Home › Forums › Horse and Musket › 18th Century › What is a Hunting Shirt?
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27/06/2017 at 12:33 #65792Sane MaxParticipant
It’s a simple question. All my books say what a simple, smart, practical piece of equipment the Hunting Shirt was. Apparently Washington wanted to make it uniform equipment, he thought that highly of it.
So what makes it so great? I know what it looks like and what it’s made of, but what was it that made it so eminently suitable? And I am assuming the various layers are attached to something underneath, or do they hang loose with minimal attachment to each other?
It really isn’t very important…. but I am painting the damn things, it feels wrong to know so little about them, and my google searches don’t really help.
27/06/2017 at 14:51 #65811PatriceParticipantI don’t know much about hunting shirts, but one answer probably is to compare with a late 18th century more formal military uniform and see which one is more practical to run in the woods and through the countryside and live and sleep outdoors for days…
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https://www.anargader.net/27/06/2017 at 15:14 #65815Not Connard SageParticipantIt was warm, homemade, cheap, and the militia provided their own. What’s an impecunious rebel leader not going to like about them? 😉
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27/06/2017 at 15:55 #65818General SladeParticipantI’ve always assumed that part of the reason Washington favoured the hunting shirt was because it looked distinctly ‘American’ so it had something to do with trying to forge a unique identity. I imagine the ‘cape’ parts on the shoulders were separate layers with as few seams as possible in order to increase the degree of water resistance.
27/06/2017 at 16:15 #65819MartinRParticipantIt doesn’t seem to have any pockets, which might reduce its utility a bit.
I am sure they looked jolly dashing though.
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27/06/2017 at 16:38 #65820vtsaogamesParticipantI saw one recently in an exhibition at the New York Historical Society. It was much thinner material than I would have thought, being semi-translucent. That may have been a function of age. My wife also noted that it was made from several smaller pieces of material, leading to fringed seams down the front either side of the center line. Wish I’d taken a photo.
It certainly required less tailoring than contemporary “Prussian style” uniform jackets. One reason Washington favored them was because it made ordinary line soldiers look like riflemen, who were marksmen and had a longer range than muskets.
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27/06/2017 at 18:44 #65826crestabearParticipantIs it one that stalks and preys on other shirts?
27/06/2017 at 19:12 #65830OBParticipantIt is a smock to protect you and your good clothes should you own any.
OB
http://withob.blogspot.co.uk/27/06/2017 at 19:42 #65834zippyfusenetParticipantI agree that the key perceived advantages to hunting shirts were ‘home made’ and ‘cheap’. They weren’t particularly warm. They were intended for summer wear, and troops who had to make do with only hunting shirts in cold weather suffered. They were *shirts* or smocks, made up from light weight homespun linen or linsey-woolsey. The garment originated with men pulling off their coats and waistcoats, pulling out the tails of their big 17th century shirts, and going around in shirt-sleeves in the hot North American summer. The Indians took to wearing shirts over a breech-clout + mitasses ensemble, then began decorating the shirts, and that fashion was picked up and developed by white frontiersmen. Originally a frontier style, hunting shirts could also be quickly made up in more settled regions using local labor and materials.
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28/06/2017 at 02:27 #65850Darryl SmithParticipantAlso, to add to Zippy’s excellent post, the layers of fabric over the shoulders kept the soldier dry as rain would not penetrate that many layers very well.
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http://germancolonialgaming.blogspot.com/29/06/2017 at 11:32 #65983OldNickParticipantCheep and easy to make. Gives a uniform appearance to your army. And since hunting shirts are associated with rifles makes your enemy think all the army could be rifle men.
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