I guess that compared to many rifle builders, with building and/or shooting being their primary interest, and many living history type re-enactors, I live with my feet in both worlds. I cannot separate my interest in frontier rifles from my interest in the culture that surrounded their construction and use.
When I was on the front lines in the CW Gunshop I used to wonder why re-enactors come there would spend lots of hours and money on their period correct clothes then carry a rifle that was totally wrong. A lot of the posts in this thread show that the opposite is also true--some rifle builders can be years behind in keeping up with the current research on frontier clothing, like hunting shirts.
There are many sources of information that have become readily available due to the search functions on some web sites. Previously unknown store accounts and journals have also come to light.
Here are a couple of web sites worth a look:
http://oldetoolshop.com/trekking/library/huntingshirts.htmlhttp://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-costa?specfile=%2Fweb%2Fdata%2Fusers%2Fcosta%2Fcostadeserter.o2w&query=shirt&docs=deserter&begin_year=&end_year=&sample=1-100&grouping=workYou can find many more with a simple search.
One of the most detailed descriptions of frontier riflemen and their dress comes from A Tour of the United States of America by John Ferdinand Dalziel Smyth. Smyth toured Virginia and the Carolinas in the years immediately before the Revolution. He was from England and as a Tory fled back there as soon as he could at the outbreak of the war. His journal was published in 1784 and includes some added material from during and after the war.
Here is part of what he wrote about the appearance, dress, and attitude of the frontiersmen he encountered: “Their whole dress is also very singular, and not very materially different from that of the Indians; being a hunting shirt somewhat resembling a waggoner’s frock, ornamented with a great many fringes, tied round the middle with a broad belt, much decorated also, in which is fastened a tomahawk, an instrument that serves every purpose of defense and convenience; being a hammer at one side and a sharp hatchet at the other; the shot bag and powder-horn, carved with a variety of whimsical figures and devices, hang from their necks over one shoulder; and on their heads a flapped hat, of a redish hue, proceeding from the intensely hot beams of the sun.
Sometimes they wear leather breeches, made of Indian dressed elk, or deer skins, but more frequently thin trowsers [sic].
On their legs they have Indian boots, or leggings, made of course woollen [sic] cloth, and either wrapped round loosely and tied with garters, or laced upon the outside, and always come better than half way up the thigh: these are a great defence [sic] and preservative, not only against the bite of serpents and poisonous insects, but likewise against the scratches of thorns, briars, scrubby bushes and underwood, with which this whole country is infested and overspread.
On their feet they sometimes wear pumps of their own manufacture, but generally Indian moccossons [sic], of their own construction also, which are made of strong elk’s, or buck’s skin, dressed soft as for gloves or breeches, drawn together in regular plaits over the toe, and lacing from thence round to the forepart of the middle of the ancle [sic], without a seam in them, yet fitting close to the feet, and are indeed perfectly easy and pliant.
Thus habited and accoutered, with his rifle upon his shoulder, or in his hand, a back-wood’s man is completely equipped for visiting, courtship, travel, hunting, or war.
According to the number and variety of the fringes on his hunting shirt, and the decorations on his powder horn, belt, and rifle, he estimates his finery, and absolutely conceives himself of equal consequence, more civilized, polite, and more elegantly dressed than the most brilliant peer at St. James’s, in a splendid and expensive birth-day suit, of the first fashion and taste, and most costly materials.
Their hunting, or rifle shirts, they have also died in variety of colours [sic] some yellow, others red, some brown, and many wear them quite white.
Such sentiments as those I have just exposed to notice, are neither so ridiculous nor surprising, when the circumstances are considered with due attention, that prompt the back-wood’s American to such a train of thinking, and in which light it is, that he feels his own consequence, for he finds all his resources in himself.
Thus attired and accoutered, as already described, set him in the midst of a boundless forest, a thousand miles from an inhabitant, he is no means at a lose, nor in the smallest degree dismayed.
With his rifle he procures his subsistence; with his tomahawk he erects his shelter, his wigwam, his house, or whatever habitation he may chuse [sic] to reside in; he drinks at the crystal spring, or the nearest brook; his wants are all easily supplied, he is contented, he is happy. For felicity, beyond a doubt, consists in a grest measure, in the attainment and gratification of our desires, and the accomplishment of the utmost bounds of our wishes."
Gary
