British Soldiers, American Revolution

Samuel Stratton, 6th and 37th Regiments of Foot

2013-05-20T17:06:00.001-07:00

Last week we looked at a veteran of the famous battle of Minden in the Seven Years War who also served throughout the American Revolution. There were other veterans of that war who served in the Revolution, but there were also younger veterans of more recent wars. With a global empire, Great Britain was in involved in many minor conflicts that are little known today; to the soldiers doing the fighting, however, combat was deadly, dangerous and personal regardless of the overall scale of the conflict.

Among the places troops were sent was the island of St. Vincent where a conflict now called the First Carib War which included intense fighting in 1772 and 1773. The island and its native population had been ceded to Great Britain in 1763 at the close of the Seven Years War; British agricultural expansion incited hostility that turned into armed conflict. Several British regiments were sent to the island; although these professional troops outnumbered the native fighters they were hampered by the health-imparing climate and mountainous jungle terrain. The war ended in 1773 with a peace treaty dividing the island between the British and the natives, an event commemorated in a well-known painting.

One of the regiments that fought in this bloody conflict was the 6th Regiment of Foot; in its ranks was a soldier named Samuel Stratton. From a town called Maidly in Shropshire, Stratton had learned the metalworking trade of a whitesmith before enlisting in the army when he was twenty years old in 1768. On 25 January 1773, fighting on St. Vincent, he was wounded in the neck and head. These injuries did not end his career, though; he remained in the ranks, and was with the 6th Regiment when it sailed from the Caribbean to New York in 1776 to join the escalating war there.

The 6th Regiment had suffered much during its service in the West Indies; by the time it joined General Howe's army, it was under strength and included many worn out men. In December 1776 the regiment was sent back to Great Britain, but following a common practice in both peace and war, its able-bodied men were transferred into other regiments on American service. This procedure, called drafting (in the sense of pulling men from one regiment to another), kept experienced soldiers in the ranks of regiments that needed them, leaving the officers and a cadre of soldiers from the homeward-bound regiment to recruit and train new men in the coming years. Having fully recovered from his wounds, Samuel Stratton was drafted into the grenadier company of the 37th Regiment of Foot.

It wasn't long before Stratton was scarred once again in battle. On 11 September 1777 at the Battle of Brandywine the grenadier battalions - corps formed by massing the grenadier companies from many regiments - were hotly engaged. Stratton was wounded, this time taking bullets "thro' the right Arm & right leg." Once again these injuries did not end his career. He continued with his company through the major engagement at Monmouth the following June. A year later he testified at a court martial in defense of one of his fellow soldiers, corroborating some aspects of the accused's story but offering only those things of which he had direct knowledge.

In 1780 he was appointed corporal, but in September 1781 was reduced again to private soldier. Short-term appointments like this were common and reduction to private did not necessarily reflect a disciplinary issue; sometimes men were appointed to corporal temporarily because another corporal was incapacitated, and sometimes recently-appointed corporals requested to resign the position for reasons that are not stated.

Samuel Stratton continued to serve in the 37th Regiment of Foot until 23 December 1790. He was discharged after 22 years of service and recommended for a pension not only because of his two wounds, but also because he was "worn out in the service." He signed his own name on his discharge.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Heinrich Lücke (Hendrick Leich, Henry Lytch), 4th Regiment of Foot

2013-05-12T18:10:00.004-07:00

Some British soldiers who served in the American Revolution were veterans of previous wars. There is no way to be sure how many, because of gaps in muster rolls and also gaps in careers - if a soldier was discharged because of a force reduction at the end of a war, then enlisted again later on, the muster rolls give no indication of the connection between the two terms of service; when the man enlisted there is nothing denoting that he had prior service. Only with the help of other documents, if they exist for that man, can we discern such a career.

Last week at the National Archives in England, I had the good fortune to come across just such a document. The muster rolls of the 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot show a soldier named Hendrick Leich being appointed Corporal on 25 October 1776, but there is no indication of where this man came from; his appointment is the first time he appears on the rolls. His name indicates that he was German, and we know that German recruits for British regiments arrived in America in October 1776. The muster rolls show other men with Germanic names joining the regiment on 25 October, so it's a safe bet that Hendrick Leich joined and was appointed Corporal on the same day.

A description list of some of the German recruits includes a Corporal Heinrich Lücke; the list doesn't say that this man joined the 4th Regiment, but does include several other German recruits who did. Furthermore, part of the agreement when these men entered British service was that non-commissioned officers would be appointed to their due ranks as soon as vacancies opened up in their new British regiments. We can safely deduce that Heinrich Lücke's name was anglicized to Hendrick Leich when the British muster rolls were prepared. The description list tells us more about this man: He was 39 years old in May 1776, six feet tall, Protestant, from the Hildesheim near Hanover, and was married but his wife did not accompany him on the voyage to America. It also mentions that he had previously served in the army of Hanover.

Although obliged to serve only until the close of hostilities, Lücke (Leich) remained in the regiment until he was 54 years old. He was discharged from British service in London on 23 March 1791. Like all long-serving British soldiers, he had the opportunity to go before the Chelsea Hospital examining board to seek an out-penion (that is, a pension for non-residents of the hospital, as opposed to an in-pension). The pension was granted and because it was, the hospital retained a copy of his discharge certificate; this document is the one that provides tantalizing details of this man's service.

The discharge is a printed form with personal details hand-written into blank spaces. It tells us that "Henry Lytch" was a laborer - that is, he had no skilled trade - and confirms his age. His place of birth is given as Hanover, a general term that sufficiently approximates the region including Hildesheim. It indicates that he had 17 years of service in the 4th Regiment, which is approximately right (we know that he had already been recruited for British service in May 1776 but do not know when he actually enlisted).

But the most interesting part is the reason why this soldier was recommended for a pension:

long service is worn out having also served 18 years & 9 months in Prince Charles Regt in the Hanoverian service in which Corps he received a wound, in the Wrist at the Battle of Minden. He was enlisted into the British Service by Lt. General Faucett under a general Order that the Hanoverian servitude should be considered.

So this man not only had prior service, he had had a very long career before joining the British army. And he had been wounded at one of the most storied battles in British military history, one that was famous in Lücke's own time. We can only guess whether he was held in high esteem because of this.

Most British soldiers who received pensions had served for at least 20 years; Lücke's discharge indicates overall service, not just service in the British army, was to be considered for pension candidates. He joined the military as a teenager, and served for almost 35 years in the armies of two nations. At the end of it all, including long service as a non-commissioned officer, he was unable to sign his own name on his discharge, instead marking it with an X.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Henry Church, 63rd Regiment of Foot

2013-04-29T14:26:00.001-07:00

There's a common perception that people in the 18th century didn't live as long as they do today. It's true that the average life expectancy wasn't nearly as long, but some individuals became centenarians, dodging hazard and illness to far exceed the typical life span not only of their own era but also of the present one. One of these men was Henry Church.

Church was a native of England, born on 30 November 1750. He did not set foot in America until he was almost thirty years old, as a private soldier in the 63rd Regiment of Foot. That regiment had been in America since the middle of 1775; Church was a recruit who arrived in October 1780; family tradition suggests that he had prior experience as a soldier, and the fact that he was assigned directly to the regiment's light infantry company supports this theory (at least a year of experience was usually required before being sent to the light infantry or grenadiers).

However long his career as a soldier was, it came to a quick end in America. The light company of the 63rd was sent to Virginia in early 1781, and Henry Church was taken prisoner in the vicinity of Petersburg. He was sent to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where many other British prisoners were held, and remained there until a peace treaty was signed in 1783.

The end of the conflict brought about the repatriation of prisoners of war, but some chose not to return home. British prisoners who did not return were written off as deserters, among them Henry Church. He married a Philadelphia Quaker named Hannah Keine, three years younger than him, and the couple moved west to frontier lands. They settled in present-day West Virginia very near the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania where they built the homestead in which they spent the rest of their lives, raising eight children.

