, when and where Mellalew attended in the dark, and his conduct was such, as caused them to lead him home to his wife; and he did not deny his intent in going to the barn, and in the barn called the Negro's wife by name several times, before the persons lying in wait discovered themselves. The substance of the above was sworn to before me, as nearly as I can recollect, by two of the persons who were in the barn, and one of them who was dressed in women's apparel.

P. S. Mrs. Mellalew's character in this town is good, for any thing that I know.

Samuel Mather, Justice of the Peace.Westfield, August 17, 1792."

The story certainly didn't end there, but unfortunately our documentary trail does. Further research might reveal what became of this former soldier of the 17th and his estranged wife, and help us decide whether he was "malicious and morose," or she was a "vindictive, vagrant vixen."

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DON HAGISTis a life-long British Army researcher and founding member of the 22nd Regiment of Foot (recreated). His scholarly career includes preparing and publishing numerous editions of period primary sources and analytical articles for the living history community. Most recently, Hagist has written two major books.

The first, British Soldiers, American War examines the Revolutionary conflict through the eyes of British soldiers’ narratives. The second and more recent is The Revolution’s Last Men, an exploration of the last veterans of the War for Independence who were captured through early photography. Hagist runs his own blog and is a regular contributor at the Journal of the American Revolution

British Army Muster Rolls: A Readers Guide

In our last installment of the 'Research Story' series, we opened the door to the great cavalcade of eighteenth-century British Army demographic information known as the muster roll (found in the WO12 series in the British National Archives). Of course, even more demographic information is contained in the general review returns (WO27), but that is a story for a different time. For now, I’ll focus on how one “reads” a British muster roll, because they aren’t necessarily straightforward to people who haven’t internalized British military procedure as I have. Or so my friends keep telling me.

Here is a photograph (taken in 2011, pardon the quality) of the muster roll for Captain Robert Clayton’s Company of the 17^th Regiment of Infantry, covering the period from December 1775-June 1776. As you can see, it is a multi-part document, following a standard format that you will find with any other regiment’s muster roll (with a tiny few exceptions). So even if you aren’t in love with the 17^th, the following instruction is transferrable to other corps.

 Most folks raised in the western tradition will want to read these from the top-down rather than the bottom-up, despite the fact that your most important information for understanding when and where is down near the bottom. So we’re going to look at the bottom first, for the most important material. Then we’ll move back to the top. And then deal with the center portion, where everyone inevitably ends up. 

In this view of the document’s bottom half, we see several important pieces of information. First, there’s the location and date when the muster was taken—in this case, on Staten Island, July 13, 1776. Beneath that, you have a written synopsis of the information rendered above, which I’ll transcribe since the photo is blurry:

“Mustered present in His Majesty’s 17^th Regiment of Foot Commanded by the Hon^ble Colonel Robert Monckton Lieutenant General and in Captain Robert Claytons Company the Captain, Lieutenant with two Serjeants and Drummer and twenty five Effective private men.

Allowing the Ensign, with two Corporals Sick One Corporal recruiting, two men on Guard and five men Sick that are Absent to pass unrespited being Certified Effective on the back of this roll

Also allowing the Commission, non Commissiond Officers private Men & Casuals to be Effective for the intermediate times as set down against their Respective names above Mentioned being Certified on the back of this roll

This Muster is taken for 183 days from 25^th December to 24^th June 1776 both days inclusive”

This eighteenth-century military legalese is concerned with the prickly question of paying the army. Parliament passed an annual bill to fund the army, which was always subject to intense debate and scrutiny. From that point on, essentially every penny expending for military support had to be accounted for, since a scandal on misappropriation of funds or embezzlement could have dramatic negative effects on the army’s funding for the subsequent year. While plenty of period sources suggest that mustering was often accompany by significant bouts of corruption, with officer’s servants mustered to bring up the numbers of soldiers in a company to establishment strength, in general this process seems to have been taken fairly seriously by the Revolutionary War era. It is always important to note the date and location where the muster was taken and the dates the muster covers: in many regiments, several muster periods would be accounted for at one time, covering lengthy periods (sometimes extending to years) wherein the regiment could not be gathered and formally counted. A British regiment was expected to be mustered at six month intervals, so twice every year. Even if those musters couldn’t be made at the established intervals, the paperwork needed to be filled out at some juncture to satisfy officials in the Treasury Office.

Heading back to the top, we see the first of the detailed name information contained in this return:

  

Beneath the unit identification and the colonel’s name, you see a list of the company’s officers: Captain Robert Clayton, Lieutenant Richard Norris, and Ensign Mervin Murray. Murray is listed on the recruiting service, meaning he is back in the British Isles with a serjeant and detachment of men attempting to drum up new recruit. Clayton and Norris were present with the company on the day of the muster--- when you see notes on the return that explain a man’s absence, that is only the excuse given for him being absent that day. So Clayton could have been on command at headquarters, far away from his company, the preceding day. That was one way officers could, theoretically, cheat the system: by being absent every day save for the muster and hiring local men to stand in for soldiers for the muster. Not as easy to pull off in America, however.

Below the officers, you have the list of non-commissioned officers. These are the serjeants, corporals, and drummers. In most returns, they will be labeled as such, though not here. Looking at the information from the bottom of the return, we would expect to see two serjeants, three corporals, and one drummer listed, and so they are. As in that synopsis, Serjeants John Neaile and James Richardson are present, along with Drummer John Harrison. Corporal Daniel Webb and Corporal James Wilson were ill on the day of the muster, while Corporal Morris Rew was off on the recruiting service, probably with Ensign Murray.

Now moving to the center portion of the return, we see two primary sections. The two columns to the left list all of the men who were expected to be with the company on muster day, including the excuses for those men who were not physically present. The right-hand section lists all of the causalities for the period of the muster: that includes men who left for any significant reason.

  

Focusing in on the casualty list, we see that it covers the same period as the rest of the muster and provides some interesting casualties beyond the men who died.

  Here’s another transcript for you: “Sick                                                       William WalkerGuard                                                      John WrightDied 29^th Feby 76                                  Benjamin HakenDied 22d May 76                                    Simon RampleyTransfered 35^th May 76                       Michal KelleyDischd 7^th May 76                                  Stephen Bratt” 

Walker and Wright both stand out as outliers—plenty of the soldiers listed to the left were either sick or on guard. Perhaps the muster master forgot to list them and thus stuck them under the Casualties? Maybe Walker was seriously ill and Wright had been sent to a long-term guard detachment? The return doesn’t indicate answers, hence we call these leads for further research.

Beneath Walker and Wright, one sees the standard list of men who died. It was highly unusual for a six month period to pass without deaths in the regiment. You’ll see both the soldiers killed in battle as well as those who succumbed to disease, wounds, or accidents listed in this area, usually without any further explanation other than their official date of death. We also have Private Kelley, who transferred out of this company, probably into another company of the 17^th. Often, when a regiment is drafted, you’ll see notations made adjacent to soldiers’ names about when they left and which corps they joined. Similarly, when men are drafted into a regiment, you’ll see that noted, usually with the comment “Enter’d” followed by the date. The same style is used for new recruits, so sometimes things can be a bit confusing when you know that men are being drafted and recruited in, but the muster master didn’t make a note. That’s why we use a range of sources together to correct for the weaknesses in individual sources. This particular sheet is fairly routine, only have a mix of sick and guard duty listed.

So there you have your basic guide to reading a British regimental muster roll sheet: while they can be tiresome one at a time, taken collectively they open up grand new vistas on the busy internal life of the British Army. We are reliably informed that Don Hagist is working on a massive muster roll project, recording all of the surviving data on British regiments that served in America into an interactive digital spreadsheet. Can’t wait to see those results! For more 17^th Regiment-specific data, keep your eyes out for future posts here.

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WILL TATUMreceived his BA in History from the College of William & Mary in Virginia in 2003, and his MA and PhD from Brown University in Rhode Island in 2004 and 2016. His exploits in Revolutionary War Living History began with a chance encounter at Colonial Williamsburg’s Under the Redcoat event in 2000.

Over the subsequent years, he has traveled throughout the United States and Great Britain researching the eighteenth-century British Army and used the results of those labor to improve living history interpretations. The beginning of this journey in 2001 marked the start of the current recreated 17^th Infantry.

The Things We Carry

First of all happy Wednesday! Before we get into today's blog post I wanted to mention that we have a news letter that will be starting to send out every Monday in June! So if you haven't yet signed up for the newsletter please feel free to do so. No spam, just 17th updates and a few short history lessons.

Now this week on the blog we have a Damian Niescior, most of you may know Damian from his work experience at Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York, but now he serves as a Gallery Educator at the new Museum of the American Revolution in Old City, Philadelphia, PA, continuing to chat history to visitors. This blog post has been requested by some readers and is very informative in everything that Damian carries on his person to events has a purpose, can be easily stowed away in pockets, haversacks, and knapsacks, and nothing is there "just for looks".  Enjoy the read!

Mary Sherlock - A follower attached to the 17th Regiment of Infantry

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“They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

            Throughout my time as a historical interpreter, both amateur and professional, I have been asked a fair amount on what I carry and why I carry it. I find it’s important to represent the soldiers as best we can as individuals, which includes minute details that may not even have a chance to see. These items also allow me to be self-sufficient while at events, keeping myself from needing to return to a vehicle. These items are both small and large, but all carry some significance to the interpretation of soldier life on campaign.

1. The very first thing put on is the bayonet belt. It carries the sidearm, the bayonet, a triangular shaped blade of about 18 inches long. It is supported by the scabbard which sits in the belt itself. The buff leather belt is based off of several surviving originals, and although it is a waist belt, it is worn across the shoulder as a field modification to improve comfort.
2. The next item we put on is the cartridge pouch. This pouch is a soft leather bag sewn with a hard leather flap to protect the cartridges inside. The cartridges sit in a wooden block, nailed into place by a series of small iron tacks, and can hold 21 cartridges. The white shoulder strap is, like the bayonet belt, made from buff leather. This pouch is of an older style, originally designed and used during the 7 years’ war, but then with a wider strap and extra square buckle. The pouch was modified to conform to the Royal Clothing Warrant of 1768. The 17^th, months before the start of the war in 1775, ordered new cartridge pouches in an effort to replace the older outdated ones they were still carrying. Through the orderly books, although they had ordered the new pouches, they did not arrive in time for the 17^th’s voyage to America in mid-1775.
3. Over the buff accoutrements, camp equipment is then placed, starting with the haversack. The haversack is a coarse linen bag, closed with two buttons on the side and suspended by a strap made from the same cloth. Its job is to hold the rations of each individual soldier. These rations were issued out once per every three days, which could include daily rations of one pound of flour or bread, one pound of beef or one half pound of pork, one quarter pint of peas, and one ounce of rice.
4. Next is the canteen. The canteen is made from tinned iron, and suspended with a thin hemp rope. To help prevent rusting, beeswax is melted inside the canteen and shaken around to coat the interior. The canteen itself is made after an original, which had a tin cap for the spout as well. I, however, lost that cap a long time ago, and have since been replaced with a cork.
5. The musket is the Short Land pattern, or second model, and also known as the Brown Bess. This musket is made from walnut, iron, steel, and brass. It features a 42 inch long barrel and its total weight is eight pounds. Completed with a buff leather sling to finish the look and assist with the carrying of the gun itself.

We have now reached the knapsack itself, which has many items inside it, each one I have carefully chosen to represent what a British soldier might carry in their pack.

