SHADES OF 1813; THE US ARMY'S TRANSITIONAL UNIFORM

One day in January, having realized my boyhood dream of being able to create a Napoleonic army out of thin air in an afternoon with a few spins of the centrifugal casting machine, I sat down to figure out what I would need to put on the battle of Crysler's Farm using my Knuckleduster figures. Turns out, I needed a new type of uniform for most of my American troops, and I hadn't yet sculpted it.

Knuckleduster's new 1813 figures painted as a variety of units.

So, as is my wont, I sculpted it! Now I have filled this gap in the product line, and a colorful gap it is.

My American troops at that time all fell into three basic types; 1812, 1814, and various militia. But none of these were quite right for 1813. Turns out, the American army throughout the 1813 campaign season (a third of the war), wore a hybrid of the 1812 and 1814 uniform. On paper, the US Army had an entirely new uniform in 1813; a plain coatee without much of the lace adorning earlier incarnations of the garment, and a durable, smart new leather shako. But as any student of military history can tell you, the dictates from on high do not always translate into changes in the field; at least not right away.

Brown coatees. These troops wear the M1813 shako with
the large, brass shako plate issued the first year this new
headgear was distributed.

The leather shako was delivered very quickly to the front lines, and most units had them in hand for the 1813 campaign season. The coats were another story; the old laced 1812 coatee continued to be worn by a substantial number of units, and because of shortages of blue dye, it was delivered to units in various shades of grey,"drab" (which could theoretically be dyed blue at a later time), brown, and black. According to Chartrand, the Army specified that, "the mixed color coatees and garments were to be cut as prescribed in the February 1812 regulations, with red collars and cuffs, and white lace binding."

Drab coatees, which could be dyed blue if the unit happened to
capture an indigo dye factory somewhere in the Canadian wilderness.

Chartrand put together a listing of what was issued during the winter of 1812-1813. There is no guarantee that these were the uniforms worn at Crysler's (not "Chrysler's") Farm, but it is a decent guess. The units wearing this old coat/new cap (as we know, a shako is a "cap" and a bicorne or tricorne is a "hat") configuration, were as follows (coat color follows listing):

LEATHER SHAKO, LACED 1812 COATEE
12th US: Drab, red facings
14th: Brown for some, Drab faced with Red for others.
21st: Blue, red facings
16th: Black, red facings

Black coatee (black is surprisingly difficult to photograph
so that it looks like black and not blue or grey!)

The 25th had the old felt shako and a blue coat faced with red (and with minimal lace). I have no information on the 13th or the 9th. Most would have black leather belting, however on the very dark uniforms, I have used white to make them stand out (for shame for shame). Also, apparently some units had black lace instead of white. If you'd like to track down that information, you are welcome to do so!

If you have corrections or additional information, please pass them along.

All the best,
Forrest Harris
Knuckleduster

Soure: A Most Warlike Appearance, Renee Chartrand, 2011

HOW TO BUILD AND PAINT A TCL LASER-CUT BUILDING THE KNUCKLEDUSTER WAY

Tri-City Laser has created a line of laser-cut wood building kits that are relatively easy to assemble and etched with detail that look fantastic when given the kind of dry-brushed highlighting technique that is in every gamer's basic skillset. I was tasked with creating painted samples of the entire line and photographing them for the sell sheets which make up the line's basic promotional package. That meant finishing a lot of buildings quickly. This experience helped me build the following technique which I have found gives the neatest, cleanest result the most efficiently.

The foundation of this technique is painting the building before it is assembled. By doing so, you don't have do as much fiddly stuff around the details and can more or less slap the paint on. You must be warned that it can cause some swelling in the wood, especially if you use too much paint; but although I've had tight fits at time, I've never had a building that failed to go together.

The building I've chosen to illustrate my technique is the newest release, a small store with a fancy stepped-front. First off, lay out all your unpainted parts and give it a dry test-fitting to make sure you know how everything goes together.

Let's start with the exterior surfaces. The front, sides, back, roof, and floor need a thin coat of dark sepia brown paint. Because I need large quantities for terrain and buildings, I mix this color myself with black and red craft paints (make sure they are a good quality, opaque variety). Use a fairly stiff brush and work the paint into all the cracks and crevices.

Once this coat has dried and the missed spots touched up, it's time for the first dry-brushed layer. I use a medium brown craft paint which is a bit like raw sienna. Michael's craft store sells it by the exciting name "brown."













This will be brushed over all the surfaces which are meant to be plain wood. (Isn't it interesting how wood looks more like wood when you paint it?)

I also do a bit of dry-brushing and dappling on the roof, making a pattern that suggest a sun-baked spot in the middle of the surface.

The next shade for the plain wood portions of the building is a very subtle mustard-yellow-brown; something like yellow ochre. At it's most basic it is a mix of brown and yellow. This is dry-brushed over all the surfaces that got the brown treatment earlier.

Now on to the more colorful parts of the building. Often times, the false front was only part of an Old West building that was painted. I've chosen green with yellow trim, but these are very subtle, muted colors and not GREEN! and YELLOW!

I want the final highlights to give it an olive aspect, so I begin by adding black to olive (you can create olive from black and yellow, just like Napoleon did for his gun carriages) to get a nice dark olive drab. Paint the top half of the front and the back of the front (the part that shows above the roof when viewed from behind). The lower half of the front will get a different treatment.

The lower half of the front and all of the trim pieces will receive a basic coat of yellow ochre, the mustard-brown color mentioned earlier. Notice how I do all the windows very thoroughly with this coat, working it onto every surface of the window sashes, and painting slightly beyond the window frames, but not so far that it will extend beyond the trim piece, which will be glued on later.

This will be followed with a dry-brushing of a lighter version of the same.

The interior of the walls recieve a tan which you can dapple and highlight to your heart's content to simulate a smoke-stained white wall.

Now you're ready for assembly with white glue. You will need to use rubber bands or clamps to hold it together tightly while it dries. You can us superglue, but you may run into problems getting everything lined up before it dries.

Once everything is put together, I look for more highlighting I can do to really make details pop. I add some light tan dust on the wood surfaces in strategic places, and even a little fine dusting on the green front (carefully).

And there it is! I plan on making this into an undertaker's shop; Rigor and Mortis, Undertakers (for you Bugs Bunny fans).

Take a gander at the whole collection at www.knuckleduster.com. There are painted samples of all the buildings in this collection in the catalog pages of the shopping cart.