They lived on. Things changed. It is difficult to imagine such a temporal connection, but Henry and Hannah Church watched from his home as a railroad line was built nearby. The line, belonging to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, was not an early experimental venture; it was 1852 when regular service on it began. Henry Church was 101, and his wife 98. They lived on, and saw many trains pass. Henry Church came to be known in the region as "Old Hundred" in recognition of his age.

In 1858 railroad officials offered to give them a train ride to Wheeling, the nearest large town, where they would be treated with some celebrity. The story is that Henry declined the offer with the simple response, “I never did make a show of myself and I never will.” In spite of his modesty, conductors would point out the aged couple to passengers when trains passed. And many more passed.

Hannah Church died on 27 July 1860, having lived for 106 years. Henry Church survived her by only 49 days, passing on 14 September. Their legacy, however, lives on. A town grew up in the area where they lived, first called "Old Hundred" and in 1886 officially named Hundred. It remains to this day, with a population of around 300 including descendants of Henry and Hannah Church, the former British soldier and his American wife.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

William Disney, 34th Regiment of Foot

2013-04-22T18:37:00.000-07:00

When hostilities broke out in America, it was critical to increase the strength of the British military presence there; this meant increasing the strength of the army overall. Recruiting efforts were intensified. Because the army was an all-volunteer force, greater incentives had to be offered than the usual enlistment bounty and the possibility of a pension after a long career. On 16 December 1775, a proclamation was issued that men who enlisted after that date would be entitled to a land grant in America if they chose it, as long as they had served at least three years when the war ended. For agricultural workers, some itinerant, this was a very tempting offer; even though the lands were in a far-away wilderness, it was the only likely way for a British laborer to own his own property.

One of the many who enlisted under these terms was William Disney. The 5' 10 1/2" tall Irishman enlisted in the 34th Regiment of Foot 1776 and proceeded with his regiment to Canada where he spent the entire war, mostly in the environs of Quebec. In 1783, when the war ended and the army was reduced in size again, he took his discharge at the age of 28. The land being offered, due to the outcome of the war, was in Canada rather than more southern colonies as had been anticipated years before; Disney opted to return to Great Britain instead of taking the land bounty (his reason for doing so, however, is not known).

Disney traveled from Quebec to Halifax with the intention of continuing on to England, but for some unknown reason was unable to continue the journey. Instead, he went to work for a landowner named George Deschamps in Windsor, some miles northwest of Halifax.

He worked hard and well. By 1786 he had saved some money and earned the respect of his employer. He decided it was time to try his had at developing his own land. In a good clear hand he wrote a petition to the local government expressing his desire to settle in the area if he could receive a land grant. His employer endorsed him, saying that he was a "well able to improve a location."

We have no information on how William Disney fared, but his story of voluntary enlistment, faithful service, diligent work and initiative is typical of the majority of British soldiers, largely overlooked because their careers were uneventful but nonetheless important.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

James Hollis, 63rd Regiment of Foot

2013-04-04T11:01:00.002-07:00

James Hollis received a pension for his military service. This in itself is not unusual; by the 1770s the British army had a well-established pension system and soldiers with careers of 20 years or more were likely to received this reward for their faithful service. Hollis, however, took a different route.

Hollis was born in Wanworth, Surrey, a few miles up the Thames river from London, on 19 August 1757. How he spent his early life is not known, but by 1780 he had enlisted in the British army. Along with about three dozen other recruits for the 63rd Regiment of Foot, he landed in Charleston, South Carolina in January 1781. From there, he was sent inland to join his regiment in time to participate in the relief of fort Ninety Six in June, and the battle of Eutaw Springs in September.

By the end of the year he was back in Charston and stationed at an outpost on Haddrell's point, across the Cooper River from the city. From here he deserted, as did over a dozen other men of the 63rd. The muster rolls show them all as having deserted on 24 December 1781, but it's more likely that they trickled away throughout the month and were administratively written off on the same date.

A year or so of service followed by desertion in a foreign land was not the way for a British soldier to get a pension. But Hollis found another way. He received the protection of American troops under Francis Marion in a region known as the High Hills of Santee. From there he went on to Wilmington, North Carolina. He soon enlisted as a fifer in a company of North Caroina troops commanded by a Captain Rhodes, and served for about 18 months until peace was declared. Notice that he had been a private soldier in British service, and was 24 years old when he started his brief career as a fifer; it is a widely-held misconception that all drummers and fifers were boys or teenagers.

It was for his service in with the American army as a fifer that James Hollis received a pension; he applied for it in 1832 when he was 75 years old and living in Union District, South Carolina. Had he remained in the British army, he could've received a pension thirty years sooner.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Fate of 416 soldiers who landed in Boston, 1775

2013-03-28T08:35:00.002-07:00

The American Revolution lasted for 8 years (1775 to 1783), and many British soldiers were in America for the entire war. Each man had his own distinctive career, but sometimes an overview gives a useful perspective. Let's look at the men of one regiment who arrived in America just as the war was beginning, and see how they fared over the following years.

The 22nd Regiment of Foot embarked in Cork, Ireland in early May 1776. Hostilities had begun, but they didn't know that yet - they had been ordered to America simply to reinforce the army already there, along with the 40th, 44th and 45th Regiments. The men of the 22nd were divided among four transport ships. Originally bound for New York, they were met off the America coast by a British warship that redirected them to Boston. The transports trickled in to Boston harbor during the last week of June and the first week of July, encountering the aftermath of the battle of Bunker Hill and a fresh new war.

416 serjeants, corporals, drummers and fifers of the 22nd Regiment disembarked in Boston (along with about 30 officers, 60 soldiers' wives, and some soldiers' children, but we won't be discussing them here). Over the next years many more men came into the regiment, but for now we'll discuss only this initial 416. During the next 8 years:

4 became officers. In general it was unusual for a man to "cross over" from the enlisted ranks to the officer corps, so this low number is no surprise; it may even be deceptively high because some of the four may have been qualified for a commission but enlisted because there were no vacancies (there were several "tracks" for men to follow becoming officers; this is discussed in some detail in my book British Soldiers, American War).

14 were killed in battle in America. The 22nd Regiment was involved in fighting on Long Island in 1776, Rhode Island in 1777 and especially 1778, and in New Jersey in 1780; the Grenadier and Light Infantry companies were in many other actions. The regiment suffered more killed than this, but only 14 of the initial 416 died in battle.

4 died as prisoners of war. A few men of the regiment were taken prisoner here and there over the course of the war, including at least one in Boston; 18 men were taken in New Jersey in 1780, and the light infantry company of 50 men was part of the army that capitulated at Yorktown in 1781. Many prisoners died in captivity; again, this number reflects only those of the initial 416, not the total for the regiment during the war.

2 were executed in America after convictions for military crimes. One was convicted of robbery and desertion; it was his second offence for robbery, and he was executed in Rhode Island in 1778. The other man murdered his wife on Long Island in 1781.

7 never returned from captivity. Officially counted as deserters, the actual fate of many of these men is not known. Most probably succumbed to the temptations of land ownership and a new life in the colonies.

92 died in the service. During times of peace most British soldiers enlisted in their early 20s with no expectation of leaving the army until they were no longer fit for service; typical careers spanned 20 to 40 years. Wartime enlistment was different, but for the 416 men who arrived in Boston the American war was only a portion of their career. Some died in America, while others died years later, some as late as the 1790s. Muster rolls do not give the cause of death; we assume that most of these men died of illness, but accidents and post-1783 warfare may have claimed some.

30 deserted and never returned. This includes those who deserted in America and those who deserted in other places after 1783; it does not include those who did not return from captivity. Reasons for desertion were many and varied, so much so that we dare not suggest generalities!

176 were discharged and received pensions. Men who did serve 20 or more years, or who were disabled in the service, could apply for a pension; this, too, is discussed in detail in my book. After factoring out the men who died or deserted (and therefore could not received pensions), we see that the odds of getting a pension were fairly good! And few careers during this era offered anything like a pension.