6. The knapsack itself is of a simple construction. It is primarily a hemp linen pack with two large pockets on each half. Each pocket is closed with two buttons made of pewter. The exterior of the knapsack is painted to repel rain and other weather. The knapsack is closed by three leather straps with conjoining buckles, and the pack itself is worn on the back with two shoulder straps made of leather as well. In the bottom half of the pack I keep tools and utensils, and clothing in the top half of the pack.
7. An extra pair of shoes. At the height of the war, Britain was shipping nearly 40,000 pairs of shoes to supply its army with 2 pairs of shoes per man, per year. As I wear one pair of shoes on my feet, the others sit in my knapsack. There does seem to be some great relief when putting on dry shoes after walking in wet shoes all day.
8. Shoe tools; a hammer, lasting pliers, a set of pincers, leather palm, and awls wrapped up in a leather apron. While I was an interpreter at Fort Ticonderoga, I was an apprentice shoemaker studying under Mr. Pekar. Under his tutelage I developed some skills as a shoemaker, including the ability to repair shoes that had needed new soles and heels. The British army of the 18^th Century contained a great deal of tradesmen, and many of them were shoemakers. These shoemakers, although soldiers first, facilitated the repair of shoes in the army.
9. Donation soles. These soles, bound together with a simple tie, were issued to each man for each pair of shoes. It is typical for the average soldier to wear through soles in 3 months, but with two pairs of shoes per year means that the average soldier will wear each pair for six months. In order to bridge this gap, the British Army provides enough replacement leather for new soles and new heels for each pair. This is not in the assumption that each man has the skills required to repair his own shoes, but in the assumption that, due to the prolific nature of the shoemaking trade, each man will know a shoemaker in their own mess group or company willing to do the work.
10. In order to keep the shoes I carry both presentable and healthy, a black polishing agent known as blackball is kept with my other tools. Blackball is a combination of charcoal, tallow and beeswax. The substance itself, when properly applied, returns a black finish to shoes while also keeping the leather from becoming too dry. Each soldier was issued an amount of blackball to maintain the shoes and black leather pouch.
11. A small folding knife. This small folding knife has assisted me in more ways than I can mention. It has been a tool in cutting leather, a cooking utensil, a screwdriver and several other useful applications throughout the years.
12. A pocket watch. Watches are especially useful to the life of a soldier. Although 18^th century watches are impossibly complicated and expensive today, in the 18^th century they were commonplace.
13. Extra cartridges carried in a small brown package. In order to keep myself self-sufficient as the British Army could be, in addition to the 21 cartridges I carry in my pouch, I also carry additional ammunition in my knapsack.
14. Musket tool. This reproduction of a musket tool is based off an original, and is used to maintain the musket. The tool itself is the only device needed when disassembling a great majority of the gun itself.
15. A wooden bowl and pewter spoon. For my own comfort, I carry my own eating utensils. Although individual soldiers did carry their own bowls, soldiers would also eat out of the same kettle, removing the need to carry a bowl while on campaign.
16. A tin cup. This reproduction of a cup, found at a British army encampment in North America, is a useful item to have when in the field. It can serve as both a drinking vessel and as a small cooking utensil as well. While I’ll admit that some of the worst coffee I have ever had, has been made in that cup, it is also the best coffee I have ever had.
17. Wallet and notebook. Two items I have found to help remove myself from the 21^st century when I am in the field. The wallet holds any cash I might use to purchase goods while at events, and the notebook allows me to jot down any thoughts or any notes I can review later.
18. A pair of dice and snuff tin. We can’t have a good soldier impression without some vices thrown in! The dice I carry allows me to partake in a very old game known as Hazard. This game was very popular with soldiers; it required only a pair of dice and an understanding of the game itself. The snuff tin carries a small measure of snuff tobacco. Snuff is powdered tobacco taken through the nasal passage in very small quantities. Due to its unique method of inhalation, often the public use of snuff can come with strange looks from visitors.
19. Two pairs of stockings. Each British soldier, in order to keep feet dry and healthy, would carry a number of extra stockings. I carry two extra on top of the pair I would be wearing, in total three pairs. There is something to be said of the quality of dry socks.
20. Neckstock, one linen kerchief, and one cotton kerchief. A British soldier of the period would have a few items of neckwear. The one worn while on parade or battle, would be the neckstock. This garment is made of black velvet and finished with a false white shirt collar. This garment provides the soldier with a clean, military look. When the neckstock was not worn, softer kerchiefs and rollers could be worn.
21. Fatigue cap. In order to preserve and protect the cocked hat from unnecessary damage, a cap is worn instead. This cap is based off of description and a few pictorial representations in paintings of the period. It is kept in my knapsack when not in use.
22. Two shirts. These two shirts, I carry based on orders issued to the 17^th at various points during the war, consist of one white and one made of check cloth. Like the extra shoes and stockings, it allows me to change into dry undergarments. This is especially useful during the hot days which can leave a shirt drenched with sweat.
23. Watchcoats are heavy wool overcoats which assist a soldier while posted on sentry or picket duty. The British army issued these to regiments as about one watchcoat per 6 men. These garments were shared, and made to fit most sizes. I can tell you from personal experience, that extra layer of wool is a boon when enduring difficult weather.
24. Last but not least is the blanket. It is rolled up and attached with ties to the top of the pack. This allows the weight to be more manageable, and to keep the pack from becoming too bloated.

Each item is packed away carefully into the knapsack. Shirts are rolled up and pressed into the pack as efficiently as possible. The ending result is a tight, but efficient pack which weighs 20 pounds when fully loaded up. While these items all serve a purpose, each one a carefully chosen representative of items British soldiers of the period would have carried, this is as close I can come to understanding of what those soldiers would have endured. Those soldiers, serving thousands of miles away from home, would have carried a lot more than just items throughout the cities and wilderness of North America.

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DAMIAN NIESCIORCurrently serves as Gallery Educator at the Museum of the American Revolution in Old City, Philadelphia, PA after serving as an interpreter at Fort Ticonderoga in Ticonderoga, New York. He has been reenacting and interpreting British soldier’s life since 2009.

The Malicious, Morose Malady and the Vindictive, Vagrant Vixen: A 17th Regiment Story, Part 1

This week we welcome British Army researcher extraordinaire Don Hagist to the blog. Don has spent many years researching the interior lives of the common British soldier, tracing his experiences, thoughts, and feelings throughout the conflict and beyond. In this installment, we receive a rare window into the post-war experiences of one man who chose to stay in America and made questionable relationship choices that places him in hot water. This is part 1 of the article, so be sure to tune in for part 2 next month.

- Will Tatum

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On February 18, 1778, a wedding took place in Middletown, Connecticut. Thomas Mellalew married Hannah Andrews at an Anglican church in the little town on a big bend in the Connecticut River. We have no details on Hannah's background, but we wonder if her choice of a husband caused a stir in her family or community, for he was a British soldier. Or, at least, he had been, until he deserted from the 17th Regiment of Foot.

The surname is rendered on the regiment's muster rolls as "Melody," but as will be seen below, other spellings include Mallady, Mallalue, and similar phonetic variants. Nothing that we know about Thomas Mellalew's military career suggests that he was prone to abscond from the army, but we have little to go on besides the muster rolls, and his desertion was not an ordinary case. From England or Scotland (the muster rolls tell us that he was "British" as opposed to Irish or "Foreign"), he joined the army some time before 1772, the earliest date for which rolls exist. He had been a weaver before enlisting, the most common trade among British soldiers. No detailed records survive to tell us about his discipline or performance as a soldier, except that he was trusted enough to be granted a furlough during the regiment's peacetime years in Great Britain.

Mellalew came to America with the regiment in late 1775, and endured the difficult winter in Boston, the voyage to Halifax and then to Staten Island in the first half of 1776, and the fast-moving campaign through New York and New Jersey in the second half of that year. At the beginning of 1777 he had at least five years of experience as a soldier, including one major campaign.

The battle of Princeton on 3 January 1777 was perhaps the 17th Regiment's greatest trial of the war. In the face of overwhelming odds, the seven companies of the regiment engaged (the flank companies were detached, and it appears that one battalion company was some distance away as a baggage guard) acquitted themselves well. They did suffer a significant number of killed, wounded and captured. Among the latter was Thomas Mellalew. The Princeton prisoners were sent to Connecticut, where they were dispersed among several towns. Mellalew was sent to a small town in the northwestern part of the state called New Hartford. He didn't stay. He may have obtained permission to work locally, as many British prisoners did, or he may have simply had enough of soldiering. One way or another, he deserted from captivity, the next we know of him is his marriage in Middletown a year later and some 25 miles southeast of New Hartford.

Their specific activities over the next dozen years haven't been determined. We know that he worked as a barber, a trade he may have learned in the army. In the 1780s they lived for time in Westfield, Massachusetts, just west of Springfield. He drank. He sought out other women. At some point he took an ad out in a Springfield newspaper. Soon after, he took out another ad rescinding the first one. We haven't found the text of either ad, but the first one probably looked something like this one, that he placed in the autumn of 1791: "Whereas Hannah, my Wife, has forsaken my bed and board - this is therefore to forbid all persons trusting her on my account. Thomas Mallady. Richmond, October 14, 1791."

The ad, dated from the Massachusetts town of Richmond on the New York border, was placed in the 25 October edition of a newspaper called the Western Star that began publication in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1789. Ads like this were fairly common in period newspapers, and usually we can only wonder about the stories behind them. In this case, however, apparently after considerable fallout from ad and other events, Hannah Mellalew published a notice of her own in the 11 September 1792 edition of the same paper:

"Take Notice.It is with reluctance that I am drove to the disagreeable necessity of publishing the subsequent lines for the consideration of the candid publick. I am sensible that publications of this kind often have a tendency to bring disgrace on the author; but all who have read the publication of Thomas Mellalew (or Mallady, as he calls himself) my Companion (who advertised me in the publick prints in the months of October last) will pardon me for being desirous that the publick should have a just statement of the facts. A statement of one half of the aggravated crimes that he was guilty of while we lived together would make a larger volume than I am able to get published, or any one have patience to read, and they would bring disgrace on me and all the human race; therefore, I shall only mention a few that are the least dishonourable. I can with prudence say, that they are such as these; taking property that was not his own; being with other women, of all characters but good, and all colours but white; he has once been detected in attempting to be with a Negroe's wife in a barn: It will be needless to mention drunkenness, it being so trifling compared with his other failings. It is not my power to describe his malicious and morose temper, but it is such that I lived in great fear of being murdered by him. If any persons should dispute the truth of these facts, I shall be very happy if they would take the trouble to call on me, to convince them of the truth of these and many others, (if they will have patience to hear,) by the best authorities where he hath lived; and likewise that I have conducted with as much prudence as any person could under my circumstances. The said Mellalew (or Mallady) is a Weaver & Barber, about middling size, has a scar on his upper lip, which has the appearance of a hair lip, sewed up; has black curled hair, is a foreigner that deserted from the British army last war. Whoever will take up said Mellalew (or Mallady) and conceal him from the sight of man and beast, shall have my thanks, and will merit the applause of the publick. All persons are forbid harbouring or trusting him on my account. Hannah Mellalew. East Hampton, Sept. 1792."

Easthampton is a considerable distance from Richmond, so clearly the couple had separated by this point. But they were reading the same paper. In fact, they were supporting it with ad revenue from their competing notices. The next week's issue, on 18 September, carried Thomas Mellalew's response, this time datelined from Pittsfield:

"To the Publick.Whenever the character of an individual is notoriously attacked, it is incumbent on him, if he has any regard for his reputation, or respect for the opinion of the world, to come forward in his own defence. The writer is sensible that a private controversy between a man and woman, is not a very pleasing subject for the attention of the community: His only excuse is, that he write in his own defence."In the Star of last week, was published a piece under the signature of Hannah Mellalew -a performance in which my character is represented as black as the pen wielded by the hand of falhood [sic] could possibly describe. A publication, signed by a woman, the blackness of whose character my modesty will not permit me to lay naked to the view of the world - a woman with whom had it have been possible for any man to have lived, would not have been under the necessity of strolling about after a second gulled companion, while the first was still living. Let any ingenuous mind read the performance to which I allude, and then say, if any but an abandoned prostitute could ever have come forward with such a publication in the face of the world. No, not a woman on earth, who is not totally devoid of every species of virtue, could have assumed the impudence to publish such brothel ideas of a man, whom she claims as her companion."The charges alledged against me in that piece, it is in my power, at any time to confute. But I do not conceive that a Newspaper is a proper place to produce affidavits to establish the character of any man."Neither do I believe that the publick are so strongly inclined to believe any man a villain, as, without proof, without witnesses, or even the appearance of truth, to give credit to the aspersions of a malicious, vindictive, vagrant vixen. Thomas Mallady."Pittsfield, Sept. 1792."

It didn't end there. The next week's issue of the Wester Star, dated 25 September, contained Hannah's next volley...[tune in for part 2 in a future installment!]

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DON HAGISTis a life-long British Army researcher and founding member of the 22nd Regiment of Foot (recreated). His scholarly career includes preparing and publishing numerous editions of period primary sources and analytical articles for the living history community. Most recently, Hagist has written two major books.

The first, British Soldiers, American War examines the Revolutionary conflict through the eyes of British soldiers' narratives. The second and more recent is The Revolution's Last Men, an exploration of the last veterans of the War for Independence who were captured through early photography. Hagist runs his own blog and is a regular contributor at the Journal of the American Revolution

Captain William Brereton and the Grenadier Company: Officers of the 17th, Part 2

In this second installment of the series, Mark Odintz, Ph.D., returns with a look at the officers who served in the 17th's Grenadier Company during the war. As always, we are grateful to Mark both for choosing the 17th Regiment for his studies and for sharing the fruits of his labor with our readers. If you enjoy these and Mark's other entries, please post in the comments: we're encouraging him to transform his dissertation into a book!

