Some of the regiments had uniforms
which gave them a sufficiently smart appearance. The cocked hat,
the loose hunting shirt with its fringed border, the breeches of
brown leather or duck, the brown gaiters or leggings, the
powdered hair, were familiar marks of the soldier of the
Revolution.
During a great part of the war, however, in spite of supplies
brought from both lance and the West Indies, Washington found it
difficult to secure for his men even decent clothing of any kind,
whether of military cut or not. More than a year after he took
command, in the fighting about New York, a great part of his army
had no more semblance of uniform than hunting shirts on a common
pattern. In the following December, he wrote of many men as
either shivering in garments fit only for summer wear or as
entirely naked. There was a time in the later campaign in the
South when hundreds of American soldiers marched stark naked,
except for breech cloths. One of the most pathetic hardships of
the soldier's life was due to the lack of boots. More than one of
Washington's armies could be tracked by the bloody footprints of
his barefooted men. Near the end of the war Benedict Arnold, who
knew whereof he spoke, described the American army as "illy clad,
badly fed, and worse paid," pay being then two or three years
overdue.
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