22 were discharged and received land grants. Those men who were eligible for discharge at the end of the war could opt for a grant of 100 acres of land in Nova Scotia instead of returning to Great Britain and applying for a pension. Considering that land ownership was only a dream for most British citizens, this was a very tempting offer.

55 were discharged but received no known reward. When a man was discharged from the army, it was his own choice whether to return to Great Britain to apply for a pension. Once the muster rolls shows that the man was discharged, there is no way to know his fate unless he happens to show up later on the pension lists.

10 unknown. And a few men disappear from the muster rolls of the 22nd or subsequent regiments with no indication of why. In some cases the muster rolls themselves are missing. For the moment, we simply have no way of knowing what became of these soldiers.

Overall, we see that about half of the 416 men who landed in Boston completed their military careers and received either pensions or land grants. Considering the number that did not complete their careers, it becomes clear that military service, although arduous, was an attractive career because of the possibility of a pension or land grant, something that almost no other career could offer.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

William Newton, 4th Regiment of Foot

2013-03-18T19:45:00.000-07:00

In studying the American Revolution, a war that lasted eight years, it is easy to forget that it spanned only a portion of the career of many of the British soldiers who fought here. Men enlisted as a career, usually in their early twenties after having tried their hand at some other career first. Many were seasoned veterans when they arrived in America, and many continued in the army long after they departed America. There are many examples on this blog; indeed, it would be impossible to profile British soldiers without featuring many such men.

When William Newton came to American with the 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot, he was an experienced soldier. The weaver from Ashton under Line in county Lancaster, Newton had joined the army in 1768 at the age of twenty. Between 10% and 15% of British soldiers were weavers, the most common trade among soldiers, a reflection of the textile industry being the backbone of the British economy.

Newton, 5' 9" tall and illiterate, arrived in Boston with the 4th Regiment in 1774. He saw the outbreak of hostilities in 1775, the city's evacuation the following March, and the New York campaign of 1776. In April 1777 his regiment was among those that landed in Connecticut and destroyed American supplies at Danbury. During the retreat from that place, he was wounded in three places: the right arm, left leg and neck. But he recovered and soldiered on, serving on the campaign that took Philadelphia, spending the winter in that city, and then retreating across New Jersey back to New York in 1778.

Late in 1778 the 4th Regiment was among those sent to the West Indies. Here the regiment, with William Newton in its ranks, served in a number of other actions. Early in 1780, after such long and arduous service in North America, the 4th Regiment was ordered back to Great Britain; first, however, the remaining able-bodied soldiers were transferred to other regiments in the West Indies. William Newton joined the 15th Regiment of Foot. With that regiment, he was among the defenders of Brimstone Hill on St. Kitt's when it was besieged by the French in early 1782. The burst of a shell wounded him in the chest. After a month-long defense, the garrison surrendered and Newton was imprisoned.

When peace came the following year, William Newton soldiered on. He continued in the army until June 1789 when he was discharged in Limerick, Ireland, having been "rendered entirely unfit for any further service" by his wounds. His long service and sacrifice earned him a pension.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Henry Mitchell, 10th Regiment of Foot

2013-03-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

Some military careers were short, like that of Henry Mitchell. He first appears on the rolls of the 10th Regiment of foot with an annotation that he "enlisted" on 26 August 1776. The regiment had long been in America at that time, having spent several years in Canada before moving to Boston in 1774. In August 1776 the 10th was part of a large army on Staten Island preparing for a campaign that would capture the city of New York, a prize that would remain in British hands until the last troops evacuated the colonies in 1783. Logic would suggest that Mitchell was a recruit sent from Great Britain, but he is the only man annotated as having enlisted on 26 August; because recruits from overseas usually arrived in groups on the same day, they typically are represented on the muster rolls as having the same enlistment date. It is possible, then, that Henry Mitchell was one of an uncounted few men recruited on Staten Island to serve in British regular regiments instead of in the Loyalist corps that were being raised there. But this is only a guess.

Just ten months after joining the regiment, Mitchell was transferred to the grenadier company. This too was not typical; most men had at least a year of service before being sent to the light infantry or grenadiers. At 5' 10", Mitchell was tall enough for the grenadiers, but he must have either learned quickly or had some prior experience to warrant being sent into an elite company so quickly.

Whatever his qualifications, he did not distinguish himself. He deserted on 23 June 1777, only a month after joining the grenadier company. The company was part of a grenadier battalion, formed by combining the companies from several regiments, on campaign in New Jersey at this time; Mitchell was among several of the battalion who took advantage of the rapid movement and chaos of campaigning to abscond.

In terms of the historical record, most deserters are never heard from again. Henry Mitchell, however, made his way into Pennsylvania where his name soon appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper:

West Caln, Chester County, July 15, 1777.

The following articles were last night stolen from the subscriber, viz. a brown regimental coat, faced with yellow; two jackets, one white, the other striped with red and white; a pair of buckskin breeches, almost new; a pair of shoes; a beaver hat, bound with silk ferret; a silver hatband, and a silver watch. The thief is a deserter from the English army, named Henry Mitchell, near 5 feet 10 inches high, about 25 years of age, much pitted with the smallpox, and short black hair, tied behind; he had on him a Regular coat of the Tenth regiment, faced with yellow. Whoever secures said clothes and thief, shall have Eight Pounds reward, or in proportion for any of the clothes. Patrick Shields.

[The Pennsylvania Gazette, 23 July 1777]

The enlistment, the desertion and the theft suggest that Henry Mitchell was an opportunist who knew how to take advantage of situations. It is unfortunate that we know nothing more of him.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

John Murray, engraver, 57th Regiment of Foot

2013-03-02T19:35:00.002-08:00

One chapter of my latest book is devoted to how British soldiers spent their free time. This is a challenging subject because there were innumerable ways for these men to pass time but relatively little information on the subject; not many soldiers left writings, and even those who did seldom wrote much of their day-to-day activities. From a variety of primary sources, however, we know that some soldiers made gainful use of their free time by finding employment outside of the army. So common was this that some military textbooks devoted paragraphs or chapters to the subject, instructing officers to insure that jobs did not interfere with the soldiers' duties and that working soldiers had alternative clothing so as not to damage their uniforms.

One particularly enterprising soldier was John Murray of the 57th Regiment. He recognized that his skill as an engraver had a ready market in the crowded garrison city of New York, where officers of all standing needed their military and personal accessories marked for both fashion and identification. In February 1778 he placed an advertisement in The Royal Gazette, the city's premier newspaper (some sources incorrectly give the year as 1776, quite impossible as the city was not yet in British hands in February of that year):

John Murray, Engraver, in the 52d regiment, from Edinburgh, takes this method to inform the Public, That he engraves all manner of silver plate, ornaments, gold and silver watch cases, cyphers upon silver and steel seals, ladies' visiting and company cards, message cards, &c. Coats of arms upon copper, for gentlemen's books, office seals, officers gorgets and sword-belt plates, neatly engraved, and the above John Murray promises to perform his work by the greatest dispatch, and also at the Old Country price.

N. B. He is to be found at Mr. M'Kenzie's, Barrack-Master, Tryon Row, or at his own room in the 57 Regiment, back of the Provost, or at the Printer hereof.

In addition to obvious items like watch cases and gorgets (ornamental crescent-shaped metal plates worn by officers when on duty), Murray mentioned pieces that required reverse images for printing: personalized calling cards, seals, book plates and such could be made using an engraved plate for either printing or embossing on paper. Because goods were expensive in the wartime economy, Murray was careful to note that his prices were the same as those charged in Great Britain.

In describing where he could be found, Murray makes it clear that he was doing his regular duty as a soldier while also working as an engraver; he may have worked in the Barrack Master's office on a no-longer-extant street where the Municipal Building now stands, and perhaps he engraving copper printing plates for the newspaper's publisher, James Rivington.

