American War of Independence: Kirkwood's Lights

As for the most part I work from home anyway, life for me is pretty much BAU although SWMBO is now working from home as well so I best put some trousers on when wandering around the house in case she's on a video call!

However being good and respecting the lock down (and to try and keep my sanity) I have started painting some of Lead Mountain again - including some much needed Perry Miniatures Light Infantry for my Patriot army...

As previously stated my American force is based on that at Guilford Courthouse in 1781 so a quick peruse of the Order of Battle shows two regular light infantry units there, Lee's Legion and Kirkwood's Lights. The plan is to do both, but I decided to start with Kirkwood's Delaware Lights with their distinctive yellow trimmed tricorns. Uniform wise a majority wore hunting shirts and whilst initially I planned to have mixed unit in blue uniform coats and shirts, in the end I decided to go with all twelve wearing hunting shirts as with my dip approach, it was quicker to get them done.

Some accounts say that the unit's trousers soon wore out and replacement overalls were made from bed ticking (a durable cotton or linen fabric) which, given some ticking from the period was stripped, has led to the assumption that Kirkwood's Lights should have blue and white stripped overall trousers. I did think about having a crack at this with some but given there is no evidence that this was the case and it was a lot of faff, I decided to go with plain overalls. I don't think they look any the worse for not having stripped overalls...