MDMD2: Red Coat

[Dave Monroe]

"Dixon is a couple of inches taller, sloping and more
than towering, wearing red coat of military cut, with
brocade and silver buttons, and  matching red
three-corner'd Hat with some gaudy North-Road Cockade
stuck in it.  He will be the first to catch the
average Eye, often causing future strangers to
remember them as Dixon and Mason.  But the Uniform
accords neither with his Quaker Profession, nor his
present earing,-- a civilian Slouch grown lop-sided,
too often observ'd, alas, in Devotees of the Taproom."
(M&D, Ch. 3, p. 16)

I'm going to skip ahead here just a little bit to give
a relatively straightforward example of Pynchon's use
of histori(ograhpi)cal documentation, an example to
which Foreman's invaluable essay did indeed lead me
...
  
>From H.W. Robinson, "Jeremiah Dixon (1733-1779)--A
Biographical Note," Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society, Vol. 94, No. 3 (June 1950):
272-4 ...

   "There is a family tradition and it has appeared in
print on many occasions that Dixon wore military
uniform from 1760 until his death consisting of a long
red coat and cocked hat.  This story must be wrong, as
his name does not appear in any army lists and he was
never in any way connected with the army.   One
account mentions that he wore the uniform of the Royal
Engineers.  The engineers attached to the army in
those days were civilians and they had no uniform. 
Dixon merely adopted as ordinary dress a long red coat
and--as so many people of the period did--a cocked
hat.  This had led historians to assume that he either
held commissioned rank or that he wore military
uniform without permission.  A 'long red coat and
cocked hat' had no significance." (p. 273)

Of course, there's no such thing as having "no
significance" in those Pynchonian texts, so ...

>From David Foreman, "Historical Documents Relating to
Mason & Dixon," Pynchon an Mason & Dixon, ed. Brooke
Horvath and Irving Malin (Newark: U of Delaware P,
2000), pp. 143-66 ...

"Later, as the surveying party penetrates deeper into
the West, the Youghiogeny ferryman, Mr. Ice, comments
on Dixon's attire: 'Forgive me, Sir, if I stare. 
Yours is the first Red Coat to be seen in these parts
since Braddock's great Tragedy,--the only ones out
here with the Opportunity to wear one, being the
Indians who from the Corpses of the English soldiers,
took them' ([M&D, p.] 661)." (p. 155)

"Pynchon not only incorporates Dixon's attire into his
text; he also brings in the misunderstanding among
historians considering its significance.  Mr. Ice
considers it a military uniform, but Dixon claims it
is 'a means ... of not only being innocently mistaken
for an Elk.' ([M&D p.] 661)." (ibid.)

So pardon me--or, at any rate, pardon Foreman--for
skipping ahead, but I think you all will see, however
vaguely, my point ...

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