- Will Tatum

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In this post I will provide sketches of the three officers who served in the grenadier company of the 17^th during most of the American Revolution, with the addition of two others who joined it in 1781. For most of the period of the war the regiment contained twelve companies: eight companies of the line; two specialist companies, grenadiers and light infantry, known as the “flank” companies; and two “additional” companies that remained in the British Isles recruiting and forwarding men overseas to the regiment. Flank companies were usually detached from the regiment during the war and served in separate battalions of grenadiers and light infantry. Their officer compliment consisted of a captain and two lieutenants, in contrast to the average line company, which contained a captain (or field officer or captain lieutenant), a lieutenant and an ensign. Enlisted grenadiers were chosen in part for their height and physique, though this probably became less important on wartime service, when qualities of steadiness, toughness and endurance were paramount. For officers, service in the flank companies was prized as a vehicle for furthering one’s reputation, career and professional expertise. Eleven officers served in the light company of the 17^th during the war, reflecting its almost constant active service and high level of casualties. The grenadier company, in contrast, though it saw hard service in the field, was officered almost entirely by three men, William Brereton, Gideon Shairp (or Sharp) and Lawford Miles, with two others, Alexander Saunderson and James Forrest, serving for the final two years of the war. Of the five three were Irish, one Scots, and one American, thus highlighting the national diversity of the officer corps during the American War.

William Brereton, captain of the grenadier company of the 17th for much of the Revolution, is a classic example of the commitment of the Protestant Ascendancy of Ireland to military service. He came from a family of Anglo-Irish gentry that had come over to Ireland from Cheshire in the 16^th century. His grandfather, William Brereton of Carrigslaney, County Carlow and Lohart Castle, county Cork, had served as High Sherriff of County Carlow in 1737. Our William’s father, Percival, was the third son, and died a captain in the 48^th Foot with Braddock in 1755. Four of William’s uncles also served in the army, and his mother, Mary Lee, was the daughter of a general. A letter from William’s uncle Edward to Lord Amherst, soliciting a company for himself during the American Revolution, demonstrates the family ties to the military and how the connection had carried over into the next generation. He laid out his service and went on to state he “had 4 brothers officers, one of whom was killed with Braddock, and now 3 nephews in the Service.” (Burkes Family Records, Brereton Family; WO34:154, f. 147 Edward Brereton to Amherst).

William was born in 1752 and purchased an ensigncy in the 17^th on August 2, 1769. When Captain Edward Hope died in 1771, the succession went without purchase and Brereton became a lieutenant on Nov. 14, 1771. He became adjutant by purchase of the 17^th in February, 1775 and continued to serve as adjutant until April of 1777. He purchased the captain lieutenantcy of the 17^th on May 24, 1775 and purchased his captaincy later that year. He was commanding the grenadier company of the 17^th by July of 1776 and, with the exception of a brief interval in July of 1780, continued to lead the grenadiers until he was promoted out of the regiment in April of 1781. (Record of service in WO25:751, f.217; dates of service in grenadier company from the rolls in WO12).

He was clearly an outstanding combat soldier, and distinguished himself during his six years as commander of the grenadier company. In 1779 his former commander, Earl Cornwallis, recommended him for promotion by summing up his service in the 17^th- “He did his duty with the greatest spirit & zeal during the three campaigns in which I commanded the Grenadiers, but he more than once stepp’d forth when not particularly called upon, and without the too common apprehension of taking responsibility upon himself by his courage and good sense render’d essential service…” (WO1:1056, f. 317). One of his bolder exploits involved the capture of an American frigate, the Delaware, during the Philadelphia Campaign. On September 27, 1777, the thirty-four gun ship was attempting to deny the Delaware River to British shipping when it ran aground. A mixed force of British marines, sailors and Brereton’s grenadiers captured the ship, refloated it, and incorporated it into the Royal Navy. (Webb, Services of the 17^th Regiment, pp. 73-73; Taafe, The Philadelphia Campaign, pp. 112-113).

Perhaps the high point of his service as a grenadier came a few weeks later on the morning of October 11, 1777.  An outpost on an island near Philadelphia under the command of Major Vatass of the 10th was surprised by a rebel force.  Acting quickly and without orders, Brereton and Captain Wills, a grenadier officer of the 23d, put together a scratch force of grenadiers and Hessians, crossed over to the island, recaptured the post and rescued the garrison as it was being brought off by the rebels (WO71:84, Court-martial of John Vatass, 16 Oct 1777; and Court-martial of Richard Blackmore 21 October 1777). Continuing at the head of the grenadier company, Brereton was wounded at the battle of Monmouth in 1778.

After twelve years in the 17^th Brereton purchased his majority in the 64^th Foot in April of 1781. Late in the war Brereton commanded at one of the last successful British skirmishes of the war at the Battle of the Combahee River, outside Beaufort, South Carolina. On August 27, 1782, he was leading a foraging detachment (including a company from the 17^th) from the garrison at Charleston when they were intercepted by an American force under Mordechai Gist and John Laurens (now of Hamilton the musical fame). Brereton ambushed the rebels, killing Laurens, capturing a howitzer and, after further skirmishes, returned to Charleston. He became a lieutenant colonel by purchase in the 58^th Foot in 1789, and retired in 1792. Like many other retired officers he made himself useful during the lengthy crisis of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars by holding a number of other military appointments; serving as paymaster for a recruiting district, as an officer in the Wiltshire Militia, and as inspecting field officer of yeomanry for the Western District.

In 1784 William Brereton married Mary Lill, daughter of Godfrey Lill, Judge of Common Pleas for Ireland. Of his three sons who survived into adulthood, one entered the army and two served in the Royal Navy, continuing the tradition of military service. He lived at Chichester in England during his final years and died in November of 1830.

Gideon Shairp served as lieutenant of the company for the entire war. He came from a family of lowland Scottish landed gentry, the Shairps of Houston, co. Linlithgow (modern West Lothian). Born in 1756, he was the second son of Thomas Shairp, of Houston, whose children followed the classic pattern of gentry with strong ties to the services. Thomas, the eldest, inherited the estate, married and produced heirs; our Gideon entered the army, the third son went into the Royal Navy and the two youngest went into the army as well (family info from Burkes Landed Gentry, 1853, p. 1222 Shairp of Houston).  Gideon purchased an ensigncy in the 17^th on August 31, 1774, and was assigned to the grenadier company in August or September of 1775. As part of the augmentation of the army he was promoted to lieutenant without purchase on August 23, 1775 and served as the senior lieutenant of the grenadier company from 1775 through 1783. He purchased his captain lieutenantcy on Sept 14, 1787, became captain a month later and after twenty-one years in the 17^th was promoted out as major to a new corps in May of 1795. He shifted to a more stable berth as major to the 22^nd Foot in September of the same year and became lieutenant colonel to the 9^th Foot in August of 1799. Gideon was serving as quartermaster general of Ireland at the time of his death in 1806. As far as I can tell, he never married. In his will he leaves his estate to his brother Walter, his baggage to his servant, and a ceremonial sword presented to him by the officers of the 9^th to his friend, Major General Browning. (PCC Will proved 1806).

The third grenadier officer is another Irishman, Lawford Miles. His family was minor gentry in County Tipperary. His father, Edward Miles, gent, of Ballyloughan, died in 1778, leaving six daughters and five sons. At some point our Lawford inherited the estate of his uncle in Rochestown, and the family also owned land at Clonmel and Clogheen, all in Tipperary (Irish Wills, p.349; online list of Tipperary freeholders 1775-6) He entered the 17^th as an ensign without purchase on May 1, 1775, and became a lieutenant, also without purchase, on September 8, 1775. He was serving as the junior lieutenant of the grenadier company by July of 1776 and served in the company at least until February of 1781. Miles purchased his company in the 17^th on April 29, 1781 and was serving with the main body of the regiment at the surrender of Yorktown. He was the only captain chosen to accompany the regiment into captivity, and found his time as a prisoner had its dangers as well.  He “was also one of the capts for whom the Americans drew lotts when Capt Asgill of the Guards was the unfortunate person” (WO1:1024 f. 775, Lawford Miles to Young, 7 Aug. 1784). This refers to the Asgill affair of 1782. In retaliation for the hanging of a rebel captain by American loyalists, George Washington responded by having British POWs of the same rank draw lots for hanging. Charles Asgill was chosen, but in the end the American Congress set him free. (see Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington, Asgill Affair). Miles retired from the 17^th and the army in November of 1789. He died without heirs in 1809. Family sources style him as Colonel Miles at the time of his death, but I have found no evidence of further service in the regular forces. (BLG 1862, Barton of Rochestown).

Two other officers, Alexander Saunderson and James Forrest, joined Gideon Shairp in 1781 and served until the end in 1783. Saunderson was yet another member of the Irish gentry. The Saundersons of Castle Saunderson, County Cavan, came over from Scotland in the early 17^th century. Alexander’s father, Alexander senior, was head of the estate and served as High Sherriff of  Cavan in 1758. Our Alexander was the second son (see BLG of Ireland 1904, Saunderson of Castle Saunderson). Unfortunately for him, his father, at least according to family lore, fit the stereotype of the wastrel Irish gentleman. He was a spendthrift and a gambler and spent much of his time racing horses at Curragh and elsewhere. Rumored to have been a member of the Hell Fire Club in the Wicklow Hills, he became a wanderer after Castle Saunderson was damaged by fire. (Henry Saunderson, “Saundersons of Castle Saunderson”, 1936). Our Alexander was born circa 1756. He entered the army as an ensign in the 37^th Foot on September 30, 1775 and became a lieutenant in the same regiment on May 20, 1778. He came to the 17^th as a captain on April 29, 1781, and was Captain of the grenadier company by July of 1781. In 1783 the regiment was reduced from twelve companies to ten as the British army returned to the peacetime establishment, and Saunderson, as one of the two junior captains, was put onto the half pay. With the coming of a new crisis in 1792 he found his way onto active service by trading his half pay for a captaincy in the 69^th Foot on June 30^th. Saunderson remained in the 69^th for the remainder of his career, becoming a brevet major on March 1, 1794, a major on July 1, 1796, and a lieutenant colonel on March 30, 1797. He left the service in 1800, and died childless in 1803, leaving his estate to his wife Aurelia. (PCC Will proved 1803)

Finally, we have an American, James Forrest, one of possibly eight or more in the 17^th during the period of the revolution. He was born in 1761, the year that James senior, his father, moved the family from Ireland to Boston, so our James may have been born in Ireland. His father was a prosperous merchant before the war and lost his fortune as a result of his loyalist support of the British cause (E. Alfred Jones, “The Loyalists of Massachusetts”, 1930). James senior raised the Loyal Irish Volunteers in Boston in 1775, and contributed two sons to the British forces. Our James joined the 38^th Foot as a volunteer in 1777. Gentlemen without the money to purchase or the influence to find their way into the service often joined serving regiments as “volunteers”, hoping to be appointed to vacant commissions after proving themselves in the field. James was wounded while serving with the 38^th at the battle of Germantown and was appointed ensign in the regiment in October of 1777. A letter James wrote in March of 1780 seeking a company in a loyalist corps expresses the frustration of those trying to get ahead without financial means: “I have not the most distant prospect of promotion in the 38^th, the repeated misfortunes my Father has met with since the commencement of the Rebellion put it out of his power to purchase for me.” (Clinton Papers, Forrest to William Crosbie, March 3, 1780). Instead of transferring to the loyalist units he was appointed lieutenant without purchase to the 17^th Foot on February 19, 1781 and seems to have joined the grenadier company about the same time as Saunderson. James Forrest retired as a lieutenant in September of 1788.

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   Dr. Mark Odintz

conducted his graduate work in history at the University of Michigan back in the 1980s and wrote his dissertation on “The British Officer Corps 1754-1783”. He became a public historian with the Texas State Historical Association in 1988, spending over twenty years as a writer, editor and finally managing editor of the New Handbook of Texas, an online encyclopedia of Texas history. Since retiring from the association he has been working on turning his dissertation into a book. He lives in Austin.

Music Made Easy: A Guide to Period Playing

As a folk music lover myself, I grew up around listening to jigs and contra style songs as my parents met and continued to go clogging when I was a kid. I'm very excited to introduce Tim MacDonald a professional performer and researcher of 18th-century Scottish fiddle music and a good friend of mine. This post is filled with fun facts, images and tunes. Enjoy!

