Highlanders in the French and Indian war

[Orvis]

We all have had to make the best choice with the best info we had at the time. There is a whole lot of irony here, when we formed the 78th way back when, we really wanted to do the 42nd, but the fact that the lace cost as much as a musket, well it made us go with the cheaper option of doing the unlaced 78th! To now find out that only the Grens of the 42nd had lace, well it hurts. Since then, with the dollar not being as weak and finding sources for the lace, now 42nd units have lots of money invested in lace and are not wanting to change.

The Officers of the 77th were rather forward looking in their dress. Lapels, white waistcoats, even white linings in their coats. Very post 68 in many respects. Im still working on enlisted uniform research for the 77th, it is the least researched unit out there. I have found some interesting things. The fact that the unit was split between theaters means that the guys up north, they were probably well supplied as all 3 regiments clothing seems to have been shipped together to wherever the 42nd was HQ'd. Dont know if it happened every year, but I have docs showing that it did happen in 58 for the 59 campaign season, but the companies down south ended up wearing whatever they could get, sometimes even coats made from blankets sewn by tailors of the PA Provincials.

Luke - Great stuff. Yes, I have found that the 77th, despite it being such a large regiment and being all over the place in North America, was not well documented at all. Some years ago, I chanced to meet Lord Montgomerie (a son of the present Earl) at a Highland Games (he was guest of the Montgomery clan society) and we chatted a bit about what might still survive in the family collection (colours, regimental records, etc), and he said that much of whatever was left was destroyed at the Eglington Castle fire in the 1830s. Likewise, regimental records that had been sent to Horse Guards for retention were either destroyed by fire or damp, not leaving much. Fortunately, my job was in Washington DC and a friend (who was an historian at the Navy Historical Center and who was working on his masters dissertation about the 60th Foot (Royal Americans) in the F&IW gave me oblique access to records from various archives in DC (including National Archives) on microfilms he had copied. From these (the Forbes Papers) I got much information on the 77th during the 1758 Forbes campaign, including letters from Col Archibald Montgomery himself (I was surprised, as he was the son of an Earl and obviously could have had his regimental clerks write for him, but there it was in his own hand - terrible handwriting, by the way! There was also material from Sir John St. Clair and the officers who brought over the two additional companies from Scotland, training them as they went, to catch up with the regiment on the Forbes Road.

Anyway, perhaps at some point we could meet to discuss what we have learned and share documentation that we have found. Your call. But thanks for sharing what you've found. Although I am no longer reenacting the 77th (or the RevWar 42nd) and am not chasing documentation on those units with much vigor (I reserve that now for the Jacobite Highlanders, and the Appins in particular), I have documentation and books laid by that you might be interested in. Until that time, I look forward to reading your future contributions to this blog.