John Murray was a fairly common name in the British army. When the 57th Regiment embarked in Cork, Ireland for service in America at the beginning of 1776, there were two men of this name in its ranks. Both were still serving in 1778, one in a battalion company and one in the grenadier company. I guessed that the man who placed the ad was the battalion soldier, because the grenadiers were detached from the regiment and were in Philadelphia when the newspaper ad was placed. But that's not proof; a grenadier could've been on duty with the Barrack Master in New York, away from his company.

I'd hoped to find a pension record for one of the men that would list his trade; if a John Murray received a pension and was an engraver, I'd know it was the right man; if he wasn't an engraver, I'd know the other man was. But neither one made it to the pension office; grenadier John Murray died on 26 May 1780, and battalion soldier John Murray died on 1 March 1782, both in New York. The newspaper ad appeared only in 1778, so again no conclusion could be drawn.

Luckily, the advertisement gave a clue that could be correlated with the muster rolls. Muster rolls prepared in Ireland noted the nationality of each man with a "B" for British (which included English, Scottish and Welsh), an "I" for Irish or an "F" for Foreign. Grenadier John Murray was Irish, whereas battalion soldier John Murray was British. The engraver was from Edinburgh (the ad's awkward syntax suggests that the regiment itself was from Edinburgh, which clearly was not the case). John Murray, engraver from Edinburgh and soldier in one of the battalion companies of the 57th Regiment of Foot, was an industrious and enterprising soldier, clever enough to advertise in the newspaper and earn extra money in his free time - until he died in a garrison after the major hostilities had ended.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Robert and Elizabeth Dunbar, 22nd Regiment of Foot

2013-02-26T19:01:00.002-08:00

Many of the installments on this blog make it appear that there is plenty of information on each and every British soldier who served in America. That is not at all the case; the men and women featured here are chosen because we are fortunate to have a few puzzle pieces that come together to form a discernible picture. For many, many other soldiers we know nothing more than a name and a few dates associated with length of service. For most wives, we know even less.

Robert and Elizabeth Dunbar of the 22nd Regiment of Foot provide an excellent example of a couple who surely had stories to tell, if only we could find them. Robert Dunbar joined the regiment in Scotland on 24 July 1772. He went with the regiment to Ireland in 1773, then to America in 1775; he served the entire war, but we know not one thing about his service except what we can deduce from the movements of the regiment itself, from Boston to Halifax, to Staten Island and New York, to Rhode Island for three years, then back to New York. He probably fought in at least three major battles and several smaller actions, and performed innumerable other duties from standing sentries on foggy night on Rhode Island shores where American raiders could snatch him away, to cutting wood on windswept Shelter Island in the dead of winter where a slip on icy ground could result in being crushed by a felled tree. Or he could have spent most of the war in houses and barns altering regimental clothing. We simply don't know.

We do know that he was married. His wife Elizabeth wrote a petition to the New York Provincial Congress:

Petition of Elizabeth Dunbar.

To the Honourable the Congress now Sitting at the Citty Hall.

The Humble Petition of Elizabeth Dunbar, Most humbly begs leave to represent her situation to this Honourable Committee. your poor Petitioner has arrived at this City wants to go to Boston to her husband who is in his Majestys 22 Regiment of foot, and as your petitioner cannot get on Board the Transport without a pass from this Honorable Company do earnestly begg entrite & pray the favour of you Gentlemen to order your poor petitioner on board said transport, in doing so, the City will be so far Relieved of a Town Charge and ye poor petitioner will always pray.

The petition is undated but is certainly from 1775 or early 1776; from it we can deduce some things about Elizabeth Dunbar's situation: The 22nd Regiment sailed from Ireland in May 1775 bound for New York; when the tranports carrying the regiment arrived off American coast, they were intercepted by a British warship and directed to Boston because of the rapidly-changing conditions. The regiment had been allocated shipboard space for 60 wives and families, but there was nothing prohibiting other wives from making their own war to America. Elizabeth Dunbar probably obtained her own passage on a civilian vessel and went to New York expecting to join her husband there, only to find herself stuck in a now-hostile city governed by a provisional Committee of Safety. Knowing that a ship was bound for Boston, she asked to be allowed on board.

And that, unfortunately, is all we know. Various returns tell us the numbers of wives and children with the regiment, but there are no comprehensive lists of names. We don't know when the Dunbars were married or whether Elizabeth was successful in finding Robert again. This petition is, so far, the only record we have of her existence.

Robert Dunbar continued his service as a private soldier when the 22nd Regiment returned to England at the end of the war. In late 1793 he was still in the ranks when the regiment sailed to the West Indies and endured a year of arduous campaigning and high climate-related mortality. He survived and returned once again to England, but died on 27 June 1796, still a soldier after 24 years - a soldier about whom we know nothing except that a dutiful wife once tried to find him.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

John Brewer, 17th Regiment of Foot

2013-02-16T20:18:00.001-08:00

It was a tough war for John Brewer. The 27 year old laborer from the parish of Weston Zoyland in the middle of Somersetshire had been in the army for eight years when he arrived in Boston in late 1775 with the 17th Regiment of Foot. Service in besieged Boston did not provide much opportunity to test his mettle as a soldier, but the New York campaign of 1776 did. The 17th was actively engaged in fighting from Long Island through Manhattan, into Westchester County and in particular the battle of White Plains, and the subsequent push into New Jersey that extended all the way to Trenton by year's end.

The new year brought an immediate turn of fate for Brewer. He was one of 73 men of the regiment captured in the battle of Princeton on 3 January. He spent most of the next two years as a prisoner of war, being exchanged in the second half of 1778. The following year he was posted with his regiment on the Hudson River north of New York city at an unfinished fortification called Stony Point.

The fate of Stony Point is well known. A guard ship being off station afforded an opportunity for General Anthony Wayne to skirt the fort's defenses during the night and storm the works. Several hundred British soldiers were taken prisoner and marched to Pennsylvania for imprisonment, among them John Brewer. He spent almost two years as a prisoner of war being again being exchanged in early 1781.

His exchange came in time for him to join the 17th Regiment on its voyage to reinforce General Cornwallis's army. This, of course, led to the regiment's capture once again when the army capitulated at Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781. For the third time, John Brewer became a prisoner of war.

A peace treaty brought about a release of prisoners; Brewer and his comrades in the 17th Regiment rejoined British forces in New York in early 1783. Brewer had spent almost five years as a prisoner of war. The 17th Regiment of Foot, rather than returning to Great Britain, was sent to Halifax, Nova Scotia where it remained, John Brewer in its ranks, for several more years.

Brewer was finally discharged from the army in 1790 after 23 years of service. He signed his name on his discharge form, and was granted a pension due to the "hardships sustained in America." He was the only man of the 17th Regiment to have been captured three times and yet survive to receive a pension. His military service, however, was far from over.

After only a few years as a pensioner he joined a garrison battalion, a corps of old soldiers not fit enough for active campaigning but capable of garrisoning coastal fortifications. He continued in this capacity for another 17 years, finally leaving the army in 1807 after spending nearly 36 years in uniform.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Lecture on 23 February, book news, and updates!

2013-02-05T20:06:00.000-08:00

A new soldier will be featured soon, but today there are several announcements and a few updates to make; the paragraphs below include links to more information about the topics mentioned:

On 23 February it will be my great pleasure to share an auditorium with fellow researcher, author and long-time friend Todd Braisted. He'll be speaking about his book Bergen County Voices of the American Revolution, while I'll of course be touting British Soldiers, American War. We'll be signing books, and you're welcome to bring a copy you've already purchased if you don't wish to get one at the event.

I recently had the remarkably enjoyable experience of being interviewed on Public Radio International; you can listen to the entire interview or the edited version that was broadcast. It's nice that the professional British soldiers of the 1770s and 1780s caught the interest of this esteemed program.

British Soldiers, American War has been getting some good feedback, and I was asked to list ten things I hoped people would learn from the book for a new web site devoted to the American Revolution. Please don't let this sound-bited synopsis stop you from reading the book!