Mary - An attached follower of the 17th Regiment of Infantry

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And for this reason, in every age, the musick of that time seems best, and they say, Are wee not wonderfully improved? And so comparing what they doe know, with what they doe not know, they are as clear of opinion, as they that doubdt nothing.

~Roger North, ca. 1726

Much of the look of a recreated 1770s camp can be recreated faithfully with relatively obvious documentation. The tin kettle hanging over the fire was copied from an original excavated at a military site. The crossbar that it hangs on was chosen after reading a paper that analyzed dozens of images and other accounts of period military cooking. The stew boiling in it was based off of a documented ration issue and a description in a soldier's journal. And so on and so forth. Gathering, evaluating, and applying all of these sources requires a tremendous amount of insight and plain old hard work. But there's usually a sense of how your interpretation measures up. Does your coat match an original? Well done!

The sounds of that same camp, though, are much less concrete. In the 18th century as now, music was commonly-heard and well-loved. And in the pre-recording era, an even higher percentage of the population played an instrument, and musicians could be found everywhere from the drawing rooms of the upper class to the earth-floored houses of the lower class, from the taverns (many of which had loaner instruments available) to the drill of a North Carolina militia unit, which in July of 1775 featured "a very ill-beat drum and a fiddler, who was also in his shirt with a long sword and a cue in his hair, who played with all his might". But what did it sound like? Nobody will ever know for sure— there are (obviously) no surviving musicians and no recordings, and thus no guarantee that the modern performer will get it exactly right. But all is not lost. There's still a wealth of tremendously helpful documentation, and there's a lot of value in trying to get as close to a period sound as possible. Here are some considerations:

1. Get the equipment right. Many common instruments of today didn't exist in their current form in the 18th century. Much as an M-16 rifle is no substitute for a Brown Bess, a modernviolin, guitar, tin whistle, or similar is no substitute for a Baroque violin, cittern, or flageolet. Cataloguing period-correct instruments and describing their properties would fill up this entire blog post, but the information is easy to find (usually by Googling "baroque [name of instrument you play here]", then confirming with period accounts and artwork. Material culture still matters, and all your material culture research skills still apply. It's not just a simple matter of appearance or even acoustics: playing a period instrument instead of its modern counterpart dramatically changes how you go about making music on it. Returning to the firearm analogy, think of how using an M-16 instead of a Bess changes everything from the manual of arms to the tactics involved in fighting with it…that same level of difference exists between playing a tune on a modern, metal-strung violin with a concave hatchethead bow and a gut-strung violin with a convex pikehead bow. It's hard to progress unless you're using the right equipment.
2. Forget about folk music. It's very tempting to learn folk tunes, reflect on how there's an unbroken tradition of playing them that stretches back to the 18th century, and then play them unaltered at events. Resist this temptation. First of all, tradition slowly mutates things over time, and 240 years of mutation adds up to a lot. Second of all, the term "folk music" is fairly problematic in an 18th-century context: there was no distinction between "folk" and "classical" players, everyone played everything (limited solely by their skill level and the functions they were playing for).
3. Play the right tunes. Many pieces we consider "old" today actually originated inthe 19th century, and many period-correct tunes have been forgotten about. Fortunately, there's a wealth of surviving tune collections in both published and manuscript form. They can be found online at IMSLP, archive.org, the websites of good libraries (such as the National Library of Scotland), and elsewhere, or in person at major libraries (research-oriented libraries are usually better than lending libraries) or the office of a friend already involved in early music. What collections to look for first? Try searching newspaper archives for publication announcements, period accounts for tunes mentioned by name or catalogues of music collections of notable people (such as Thomas Jefferson) or sites (such as Williamsburg).
4. Play them the "right" way. The catch-all term for playing historic music is HIP: Historically-Informed Performance. As alluded to above, it'd be unfair to call it HRP (Historically-Replicating Performance) or similar because that's impossible. But there's a big difference between letting the I stand for "Informed" and letting it stand for "Ignorant". What to do? Read period treatises on music-making (I've listed a few popular ones here). Read modern commentary on the philosophy of 18th-century musicmaking (The End of Early Music and The Weapons of Rhetoric) are good places to start. Read about how the tunes were used. If they were played for dancing, try to recreate the dances. Play a lot, experimenting with different interpretations (and everything that entails: different affects, different tempi, different ornamentation…). Recreate period-correct ensembles (violin + cello and one-keyed flute + harpsichord are two easy and popular options). I've been amazed at how I used to dislike certain popular tunes but eventually found an interpretation that made it all make sense and led to really compelling music. It's hard, but it's well worth it.
5. Display 18th century musical values. This is linked with #4. Throughout the 18th century (and before)—and much less so today—the following was prized in music: a) Composing one's own music. b) Personal interpretations of the music, fuelled by a heavy dose of improvisation (quoth Mozart in a 1778 letter: "[The performer should play] so that one believes that the music was composed by the person who is playing it.") c) So-called "rhetorical" playing: performing as if the music was a speech being presented in public, not just a string of notes. What does this mean? Phrasing appropriately (adding "punctuation" between the notes), changing dynamics (nobody speaks in a monotone), and cycling through various affects (even a eulogy isn't sad for its entire duration—it'll have sad parts and angry parts and even funny parts and happy parts and so much more).

This is a very brief introduction to a very complex topic, but I hope it points you in the right direction! Happy musicking!!

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Tim Macdonaldis a professional performer and researcher of 18th-century Scottish fiddle music. He's recently returned from the Musica Scotica conference in Scotland, where he presented a paper on the life and work of composer Robert Mackintosh (1740? – 1807, and frequently performs with 'cellist Jeremy Ward as the creatively-named fiddle duo Tim Macdonald & Jeremy Ward. When not involved with some aspect of music, he can be found running silly distances, studying silly languages (currently Braid Scots), helping out at church, or mucking about at an AWI reenactment.

Listen to Tim Macdonald recreate the sounds of the 18th Century 

Tim & Jeremy Live at the Midwest Sing & Stomp VIEWTim & Jeremy Live Wife Jigs VIEW

How Much Does it Cost?

Last year around this time, one of our good friends, Kirsten over at KittyCalash, wrote a short article about how much it may cost to make a whole suit for a gentleman of 16 to join in a battle. One of the most popular questions for gents joining the 17th is how much does it cost to make an entire uniform? I was curious to know how much it would cost if one were to make an entire women's wardrobe from scratch using the materials and resources that we can find online and at sutler fairs. If one follower / civilian were to purchase everything from the patterns to the fabric and notions from our sutler friends that we frequently recommend purchasing from... how much would everything cost in total? Clayton of the modernreenactor blog noted on May 1, 2017;

...you can't just show up with $5 and a "winning attitude."

Reenacting is a volunteer based hobby, and we wouldn't be doing this if we didn't want to be here and we weren't having much fun. But we do love what we do and we love the people we do it with. Clayton made an important point when he noted that you must spend money to be apart of this hobby. It does cost money and time if you want to do it right.

This information as it turns out seems to be somewhat of a hot topic for new comers who are actually starting out from scratch. After having several conversations with the 17th central command, and new followers who are cost conscious, something like this might be useful information. I wanted to note that my estimated budget is based on how much I've spent over the course of my seven years reenacting (not including off-the-rack purchases from CW when I first started), and even now, as a particularly slow hand sewer, my wardrobe is not yet complete... It is exciting to think about the pretty outfit we could have for the next event, if we had our way. I'm sure we would all want to build a complete wardrobe from shift to cloak, but there just isn't enough time in the day. Like Kirsten, I tend to hand sew everything, mostly because I'm not comfortable using a sewing machine. This means my stitching is painstakingly slow. Granted when I wasn't the best at sewing, I had a lot of help from my boyfriend who spent hours sewing my gown that feels too nice to wear to get dirty... I haven't really spent the time to add in a labor wage to my budget yet, as it wouldn't be a fair judge of cost since I haven't had the experience of making a clothing item for someone else on the clock yet.

I started to break my wardrobe down by clothing item, and then broke it down even more by pattern, material type, the yards, and the vendor where the materials came from. I wanted a wide range of options, but I wasn't necessarily looking for the cheapest option... However, since I am only about five feet tall my material cost will vary from someone who is of average height. I calculated how much it would cost with and with out the pattern provided we, being "veterans", were sharing our resources with new followers. We can break down my wardrobe here.. The first part of the spreadsheet is the wardrobe. If you reenact all year round your wardrobe might look something like this...

As a disclaimer: I wanted to note that my math may not be right as I get easily confused by numbers, so forgive any mistakes that you may find. 

Of course you don't have to go to the sutler stores, to buy your material. We just know that its going to be of good quality and in our best interest to purchase from friends and support small business owners. There are hundreds of other fabric stores and locations where you could come by 100% natural material and it might make the final price cheaper. But as I explained this is as if someone were to buy from the sutlers as many of us do. As you can see it gets to be quite expensive even if its an impression built over time.

Next, I calculated the accessories it would take to make a followers impression stand out, which included anything from a market wallet to a pincushion which can be produced from your broadcloath scraps. Here its the blanket that you purchase I found to be the most expensive part of your accessories. Luckily, I've come to borrow a blanket from friends or one from David. It's been a goal of mine to throw down $300 for a really nice blanket to call my own, and not have to worry about misplacing it. There are many ways to carry in and out your equipment to the campsite. Obviously the most useful thing here would be your market wallet, but in the picture; I didn't have one yet. I used a blanket roll to carry an extra blanket and maybe a spare petticoat. I used a handkerchief to carry left over food that I had not eaten over the weekend.  Anything else, if needed a space to be carried would have gone in my apron, tied around my waist.

Here is how much I would need to spend on some accessories, some of which you cannot depend on yourself to produce or you don't have the skill to make correctly.

I can understand the idea that not everyone might have the funds to throw down cash right away so this blog is not about all the money you must spend to attend your first event. Most of us should be willing to lend other clothing items just for that weekend. It wouldn't be fair to deprive someone of a hobby if you had extra clothes to lend, just because you were afraid it might get destroyed, lost or stolen. All valid reasons, you've put in a lot of hours to make that garment, it should be treated well, and sometimes you just cannot trust people.

This is the importance of making loaner clothes which are meant to be loaned out and a separate from your personal wardrobe, at the ready in case someone wants to try out reenacting for an event. There eventually will be someone you know who sees what you do, may it be a relative or a non reenacting friend, who becomes interested in the comradery that comes along with historical teamwork and camping, and will want to try it out for a weekend or a day.

I suppose by now you're wondering what it would cost in total... One of my fears would be for someone to get scared away from joining the hobby because of how expensive it is. But there are folks who are willing to support you, if in return you're willing to participate in the care of the wardrobe. These are clothes not costumes and they're not cheap either. But note that if you were to buy the pattern only once, and use that multiple times to make new clothing the only cost would be the material and your time. But like I've said. One should not shy away from something that your heart desires you to do. Plus you might really enjoy it.  I want to note that this fictional kit was produced in such a way that it reflects someone of my size just shy of 5'1'' and what I've purchased in the past. The results will vary based on height and weight of the general follower and their personal preferences for material... I've calculated that in the full spreadsheet. Now with a grand total of $564.70 with out the patterns, and $663.30 you to could have a rockn' kit all to yourself. If you would like to view the full spreadsheet which includes the stores to buy from click the link here to view it on google docs.

Happy Reenacting...!

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Mary Sherlockis a full time Film and Media Arts Student at Temple University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the 'head follower' for the 17th Regiment of Infantry. She has been reenacting the Revolutionary War for seven years and is continuing to do so. Mary has been the moderator of the 17th website since 2015 and has been teaching herself html code and css since 2009.

"Sprang interlinked:" The Construction of Eighteenth-Century British Army Sashes

This week we are thrilled to welcome Suzannah Emerson from Old Fort Niagara, who kicks off a new element in our continuing blog adventure: interviews. From time to time, we'll be posting the results of questions asked remotely via email or in person to shed light on interesting things happening in the larger living history community. In today's installment, Suzannah explains her recent research and experiments into spranging, opening a window into eighteenth-century fibre arts.-- Will Tatum

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Thanks for taking on this interview request, Suzannah. For starters, we hear people saying that sprang is the proper method for constructing officers and sergeants sashes during the eighteenth century, at least for the British Army. So what is sprang anyway?Sprang has a fascinating history! Peter Collingwood’s The Techniques of Sprang (the bible on sprang construction) states it can be dated back as far as the early Danish Bronze age (1700-500BC). Several sprang clothing items were found on the numerous “bog people” who pop up in Northern European countries.

