Tag Archives: 10th Massachusetts

See You in Saratoga

20 Friday Sep 2013

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AN00176337_001_lNot quite what our camp will look like, but one can hope.

Baking nearly done, Mr S has gone to draw fresh meat and flour.

We’ll be packing as light as we can except for the kid’s supremely heavy biology textbook, but at least he’s game for a weekend of reenacting mixed with homework. Mr S looks forward to sporting his new coat, and I’m looking forward to camp cooking and meeting people In Real Life.

Fingers crossed for the lightest of traffic and rain…

Saratoga!

11 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in 1763 Project, Events, Living History, Reenacting

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Rough Sketch of the US Camp

Rough Sketch of the US Camp

Saratoga is 10 days away. Only 10 days away.

In more exciting news, there’s a map of the American camp so we’ll know where we’re stumbling to in the dark. (We can’t leave town until about 3:00, when the Young Mr will finally be released from school.)

We’ll be with the Lights, in two of those proposed eight tents, near the oval designated “horses.” With a sketch map in hand, we won’t have to remember Lochee while grappling with mallet and flashlight. Well, not too much, anyway.

The coat is done, and while I would have had time to make another for the Young Mr, I took a three-day break from sewing instead. The finished size 40 fits him, in any case, so if there is a spare, he can appear in brown and green with the rest of the company. Now that he’s swimming two days aweek, I don’t epxact him to stay a size 40 for long enough to justify his own hand-sewn, two-events-per-year-max coat…yet…

For me, the next few weeks will be spent sewing for What Cheer Day and thinking about the “People of 1763” event in Boston. Sew18thCentury will be joining me for that, as I play her maid. We’ll be at the Old State House in Boston where I know a very lovely Grenadier’s Cap is on display.

All Over but the Tugging

06 Friday Sep 2013

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Front view on Cassandra.

Back view, over petticoats

That’s right, it’s done, in all its brown and green glory, with not one buttonhole in sight.

I imagine Henry Cooke will tug on it, the same way my grandmother used to tug on my clothes, and find the things I need to fix that I can’t even see until he points them out. But that’s OK– what better way to learn?

You can see the progression on the project here, but there’s no tutorial or instruction manual, just visual notes as I went along. It’s Mr Cooke’s pattern and kit.

I think they’ll be glad of wool coats up at Saratoga, and if I didn’t have a new gown and petticoat, and possibly even stays, to make by October 5, I would think hard about making John Buss’s “red Queman’s pattern jacket” and “striped woolen trowsis” for the Young Mr to wear. With luck, he’ll have a borrowed coat to wear; I doubt a hunting frock will be as warm as he’d like by late September. No one, not even Mr Cooke (and I did ask), knows with certainty what a “Queman’s pattern jacket” is, but it might be a short coat or jacket. What I do know is that visions of a short red coat and grey striped trousers dance in my head, and the list of things I want to make just gets longer.

For now, though, this 1777 10th Massachusetts coatee is done, or nearly done, though on Mr S, I predict center back pleat tweaking.

An Unusual Coat

03 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Clothing, Events, Living History, Making Things, Reenacting, Research

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DSCN4288In 1777, the uniforms of the Continental Army remained largely uncodified and, well, non-uniform. At Ticonderoga, German accounts from the spring of 1777 state that “Few of the officers in General Gates’ army wore uniforms, and those that were worn were evidently of home manufacture and of all colors. For example, brown coats with sea-green facings, white linings, and silver dragons(epaulettes or shoulder knots), and gray coats with yellow buttons and straw facings, where to be seen in plenty.”

Brown coats with sea green facings. There’s one in our regiment, and it is a lovely thing. The Adjutant thought it would be interesting for the troops to turn out in these coats at Saratoga, an event to which the coat can be documented (being soon after Fort Ticonderoga) and an event that will take place on the historic site. So we’re making them, in a project that started Saturday, and here we are: ready to have the lapel width adjusted, because my eye tells me it is too big, and yes, I’m told that it was cut a but wide. So this morning, a lapel trim is in order.

An American Soldier. ca.1852 copy of a ca.1777 watercolor by Hessen-Hanau Captain Friedrich von Germann. Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, Wolfenbüttel, Braunschweig

An American Soldier. ca.1852 copy of a ca.1777 watercolor by Hessen-Hanau Captain Friedrich von Germann. Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, Wolfenbüttel, Braunschweig

But really, these coats.

