Welcome to our Hunting Shirt Department.
Welcome to our Hunting Shirt Department. A civilian “hunting shirt” is a pullover, shirt weight, thigh length, sleeved, torso garment. It was worn over and protected a more valuable garment from dirt and wear from manly outdoor activities, such as skimming molten lead, harvesting crops, or stirring acid baths. Strangely, colonists did little actual hunting in it; when they did, they wore the exact same thing but with a collar. This was called a “wagoner’s shirt.” So why is it also called a “hunting shirt?’
Because that is what the Indians wore while hunting animals for the deer hide/leather trade.
To the left is a page from the 1736 Von Reck Journal showing an eastern woodland indian in his brown hunting shirt.
At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, this was the only garment that could be made quickly to outfit the troops and give them a UNIFORM appearance. The Indian hunting shirt design initially adopted did NOT have any cape over the shoulders, nor any fringe. These garments were made from similar patterns from state government fabric and to state government specifications, and thus differed from the civilian ones, especially in color and fabric weight. In Virginia they were usually made of hemp osnaburg in a dark brown color, about the color of modern cigarette tobacco.
In late October of 1775, the two Virginia infantry regiments forming and fitting out in Williamsburg realized that, soldiers, unlike Indians, wear martial equipment on straps that quickly (in about two weeks) wear out the shoulders of the shirt, and a knapsack that wore out the upper back of it.
Several companies of the 1st Virginia Regiment experimented with adding a heavy crimson wool mantle (not a cape) over the shoulders to the shirt, which materially reduced the wear, but which alone cost more than the shirt. JWPS. This version is our M1775 “Crimson.” Just before the Battle of Great Bridge in early December of 1775, the Second Virginia was ordered to dye their unmantled hunting shirts purple. 2nd Va. Orderly Book. This is our M1775 2nd Virginia Regiment "Purple" Military Overshirt.
By January of 1776, the 1775 versions were worn out with use, so Virginia began issuing the M1776, which had a mantle made of the shirt material. The addition of the mantle changed the nature of the garment from an [Indian] “hunting shirt” design to a new, unique, and specific military garment, which we call a Military Overshirt with Mantle. Virginia’s M1776 Overshirts with Mantle were required to be “a dark color.” 6th Virginia Orderly Book. This is our M1775 1st Virginia Regiment "Crimson" Military Overshirt with Mantle.