Okay, now mentally prepare yourself for some jargon! Let’s start simply, think of a 3- strand braid; there are only 3 pieces of yarn/hair/whatever (a warp), and there are no new perpendicular pieces (a weft) added to the warp like you see in a weave. Now think of sprang as a very fancy braiding process, one uses his or her fingers to manipulate a series of strands in a particular pattern to form a piece of cloth. Like the braid, there is no weft, only a warp. If you are familiar with some of the wonderful oblique finger-woven products used by Native American reenactors, these are made by a process closely related to sprang.  

From The Techniques of Sprang, pg. 31 the structure of sprang (a) and obliquefinger-weaving (b)

Many people seem to confuse sprang with crocheting. Let’s get this straight right now people; Crochet was not around in the 18th century! The structure of sprang produces a very stretchy fabric. Ye olde spandex anyone? The technically correct term is not “sprang woven” but “sprang interlinked.” The structure of a chain linked fence looks very similar to sprang! It is this interlinking, that makes the stretch possible.

 

This royal blue striped sergeant sash shows off the stretch and structure of thesprang

Up until the early 21st century, I had never seen a sprang sash for sale. Now we have a lady in Canada making them, and they seem to cost an arm and a leg. Does that have something to do with the difficulty of "spranging," if that is the proper term? What kind of set-up is required to making sprang items?Like many hand-made and finger-woven items, the cost is probably 95% labor. Manipulating over 150 strands to make 8-10ft. of sash takes a good deal of time, and one’s fingers can only move so quickly. There is one beauty to sprang that other  fingerweaving processes are not capable of implementing. With the correct setup, with one row of strand manipulation one can achieve two rows of textile. Yes folks, that is sprang one get one free.

Let’s go back to the braid example, if you have ever braided before, you might have noticed that the free ends of the braid can get tangled at the bottom. This tangle is actually the mirror image of the braid you are trying to produce. If your braid were secured at both ends while you were working it, you would find that the work meets in the middle. Sprang production often takes advantage of this two for one deal. If this were not the case, I don’t know if I would have the patience to complete an entire sash. There is one problem with this deal, one side of a sprang project is the mirror image of the other. Therefore, if a mistake is made it shows up twice on the sash. If there is a mirror image structure in a “finger-woven” type item, this is one way to identify sprang. There are three options when setting up (i.e warping) a sprang project, two of which allow for one row manipulation for two construction. The braiding example from earlier is using a “figure-8 warp.” The setup I use for sashes is called a “circular warp,” the advantage here is that I only need a “loom” a little over half the height of my desired project length. This comes in handy when my formidable 5’1” self is trying to make a 10 foot sash. 

Please excuse my poor drawing skills, this image shows two warps used tomake sprang.

The image below shows the heavy duty frame I use. It’s made from two 7-foot tall 2x4s, various dowels, pipes and rods. The top PVC pipe can be moved depending on the desired length of the project, and the bottom pipe can be adjusted for project tension. I could easily make a 12 foot sash using this frame. The vast quantity of yarn necessary for a sash is wound around the two PVC pipes, creating one large yarn circle. After the warp is secured, it’s time to start making sprang!

 

Sprang “loom” set up for a shorter project, sprang is a very versatile textile.

Recall that one manipulation of the warp produces two rows of sprang. The first row created by a manipulation is pushed up and over the top PVC pipe, and then the second row is pushed down under the bottom. These rows meet in the middle back of the circular warp. The sash itself is actually made from the middle outward! On many original sashes you will see a line across the weave in about the middle of the sash.This is where the first two rows were pushed, and the body of the sash began to form. This is one sign that a textile could have been made using sprang.

 

The work begins from the middle and works out, the white strings are a safetymeasure in case I mess up, I can take the work out to that point and try again. After I amfinished with the sash the strings are easily removed.

 

Here I am pointing to the center meeting line of the completed sergeant sash.

I understand you are combining your adventures in making sprang items with examining existing originals. Would you tell us a bit about your research to date: how does one study an original sash? Have you found any interesting insights in your research?I had looked at one original sash before I began my sprang adventures. I noticed that there were some oddities in the products I made, and I had a very difficult time eradicating these issues from my work. Then, I began to have more opportunities to study originals. This is when I discovered that those “oddities” were perfectly normal in original sashes! Through these studies I have answered a great many questions which had come up during my sprang sash productions. Many of them are trivial in the grand scheme of things, but they have made the process more efficient.

One thing which seems to be repeated throughout the study of extant clothing items and accoutrements, and is the same for sprang: many things were not made perfectly. I find a great deal of charm in finding little hiccups in these items.One of the first photos we saw of your sash work was a cat wearing a sash. Can you explain how cat help features in the your process?If you have ever lived with a cat, you will quickly come to realize that they believe you should never be without supervision. My cats certainly follow through on this belief, not only supervising the process, but also checking for quality. 

Waldo checking for yarn strength during the warping process.

 

Waldo continuing his work by making sure the first few rows are properly carried out. This also shows the circular warp right at the start of production.

 

Madam doing the final check while the sash is blocked. I no longer use this process to “set” the sprang, but it was an interesting experiment.

What are some of the greatest hurtles you've encountered so far in the research and replication processes?There are two:

My first challenge was finding the materials of the appropriate color, weight, and fiber. I had a hard time finding a “crimson” wool yarn that wouldn’t pill and get fuzzy. Thanks to the weavers at Colonial Williamsburg, I was able to find the Jagger Spun line from Halcyon Yarn. The line is a long staple wool, that pills relatively little. As for silk, this was easier to find. I use the hand-dyed silk yarns from Treenway silks. I have compared the silk yarns from Treenway to several originals, and I believe I have found a near perfect match!My second, and ever-ongoing challenge, is dating the sprang sashes I study, unless we are talking about the Braddock sash, which has “1709” emblazoned on it for all of time. This is unusual, and many sashes have little to no designs that might suggest from when they date. Sure, the curator/collections manager usually has some note on the provenance. Unfortunately, this is usually a statement from someone’s great-great-great Aunt Susie-May who claimed that her great-great Uncle’s 3rd cousin twice removed wore it at Yorktown. Who knows, Aunt Susie-May could be correct, but I have found sashes in collections that could not possibly date to the purported time period.

Therefore, I am cautious but, I believe it is safe to assume that a “crimson” silk plain sprang sash, with no designs is probably appropriate for most 18th British military officer interpretations. This claim also holds for British 1812 impressions.

Do you have any particularly exciting sprang projects on the drawing board?

At the moment, I am focusing on research and the 21st century job market. One question I would like to dive into is what 18th century sprang frames looked like. I have a descent hypothesis, but I would like some more evidence to support my ideas. Also, I hope that in the next few months I’ll be able to exactly reproduce some intricate details I have found throughout my sprang sash studies. Who knows, maybe I’ll make a cat equivalent of the Braddock sash.

 

Resident cat, Leopold, at Old Fort Niagara wearing my first sprang sash, and acocked hat found at Walmart.

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SUZANNAH EMMERSONcurrently serves as the Special Projects Coordinator and Field Music Supervisor at Old Fort Niagara in Youngstown, NY. She holds a BA in Mathematics from Gettysburg College. When not delving into the secrets and mysteries of numbers, she enjoys fibre arts and exploring eighteenth-century German culture.

A Layman’s Guide to Historic Research

This week after a few weeks of rather heavy research and unit development blogs, writer Kyle Timmons joins us again to welcome back the website with a light hearted research blog. If you've missed the blog, it is back! Thanks for standing by us.

Mary Sherlock - An attached follower of the 17th Regiment of Infantry.

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Just a disclaimer to start off with: I AM NOT A HISTORIAN, HISTORY TEACHER, RESEARCHER, ARCHAEOLOGIST, OR ANYTHING LIKE IT. I am a simple person who enjoys history immensely and I’ve read and studied history much of my life. HOWEVER, I have the honor and privilege of being friend and acquaintance to many truly gifted and highly regarded Professional Historians. They’ve taught me so much about the 18^th Century, the Revolution, and the British Army. But most importantly, they’ve given me the tools research on my own and to hunt down information that is of interest to me, and hopefully I can turn that information around and further benefit the hobby, the community, and our understanding of the 18^th century. I’m going to take some time and share some of those tools with you.

1. BE SUSPICIOUS. The moment that you read that previous statement is gone, and is never coming back. You can’t change it. But in an hour when you’re eating delicious food and playing on your phone you’ll likely forget about it. Maybe tomorrow you’ll share your memory of this blog with a friend, but you’ll share the points in your own words. You might get things wrong. 60 years from now when you’re telling your grandchildren how you first got into reenacting you’re memory of the antiquated computer or smart phone you used back then will be colored by nostalgia of the past.

That’s how history is written. It’s mis-remembered, its colored by the writer’s opinion, maybe inflated by his need to tell a good story, or he’s recording it through hazy lens of old age. Whenever you read a historic source, always keep in mind who is writing it, his goal when writing, and his frame of mind, and when he’s writing. A journal entry or letter written the same day is a great source but even then things can get jumbled, misrepresented, summarized, etc. Your solution to this problem? Find more sources. 1 guy saying the British marched at the open order in battle in 1777 is an anomaly. 2 sources is a little better. 3 is better. Finding details that agree from opposing sides is even better. General Orders recorded in an orderly book detailing how the army is to be deployed just adds more ammunition to your theory.

2. YOU MAY BE WRONG BUT YOU MAY BE RIGHT. The modern age we live in is actually an exciting time for someone with a history interest. That’s because high definition imagery and the internet are making it easy for someone in the United States to view an artifact or painting housed in England, or Germany, or anywhere else in the world in detail from the comfort of their home. Books, journals, etc. that are no longer in print or are one of a kind have likewise been digitized and can be accessed around the world either as open domain files or through special archives. This means information that has either laid unseen in a private collector’s library, or has only been accessible to a select few can now be accessed by the entire world. This tidal wave of new information is changing how we see the 18^th century in numerous ways. A good example of this is the silk bonnet. Earlier it was commonly believed by reenactors that a silk bonnet was something that would have been out of reach to the “lower sort” of women in the 18^th Now however, after searching through runaway ads here in America, looking at artwork from England, it’s clear that these beautiful articles of clothing were available to a much wider range of women than was originally supposed. Our knowledge of the 18^th century is largely a collection of theories; strong theories mind you, and ones back up with multiple bits of data to support them. But as the data changes, our conclusions must change as well.
3. IMAGINATION IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR KNOWLEDGE. Even without photographs, film, or with the amount of material culture items industrial-age historians are accustomed to there is a very large amount of source material and artifacts from the 18^th There is no excuse for not making use of this material. When you choose an impression, be specific about what it is you’re trying to do. Are you doing a civilian or military? What nationality? What year and where are they? What is their social class? All of this is important. Military clothing, though it follows the fashions of the time, is distinct in many ways from its civilian counterparts. You won’t find examples of civilians in 1777 Philadelphia wearing gaitered trousers. The nation is important because every nation has their own idiosyncrasies. Time and place also play a factor. Fashions, like today, change with time.

Most military units have to get new clothing from year to year because their clothing wears out, just like yours does (though I doubt you’re marching for miles every day or sleeping outside in the rain!). That means they’re style of clothing is likely to change, either from fashion or from lessons learned on the battlefield. If the unit you’re recreating DIDN’T get their clothing issue than that in itself will change how you represent that unit.

Social class is also of major importance. Some clothing item are compatible to some extent across the classes. For instance, men’s shirts of the day are universally of a good quality in terms of stitch work (though they are often made of different grades of material). In other ways they’re very different. A laborer isn’t likely to be wearing a silk coat and breeches. Likewise, a gentleman isn’t likely to have an osnabrig (a kind of course natural linen) shirt and the same clothing items as a private soldier in the army (any army). Doing any impression costs money. To do a higher class impression well costs more money, just like how it’s easier to get a suit from Boscov’s (like me!) than to have one tailored to your desires in London or L.A.

