rt. Clothing was another
matter. One of the things insisted upon in a well-trained army is a
decent regard for appearance, and in the eyes of the French and the
British officers the American army usually seemed rather unkempt. The
formalities of dress, the uniformity of pipe-clay and powdered hair, of
polished steel and brass, can of course be overdone. The British army
had too much of it, but to Washington's force the danger was of having
too little. It was not easy to induce farmers and frontiersmen who at
home began the day without the use of water, razor, or brush, to appear
on parade clean, with hair powdered, faces shaved, and clothes neat. In
the long summer days the men were told to shave before going to bed that
they might prepare the more quickly for parade in the morning, and to
fill their canteens over night if an early march was imminent. 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. On the
other hand, there is evidence that life in the army was not without its
compensations. Enforced dwelling in the open air saved men from diseases
such as consumption and the movement from camp to camp gave a broader
outlook to the farmer's sons. The army could usually mak