Thirty-three years of exploration work conducted by the writer and his companions in the camps of our Revolutionary War period has brought to light a mass of first-hand information relating to the camp life of the soldiery, their utensils of a domestic character, their arms and missiles, their objects of personal use or adornment, and particularly a knowledge of the equipment of the officers and the men.

Scanning the surface of the ground, or digging deep into the dug-out huts and refuse pits, working in season and out of season through a third of a century, finding innumerable personal mementoes of the British troops, and of the old continentals, or their French allies, there comes to one naturally, at length, a desire to know just what appearance the individual corps presented, but when we look about us for correct models of the participants in the struggle we learn that there is a woeful lack of early or contemporary art, depicting faithfully regimentals of the various units of the several armies with which we have become familiar.

A correspondence extending through a period of twenty years with the leading military antiquarian of Great Britain, and other correspondence with British and French military antiquarians and artists, not to mention a personal intercourse with American artists convinces the writer that the first true pictures of the War of Independence troops remain to be painted. A mass of crimson and scarlet with a goodly sprinkling of cross bells and grenadier caps formed the basis for an historical painting in the 19th century, when the object in depicting a "redcoat" was only to arouse our contempt. Today with the old animosities forgotten and a desire for the true and correct uppermost, the critic looks for precise details of equipment and the artist who can supply these will make his mark.

The old ways of arriving at details, that of copying earlier models, or making up a figure from prescribed regulations, were faulty, in that old figures were generally fanciful, and that the regulations were not always carried out. What the officers and men really wore then are those bits of equipment which the old camps give up today. When we find a solid silver sword belt plate of the 28th British regiment in a camp at Inwood, and find the letters J.E. scratched upon the back of the plate we know positively that Lieut. James Edwards of the 28th foot wore such a sword shoulder belt plate. When the British Military Antiquarian asked us to put our price upon this memento we began to realize the historical value of authentic 18th century military objects at the present day. We did not place a high value upon a soldier's bronze belt plate of the 38th regiment which we found at the Fort Washington barracks site, until one of our American military artist friends told us that he had taken out his gold watch and chain and offered them for a similar belt plate of the 38th found at Concord.

We were not surprised in fact we took it quite as a matter of course when we found pure silver buttons of officers in British camps. We would not hope for anything similar in an American camp, yet we have found within the present season buttons equally elegant in a camp of the Massachusetts troops in the Hudson Highlands.

The recovery of the various badges, belt plates and military buttons of the eighteenth century troops have proven an inspiration to the little coterie of present day military artists and in time we may hope to see pictures of real soldiers of the War of Independence.

A few years ago in an effort to obtain correct views of our French allies the writer applied to one of his military antiquarian friends, Captain Maurice Bottet of the French army, who at that time was stationed at Versailles. Captain Bottet recommended his friend Aquillas L. La Cault as the artist capable of producing a real live soldier of 1781, with every detail of equipment correct. LaCault responded to our appeal with a set of aquarelles which are gems in their way. Of these we present two specimens, a soldier of the "Royal Bondonnois" regiment No. 13; and an officer of the "Royal Soissonnois" regiment No. 41, of the year 1781. These are representative of French regiments which were encamped to the north of the city in 1781, and which participated in the attacks on the British outposts at Kingsbridge in the summer of that year.

Lacault's "En Reconnaissance 1805" exhibited in the salon of 1908 attracted much attention, not only for the fidelity with which his horses and riders were depicted, but for the correctness of the details of the equipment of both.