Hunting Shirt by Mary Brandenburg
In the summer of 1775, George Washington was desperate to properly uniform the nascent Continental Army then forming around Boston. During the first week of August, Washington requested Connecticut authorities to begin producing inexpensive clothing for his men and sent along a sample of frontier clothing for them to use as a pattern. It was an “Indian or Hunting Shirt” with “a cape ruffled.” Washington explained that “It is designed as a Species of Uniform both cheap & convenient.” This...