Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

My lady friend and I attended a founding ceremony this past weekend in a small old city near me. A couple of ARW fife and drum bands played and paraded and both wore red coats with a dark blue facing color. I had to be restrained from shouting out from the curb, "huzzah for the 1st Foot Guards!" [8D] I've seen the same thing at White House ceremonies on TV. Why do these Yankee bands wear red coats instead of the traditional American blue?

Phil

Check these out:
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/fort_henry/BackWay/uniformsDrummers.html
http://www.heritagestudio.com/plate7.htm

Ain't it just because musicians have the regimental colours reversed, i.e. in a British royal regiment they would have blue coats with red facings, so maybe in an American (blue-coated) regiment with red facings they would wear red coats with blue facings? [8)]

Right Dierk, thanks Ernie.

"Traditionally, uniforms of the military musicians have been reversed colors of the regiments in which they served. This custom was begun in the late 17th century to distinguish musicians from soldiers in the smoke and confusion as musicians sent the signals for battle movement and commanders had to find them quickly."

Interesting. We need some morale boosting musician units in these games!

I remembered this because on the old British army pages I had a picture of a drummer of, I think, the 44th, in any case buff facings, and boy did he look odd! Now just imagine how a musician of the Fighting Fifth must have looked like ... like a parrot from Madagascar. [:p]

My favorite are the drummers from the 13th - 18th (?) French Dragoons when dismounted. These rgts had pink facings so the musicians had pink coats trimmed in green with the brass dragoon helmet adorned with white horse hair crest. Beautiful!

Clothing Warrent of 1768 for the British Army states:

"Drummers’ and Fifers’ Coats
The coats of the drummers and fifers of all the royal regiments are to be red, faced and lappelled with blue, and laced with royal lace. The waistcoats, breeches, and lining of the coats, to be of the same colour as that which is ordered for their respective regiments.
The coats of the drummers and fifers of those regiments which are faced with red, are to be white, faced, lappelled, and lined with red; red waistcoats and breeches. Those of all the other regiments are to be of the colour of the facing of their regiments; faced and
lappelled with red. The waistcoats, breeches, and lining of those which have buff or white coats, are to be red. Those of all the others are to be of the same colour as that which is ordered for the men. To be laced in such manner as the Colonel shall think fit.
The lace to be of the colour of that on the soldiers’ coats. The coats have no hanging sleeves behind."

So the Guard's drummers would have red coats with blue facings being a royal regiment, the 53rd, a red-faced regiment would have white coats with red facings, and all others would be reverse colors. The only variation on this theme was the black faced regiments stationed in the caribbean and India. The drummers from those regiments were allowed to wear white coats. In addition, musician coats were highly decorated with the regimental lace sewn as chevrons on the sleeves, and along the seams of the coat, and wings on the shoulders similar to the grenadiers and lights. They also wore bearskin caps like the grenadiers.

<font size="3"><b><font face="Arial Black"><font color="red">Musik of the First Guards</font id="red"></font id="Arial Black"></b></font id="size3">




<font face="Arial Black"><font size="3"><b><font color="blue">Musik of the 2nd PA</font id="blue"></b>
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Thank you Lord Walter for pointing out proper web etiquette.

Hm ... that looks like white knitwear with red and blue adornments. [:p]

(BTW Someone once told me that remote posting of images on the web is considered rude. Everyone who watches this picture on our board now uses the remote site owner's bandwidth. I think the proper way is to d/l the picture, then upload it to your own webspace and post a link to that. [:)])

Dont complete that sentence! You might offend Al!!! [:o)]