4. QUALITY IS A QUANTITY ALL ITS OWN. This is the last point I want to make. I’m immensely proud of my impressions, of which I have two…and a half. I have a 17^th Regiment soldier’s kit, a kit for the Philadelphia Associators, and a mostly finished civilian impression. I say “mostly finished” because my coat is sitting sleeveless and partially un-lined on a chair. The reason I’m immensely proud of my kit is that I’ve made much of the clothing items I possess. My 17^th Regimental and its waistcoat were the first 2 sewing projects I’d ever done. The things that I didn’t make were made by friends of mine who are very skilled at their trades. That’s what makes a good 18^th century impression. Clothing of the time was done by hand, not machine, and most men’s clothing is fitted. You can see this in the paintings and sketches of the time. Clothing was expensive for these people, and they took care of what they had. They also dressed as well as they could. You should, too. If you’re new to this period, or reenacting in general, my advice for you is this. If you’re thinking of buy “off the rack” clothing, don’t. Save your money. Reenacting isn’t going anywhere. There are people out there who will take your measurements and whip you up a set of period clothing. Many of them are really good, and naturally they charge for that service. It might take you time to get that money together but the quality will be worth it and you won’t have to go and buy a better piece of clothing down the road.

If you have an aptitude for sewing however, or you can get with a group of people who know how to sew and can teach you, then you’re life probably just got a lot easier. With the right patterns for your clothing, patience, and help, you can make your own clothing for a much more agreeable sum of money. On top of that, you learn a valuable skill. And once you can sew, you can make yourself into anyone!

The study of history and the recreation of it is a noble hobby. But to do it right takes work, research, money and commitment. But most importantly, it takes networking with good people. That’s how I have learned so much, and really it’s the people we hang out and work with that make this hobby so great.

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KYLE TIMMONSis a long time reenactor, a Combat Medic in the PA National Guard, and currently an employee of the National Park Service. His wife and cat think he's pretty alright.

A Short Message from the Editor

After a short hiatus during this week, if you noticed; the website is back up and functioning once again. After a major update a few things are different with this update; it is still very much a work in progress. So if you are a regular visitor to look at pictures you'll find that the gallery is not there. In the move the portfolio projects were not transferred over so they will have to be added once again, which will take time and will hopefully be up by the end of the day or Saturday at the latest. If you've previously subscribed to our blog via email notifications please consider subscribing again! There will still be working changes going on through out the week as I work to aim for perfection, but I promise not to disturb the viewing experience (that much).Thanks for your patience.Mary S. - An attached follower of the 17th Regiment of Infantry

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Update Notes:

• Migrated from wordpress.com to wordpress.org
• Changed Theme. Similar but different!
• Updated Header. Still needs fixing...
• Widgets and Sidebar still a mess.
• Social Media links; no where to be seen! :o
• Updated Links. We'll stay with you the whole time! (To the Top!)
• Gallery Images still to come...
• RIP old wordpress.com website.

 

Captain Robert Clayton: Officers of the 17th, Part 1

In today's installment, we feature legendary eighteenth-century British Army Historian Mark Odintz, PhD.  Mark is the world's foremost authority on the trials, tribulations, and civilian origins of Revolutionary War-era British officers. His doctoral dissertation remains the definitive work in the field. We look forward to his occasional dispatches detailing the service histories of the 17th's officers and encourage him to prepare that dissertation for publication!-- Will Tatum 

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Way back in 1988 I completed a dissertation on the British Officer Corps in the mid-18^th century. It is a collective biographical study of some 395 officers who served in four regiments of foot, the 8^th, 12^th, 17^th and 35^th, between 1767 and 1783. I used the sample to explore the social backgrounds, careers, attitudes and service experiences of British officers for a somewhat wider period, from the Seven Years War to the end of the American Revolution. The past few years I have been revisiting the project, seeking out further biographical details, revising, etc. with the hopes of producing a book down the road. What I would like to do for the blog of the 17^th is to run an occasional series of biographical portraits of the company level officers of the regiment from the period of the American Revolution. It was an active regiment that saw more than its share of combat and non-battle attrition and as part of larger organization that was expanding rapidly it also saw a fair amount of regiment hopping among its officer personnel. Some ninety officers served in the 17^th Regiment of Foot between 1775 and 1781. Twenty of these either left the regiment in 1775 or did not join until 1782-83. A further eight served in regiment very briefly, if at all, as they promptly transferred to another regiment. Six were field officers or colonels of the regiment. Twenty-three served in the regiment for three years or less during the war, leaving it through promotion, death or retirement. This left a core of thirty-three men who spent most of the American Revolution officering the 17^th. This entry will focus on fairly typical member of the thirty-three, Robert Clayton.

Robert Clayton had the kind of career a fairly well-connected member of the gentry (not as elite as some, but better than most) could expect to have in the army of George III. He was a younger son of a younger son, but the family used their wealth, political influence and connections in several professions to ensure successful careers for their male offspring.  The lottery of family demographics also played its usual part, leaving a childless Robert Clayton in possession of the estate as the last man standing at the time of his death in 1839.

By the early 18^th century the Clayton family were landed gentry with several manors in Lancashire near Wigan and urban property in Liverpool, as well as considerable electoral interest in the borough of Wigan.  Robert’s grandfather Thomas inherited the family estate and had five sons. The youngest, Robert’s father John, was described as a “gentleman, of Cross Hall, near Chorley, Lancashire” when young Robert entered Manchester Grammar School in 1762, and was the only son to produce male heirs. Among Robert’s uncles were a Major Edward Clayton in the army and Richard, a Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland. The family continued to concentrate on the law and the military in Robert’s generation. His older brother, another Richard, was a successful barrister and diplomat and was created a baronet in 1774. Richard, as head of the family, periodically petitioned army administrators for higher rank and leave for his brother Robert. -family information derived from Henry Hepburn, The Clayton Family (1904), R. Stewart-Brown, The Tower of Liverpool (1910), The Admission Register of the Manchester School (1866).

Our Robert purchased an ensigncy in the 17^th regiment on Dec. 9, 1767, at the age of twenty-one. He received his Lieutenantcy in the regiment without purchase on July 19, 1771, following the death of Lieutenant William Byrd (or Bird), an American belonging to the well-known planter family of Virginia. Vacancies by death ordinarily could not be sold, and the promotion went to the senior ensign within the regiment. The next step in Robert’s career illustrates how officers attempted to use family connections to get ahead in the Georgian army. When a company became vacant for purchase in the 17^th in 1774, brother Richard contacted General John Burgoyne (of future Saratoga fame and an acquaintance of Richard’s) and requested that he write to the secretary at war soliciting the promotion for Robert. Burgoyne wrote to Secretary Barrington describing Richard as “a gentleman of great fortune and worth, a steady supporter of Govt., & a friend to Lord Stanley and myself in Lancashire.” (Barrington Papers, J Burgoyne to Barrington, Dec. 26, 1774) This is classic patronage language of the time, offering political support in exchange for favors. In this case the letter was unsuccessful and the company went to an officer with considerably more service experience, but Robert was able to purchase the next vacant company (over the head of a senior lieutenant who lacked the money to purchase) six months later, on May 1, 1775, thus rising to command of a company after some seven and a half years of service. This was pretty fast promotion for peacetime service. In 1774, a look at the seven captains then serving with the 17^th shows that five of them had reached the rank after thirteen or more years of service, one after ten years of service, and only one had been promoted about as rapidly as Clayton.

Unknown officer of the 17th Regiment, possibly William Leslie, mourning miniature

Clayton served throughout the American Revolution with the regiment. In a memorial for promotion he submitted at the end of the war, he summarized, slightly out of order, his service: “went to America 1775 a Capt, was at Staten Is., Brooklyn, Brandy-Wine, White Plains,  German-Town, White-Marsh, and storm of Stoney Pt where taken Pris. On being exchanged had leave to go to Europe, but declined and went with regt to Virg. and did duty till Yorktown, again Pris.” (WO1:1021, f. 193, memorial of Robert Clayton enclosed in Richard Clayton to Secretary at War, 19 Jan 1784). Clayton’s commitment to the struggle was discussed in a September, 1781 letter from brother Richard petitioning leave for Robert. He apologized for bothering them with a second request for leave, but the first had arrived as Robert’s regiment was embarked for Virginia, and Robert had refused it, writing back “ the duty he owed to the King was superior with him to every other consideration and…he would willingly run any loss or suffer any inconvenience, rather than leave the Regiment situated as it then was.” Richard stated that his brother had been in no less than twelve actions,  and “that he was an Enthusiast of the American Service, in refusing to leave the Regt when they had any immediate objective in view…” (WO1:1010, f. 599, Richard Clayton to Jenkinson 30 Sept 1781).

The only glimpse of Robert Clayton on active service that I have found comes from the court-martial of Henry Johnson following the loss of Stoney Point. Clayton was serving as commander of three companies of the 17^th that formed part of the garrison of the upper works of the position. Soon after the action began Lieutenant John Roberts of the artillery encountered “Clayton and a party of men lining the parapet; that Captain Clayton seeing that he (the witness) belonged to the Artillery (tho he believes he did not know him to be an officer, from the manner in which he spoke to him) said ‘For Gods sake, why are not the Artillery here made use of, as the Enemy are in the hollow, and crossing the Water’”.  Roberts answered that there was no ammunition for the guns, as it was not customarily stored with them, and these guns could not bear on the enemy in any case. Clayton clearly had a temper, and artillery lieutenants were not used to being yelled at by infantry captains. (WO71:93, Court Martial of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Johnson, Jan. 30, 1781, p. 55).

Map of Stony Point, courtesy of Mount Vernon

It is worth noting that at the time of his memorial in 1784 Robert Clayton was commanding the regiment, as he had at several points during the war when more senior officers were absent. Colonels did not generally serve with their regiments, and lieutenant colonels and majors were often absent commanding larger forces, on staff duties, or due to illness or leave, and it was quite common for regiments to be commanded by the senior captain present. The 1784 memorial was prompted by the attempt of William Scott, a more junior captain in the 17^th, to purchase the majority of the regiment ahead of Robert Clayton. The following year Robert achieved his goal and purchased the majority of the 17^th on July 27, 1785.

Robert retired in 1787 by exchanging with a half pay major of the 82^nd Foot. This arrangement illustrates how officers overcame the absence of a formal retirement system by using what the army made available to them. The half pay system provided a stipend to officers who had been retired by the army when the forces were downsized at the end of a major conflict. A high numbered regiment like the 82^nd was disbanded at the end of the Revolution and its officers were placed on half pay. If they wanted to get back onto active service, they would exchange with officers like Clayton who wanted to retire with some form of pension. According to a memorial Clayton submitted to the War Office when he was 80, they used an arrangement called “paying the difference.” The value of seven years of half-pay was subtracted from what Clayton had paid for the majority in 1785, and the officer of the 82^nd paid the difference in cash to Clayton. This was probably a relatively small sum for the half-pay officer, and if Clayton lived for more than seven years on the half-pay (as he did, receiving half-pay for more than fifty years), the rest was gravy. (WO25:752 f, 121)

In 1786, near the end of his military career, he married Christophera Baldwin, daughter of a clergyman. They lived at the Larches, Wigan during the remainder of his long life. In 1828 the wheel of inheritance took another turn with the death of his brother, Sir Richard Clayton, Bt, who had already inherited the family estate on the death of their remaining uncles back in the 1770s. Robert inherited the family manors and his brother’s title of baronet, and was thus Sir Robert Clayton, bart. on his death in 1839. He died childless, and left his estate to his wife and to a niece, the daughter of his brother Richard. (PCC Will of Sir Robert Clayton Bart. Proved 1839)

Opening page of Captain Clayton's Orderly Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania

An orderly book kept by Clayton in 1778-79 can be viewed on microfilm at the David Library, and excerpts have been published in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, v. 25,(1901).

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Dr. Mark Odintz

conducted his graduate work in history at the University of Michigan back in the 1980s and wrote his dissertation on “The British Officer Corps 1754-1783”. He became a public historian with the Texas State Historical Association in 1988, spending over twenty years as a writer, editor and finally managing editor of the New Handbook of Texas, an online encyclopedia of Texas history. Since retiring from the association he has been working on turning his dissertation into a book. He lives in Austin.

Founding the Recreated 17th: A Research Story, Part 2

In our previous installment of this series, I discussed how stumbling across Chelsea Pension documents for soldiers of the 17^th who had served in America began the research that led to the initial recreated unit. Having identified named individuals, the next logical step was to visit the muster roll data contained in the WO 12 series, also housed at The National Archives (UK).

In conducting research on practically any topic, the most profitable means of proceeding is usually to follow the money trail. One of History’s great constants is that fiscal specie talks and everyone, particularly government agencies, are keen to keep track of it. This golden rule was especially true for the eighteenth-century British Army. Always a controversial arm of the state, the army and the government ministers who labored to keep it standing throughout the century had to defend against two popular avenues of political assault: that the army cost too much and that it constituted a threat to English liberty. To justify the price tag associated with maintaining thousands of soldiers on duty during peace time, the civilian government developed a variety of paperwork-heavy procedures, for which historians should be quite thankful today.

