December 10-13, 2024 Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/10/2024
Leather caps were approved for the newly-raised Regiment of Light Artillery in 1808, which had a vertical front-plate of stiff leather, edged with a strip of bearskin, and a collapsible skull or body of soft calfskin, copied from the light infantry and forage caps used by some British troops in the late 18th and early 19th century. The front-plate was decorated with cast-brass letters: 'U S / L A'. These letters were to be made with “good pliable brass tongues to bend and clinch” on the reverse, by which they were mounted to the cap fronts. Cast in brass and ranging from 1 1/2 to 1 5/8 inches high, the USLA letters continued to be worn on the regiment's caps during the first year of the War of 1812, although they and the caps themselves were replaced by new patterns beginning in late 1812. PROVENANCE: Duncan Campbell Coll. until 2009; Al Scipio Collection until 2015, whence acquired via Dan Griffin.