And, in another bit of publishing good news, a book that I contributed to has won a prestigious award. I wrote two of the book's 60 or so essays, a small contribution alongside some highly acclaimed historians.

Reader Sarah Skolfield, a descendant of John Clayton, provided some details of that man's life in Maine including a connection to the famous diarist Martha Ballard. It's always exciting to discover when two historical figures path's crossed. The original post on Clayton has been updated to reflect the new information.

A study of the 17th Regiment for a lecture in May (details later!) has allowed an important update to the story of soldier presented here three years ago. We now know that Thomas Melody was a soldier in the 17th Regiment of Foot captured at the Battle of Princeton and sent to captivity in Connecticut, which led to his marriage and a remarkable newspaper duel a dozen years later.

Thanks for all of the great support and feedback that's making this ongoing research possible!

Thomas and Mrs. Crouch, 16th Light Dragoons

2013-01-27T19:24:00.001-08:00

Thomas Crouch was dead. His wife was angry. His serjeant stood accused.

It was an apt accusation. After Serjeant William Nunny had dropped a pair of saddle bags on Crouch's head, Crouch never spoke another word and was soon pronounced dead. But there was more to the story, enough that Serjeant Nunny asked for a court martial to clear his name.

Thomas Crouch had joined the 16th Light Dragoons in January 1776 as that corps was gearing up for service in America. The 16th, like the 17th Light Dragoons already in Boston, had been authorized a substantial increase in size including a dismounted contingent; it appears, however, that Crouch became a true cavalry trooper, serving with the mounted dragoons. The regiment arrived in New York late in 1776 and served in the campaign in New Jersey that extended into the following year. The second half of 1777 saw them on the campaign to Philadelphia; with the rest of the army that took that city, they settled in the area for the winter. We don't know whether Crouch was already married when he enlisted, but he certainly was by the time the regiment went into winter quarters.

In the evening of 4 December the 16th Light Dragoons received orders to be in readiness at their Philadelphia barracks for an impending expedition into the country. A while later, Mrs. Crouch and some soldiers brought her "excessively drunk" husband into the barracks. He was too drunk to stand, so they laid him on a blanket in a dark corner of the room. She asked Corporal Richard Evans to look after him and persuade him to remain in the barracks. She left, and the Corporal Evans, attempting to rouse Crouch, noticed "an uncommon noise in his throat." This did not alarm Evans enough to take any action, however, and he soon fell asleep.

At about 9PM Serjeant Nunny came into the barracks with orders for the dragoons to repair to the stables and prepare to march. The serjeant left; the barracks sprang to life, but Thomas Crouch did not. A man attempted to rouse him, but gave up and attended to his own preparations. Soon the serjeant returned carrying his carbine and a pair of saddle bags. Taking stock of the men, he learned that all of the men had saddled their horses except for Crouch. Asking where Crouch was, he was directed by Corporal Evans to the corner. Believing Crouch to be in a drunken stupor, the serjeant kicked him a few times on the back side. When he got no response he tried using the butt of his carbine. Still nothing, so he lifted his saddle bags as high as his own head, then dropped them onto Crouch's head. This, too, failed to stir the listless dragoon. Nunny knelt and tried to sit Crouch up, saw that he was wearing a neck stock, and removed that constricting garment. He tried to stand Crouch up, but it proved impossible. Out of ideas, Serjeant Nunny decided to turn out the rest of his troop and deal with Crouch later. On his way to the stable he stopped by Mrs. Crouch's lodgings and informed her of the situation.

Private Henry Lord remained behind to look after some of the horses. He noticed blood on Crouch's blanket and discerned that he was bleeding from the mouth or nostrils. He left the barracks to saddle his horse at the stables, and on his way back he, too, called on Mrs. Crouch. She and some other women went promptly to the barracks; seeing her husband's alarming condition, she asked Henry Lord to summon the regimental surgeon. The surgeon deferred Lord to the surgeon's mate, and the surgeon's mate informed Lord that he was ill and could not attend to Crouch until morning. When Mrs. Crouch received that news, she implored Lord to keep an eye on her husband while she repair to an out-room, and inform her immediately of any changes to his condition.

While private Lord kept watch on Crouch, the regiment's quarter-master came in. About eight hours had passed since the serjeant had tried to rouse Crouch; the quarter-master suggested they move the ailing trooper closer to the fire - it was, after all, December - but as they prepared to do so they realized that his countenance had changed for the worse. They called for Mrs. Crouch, but by the time she came in her husband Thomas was dead.

The next day Mrs. Crouch, with the assistance of a corporal from the regiment, prepared the body for burial. They stripped the clothes off, and did not see any evidence of wounds or bruises other than a sore on one cheek. Mrs. Crouch did not ask for a surgeon to examine the body. They placed the deceased Thomas Crouch in a coffin for burial.

When the 16th Light Dragoons returned from their march, Serjeant Nunny got word that Mrs. Crouch considered him an accessory to her husband's death. He asked his Captain to investigate the matter, and heard no more of it for a while. Philadelphia was evacuated the following spring, and the 16th Light Dragoons marched across New Jersey with the rest of the British army to take quarters around New York. And Mrs. Crouch continued her accusations.

In September 1778 Serjeant Nunny again called for a trial to clear his name. The case was heard by a general court martial in November. Several dragoons testified, and while all agreed that the kicks and the carbine probably caused no injury, there was concern about the saddle bags. It was clear, however, that Crouch had been extremely drunk, and it was possible that the constriction of his neck stock had been the cause of his demise. The officers on the court inquired as to whether Serjeant Nunny was known for being ill tempered or treating the men harshly; on the contrary, character witnesses proclaimed him to be "the mildest non-commissioned officer" to drill the men, "of a passive disposition" with a character that was "universally good."

Serjeant William Nunny was acquitted of any responsibility for the death of private Thomas Crouch. Unaccoutably, Mrs. Crouch, whose first name is not given in the trial records, did not testify. Her fate is unknown.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

James Hamilton, child in the 82nd Regiment of Foot

2013-01-16T19:21:00.000-08:00

James Hamilton was a forward-thinking young man. He had come to America as a child, son of a serjeant in the 82nd Regiment of Foot. When his father, "a well-behaved soldier," was reported killed, his mother remarried. At the close of hostilities, young James went with his mother and step-father to Nova Scotia along with hundreds of other discharged soldiers and displaced loyalists.

We don't know his age, but by April 1788 James Hamilton was old enough, and well-enough educated, to write a well-worded memorial to the governor of Nova Scotia explaining that, although he was under the "tuition" of his mother's new husband, that man had a large family dependent upon him; it is not clear whether these dependents were James's sisters, children that his step-father had brought to the marriage, or a combination thereof. Regardless, James saw that he'd need to plan for his future and could not expect to be supported by his family indefinitely.

He petitioned the governor for 100 acres of land, the amount given to private soldiers with no wives or families. James Hamilton reasoned that, as his father's only surviving son, he might be granted this amount of land; his father, had he survived, would have received substantially more than that based on the size of his family. James had even identified a likely tract of land, a plot among lands allocated for soldiers discharged from the 82nd Regiment that remained unoccupied.

In January 1789 James Hamilton was granted the land. His name is a quite common one, to the extent that we've been unable, with a cursory search, to determine whether he settled and thrived on his tract. There is, however, an interesting twist to the story.

The muster rolls of the 82nd Regiment, although incomplete, reveal that Serjeant James Hamilton was not, in fact, killed. He was taken prisoner, and spent much of the war in captivity. At the close of hostilities he was repatriated; he returned to Great Britain with his regiment and was discharged when that temporary corps was disbanded in June 1784. We know nothing of whether he learned of his wife's remarriage, whether their paths crossed in New York in 1783 when freed prisoners were pouring in and displaced refugees pouring out. It is certainly not the only case of a woman remarrying when she believed her soldier-husband was dead, victims of the limits of communication in their age. The younger James Hamilton's good sense and initiative, on the other hand, is a timeless example of a positive response to adversity.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Thomas Plumb, 22nd Regiment of Foot

2013-01-07T17:45:00.000-08:00

Regular readers of this site know that many British soldiers were married to wives who were with them in America. Among them was Thomas Plumb, but he was not one of the 20% to 30% whose wives accompanied them overseas or who married in America and whose wives and children were provisioned by the army. Instead, Plumb's wife and children remained behind in his native Cornwall.

