What is known concerning the look of the Kentucky regiments engaged in the old Northwest Territory is for the large part, antidotal. Photography was of course many years away and artists of the period used a great deal of license to recreate an event, battle or historical tableau.

H. Charles McBarron's* rendering at right, depicts the militiaman as he was described in the battle of River Raisin by John Richardson of the British Army..

"it was the depth of winter; but scarcely a individual was in possession of a great coat or a clock, and few of them wore garments of wool of any description. They still retained their summer dress, consisting of cotton stuff of various colours, shaped into frocks, and descending to the knee; beneath which their trousers were of the same material. They were covered with slouched hats, worn bare by constant use; beneath which their long hair, fell matted and uncombed over their cheeks.

and those together with the dirty blankets wrapped around their loins to protect them against the inclemency of the season, and fastened by broad leather belts, into which were thrust axes and knives of an enormous length gave them an air of wildness and savageness..."

Descriptions of the brave troops engaged at Frenchtown represent a "snapshot" of what the ill prepared companies looked like at one specific period during the war. The Kentucky troops, more then others, always displayed a martial backwoods character during the war. As equiptment was replaced by Federal storehouses, much of the warn and homespun nature of their apperance gave way to a more regimented profile.

*Image by H. Charles McBarron's, Company of Military Historians