Blunders on the Danube: Spanish "Numancia" Dragoons, 1805, and Dragoon facing tables

My second regiment of Spanish Dragoons has mustered out! But before we get to them, I thought it was time for some detailed uniform information on these troops.

At the start of the Revoulutionary Wars, of the eight regiments, six wore yellow coats, waistcoats, and beeches, whilst the regiment "Rey" (King's) had blue coats and breeches with scarlet waistcoats, and the regiment "Reina"(Queen's) wore a scarlet coat with blue waistcoat and breeches. The regiments had individual colors for their cuffs and turnbacks. There were no lapels and the collars were all the same as the jacket color. The regimental distinctions are listed in the Osprey title "Spanish Army of the Napoleonic Wars (1)", by Rene Chartrand and Bill Younghusband, covering 1793 - 1808. A bicorne hat edged white was worn. Their shabraques were in the facing color, edged with the button color (white for all but one regiment).

By 1796, the Dragoon uniforms changed and all regiments now had yellow coats, white waistcoats and breeches, and red turnbacks. The lapels, collars, turnbacks, and piping on the pockets were now in (quite different) regimental colors. Once again, these are listed in the Osprey title cited. All units had yellow shabraques edged white.

The uniforms of the Spanish Dragoons changed again in 1800. Now all regiments wore green coats, with buff waistcoats and breeches. The shabraques were green edged in white, and of course the regimental distinctions on the lapels, collars, cuffs and pockets changed yet again as well, as listed below. Buttons were white (pewter) for all regiments.

Spanish Dragoon Regiments, 1800

Regiment	Collar	Cuffs	Lapels	Piping
Rey	Crimson	Crimson	Crimson	Yellow
Reina	Scarlet	Scarlet	Scarlet	Yellow
Almansa	Sky Blue	Sky Blue	Sky Blue	Scarlet
Pavia	Yellow	Yellow	Yellow	Scarlet
Villaviciosa	Sky Blue	Scarlet	Sky Blue	Scarlet
Sagunto	Crimson	Yellow	Crimson	Scarlet
Numancia	Green	Yellow	Yellow	Scarlet
Lusitania	Black	Scarlet	Scarlet	Scarlet

Not content with keeping the uniform industry busy enough already, in 1803 the Dragons were abolished altogether, and the eight regiments converted to Hussars and Cazadores a Caballo (chasseurs). This change proved unsuccessful, and on January 30, 1805, the Dragoons were restored.

Now all regiments wore lemon yellow coats, waistcoats, and breeches with scarlet turnbacks and white buttons. A white crossed sword and quill emblem was embroidered on the collars. The collars, cuffs, cuff flaps, and the button holes on the lapels (only) all had white piping. The pockets on the back of the jacket were piped in the regimental facing color. The 1805 facings were as listed below, but some regiments that were part of La Romana's Division, having been sent to Denmark for service with the French and then repatriated by the British after Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808, were still wearing the chasseur style green uniforms in 1809!

Spanish Dragoon Regiments, 1805

Regiment	Collar	Cuffs	Lapels	Piping
Rey	Crimson	Crimson	Crimson	Crimson
Reina	Scarlet	Scarlet	Scarlet	Scarlet
Almansa	Sky Blue	Sky Blue	Sky Blue	Sky Blue
Pavia	Yellow	Sky Blue	Sky Blue	Sky Blue
Villaviciosa	Green	Green	Green	Green
Sagunto	Yellow	Green	Green	Green
Numancia	Black	Black	Black	Black
Lusitania	Yellow	Black	Black	Black

Additional details about the Dragoons can be found at Keith Barker's excellent site:

http://www.littlewars.se/spanish/index.html

Spanish Dragoon regiment Numancia, wearing the 1805 uniform. The history of this unit dates back to 1707. As with my other regiment, the flag is of the Villaviciosa regiment (the only one available); the only difference would be the badge on the reverse (pictured above) of the flag. Keith's site has a depiction of the regimental badges from an earlier time.

The yellow, black, red and white colors of this unit's uniform are quite striking, aren't they?

The obverse of the standard has the royal arms in the center.

These excellent figures are once again by Brigade Games, sculpted by Paul Hicks. The Dragoons come in 2 variants, the previously shown Almansa Dragoons were composed of figures from the other variant.

The trumpeters wore "reversed colors", see the prior post for additional discussion of that. The trumpet banners were red with the regimental badge surrounded by a trophy of arms. I couldn't find specific information on the trumpet cords, so I went with white mixed with red.