Photos from the George Washington Birth Night Ball are finally available, and presented here for your entertainment. You can read a more comprehensive overview of the event here, on Sew 18th Century’s blog. Bonus: extra pictures!
Yes, I give up. It has been a long week, I am tired of winter and tired of snow and packing books and carpets torn up and tired of bad communication. Fresh content? I am fresh out.
I spent Thursday beating my head against research into the Brown family textile collection, and Providence textiles in general, for a program I seem to part of next Saturday. I hope I’m prepared, but along the way to getting ready, I spent some time in many museum databases beyond our own.
The Met, as always, rocks the party and brings their largesse to us all with their online publications.
Get thee to their website, content-hungry pilgrim, and enjoy the downloadable fun. (Some of you already know this, but I keep losing the right link, so here it is again.)
![Female court martial : held upon the conduct of an admirable lady. [London? : s.n., 1757] Lewis Walpole Digital Library 757.03.00.04+](https://kirstenhammerstrom.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/9cfa8-femalecourtmartial1.jpg?w=640)
Everything I think I know about courts-martial I learned from the movies (The Caine Mutiny and Breaker Morant, or Paths of Glory) but thankfully I can realize that knowledge is probably not so applicable to Bridget and her context.
Thanks to Yale, it’s easy enough to find the Rules and Orders for the Continental Army, as set down by the Continental Congress in 1775. I don’t have to know this, the guys know it, but it’s helpful for me to understand what’s happening. I also figure Bridget would have known how the system worked (or should have) since she was part of it, and would have observed life around her. In the same way that I understand the organizational politics and policies of my workplace, she and the soldiers would have understood the rules and regulations under which they lived and worked.
In the first case, remember the shirt-selling soldiers? Here’s the regulation they were breaking:
“Art. XV. Whatsoever non-commissioned officer or soldier, shall be convicted, at a regimental court-martial, of having sold, or designedly, or through neglect, wasted the ammunition, arms, or provisions, or other military stores, delivered out to him, to be employed in the service of this Continent, shall, if an officer, be reduced to a private centinel; and if a private soldier, shall suffer such punishment as shall be ordered by a regimental court-martial.”
There you have it: they sold provisions or “other military stores” delivered to them to be employed in the service of the Continent, and suffered such punishments as were ordered.
And Bridget? Well, for one thing, she should have known she was subject to the articles, rules, and regulations. She was one of those “all persons whatsoever.”
“Art. XXXII. All suttlers and retailers to a camp, and all persons whatsoever, serving with the continental army in the field, though not inlisted soldiers, are to be subject to the articles, rules, and regulations of the continental army.”
Technically, I cannot find anything stating outright that one could not buy issued goods from the soldiers to whom it had been issued, but since selling it was wrong, receiving was wrong, too.
We know from the final punishment that Bridget probably breaks yet another article:
“Art. XL. No person whatsoever shall use menacing words, signs, or gestures in the presence of a court-martial then sitting, or shall cause any disorder or riot, so as to disturb their proceeding, on the penalty of being punished at the discretion of the said court-martial.”
I think the “the Insolence to the officers of [the 10th Massachusetts] Regiment” may have taken place at the court-martial, given the swiftness of her punishment.
The photos people have of the Millinery Conference at Williamsburg– well, they’re a little envy-inducing. All the silks gowns on such a beautiful site are a little overwhelming if you like historic costumes, but if I was all about silk gowns it might be harder to do what I am doing.
I did discover a fool-proof way to unnerve the teenager in the living history household. If you get dressed in your 18th-century clothing early enough on a Sunday morning, the child will ask, “Um, Mom? Are you just fitting, or do we have an event?” You get one glorious moment to decide whether or not to torture the child before he figures out that even you are not crazy enough to go to an event in March without stockings.
Bridget’s gown is done, but for the hem, which is turned up and about a quarter sewn. I tried it on yesterday to make sure it fit. I threw most caution to the wind and made up the new Golden Scissors English Gown pattern without making a muslin because I’d checked my own self-fitted pattern pieces to the English Gown pieces and found them nearly identical. Anything likely to need work– shoulder straps– I knew could be done in the lining and not matter terrifically.
Why, you ask, did I bother with a new pattern? In part because my own has migrated (my backs have been trending too wide of late) and because I needed a solid, step-by-step guide to more correct assembly. The sleeve pleats still annoy me, mostly because they get done on a dress form and not on me, but they allow movement and that really counts. 
The stomacher front style is a compromise: I want to be able to wear this at events earlier than 1782, so I’m working on the assumption that Bridget didn’t migrate to the more fashionable center-front closing style in the 1780s because she couldn’t.
The accessories are chosen because they were affordable ways to upgrade appearance: it takes hardly any chintz for a stomacher, and a handkerchief is bright but small. The hat is more common than a bonnet among working women, and the mules were chosen because they appear in an engraving of a crippled soldier and his family. All Sandby’s women wear heeled and buckled shoes in styles not to be found ready-made in my size, so mules are my compromise.
I still think Bridget looks too clean and too pretty, but until I find fabric I like for a bedgown, this will have to do. The details, should you care for them:
Hat, Burnley and Trowbridge, lined with a Wm Booth remnant, trimmed with B&T ribbon. My hair is out up with straight pins from Dobyns & Martin, and under the hat in a lappet cap with the strings tied on top of my head.
The coral necklace is from In the Long Run, I’ll replace the grey poly ribbon with black silk ribbon once it’s in from Wm Booth.
The neckerchief is from B&T, again, and selected because the pattern was similar to the one worn by the young woman in the Domestick Employment: Washing print.
The gown fabric is from the second floor discount loft at the Lorraine mill store in Pawtucket. It’s 100% cotton, yes, it really does flame, and I’ll just have to be careful. (The women who cook in cotton at OSV are probably vastly more graceful than I, and do not fall into things.) It’s a light brown and white tiny check weave, and looks a great deal like a homespun gingham. I chose it because it tends to wrinkle badly and should show the dirt well: in short, I chose it because I don’t expect it to wear particularly well.
The petticoat is from the last of some ‘madder’ linen Burnley & Trowbridge had a few years ago, and the mules are from them; I think the apron linen was, too, but I can’t remember.
Those shirts are blue and white check from Wm Booth, and I have no idea how they got into my apron. Stop asking, or I’ll get my stick.
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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