Welcome to our Jack Coats Department.

  A “Jack Coat” is the 18th century term for what we now call a “jacket.” They are an outer waist length sleeved torso garment that opens in the front.  Low status civilians such as laborers, apprentices, sailors, servants, and the like wore jack coats because, containing less fabric, they were cheaper that the thigh length sleeved waistcoat or the knee length frock coat. Obediah Mead was wearing his on the farm when he was killed by Connecticut Tories in 1779. 

 While we are all familiar with the glorious blue and red regimental coat, they were very much a 1777 to 1779 Northern Department thing. The economics of war forced the Southern Department to seek a more economical alternative. In November of 1780, Major General von Steuben “tormented” Virginia into issuing a similar garment, also blue, but probably with red cuffs and collar. Nathaniel Greene Papers, Vol. VI, p. 584. In early January of 1781, Nathaniel Greene ordered the magazine  at Cross Creek, N.C. (now Fayetteville, N.C.)  to whip up 400 of the Carolina models and deliver them to the army posthaste. Nathaniel Greene Papers, Vol. VII, p. 81. Virginia issued a second run of them in January 1781. 

 The Letter from Richard Campbell to Thomas Jefferson, April 3, 1781, Founders Online. These jackets were nicknamed the “hell-fire Blues” jacket, according to a first person account at RevWarApps. While Katcher, Uniforms of the Continental Army, says correctly that a brown osnaburg version was suggested in April of 1781 because of the lack of blue wool, a large supply came in a week later, and so Gaskins and Posey’s battalions, as Continentals, were probably wearing these. Revolutionary Virginia. As Continentals, Posey’s and Gaskins’ Battalions were probably wearing these.