In March 1776, Pennsylvania’s newest army officers were preparing to dress for military success. Pennsylvania raised a total of six new battalions for service in 1776. One of these was Colonel Anthony Wayne’s 4th Pennsylvania Battalion. The battalion would spend its campaign season on Long Island, in Canada, and at Fort Ticonderoga. Before that, though, it needed to be supplied and outfitted.
The enlisted men of the 4th Pennsylvania were provided with clothing by the colony. They were given uniforms at the start of the year, and as their clothing wore out the colony promised to replace it. While this process was complicated by the expense and difficulty of sourcing cloth and sending garments to regiments in the field, Pennsylvania tried to keep its soldiers adequately clothed.
The regiment’s officers were expected to purchase their own uniforms. The set of bills shown here documents purchases by officers of the 4th Pennsylvania from tailors John Stille and Jonathan Galloway. The regiment had an official design for its uniform, dark blue coats with white facing and white vests and breeches. Stille and Galloway followed that design to create officers’ uniforms. Making these uniforms was not cheap. The labor of the tailors came at a price, but materials cost even more, particularly since England had been a primary source of cloth for the colonies.
On March 1, 1776—250 years ago today—Stille billed Ensign John Barclay for a uniform coat and vest. The total cost was 10 pounds, 18 shillings, 3 pence, out of which only 1 pound, 6 shillings was for labor. The rest of the cost went to rattinet, calamanco, serge, and superfine cloth, along with facings, buttons, and other trimmings, like a silver epaulet that cost 2 pounds. Throughout the spring, Stille and Galloway were hard at work making uniforms for Barclay and other officers. Thanks to the work of the colony and the tailors, the 4th Pennsylvania entered the campaign with a professional, unified visual identity.
Learn more about the tailor’s bills (object IDs 2001.0045.001-008) on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database: https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/29475