Mustering was chief among these financial protocols. With origins stretching back to the Middle Ages, mustering had developed into a highly-developed ceremony of bureaucracy by the 1770s. Twice per year, muster-masters or deputy muster-masters would visit each regiment, which would form up on the muster field. At that time, the muster master or his deputy would roam through the ranks, paperwork in hand, insuring that each company had exactly the number of men in it that the officers claimed and would record the names of each man. If a man supposedly in the company was absent from the muster field, regulations required that the officers provide convincing proof that the soldier was either ill or “on command”—that is, on a detached duty. Contemporary critics claimed that the whole spectacle was rife with corruption: for a good account, check out John Railton’s The Army Regulator, which you can also find on ECCO (Eighteenth Century Collections Online) and potentially on googlebooks.

Despite being a procedure that was a pain to carry out even in peace time (especially in America), regiments prepared musters twice a year, every year, through the American Revolution. Sometimes, due to the exigencies of active campaigning, these muster rolls were prepped many months past their formal date (sometimes years later), but with that said, these are the foremost documents for understanding who was in a particular British regiment and how internal personnel management changed over time. A complete set for the 17^th exists at the National Archives in Kew, England, reaching all the way back into the 1760s. When I pulled up the first set of musters covering 1776, I was slightly surprised.

Muster roll for Captain Robert Clayton’s Company, HM 17^th Regiment of Infantry, December 25, 1775-June 24, 1776; WO 12/3406/2; Crown Copyright, Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England.

Bear in mind that in 2002, your average digital camera was the size of a small current-production desktop printer. And I did not have one on me. We won’t even discuss the image quality that available units offered at that time (low single-digit megapixels…). So while I was overjoyed to see sheet after sheet like the above. I was also dumbfounded. How was I supposed to record this information and use it in a meaningful way? What was a meaningful way to use this information for living history? So, as in many other pickle-y research situations that year, I emailed Don Hagist for advice. Having been in my shoes before (decades before), Don advised that I move through as many muster rolls as possible, recording officers’ names and noting the inevitable changes in command that happened when men died or found promotion in other regiments. He also recommended that I note which officers remained in the regiment for the entirety of the war, which would provide a strong foundational name for the recreated unit.

There was only one. His name was Robert Clayton and he had risen to command the junior company of the 17^th on May 1, 1775, at the age of 27 with 7.5 years of service. He was commissioned as an ensign on December 9, 1767, then promoted to lieutenant on July 19, 1771. He remained a captain for the entire war, eventually achieving the rank of major on July 27, 1785. I focused on recording relevant information for his company, then ended up transcribing information from all of the 17th muster rolls covering 1776, having in mind that the initial focus of the impression would be the 17^th as it appeared on January 3, 1777, at Princeton, New Jersey. Over subsequent years, I returned with a succession of digital cameras to photograph all of the 17^th’s muster rolls. Some interesting stories came out of these documents…but that is a tale for another time.

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Will Tatumreceived his BA in History from the College of William & Mary in Virginia in 2003, and his MA and PhD from Brown University in Rhode Island in 2004 and 2016. His exploits in Revolutionary War Living History began with a chance encounter at Colonial Williamsburg’s Under the Redcoat event in 2000.

Over the subsequent years, he has traveled throughout the United States and Great Britain researching the eighteenth-century British Army and used the results of those labor to improve living history interpretations. The beginning of this journey in 2001 marked the start of the current recreated 17^th Infantry.

The Physicality of History

On this weeks blog, we have a story written by another good friend of mine whom I've known for many years now, Kyle Timmons. He recently became the Corporal of the 17th Infantry with his years of reenacting experience behind his belt combined with the real life knowledge of a Combat Medic with National  Guard of Pennsylvania. Like many, the love of history propelled Mr. Timmons to join the National Park Service in 2016, continuing to educate those in history, for the benefit of future generations. If you've ever wondered what it was like to live in the history world all year round, continue reading...

- Mary Sherlock,an attached follower of the 17th Regiment of Infantry.

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The bitter cold of a Valley Forge winter. The parched heat of a Monmouth Summer. The fatigue of an all-night forced march. The smell of gunpowder and the weight of a Short Land Pattern Musket. These are all things you hear about when people bring up The American War of Independence. You can envision the half-starved soldier standing picket at Valley Forge, or of that same soul struggling through the night to put one foot in front of another on a forced march. TV and the internet make it easy to visualize the Revolution. It’s another entirely to experience it.

I’ve been a reenactor for about 12 years now, and I’ve been with the 17^th since it’s reformation at the end of 2014. When I started, I knew virtually nothing about the Revolution except what middle school and “The Patriot” showed me. Since then I’ve learned A LOT through reading texts on the subject like McGuire’s “The Philadelphia Campaign” Volumes I and II, Spring’s “With Zeal and With Bayonets Only,” or Don Hagist’s “Wenches, Wives, and Serving Girls.” All of which in their different way help to paint the picture of America in the time of the War of Independence. Each is invaluable to my understanding of the period. But something is missing. Try as you might with creative use of adjectives and alliteration, you can’t feel the written word. General Cornwallis’ Flanking Column’s long march of September 11^th 1777 at Brandywine has no context if you have no idea what it feels like to BE A SOLDIER OF THE 18^TH CENTURY.

So what’s that like? I’m glad you asked!

In the 10 months or so from our first sewing party to our first official event in September 2015 we equipped 15 infantrymen. Each man was equipped with what the typical infantrymen wore on campaign. That is, a white linen shirt with ruffles sewing into the neck slit, a wool waistcoat, linen “gaitered trouser” that covers the shoes and hold them to the feet with a straps, a wool broadcloth regimental pattern coat with the regiment’s facing color, lace and buttons designating its wearer as a soldier of the 17^th, a velvet and linen neckstock approximately the height of the soldier’s neck, and finally a felt cocked hat of the military fashion. All of these items are made to fit the man within and are quite comfortable, but the feel is definitely different from modern clothing. Now that you’ve got all this on let’s kit you out with the tools of the trade.

Over all of this comes your bayonet belt with your 14 inch bayonet slung over your right shoulder, on your other shoulder belt is your cartridge pouch loaded down with 21 cartridges, your tin canteen full of water, a haversack with three days of food stuffed in it, all of your earthly possessions rolled up in your blanket slung over your back, and of course your 11 pound musket. Once you get it all on you start to realize some things that a book doesn’t really tell you. You find that the cut of the coat and waistcoat kind of force you to stand somewhat straighter than usual and a brand new neckstock doesn’t like when you try to turn your head in any direction until you’ve sweated in it a few days and softened up the buckram layer that stiffens it. After your first hour in full kit the cross belts start to dig into your shoulders a bit and might further discomfort your neck. Ironically, you find that that heavy wool coat your wearing breaths rather well and isn’t nearly the death trap everyone said it was!

Now that you’ve got the clothes and the gear on, it’s time to actually do something! One of our events in 2015 was an “Immersion Event” in Virginia. What that means is we leave EVERYTHING from the modern world in the cars, there’s no public to view us, and for all intents and purposes we are going into the 18^th century for 48 hours. This was in October or November and it was cold. The scenario was that we were to cover a fording point on a creek so forage parties could move back and forth.

We marched at dawn to the creek in question and as we forded it we took fire from rebels who were some 100-150 yards away atop a hill. Well, we dashed across the creek, consolidated our forces, and sprinted across the open ground to cover at the base of the hill. The handful atop the hill, not willing to meet British steel that morning, wisely yielded the ground. We climbed to the top of the hill and secured it. THEN began the work. We posted about half our number on piquet while the rest set to work felling trees for crude defensive barriers, wood for fires to cook our food and to dry our stockings and feet, and of course we built wigwams to shelter in that night.

That initial skirmish was the only real fight the entire day. The rest of the day we spent on work parties, standing picquet, or on patrols looking for rebel militia we knew to be in the area. When night fell so did the temperature and it began to rain. Greaaaaaat! Due to our limited numbers and the number of guard posts we had it was necessary for all of our men to take 2 separate 2 hour shifts on picquet. It absolutely sucked. It was hard to see anything more than 30-40 yards out and you knew that if the militia were out there you couldn’t see them. The wind was blowing too, which cut right through our coats. Some of our men shirked their duty to shelter around a small fire and nearly got caught by one of our sergeants. Thankfully, the rebels left us alone that night.

The next morning we ate our rations, drank black coffee done over the fire and broke camp. Everyone was in a foul mood by and large. We were tired, still kind of wet, and uncomfortable. The second time across the creek was done without a complaint because we knew we were marching to the cars. And then it was over.

But for the 18^th Century Soldier, be them Loyalist or Rebel, that was just another day in the war! And it was a VERY long war. The 17^th landed in November of 1775. They didn’t leave America until 1783. Those that lived that is. And they didn’t see England and home again until 1787! So for 8 years the soldiers we represent endured wartime hardship. They endured day after day after monotonous day of picquets, patrols, work parties, long marches, and occasionally the absolute terror of battle. They endured starvation, discontentment, barbaric punishment, poor pay, a hostile or at least untrustworthy local population, and the number one killer of them all: disease. And may I add there was no retirement plan in the 18^th century and very few men who applied for military pensions got them.

All this brings two questions to mind. The first is: how? How did they do it? Were they tougher people back in the 18^th century? I don’t know. The modern soldier faces struggles not all that different today. Why didn’t they quit? Again I don’t know. Many many soldiers deserted throughout the war on both sides. Those that stayed might have feared the punishment that waits for the captured deserter. Some I’m sure were true believers in their respective causes. Many, I’m sure, didn’t quit because they didn’t want to leave their buddies. A military unit is a family, particularly in the 18^th century where men can spend their entire military lives among the same men in the same unit.

My second question is what I asked myself when I reached the far bank of the creek. Could I do it? Could I have endured the service back then? Could you?

-Kyle Timmons, Corporal, 17^th Regiment of Infantry

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Kyle Timmonsis a long time reenactor, a Combat Medic in the PA National Guard, and currently an employee of the National Park Service. His wife and cat think he's pretty alright.

Founding the Recreated 17th: A Research Story, Part 1

This week we have on the blog we have a guest writer who knows the ins and outs of the 17th Regiment of Infantry after establishing the Regiment back in 2002. When the 17th was recreated and established again in 2015 Dr. Will Tatum was the person that the newly formed 17th organization reached out to. Over the next couple weeks there will be a series of articles about the research and the hard work put into creating an organization. Hopefully, our readers will find the writing of Dr. Will Tatum insightful.

Mary Sherlock- An attached Follower of the Recreated 17th Regiment

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Founding the Recreated 17th: A Research Story, Part 1

By Will Tatum

Every living history group has a history apart from the subject or topic it represents, an origin story all its own. Most of these stories begin in someone’s basement or garage, in a bar, or result from dissatisfaction with an existing unit. The recreated 17^th’s story began with my research at the British National Archives (TNA) over the academic year of 2001-2002. In the summer of 2001 I completed my first year in the hobby and was just beginning to struggle with the process of turning research into a living history interpretation. Other members of the unit to which I belonged at that time suggested that, to avoid hobby politics, it would be best to select a corps around which I could develop my own impression as a sideline project. I reviewed a list of British regiments that had served in America during most or all of the war and had a short list of candidates in mind as I shipped out to Britain that September. Little did I suspect the ah-ha moment that awaited me in the greater London area.

After spending the autumn conducting research in Exeter, where I was studying abroad, I traveled to the TNA for the first time at the end of February 2002. One of my assignments from my then-unit was to track down records relating to soldiers who had served in America, in an attempt to flesh out data from muster rolls. British Army Historian Extraordinaire Don Hagist had suggested examining records from the Royal Hospital Chelsea, which King Charles II established in 1682 to care for deserving army veterans. Only a small set of soldiers were ever selected to receive pensions and even fewer were permitted to reside at the facility, which still exists today. Nevertheless, the surviving records of these “deserving” men provide important insights into the trials and tribulations of the eighteenth-century British soldier. Each of these men had earned referral to the Royal Hospital admission board through exemplary service, which left them physically battered and worn out, no longer capable of fending for themselves.

