Los Angeles herald., 1890-12-19
DRESS WITH A HISTORY.
WHAT THE SOLDIERS WORE IN THE
OLD COLONIAL DAYS.
How Part of the Uniform Has Survived
to the Present Day-The Origin of the
Blue and Buff and What the Rifiemen
Wore.

Wore.
In the colonial days the militia wore
the dress that they had inherited from
England. Three, at least, of those cos
tunes have survived to the present day.
One is that worn by the City Troop, of
Philadelphia. Notifications, it is true,
have been made in the hat from time to
time, but they have been in detail of
form, and not at all in character. The
uniform was and is one of the handsom-
est that was ever worn by a soldier.
There is a company in Hartford which
still wears scarlet coats and the hat of
the last century, which call to mind the
British Grenahiers and the soldiers of
Frederick the Great. In Richmond,
Va, there is a company that wears an
abominable hat, invented in the time of
the Stuarts, and possessing only the
merit Of being historical.
IN REVOLUTIONARY TIMES.
In the war of the Revolution uni
forms for the troops were out of the
question. It was simply impossible to
procure the cloth from which to make
them, or the money to pay for them.
The difficulties in the way Of Washing
ton and the Continental congress in this
respect have already been fully explained.
As for Washington, he adopted a simple
uniform of blue and buff for general off
GERS, which may have been suggested, as
has been intimated by high authority,
by the Wings and the Scotch Covenant
ers, but which were more likely inspired
by the uniform of the Blues, in which
Lord Fairfax, Washington's friend, was
an officer.
It was a plain, pleasing uniform, not
brilliant, but emnently fitting to the
wearer and the cause of which he was
leader. It was late in the war when an
enlisted mans uniform was buff and
blue, and then only on paper. The only
clothes that were obtainable were the
very best for actual service. AS early
as the French and Indian war Washing
ton, as the commanding officer of the
Virginia militia, urged Governor Din
widdie to provide the troops with the
simple and useful dress of the hunter, and
afterward, in the Revolution, he urged
that as many as could should procure
this comfortable dress, which, as it was
the costume of the rifemen, struck ter
Tor to the heart Of the enemy.
The rifemen of the last century wore
loose fitting tunics or jackets made of
homespun. While the rest of mankind
wore breeches they wore trousers.
They were, indeed, the first to introduce
that useful garment, but the trousers
did not closely resemble those of our
own time. Instead of being tight above
the knee, they gave free play of the
muscles Of the leg, and were gathered
close at the ankle by buttons, so that
they were not like the awkward Tapping,
catch all impediments of today These
clothes were ornamented with furbe-
lows or ravelings of the materials of
which they were made, fashion that
has been always popular with frontier
Americans.
THE RIFLEMEN's DRESS.
The American rifemen wore the dress
that was in its time the best possible
service uniform. 1t was an ample pro-
lection from the weather, for it might
be Of cotton in summer and Of wool in
winter. 1t was not burdensome. 1t
permitted the unobstructed use of all the
wearers powers It did not distract him
by petty annoyances. The shoes were
closed and guarded by the buttoned
bottoms of the trousers, so that during
long march dust and gravel did not in
trude to the wounding of the feet and
the tanning of the men. The hat was
soft wide brimmed felt, not pressing too
much on the head and shading the eyes,
The accouterment of the rifeman con-
sisted Of what was useful to him. Of
all the soldiers of his time he alone wore
. body belt. Into this belt he stuck a
hunting knife, with which he cut his
fuel, his food, or his pathway through
the forests. His weapon was better than
that issued to the troops opposed to him,
and the British soldier with his Brown
Bess feared the Yankee rifle. Finally
his cartridge box and canteen were car
ried from his shoulders. This was a
virtue Of the period, however, for a hun
dred years ago no soldiers carried weight
on their waists.
It Is probable that the absence of uni
forms greatly assisted the American
army in its struggles with the well clad
enemy. The dress of the period was
certainly not calculated to aid action.
1t is almost impossible to imagine any
thing that could make fighting man
more ineffective than the heavy hats,
the full, long skirted coats, the skin
tight breeches and the leather stocks
with which custom clothed the British
soldier. Most of the muscles of the body
were cased in, and were directed to pre-
serving the rod like stiffness which was
prescribed by the drill master. 1t is
easy to understand how, other things
being equal, men whose clothes per-
mitted them to be active and agile could
easily overcome the bucHam men, who
had to shoot over leather stocks.-Har-
per's Weekly.
Pen Made Money.
Regularly every six months the treas