Puttees of the 66th

[Keith]

Hello Gents. Button-counteriness follows ... you have been warned ;-)

Just a quick question which I suspect falls into Pandora's box territory. I've always understood that the 66th at Maiwand had dark brown puttees, based largely on a Michael Barthorp article published in the Mid 70's and backed up by several 'second hand' sources. I believe cavalry and RHA generally wore blue. I know there is a fair amount of variation between regiments in Afghanistan over the period (trousers, no puttees, blue trousers etc.) but I'm looking at the 66th in particular.

What's sparked my query is that I've seen several really nicely painted miniature versions of the 66th over the last couple of years and blue puttees seem to be predominant. Is this a wargamer research fallacy, or have I missed some new research on this? Any clever reason why people are giving the 66th cavalry puttees?

On a side-note I've seen reference to Khaki at this point being a greyer tone (not Sudan grey, but more a de-saturated sand). Anyone have any insight into this - what the source for this might be?

Any help gratefully received.

[Plynkes]

According to Osprey, the 66th had the dark brown puttees for other ranks, and blue-grey ones for officers. The painting "The Last Eleven at Maiwand" by Frank Feller is quoted as one source, but I don't know if that's the only basis for it. The Osprey colour plate shows only an officer, so that might be the reason many wargamers paint everyone with blue ones (i.e. they just looked at the pic and didn't read the text  ).

I'll bet Mad Guru knows the reality of it, if anyone does. He's Maiwand-crazy, that guy.

[Plynkes]

Note that it is a medium blue with a hint of grey, quite a bit lighter than the very dark blue of the cavalry puttees.

[Keith]

Yes, forgot to mention that. I've clocked that for officers (and as you say not the deep Oxford blue that people often use anyway).

I was rather hoping that Mr Maiwand Day himself might show up at some point, but many thanks for the tentative confirmation.

[Silent Invader]

Until Mad Guru arrives, this might help (or not!) 

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=418001

[Keith]

Hah. Sums it up nicely 

Lovely work on those figures too! I noticed Rafa had also gone with blue, and assumed that might have come out of a conversation with the Perry's at some point. I know it's not a big deal, but I'm a bit obsessive with anything British 19th Century.

[Silent Invader]

Hah. Sums it up nicely 

Lovely work on those figures too! I noticed Rafa had also gone with blue, and assumed that might have come out of a conversation with the Perry's at some point. I know it's not a big deal, but I'm a bit obsessive with anything British 19th Century.

I went with blue (it's so pretty  ) too but I think you're right to be obsessive 

[Bindonblood]

I followed a Barthorpe and went with blue/grey for officers and brown for o/r.

I've not come across any verifiable new source that contradicts him.

I think that blue puttees for o/r are done because they look nice and are different, more than any other reason

[Mad Guru]

First off I'm very flattered by all the mentions, thanks guys.

Oddly enough a gaming friend of mine recently asked me the same question...

The answer is the same as above: to my knowledge there is no certainty re: color of puttees worn by the 66th at Maiwand or elsewhere while based in Kandahar Province, as no photos of them at the time have survived, and all possible written records that might mention such details -- the order book and other regimental documents -- were lost in the battle.  This leaves us with the near-contemporary artist's recreations as closest thing to primary sources. 

It's based on one of these paintings that the "enlisted men and NCOs in brownish khaki and officers in blue-gray" comes from originally.

I have some more detailed info on those various artistic sources and will return to add it to this thread later after work when I get the chance.

One last thing: I'm not exactly sure why but the Perrys seem to have embraced the idea of the entire unit wearing blue puttees.  As they are close to Colonel Mike Snook, who is a serious expert on Maiwand, I wonder if perhaps their choice of all blue puttees was informed by his expert opinion, but that's just conjecture on my part.  Someone should ask over on the Victorian Wars forum, where Mike Snook is a regular contributor, if perhaps he has some freshly unearthed info on the subject of 66th Regt puttees at Maiwand!

[Keith]

Many thanks for the additional info Sir. Any further links that you have on the art references would be most welcome. Good call on Mike - I might drop him Maine now.

[Mad Guru]

As far as I can tell, the "educated guess" that 66th Regt. enlisted ranks wore brownish khaki and officers wore blue-gray at the battle of Maiwand can be traced back to the article, "Some Aspects of Maiwand, 1880," published in the No.17 Feb/March 1989 issue of Military Illustrated, Past & Present written by Michael Barthorp, with paintings by Pierre Turner.

