George Washington's Uniform
About 1789 to 1799
A blue wool coat with buff facings, a buff waistcoat and breeches stand on a mannequin near the start of the military history exhibition. They are the uniform of George Washington, commander in chief of the Continental Army and first president of the United States, and they are among the very few pieces of his clothing to survive. He wore these colours, blue and buff, throughout the Revolutionary War, and this suit, made toward the end of his life, is the one he kept for ceremonial occasions when as president he might once more be called to command the army.
Look at the cut. The coat is long, with wide lapels turned back to show the buff lining and gilt buttons set in pairs, the mark of a general. The epaulettes are gilt wire and thread. Washington was a tall man, about six feet two inches, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, and the uniform confirms it. The fabric is fine English broadcloth, the standard for officers on both sides of the war, although the Continental Army struggled to supply anything like it to its ordinary soldiers, and the exhibition shows the ragged reality of their dress nearby.
The uniform descended through the Washington family and came to the government in the nineteenth century, when the Patent Office collected relics of the founding generation; the Patent Office collection was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1883. It was shown for many years in the old hall of American costume and has been at the entrance to The Price of Freedom since that exhibition opened in 2004. Standing before it, most visitors are struck by how much of the myth of Washington is present in an empty coat: the height, the bearing, and the deliberate choice of colours that became the uniform of a new nation.
Did You Know? Blue and buff, the colours of this uniform, were chosen by Washington himself and became the colours of the Continental Army.
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