Unfortunately we know little about Plumb beyond his military career. He joined the 22nd Regiment of Foot two days before the end of 1765, when the regiment was rebuilding after long service in America. If he was a typical recruit he was in his early twenties, joining the army after having tried his hand at one or a few other lines of work. Possibly he was older, and had already served in the army before being discharged when the war of the late 1750s and early 1760s ended. Plumb was a private soldier during the regiment's service in England, then Scotland, then Ireland, then on its return to American in 1775.

When Plumb married is not known, nor whether his wife followed him on service in Great Britain. He certainly was by the time the regiment was ready to embark for overseas service. Perhaps she did not stay with the army because they had a child on the way, or perhaps their child had already been born by that time. The sole indication we have of his marriage is a letter that he wrote home:

Newport Rhode Island 22d Feb, 1777

Brother this comes with my kind love to you and hope these lines will find you my wife and child & all enquireing friends in as good health as they do leave me at this present time. I thank God for it. I am Resolved to Relate our present state and situation in this country at the present time Our duty is very hard Upon the Accounts as we receive from the Rebels daily such as we are not in sight of as we are day & night within musket shot of each other & they are as numerous as Motes in the S[page torn] But we still keeps them in constant employ but the cowardly rascals will not stand their ground But watching all Oppertunitys by lying in Ambush behind some trees which is the cause of us looseing so many men but thank God where we loose 10 they loose 100. But as we routed them from so many places so that they are in the greatest consternation, possibly they may give us a field by day for it early this spring I do not doubt but they will as they are almost surrounded by our troops and they must fight or die. But had they the heart as we Britoners have we should stand no chance with them.

No more but my kind respects to my loveing Wife & Child Uncle Wood, Molly & little William and all Enquireing friends

Thomas Plumb Soldier 22d Regiment

Captn McDonalds Company

Mr Alexander Johns at Windsor

Near Hailstone

Cornwall

It is extraordinary that this letter survives, one of only a handful written by private soldiers known to exist. It is one of a bundle of letters from Rhode Island, written at roughly the same time, that was waylayed - perhaps captured, but the circumstances are not known - and much later deposited in the British National Archives where it remains to this day.

Plumb's letter to his brother (who, apparently, had a different last name; maybe it was his brother-in-law) is brief, typical of those in the bundle of letters from Rhode Island written mostly by naval personnel. It's brevity suggests that Plumb was responding to one of the occasional calls for letters to be delivered to a ship that was about to sail for Great Britain. The short letter speaks to the hard duty born by British soldiers in Rhode Island. Although no major battles occurred there in 1777, skirmishes on land and sea happened almost daily - and nightly. Constant vigilance was required on this dangerous front line. Plumb also indicates his experiences in the rapid campaign that seized Long Island and then New York city in August and September of 1776, where numerous clashes occurred.

Thomas Plumb's touching closing paragraph shows us a man concerned for his family and relations while he toiled for his government in a far-away land. We can only hope that he wrote often, that this miscarried letter was not the only attempt that he made to insure them of his welfare, that they received frequent communications from their distant husband, father and relation. We hope that they at least had a memento of Thomas Plumb, for he was killed in battle on 29 August 1778, at the close of an abortive attempt by the American army and French navy to unseat the British garrison from Rhode Island.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Patrick and Peggy McGuire, 57th Regiment of Foot

2012-12-31T13:40:00.000-08:00

It probably started out as a good party, but it ended badly. That's nothing new, and it happened during the American Revolution just as it does today. This particular party occurred in New York city on 30 November 1780, and although a tragedy occurred it resulted in a record that provides us with many details of how British soldiers and their wives lived during the war. All of the information that follows is divined from testimony given at a court martial; there were many confusing and contradictory statements, so this account is as accurate as we can discern from the various accounts of the affair.

I didn't have enough space in my book British Soldiers, American War to go into detail about married soldiers and their wives. For this story, it is sufficient to know that about a fifth of the British soldiers in America had wives, and sometimes families, with them, and that these women were part of the military society. Central to this story are two couples in the 57th Regiment of Foot: Patrick and Peggy McGuire and John and Elizabeth Jones. McGuire had arrived in America in late 1777, while Jones had arrived just a few months later; it is possible that they had known each other as recruits in Great Britain. Unfortunately there are no records to tell us whether these men were married when they joined the army, or if they met their wives after arriving in America. Also key to the story were James McCullough and Thomas Campbell, also of the 57th Regiment, who had arrived in American with McGuire.

On the night of 30 November three of these soldiers - Jones, McCullough and Campbell - were on guard at their barracks. Being on guard didn't mean standing at a post, but rather being available for duty during a period of 24 or more hours; some of that time would be spent actually manning posts, while the rest was spent in barracks or a guard room ready to turn out at the sound of an alarm. The men in barracks were apparently in high spirits, drinking and dancing, and Peggy McGuire was there too even though her husband was not on duty at the time. Married couples were sometimes allowed to live in their own quarters out of the barracks, and the Jones's and McGuire's lived in a house not far away; Patrick McGuire asked Mr. and Mrs. Jones if they knew where his wife was, and they directed him to the barracks.

At around 7 PM John Jones left the barracks to dine with his wife, an indulgence allowed to married men. Not long after that, Peggy McGuire decided she'd had enough of the party, perhaps because she was also due at home for dinner, perhaps because the men were becoming too rambunctious, and certainly because she was by this time rather intoxicated. She left the barracks, but James McClullough, also "very much in liquor," followed her closely enough that some said they left together. In a field adjacent to the barrack he assaulted her, taking her shoe buckles, tearing the handkerchief from her neck and opening the breast of her bed gown (a garment which, contrary to what the name suggests, was a common form of casual wear). Whether his intentions were robbery or worse is not known. She resisted and cried out "Murder!", then managed to get free and return to the barracks door where she collapsed.

Her husband Patrick, meanwhile, was on his way to the barracks to inquire whether he had duty the next day and also to find Peggy. He heard the cry, recognized her voice, and hurried towards the scene. Others soldiers also heard Peggy's cry and called for the guard to turn out. This resulted in soldiers, some armed and some not, running about in the dark from all directions. Before the guard turned out, a soldier came upon Peggy McGuire sitting shoeless and dishevelled, helped her up and started to take her home. McCullough appeared and grabbed her, and the two soldiers both held her as she begged McCullough to go home. Then a drunken Thomas Campbell joined the fray, knocked Peggy down, then fell down himself. The soldier who'd initially helped Peggy called for the guard. Then Patrick McGuire arrived on the scene.

Patrick came up just as Campbell knocked his wife down; Campbell got up and fled, but McGuire quickly caught he and gave him a sound thrashing. Peggy, meanwhile, with the assistance of the other soldier, still tipsy and carrying her shoes, managed to get to her house where she was greeted by Elizabeth Jones.

A corporal and a few men of the guard, fully armed but not particularly steady after their evening of drink and dance, tumbled out of the barracks and came upon McGuire beating Campbell. The corporal, not knowing the full situation and hearing Campbell cry out in pain, made a stroke at McGuire with his firelock (musket), but in his drunken state succeeded only in falling to the ground. McGuire, having easily fended off the clumsy stroke, seized the firelock and headed towards home where he found his wife in the care of Mrs. Jones and another corporal of the regiment. The McGuires each began giving their accounts of the events, but the night was not yet over.