Here you can see the style that we’re making, with applied lapels and shanked buttons, simple turn backs on the front skirts, and flat collars. The cuffs are also applied, non-functioning cuffs that come to a point in front. (Also, documented blue stockings!)

These coats will be worn with overalls, waistcoats and shoes, because we know from John Buss’s letters that the regiment was issued overalls and shoes in the summer of 1777. No visible stockings, sadly.

This is the kind of project I can get pretty stoked about, with its combination of aesthetics and documentation. A coat described in a German diary, made in pettable wool broadcloth that will be unlike anything else on the field? Of course I want to help make that vision real.

Imagine a moment on the field, with these documented coats, so unusual (the sea green may have been a faded blue, but sea green is what was seen), worn in a place where they were worn. I don’t need to remind you about the authenticity/commemoration thing, do I? Because it’s pretty clear that’s what’ll happen three weeks from now in New  York.

‘Countryside at War’ Saturday

26 Monday Aug 2013

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The Countryside at War, Hartwell Tavern, MMNHP, August 24, 2013

The Countryside at War, Hartwell Tavern, MMNHP, August 24, 2013

We came, we saw, we sewed, we ate cake. No, it was more than that, though there was any quantity of excellent cake on a lovely Saturday.

I had a chance to spend the whole day with people I really enjoy talking to, like Sharon Burnston and Sew18thCentury. (I love that silk gown. I really do.) We are all preparing for an event we will be part of in Providence in October, and I think and hope it will be great fun! But I’m getting several weeks and 25 years ahead of myself.

On Saturday, Sharon was a widow who had traveled from New Hampshire to visit her daughter, who was but one month from her confinement. She had a portmanteau of clothes for the soon to be born child, and food, as the blockade and closing of the city had made obtaining anything very difficult.

Before the jacket was applied

Visitors came and asked interesting questions, but there wasn’t much I could answer. Reader, I had not studied. I had sewn instead, vain woman that I am, laboring to produce new trousers and a new waistcoat for the Young Mr. He spent the day reading his school book, recovered in craft paper and blue check linen. Saving grace, that cover, and I plan to make many more. The Young Mr (after hauling carts and goods for people) found  some handy stones and settled in to get his work done.

His father plans to make him a full-size wooden musket from some mahogany that was left over from construction at work: there are no rules to prevent him learning to drill will a dummy musket. At events when he’s not trying to do his school work, he does enjoy being put to work. He likes to feel useful, and I am grateful to people who recognize that, and help me keep him in the hobby. This was all his idea in the first place…

Sew18thCentury and I had a long walk on the bike path, which was mildly dangerous. Bonnets block a great deal of your vision, and change your hearing, so bicycles are particularly troubling. And when wearing a bonnet, one has to peer out from under it to see anything above you, or your lap, as you can see here.

Our clothing was documented, as you know from posts on this blog. I assembled sheets for each of us, and they can be found here: The Young Mr, Mr S and Kitty. I finished it all late on Friday night, so by the time I reached my own, well…there’s always next year to tidy that up. I still like the gown, and I really like the lightweight wool olive/brownish petticoat with the gown. Hooray! Clothing I like, in wool, that can be worn in summer. What’s not to like? (Well, pins, for one thing. They bend and pop out.)

Drilling in the shade, Shirley-style

Drilling in the shade, Shirley-style

The men were drilled for the September 28 event, which rolls forward, sort of. I expect or hope for a schedule this week, which will be helpful. Fingers crossed…though no matter what, I will have to hope a train back to Providence by 3 to make rehearsal for the event at work. That should be interesting…

Now it’s down to finishing and fixing projects in process, and deciding on fabric for a housekeeper’s gown from 1800. I think I’ve settled on a year and style, but the fabric eludes me still. I have to find it pretty soon, because on Saturday, I’ll start making coats for Saratoga. I’m a sucker for beauty, and the Adjutant got me with sea foam green and dark brown wool. The facings are false, so really, a button-hole-free, single-year, described in a letter, regimental coat? The artist in me won, and I am so making that.

Many, many thanks to Sharon Burnston and Friends of Minute Man National Park for the photos! I took none, except of the Young Mr in our yard.