Musicians' Uniforms in the Revolutionary War
(Artwork by the legendary Don Troiani)
A favorite descriptor of mine states that British drummers and fifers of the Georgian era were "birds of very gay plumage throughout the whole of the 18th century," a phrase which has irrevocably rooted itself in my head whenever I think of these colorful lads. Often there is curiosity about the vibrant getup of these gents, simply because they blatantly don't fit in with the rest of their units—which happens to be precisely the point.
The reason behind these colorful coats is that musicians had to be the most stand-out members of their regiment: they functioned as the voice of the officers on the battlefield and therefore had to be easily locatable at any given time. Officers would communicate via their musicians in order to convey significant large-scale orders, such as to retreat or cease fire—orders you can imagine quick communication would be vital for—and in the fog of war it would have been difficult to pick a handful of musicians out of a sea of similarly-uniformed men-at-arms. Thus, the musicians wore the inverse colors of their regiments, with the regimental facing colors becoming the main color of the coat, and (in the case of the British army) the standard red coat color becoming the color of the facings. The fellow pictured above is a drummer from the 63rd Regiment of Foot, which was faced with "very dark green" according to the 1768 clothing warrant, and thus the green is the body color of his coat.
These uniforms were also elaborately ornamented with the regimental lace pattern, as you can see above, whereas on the coats of men-at-arms this lace was restricted to the buttonholes on the facings. The smallclothes would still generally be white or buff, matching whichever color smallclothes the men-at-arms wore, unless the regiment was faced in white or buff, in which case the smallclothes would be red so they wouldn’t be the same color as the coat. The regulations were quite specific, as you can tell, but it serves to emphasize the degree of importance the musician held in the 18th century army.
There is some debate as to whether musicians wore cocked hats or bearskins, like the drummer pictured above. Musicians were technically considered part of the grenadier company of a regiment, which is why they bear red "wings" on the shoulders of their uniform and why they often wore bearskins, but there exists evidence of them wearing cocked hats, as well, so it seems likely that depending on the regiment they could have worn either. They would be armed only with a short sword worn across the waist, as they generally were not expected to participate in actual combat. The instruments themselves also functioned as part of the uniform, in ways: the regimental drum was always painted in the facing color of the regiment, and in the case of fifers, the fife sling would also be colored according to the regimental colors—see the 22nd Regiment's "candy colored cord,” as we call it, below (as well as the red smallclothes, as they are a buff-faced regiment... featuring myself and my janky uniform on the right!).
(Photo by Jeff Bross)
As far as I know the Continental Army generally abided by these same practices, which is why you occasionally get instances of the "American redcoat": certain musicians from the Continental army wore red coats with blue facings, looking much like their British adversaries, because they came from Continental regiments faced with red. This kind of cross-army confusion did not occur with the British, however, as those regiments faced in blue were the Royal regiments, and, in accordance with this honor, the musicians of these regiments kept the standard red coat with blue facings as opposed to inverting them (they were, however, still distinguishable by their copious amounts of lacing). Just goes to show that not every red coat is a Redcoat, and not every Redcoat wears a red coat!
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Stampede Vash’s arm fills the void in my heart left by his strappy stupidly detailed coat ✨
I’m hoping to make this into a Riso print in neon coral, aqua, and yellow. So keep an eye out, the beautiful greens of Vash’s arm was just begging for some Riso printing.
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So I'm working on the next big arc for the Monster of the Week game I run once a month for some friends.
It's still bare bones rn, I just know I want some kind of murder mystery involving a rising to fame local band, gang ties gone wrong, and internal issues with the band surrounding money, drugs, fame, and jealousy, with some kind of magical/monstrous twist of course. The arc will be titled "Musical Murder Mystery Tour" or something similar.
So. Lgbts that live in my phone. Pls vote on which (FAKE- I invented these names for the purpose of my game) bands is about to get into some serious trouble. The game takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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