The specific records in question were contained in WO (War Office) 121, one of several series pertaining to the Royal Hospital’s operations. The documents contained therein mostly date from the mid-1780s onward, with the earlier ones covering men who had served during the American Revolution. While looking through these records, I repeatedly came across discharge documents for soldiers of the 17^th Infantry, which I took to be a sign of the regiment that I ought to pursue. If for no other reason, there certainly seemed to be a great deal of surviving documentation on these men. Most of the would-be pensioners I encountered (these documents related to their applications for pensions and did not contain any signification of their success) were simply “worn out in service.” For example, William Dick, a common laborer from Auchtermuckly in Fife, Scotland, played the fife for 17 years before Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Johnson (who took over command of the 17^th in 1778) recommended him for a pension in 1787. Joshua Waddington, another 17-year veteran discharged the same year, came from the parish of Litchcliff in Halifax, Yorkshire. At forty-two years of age, with no trade background other than unskilled labor, Waddington was disabled through “having sore legs & being Worn out in the Service.” Private Archibald McDonald of Fort William, Inverness, Scotland, had served 16 years during which he was “twice wounded” and listed as “under Size” at the time of his discharge in 1787.

These men, and many others, had served in the regiment during its service in America, though their discharges made no direct comment on that war. Others, however, contained much more pointed statements that testified to the 17^th’s extreme service during the Revolution. On December 4, 1790, then-Major T. Pitcairn of the 17^th (not a Rev War veteran) signed Private William Clarke’s discharge. On it, Pitcairn noted that 44 year-old Clarke, a 23-year veteran and native of Castle Carey in Somerset, by trade a cordwainer (shoemaker) was “entire worn out in the Service thro’ hardships & Fatigues sustained when in the Lyht [sic] Infantry during the late War.”

Discharge of Private William Clarke, WO121/9/352; Crown Copyright, Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England

Private John Clarke, a 47 year-old laborer from the town of Hereford in England, a 22 year veteran of the regiment, was discharged the next day, due to “his being Worn out in the Service thro’ hardships sustained during the late War.” Private William Boyd, a 13-year veteran of the regiment and by trade a breeches maker, received his discharge on December 11, 1790, at the age of 42. His paperwork noted that he was “Dropsical through hardships sustained when a Prisoner with the Enemy during the last War in America.” What does “dropsy” mean? Essentially, Private Boyd suffered from uncontrolled water retention between his skin and various body cavities, resulting in painful swellings.

Discharge of Private William Boyd, WO121/9/350; Crown Copyright, Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England

If you think that is bad, I refer you to Serjeant Robert Saunders, a 25-year veteran of the 17^th Regiment and a native of Amersham, Buckingham, by trade a baker, discharged on May 10, 1787, at age 42. Saunders had sustained wounds from “long & Severe Service & [was] Severely afflicted with a Fistula, rendred [sic] Incapable of Further Service.” I’ll let you look up what a fistula is on your own. For more tales like these (only with expanded details), check out Don Hagist’s blog British Soldiers, American Revolution.

Discharge of Serjeant Robert Saunder, WO121/2/35; Crown Copyright, Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England

Seeing these documents and considering what they represented on a human scale decided me on exploring the 17^th. In subsequent posts, I will explain how the other document series I examined accumulated to form the critical mass for creating a new style of living history group. In this respect, the recreated 17^th stood apart from most other units existing at the time and since, in being a response to a research agenda rather than a hobby need. In essence, the horse came before the cart (the history came before the hobby politics) from the beginning.

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Will Tatumreceived his BA in History from the College of William & Mary in Virginia in 2003, and his MA and PhD from Brown University in Rhode Island in 2004 and 2016. His exploits in Revolutionary War Living History began with a chance encounter at Colonial Williamsburg’s Under the Redcoat event in 2000.

Over the subsequent years, he has traveled throughout the United States and Great Britain researching the eighteenth-century British Army and used the results of those labor to improve living history interpretations. The beginning of this journey in 2001 marked the start of the current recreated 17^th Infantry.

Opening a Window to the Past

Over the next couple weeks, I am happy to announce that there will be a series of guest bloggers who have kindly accepted my offer to write a little blurb about their experiences in reenacting and research. The 17th Regiment of Infantry hopes that the readers will find that they share a common thread with the guests and welcome them with kind thoughts and responses as they have so kindly taken their time to write. This week we have a wonderful friend, Jenna Schnitzer,  who has taught us so much about women's history as we remember to commemorate all the women who came before us. Well with that brief introduction please read on! Let us know your feed back on social media or in the comments box below.

Enjoy,Mary Sherlock- An attached follower of the 17th Regiment of Infantry

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When I began reenacting several decades ago someone told me that the further away in time we get from events the less likely we are to understand them. This person also explained to me that everything that we can’t document we should just fill in using our imagination. I stood there listening but walked away thinking that this would never be my philosophy. I knew in that moment that research was the most important aspect in creating a sound impression. It’s now been almost 25 years and thankfully the hobby is changing. It’s changing for the better. The authenticity level has become appreciably better, interpretive focus has shifted toward sharing not only battles but daily activities in camp and garrisons. The improvements have been truly breath taking but the one area of the hobby I have seen the greatest improvement has been in those women portraying Soldier’s Wives.

The number of quality impressions has increased exponentially in the past decade.  This quality has greatly affected our understanding of these remarkable women. When we are interpreting documented roles we are opening a window to the past. We are further away, this very moment, from the events of the American War for Independence yet our historical understanding of those who lived during this tumultuous time has never been greater. Perhaps my historical avuncular was wrong all those years ago? I have to say unfortunately, she was. Everything I learned over the years about good interpretive standards that combine both primary source documents and material culture is that there is virtually no place for imagination. The landscape is too rich and too full of detail to need any imagination. That’s what knowledge does. It replaces the need to imagine with real details. Details we have the privilege to pass on to the public and other historic interpreters.

Sometimes we are cornered by people who ask what we actually know about these women. As if we have no documentation or can’t put a complete picture together. This is usually because they are waist deep in an invalid impression that their unit endorses. What we do know certainly outweighs what we don’t.  Soldiers Wives were an essential part of Army life in the 18^th Century. It was prescribed that a certain percentage of a company had their wives, with children in tow, follow their husbands into war. They pulled a half ration while their children pulled a quarter ration. The reason was they were valued. They did a variety of tasks that provided the “necessities of life” for the fighting men. They laundered clothing, nursed the sick and wounded, sewed clothing by the piece when changes were made in the uniforms, worked as sutlers (selling goods and liquor under license of the Army) and cooked for money.

These wives were vital to the comfort and quality of life while on campaign. Sadly, this has not been seen in the reenacting community until recently. Female reenactors were confined to camp cooking for the men, working in a role that would have been just as foreign to a follower during the AWI as it is to us. In the past 40 years if female interpreters did anything outside of subservient roles it was almost always doing an activity that would never be seen in an army camp. We saw women taking tea, spinning, weaving, writing letters, embroidering, playing instruments and just about any domestic skill you can think of. None of this had a place in an army camp. The vast majority of Soldier’s Wives were from the lowest level of society, illiterate, indigent and unlikely had time for such “genteel” pursuits. The even more disturbing development in recent years is women dressed as women fielding during battles and shooting in petticoats and gowns, which should never happen at events. When I look at this I wonder how it benefits the public to leave with this vision of these hard working industrious women. I also wonder what benefit we as women lend to the camp experience if we are not benefiting the camp through work that the Army thought was so necessary.

  Photo by Wilson Freeman at Drifting Focus Photography

This is why it’s so important for me to portray a Petty Sutler. It allows me to provide supplies and goods that our reenactors really need.  I do this on a barter system or sometimes if I’m lucky for reproduction specie. Having a wheel barrow groaning with seasonal produce, soap, needles, unfired brick dust, butter, thimbles and other small items brings a sense of realism to camp and provides some small “luxuries” to everyone. I feel very welcome rolling through with my cart of goodies much like a sutler from the AWI.

The reality is research is the foundation that allows historic interpreters to produce a valid portrayal.  Creating an impression can be perplexing to people just entering the hobby. Improvement for those who have been in the hobby a long time can be even more trying. Letting go of a philosophy and perspective can be very difficult and needs to be met with patience. Luckily, as the hobby improves we are seeing women take on truly useful camp oriented activities. There is a plethora of impressions and activities to take part in that makes the female interpreter vital to the operation of camp. Followers were a valued person while on campaign hence our portrayals should carry equal weight.  Some people balk at the gender specificity of these roles but I continue to embrace them. I continue to give a voice to those who have remained voiceless. I hope you do too.

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Jenna Schnitzeris an aficionado of all things old because she can't cope with the modern world. She has surrounded herself with 18th and 19th century items that she has been told repeatedly are "really out of style." She is a member of the 62d Regt of Foot and is a researcher and lecturer on Followers of the British Army during the AWI period.

Feminism and Following

Let me start out this post by making something clear.  What you are about to read is purely my opinion.  One female follower of HM 17^th Regt. of Foot.  Not necessarily endorsed by the whole.I proudly call myself a feminist.  I was raised in a family of strong women and firmly believe there’s nothing any male member of the Regt. can do that I can’t (within reason).  But, on the weekends, I lace myself into a corset, put on uncomfortable shoes and clothes, and portray a woman following the army.  I submit to orders, dip candles, sew by hand, cry on cue, and get pretty desperate when I get caught looting.  It’s “funcomfortable”.  Why would I do this?  Aren’t feminism and submission incompatible?  Wouldn’t it be more fun and feminist to prove I can reenact a battle just as well as men?First of all, let me just say that I understand the urge to “play with the boys” if you will.  I have it too sometimes.  Shooting a gun can be WAY more fun than, say, laundry.  Plus, let’s face it.  People buy tickets for battle reenactments.  Women’s roles interpretation are generally a nice side benefit, unless it’s Princeton.  So if you want to join the guys in your regt. in battle, that’s your choice.So why don’t I?  First of all, accuracy.  As you can see throughout our website, accuracy and research are bedrocks for the 17th.  Now, did some women dress like men and join the army?  Yes.  Deborah Sampson is proof of that.  Did some women go to extraordinary lengths to help the army?  Considering Mary Ludwig Hays and Margaret Corbin, each a candidate for inspiring “Molly Pitcher”, it’s clear some did.  So a good Deborah Sampson or Mary Hays or Margaret Corbin impression can be just as accurate as mine.  But remember.  We only know of cases like these in the Continental army.  So you can argue that while a well-researched Deborah Sampson impression works for the rebels, she may not be right for HM 17^th Regt of Foot.  Secondly, these cases are outliers.  Did they exist?  Yes.  Could there be more?  Sure.  But they’re still very rare.  Meanwhile, we can prove that hundreds of women followed both the British and American armies, serving in women’s roles.  Check out our follower's page for proof.  These women did laundry.  They nursed.  They sold goods.  They cooked (not for the men but for each other).  They received rations.  They raised kids and followed husbands, sons, and fathers.  So a “camp follower” impression IS an equally accurate impression of an army on campaign.The second reason is my personal soapbox.  Think about something.  When I mention “women during the Revolutionary War”, who do you think of?  My bet is Betsy Ross, Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, maybe the Schuyler sisters thanks to Hamilton, or possibly Deborah Sampson or “Molly Pitcher”.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Every single one of these women are extraordinary, important, and deserve recognition for their contributions.  But the majority of them are high-class ladies, unlikely to endure the hardships of a campaign.  They might visit camp and stay there, but only when the army is in winter quarters.  The ones who did follow the army, as said before, are outliers.  Now, did you know about Baroness von Riedesel?  She was the gentry wife of a Hessian general who followed him to America and kept a journal of her time with General Burgoyne’s army.  That journal includes a detailed account of her experience at the Battle of Saratoga.  She was also taken prisoner by the Continental army.  How about Mrs. Reed of Trenton?  She was the wife of a Continental officer who was forced to house Hessians in her home before the 1^st Battle of Trenton.  According to her daughter Martha, when a Hessian woman wanted her shoe buckle and Mrs. Reed hesitated, the Hessian took the shoes off Mrs. Reed’s feet and hit her in the face with the heel.  In front of her kids!  (Read William Dwyer’s “The Day is Ours” for more information).  Check out our friend  Kirsten's research on Bridget Connor as well, who was drummed out of camp for stealing shirts.  Then there’s the hundreds of nameless followers we know nothing about.  These women’s stories are real, they’re important, and they deserve to be told.  If we don’t tell them, who will?They’re why I do this hobby.  They’re why I choose to be “funcomfortable” as I do.  To me, personally, I am being a feminist by telling these forgotten stories and portraying what the women actually did.  I choose to honor these women by putting their stories out there when they’ve been ignored for centuries.  Considering that neither army could function without its follower community, one could argue these women are just as important as the men they followed.  Now how’s that for feminism?God save the King!Katherine Becnel