This article covers the uniforms of the 66th Regt. with a good deal of detail.  As I mentioned above, there was not in 1989 -- nor I believe today -- evidence of any existing contemporary photograph showing the 66th as they appeared when stationed in Kandahar Province, and all potential written evidence -- the order books and other regimental documents -- was lost in the battle, so a disclaimer is given that no one can know for certain how the 66th appeared at Maiwand.  Then the article goes on to list the various contemporary works of art that memorialized the battle, with particular focus on "The Last Eleven," painted only 2 years after the battle, in 1882, by the artist Frank Feller.  The "military costume historian" P.W. Reynolds (1860-1937) is quoted having remarked in detail on Feller 's depiction of the 66th Regt's puttees as "more brown than khaki except for the officer who has bluish-grey."  The author -- Barthorp -- then notes: "Feller would hardly made this difference unless he had evidence for it."

Not sure if it was Feller or not, but somewhere in the dim recesses of my memory I think I may have read a specific reference to one of the artists who painted one of the near-contemporary renditions of Maiwand, having consulted with survivors from the battle regarding details of regimental dress... but that's not mentioned in this particular article.

EDIT: Well, I just went over to the Victorian Wars Forum and posted a question on the Afghan Wars page re: color of the puttees of the 66th Regt. at Maiwand... and then I realized what I should have done was just leave a comment on the Perry Miniatures Facebook page asking what they had based their painting guide suggestion to paint the puttees of the 66th BLUE for both officers and men on... only my teenage children are all asleep (it's almost 2:00am here Lala Land), and I don't use Facebook, so... that will have to wait for tomorrow at the earliest -- unless someone else beats me to the punch and posts the question on the Perrys' Facebook.

[Keith]

A wonderfully useful update Sir! Thanks for taking the time to look into this further.

RIP Military Illustrated ... I've lost track of the number of extremely useful articles that were published there.

[Mad Guru]

Well, my post over at Victorian Wars Forum got a couple of in-depth replies, including one from Mike Snook.

The short of it is that he is pretty convinced the entire 66th regiment, officers and men, wore blue puttees, though he made the point that the color would have been relatively immaterial due to everyone's puttees being covered in fine Afghan sand (now known as "moon dust") in late July Kandahar Province.  Based on this I think my above conjecture re: the source of the Perrys' painting guide for the 66th being the good Colonel himself is probably correct.  That, or it's just an example of those great minds thinking alike!

So, to sum up... still no true certainty re: the color of puttees worn by the 66th Regt. at Maiwand, but... at least some of those with the most/best knowledge of the subject are voting blue for officers and enlisted men.

In case anyone's interested, here's a LINK to the thread:

http://victorianwars.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11836

[Keith]

Brilliant - thanks for following this up.
I confess I've been watching the thread on the VW forum in anticipation. Thanks for all of your help Sir!

I'm actually really quite gratified to see how strong the debate was on this, and still not entirely conclusive. The additional information regarding Jacob's rifles was fantastic. Do you see that persuading you to revisit your rendition of them at any point? ;-)

[Mad Guru]

Keith,

Re: Jacob's Rifles, the only thing that would lead me to revisit my rendition of them would be the new Perry sculpts of that particular unit, which are more accurate than the older Perry Sudan range Sikhs which I used to raise the unit for my 130th Anniversary game back in 2010.  At that time I knew the green turbans, red pants and green puttees -- combined with khaki jackets -- made for a more colorful uniform than the regiment likely wore at the real battle, where though they may have had green turbans rather than khaki ones, chances are they probably wore khaki pants and puttees in addition to khaki jackets.

If I raised them again using the new Perry figures... I might go with a more subdued and more likely historically accurate color scheme... though I might stick with the green turbans.  Somewhere I have a bit of reference to what they wore at the battle, maybe from an old Wargames Foundry NWF painting guide that mentioned Maiwand by name (if such a thing existed!) or perhaps from an old UK wargaming magazine, but it did not mention the source of the information, so I did not take it as a certainty.

Anyway, I have so many other figures to paint or have painted, and also to buy, that replacing a fine looking unit is not at the top of my list... though I do admit I'm nonetheless mad enough to perhaps do it at some point.