Within a few minutes there was a pounding at the door. It was Thomas Campbell and James McCullough, now armed and supported by some other soldiers. Campbell bellowed that he demanded satisfaction from Patrick McGuire for the beating he'd received. The corporal in the house, attempting to diffuse the situation, posted John Jones at the door with strict orders to prevent any violence, stepped outside and closed the door, told the agressors that they would receive all the satisfaction he could offer once he'd investigated the matter, then went to report the situation to an officer. Jones opened the top half of the door, saw the bloody-faced and bayonet-wielding Campbell and McCullough, and quickly closed and bolted the door again. There followed angry knocks, and someone demanded that if one of the McGuires was not sent out they'd blow a ball through the door. Peggy McGuire told her husband that she feared they meant to take her life or his. Patrick called to McCullough by name, saying that he didn't wish to hurt him. But the still-inebriated Peggy intoned that if he did not hurt McCullough in retaliation for his assault on her, she would never sleep with Patrick again.

This remark inflamed Patrick McGuire anew. Jones held his collar and tried to restrain him, but McGuire growled that he'd hurt even his own brother if he tried to stop him. Jones was pushed aside as McGuire seized a firelock and threw the door open. Thomas Campbell burst in and the bayonet on his firelock tore Elizabeth Jones's gown; a crowd of soldier flooded into the house, some scuffling ensued and then the light went out. McGuire, fearing for his life, ran out of the darkened house into the night. Elizabeth Jones and Peggy McGuire stepped out after him and saw James McCullough lifeless on the ground; Peggy knelt down and took her own shoe buckles from his pocket. Other soldiers sallied out and lifted McCullough, finding a fracture in his skull the shape of rounded object such as a musket butt. He was taken to the general hospital where surgeons did everything they could, but he died after languishing for ten days.

Patrick McGuire went to an officer and reported what had happened, then returned to his quarters and his wife. Things had calmed down. In the morning he reported for duty, but was soon relieved and confined along with Thomas Campbell. He remained confined until 19 Feburary 1781 when he was put on trial for murder. One can only imagine the thoughts and expressions of the 15 officers who sat on the court martial, listening to confused and contradictory testimony, perhaps making mental notes about ancillary details such as dancing in the barracks and the guard turning out drunk. After hearing depositions from ten witnesses over two days, they acquitted McGuire because there was insufficient evidence that he had ever struck McCullough; the only person to testify that he did was Thomas Campbell whose testimony can hardly be considered credible given the circumstances.

All four of the soldiers discussed here had enlisted in the army after the war began; as such, they were entitled to be discharged at the close of hostilities. Thomas Campbell and John Jones took advantage of this offer; it is not known whether either of them took land grants in Canada or returned to Great Britain. James McCullough was dead; were it not for the record of his trial, we would have only the muster rolls to tell us this, documents that give the date of death but no explanation. We would assume that he died of illness, ignorant of the bizarre circumstances that led to his demised. And so it is with Patrick McGuire, who died on 26 June 1781, just four months after being acquitted of murder. We know nothing about the cause of his death, nor what became of his wife Peggy.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Michael Lynch, 15th, 47th and 23rd Regiments

2012-12-18T19:56:00.001-08:00

In the late 1760s and early 1770s when Great Britain was not at war, men enlisted in the army as a career; there was no specific enlistment term, but instead service lasted until the man was discharged because he was no longer fit for service. This is discussed at length in my book British Soldiers, American War. The notion that a man could not quit the service sounds harsh, but the careers of many soldiers prove that they did not wish to leave it. Indeed, many who had the opportunity to do so instead went to great lengths to remain soldiers.

An example can be found in Michael Lynch, a laborer from Tipperary. He was 21 years old in 1770 when he enlisted in the 15th Regiment of Foot, making him very typical of the era's enlistees. But for reasons unknown, he was discharged after only five years in December 1775. This is particularly odd because the regiment was at that time recruiting, preparing for service in America; not only were new recruits being enlisted, but experienced soldiers from other regiments were being drafted into the 15th. We can only guess why Lynch was let go at such a time.

Lynch's discharge clearly wasn't for lack of martial zeal or for aversion to service overseas, for he soon joined a recruiting party of the 47th Regiment of Foot. This corps was already in America, and Lynch joined them in Quebec in 1776. The 47th participated in that year's campaign, spent a cold winter in Canadian quarters, then formed part of General John Burgoyne's expedition towards Albany in 1777.

This campaign brought some of the most storied fighting of the war, and Michael Lynch was in the thick of it. He was wounded in the right cheek at the second battle of Saratoga on 7 October. He then became a prisoner of war when the army capitulated a few days later.

It is not known how long Lynch remained in captivity. It was probably at least a couple of years, but he is not on lists of prisoners in 1781. His whereabouts are unknown until September 1782 when he joined the 23rd Regiment of Foot in New York. He had, like many other British prisoners of war, escaped; instead of disappearing into the American countryside, he was one of hundreds who made their way back to British garrisons and continued serving as soldiers of the King.

Michael Lynch was rewarded for his dedication when he was finally discharged from the 23rd in 1788, "being ruptured and worn out in the Service." The X that he put on his discharge in lieu of a signature was the mark of a man who had two opportunities to leave the army, but instead served until he was no longer able.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Orson Jewitt, 47th Regiment of Foot, 17th Light Dragoons

2012-12-08T21:16:00.001-08:00

One chapter of British Soldiers, American War focuses on cavalry troopers who volunteered to serve in infantry regiments for the war in America. Only two British cavalry regiments, the 16th Light Dragoons and the 17th Light Dragoons, were sent to America; twenty-three others (three regiments of Dragoon Guards, four regiments of horse, and 16 regiments of dragoons and light dragoons) remained behind in Great Britain, but not all of these horse soldiers were content to miss out on a foreign war. About 200 cavalrymen volunteered to join the infantry and served on foot in America.

And, in America, some foot soldiers managed to get transferred into the light dragoons. Although the 16th and 17th Light Dragoons had been augmented to a strength that far exceeded their peacetime footing, attrition in America soon took its toll. As escaped prisoners of war made their way into British lines they were put into other regiments, and some of them, even though they had served in infantry regiments, were drafted into the dragoons.

One such man was Orson Jewitt, a labourer from Norfolk who had joined the army in 1765 when he was 23 years old. His early career is unclear; the muster rolls of the 47th Regiment indicate that he was drafted from the 15th Regiment of Foot, but we were unable to find him (or a number of other drafts) on the rolls of the 15th. Regardless, he joined the 47th Regiment in Canada in 1776. With that regiment, he had the misfortune to be incarcerated in 1777.

Hundreds of British prisoners of war eventually escaped and made their way to British garrisons. We don't know how Jewitt did it, but by June 1781 he had gotten to New York and joined the 17th Light Dragoons. Three other men from his regiment joined the same troop of the 17th on the same day.

The 5-foot-6-inch soldier remained in the 17th Light Dragoons through the end of the war and took his discharge when he had completed twenty years of service. He was discharged in April 1785 “being worn out by Fatigue & Climate in America.” Unable to write his own name, he marked his discharge certificate with an X and went before the Chelsea Hospital board of examiners who granted him an out pension.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

Alexander Robinson, 57th Regiment of Foot

2012-11-27T08:56:00.000-08:00

First, a not-at-all-subtle reminder that my new book is now available from a number of popular outlets. That said...

This blog has featured many stories of deserters, some recaptured, some not. Occasionally deserters turned up in the in highly unexpected places.

A man named Alexander Robinson enlisted in the 57th Regiment of Foot in March 1769, and deserted the following year while the regiment was in Dublin. This in itself was not unusual, nor was the fact that Robinson was never apprehended in Ireland. The 57th Regiment continued serving on the Irish establishment until the beginning of 1776 when they embarked for America as part of the expedition against Charleston, South Carolina. They then sailed to Staten Island and participated in the campaign that gained control of New York city and the surrounding area. The summer of 1777 found them settling in to garrison New York where they would remain for the rest of the war, engaging not in major campaigns but in numerous foraging expeditions and other incursions in the region. Deserters, however, were not forgotten...

