Uniform Uniforms

While looking at the photos from our club's recent trip to Fr. Ticonderoga's annual AWI reenactment it struck me that the photographs of this pair of American skirmishers were wearing the same uniform, but when looking closer the differences in the color of the uniform jacket, the wear and dirt on the white trousers and the difference in the equipment was striking. I noted this to our club's mailing list and the discussion was quite interesting - interesting enough that I thought sharing the photos and some thoughts here might be of interest to the readers. 

One of our members discussed the uniform differences with the reenactors. They cited that uniforms and cloth were sourced continuously and often not from the same source. Dyes were not standardized until the mid 1800s, and of course fading due to wear, sun exposure and washing all take their toll. At least up through the black powder periods, these are all excellent reasons to vary not only the shades of your uniforms, also the base tones. The thing that struck me the hardest is that the coat on the right is a more reddish brown than the one on the left. It's not just newer and brighter, it's a completely different tone.

I hope to experiment with this a bit on my next AWI unit. I encourage others to do the same.