This letter to the SYWA will attempt to clarify the many different references to Hesse-Kessel hat pom colors in the mid-eighteenth century. To some, such things may appear to be trivial. Well, to the connoisseur, nothing is trivial!

The poms at the tops of grenadier miters and cocked hats are assumed to be the same color, unless noted. We may speculate, though, that based on the evidence of Rgt. #13, that the white/blue of Rgts. #10 and #12 may represent cocked hat poms, those of the grenadiers being a solid color.

CHART
Bohm's Stamm Number*	Regiment Name in 1752	Morler 1749	Schirmer [P&H] 1757**	P&H 1760***	Bohm 1776****
2	Leib Garde zu Fuss	White	Red/White	White	White
3	v. Baumbach	Red/White	Orange	Orange	Orange-red
4	Prince Maximilian	White	White	White & Blue	White
5	Prinz Isenburg	White	Paille [straw]	White	Paille
6	Leib Regiment	White	White	Yellow	N/A
7	Regiment Grenadier	White	Red/White	Red	White
8	Prinz Friedrich	White	Red/White	White	Yellow
9	v. Mansbach	White	Red	White	Red
10	Prinz Georg	White	White	White/Blue	Blue
11	Graf Hessenstein	N/A	White	Straw	Yellow
12	Prinz v. Anhalt	N/A	Red/White	White/Blue	Blue
13	Regiment Hanau	N/A	White/Carmine	White/Carmine	N/A

* Bohm's Stamm No. [#1 was the Swiss Gardes].
** The list of commanders indicates this Pengel & Hurt list dates from 1757.
*** Unfortunately, Pengel refers to the source only as BKH, and there is no reference to it in the bibliography. The list of commanders indicates this Pengel list dates from 1759, but the inclusion of "Garde IV" pushes the date to 1760.
**** Corroborated by Ortenburg [1785].

Discussion

When viewing the preceding table, a portion of consistency may be created First, we should discuss the anomalies for Regiments 2, 3, 7, 8, and 12. These include red and white pours, which were the colors used by the Hessiai NCOs [Bohm, Ortenburg] This is often shown as black and white (the Prussian NCO colors) which must be incorrect. If the red/white poms are removed as having portrayer NCO's, then we may do with a lot less anomalies forthwith.

This leaves us with the anomalies of Regiments 5, 7, and 9. Regiment 7 car represent either a change from white to red, then back to white, or the unnamec source for 1760 could be wrong. For Regiments 5 and 9, things are more confused. The sources for 1749 and 1776 are irrefutable, so we may onl) wonder at the inconsistencies in the sources Pengel and Hurt used.

Now the inconsistencies in continuity displayed by Regiments 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 may be taken to represent actual changes in pom colors, taking place it 1760, or, in the case of Regiment #8 between 1760 and 1776. A simplified list for grenadier hat poms could be as follows:

Regiment : Note
#2 Always White
#3 White until 1760, then Orange
#4 Always White
#5 White before 1760, then Paille [straw]
#6 White before 1760, then Yellow
#7 ?
#8 White, then between 1760-1776, Yellow, the year 1765, when they became fusiliers being a good candidate
#9 White until 1760, then Red
#10 White until 1760, then Blue
#11 White until 1760, then Light Yellow
#12 ?
#13 Carmine throughout

Conclusion

Now I thought about a modem approach. The colors of hat poms could be interpreted as representing coded elitist efforts to preserve class stratification in a gender-based socio-hierarchical complex. Would that be taking things too far?

Bibliography

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