French Line Infantry North America, Summer Campaign Dress - Other Ranks

Text to follow soon plus more French in summer campaign dress...

Generic WSS Cavalryman

Just a quick item - with more work it could no doubt be improved but this might be of some use to the WSS enthusiasts. When I get chance I'll do a few WSS infantry templates too.

Coming soon - French infantry in summer campaign dress, North America

In North America the French infantry often fought in the summer in their long-sleeved waistcoats without the heavy justaucorps. That will be the next uniform type I'll depict, with a couple of variants of other ranks' uniform and an officer in gold-laced waistcoat and gorget.

Private, New Jersey "Blues", North America 1755-1763

One of the best of the locally-raised Provincial regiments, the New Jersey Blues were named after the blue coats they wore; blue became the commonest colour worn by provincial regiments towards the end of the war. They were at Oswego and Ticonderoga. In the field almost all provincial troops wore hunting shirts and buckskin breeches or Indian-style cloth leggings rather than their "full dress" regimentals. Even officers, who bought their own uniforms and therefore tended to be better dressed than the rank and file, wore hunting shirts and buckskin breeches on campaign.

This website: http://www.nj.gov/military/museum/frenchindian.html suggests they had a fairly rough war: "Indian raids along the colony’s northwest border in the summer of 1755 prompted the raising of a thousand man regiment of “Jersey Blues”, as well as a force to garrison forts along the Delaware.  The Blues saw considerable combat.  One detachment of the regiment was captured at Oswego in 1756 and another wiped out in a fight at Sabbath Day Point on Lake George in 1757. Another 300 were surrendered to the French at Fort William Henry in 1757 and some of these men were massacred by the Indians."