Among the expeditions in which the 57th Regiment participated was the October 1777 capture of Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery on the Hudson River. This venture was intended to provide some relief to General Burgoyne's beleaguered army, bogged down north of Albany, but it was too little, too late. It was nonetheless a bold action, with a violent struggle for control of the forts in which the British forces prevailed. Nearly 300 American prisoners were taken. Among them was Alexander Robinson, who was recognized by some of his former comrades in the 57th Regiment.

It is no surprise that Robinson was put on trial for desertion. During the war a number of other British deserters were taken up while serving with the enemy; bearing arms with the enemy was a much more severe crime than desertion alone, and most of these men were found guilty and sentenced to death. Several aspects of Robinson's trial, however, indicate that his case was not so clear cut.

Although witnesses at the trial testified that Robinson was "taken prisoner at Fort Montgomery" he was tried only for desertion and no evidence was presented that he was armed, in uniform, or in any way acting with the American army. The only testimony was that he had, in fact, enlisted in 1769, deserted in 1770 and was taken again on 6 October 1777 at the fort. He offered nothing in his defense except to acknowledge his crime and throw himself on the mercy of the court. Indeed, the brief trial seems to be almost a matter of form rather than a detailed inquiry into a severe crime.

Robinson was found guilty of this capital crime, but instead of death he was sentenced to 1000 lashes, a typical punishment for desertions when soldiers were gone for only a short time and surrendered willingly. Given the circumstances, this punishment suggests that the court was privy to information that does not appear in the trial record - perhaps Robinson surrendered himself and offered a plausible story about why he had deserted and how he came to be in America. Unfortunately we have no record of it, or any indication of why he was at Fort Montgomery on that fateful day.

The muster rolls for the 57th tell us simply that Alexander Robinson "returned from desertion" on 6 October 1777. He continued to serve in the regiment after that for several years until he died in New York on 28 August 1782. There is no indication of any other remarkable events in his military career, and typical of muster rolls there is no indication of the cause of death.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

William and Elizabeth Royal, 63rd Regiment of Foot

2012-11-16T11:03:00.000-08:00

If you like the material in this blog, you're sure to enjoy my new book which has just been released. I will be giving a talk about the book at Saratoga National Historical Park on Sunday 18 November; if you have a venue for which such a talk would be appropriate, please contact me and we'll set something up!

The featured soldier this week came to my attention because of the plight of his wife, brought to my attention by colleague and blogger J. L. Bell who does an outstanding job of ferreting out details on the individuals who formed the society of 1770s Boston and environs. We learn of Elizabeth Royal (or Royall) from a resolution by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress's Committee of Safety dated 21 June 1775:

That Joseph Adams, driver of the stage from Newbury, be, and he hereby is directed, to transport back to Newbury, Elizabeth Royal and her child, who, as she says, is wife to William Royal, first sergeant in the 63d regiment of foot, now in Boston, and deliver her to the care of the selectmen of said Newbury, who are hereby directed to provide for her and her child, at the expense of the colony.

The 63rd Regiment of Foot had arrived in Boston only a few weeks prior to this resolution. The regiment's muster rolls confirm the presence of William Royal in its ranks; he was already in the regiment in January 1775 and sailed with them from Ireland to America, but we have not traced his career to determine when he joined the army (another published version of the Committee of Safety's resolution gives the name as "Rogers" but there was no man by that name in the 63rd Regiment). The rolls note that he was "British" as opposed to "Irish" or "Foreign", indicating that he was from either England, Scotland or Wales. Clearly he was already married to Elizabeth before the regiment left Ireland, because by June 1775 they had a child. And he was no serjeant - the rolls list him as a private soldier.

Perhaps his wife inflated his rank in an attempt to impress her detainees. When the 63rd arrived in Boston the town was already under siege; in fact, the Committee of Safety's resolution suggests that Elizabeth Royal was taken up while trying to get into Boston from Newbury. But what were the wife and child of a British soldier, particularly one who had only just arrived in Boston, doing in Newbury at that time?

We can only speculate. The likely answer is that she had not been allowed to accompany her husband on the transports that brought the regiment to America, and booked her own passage on another vessel. When shipping was allocated for British regiments deploying to America, an allowance was made for 60 women to accompany each regiment. This allowance is widely, and incorrectly, interpreted to mean that only 60 wives were allowed to be with a regiment at any time. Quite the contrary, most regiments in America had more than 60 wives with them; it was only the passage to America that posed a problem and many women found their own ways to make the crossing. Elizabeth Royal may have landed at another American port and then proceeded over land towards Boston.

There are other plausible explanations. William Royal may have been a long-serving soldier who had gotten married in America during a previous deployment, then transferred into the 63rd Regiment in order to return to his family. Or Elizabeth Royal could've arrived with the regiment in May and left Boston for any number of reasons, expecting to be able to return.

It is not known why the Committee of Safety didn't simply allow this mother and child to enter Boston, but instead sent her back to Newbury to be subsisted at public expense. We also do not know whether she was ever reunited with her husband. Even if she was, they were not destined for a long and happy future. The muster rolls show that William Royal continued to serve in the 63rd Regiment until he died on 6 October 1777; as is typical for these documents, no cause of death is given. The fate of his wife and child who dutifully tried to get to him in Boston remains unknown.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

John Mayell, 22nd Regiment of Foot

2012-11-05T10:23:00.000-08:00

A reminder that my new book, British Soldiers, American War, will soon be shipping from Revolutionary Imprints and other outlets. If you enjoy the material in this blog, this book will provide many hours of enjoyable reading. It focuses on nine British soldiers about whom we happen to know a great deal, and presents information on hundreds of others to put the nine featured soldiers into context.

A great challenge in researching the careers of British soldiers who served in America is that there is no comprehensive source of information - no catalog of records indexed by individual that tells a full story. Instead, we are left to piece information together. For many soldiers, we have only a name on a muster roll. The (usually) semi-annual muster rolls sometimes have gaps for spans of a few years, and sometimes are not fully annotated; in the best case, the rolls tell us something about when a man joined the army and when he left it. We can infer more from the service of his regiment in general, but occasionally individual soldiers were not with the rest of the regiment for varying periods of time, so it is very difficult to be sure whether an individual served in a specific location at a particular time based strictly on the muster rolls.

For some soldiers we are fortunate to have additional documents, but those sources do not always seem to agree leaving us with puzzles to be solved. A good case in point is John Mayell, a soldier in the 22nd Regiment of Foot.

The muster rolls of the 22nd show us that Mayell (also spelled Meyell, Mayle, and Mail) joined the 22nd Regiment on 9 April 1766. The regiment had recently returned to Great Britain from service in America and was recruiting to refill its depleted ranks. Mayell served initially as a fifer, but by 1770 had become a private soldier. The obvious conclusion is that he enlisted at an early age, possibly the son of a soldier, and played the fife until he was old enough to shoulder a firelock. But the muster rolls tell us more, and cast doubt on that theory.

In December 1776 Mayell transferred into the 63rd Regiment of Foot. In that corps he served as a drummer. In October 1779 he transferred back into the 22nd Regiment, and there also is listed as a drummer until 1784 when again became a private soldier. He was discharged in 1786. It was fairly common for men follow this pattern of appointments, from drummer to private soldier and back to drummer again, sometimes several times during their careers. Muster rolls give no reasons for such appointments, only the dates on which they occurred. Occasionally it was due simply to a change in the established number of drummers in a regiment, but in most cases we are left only to wonder.

The reason for Mayell's transfer to the 63rd Regiment is also a mystery. The dates correspond exactly to the time that the 22nd Regiment was in Rhode Island; the 63rd initially also served in the Rhode Island garrison, but returned to New York early in 1777. Perhaps Mayell held a useful office in New York. Transfers of soldiers often correspond to transfers of officers, and we can deduce that the soldiers were officer's servants, but this is not the case with Mayell. Again, we can only wonder.

Besides the muster rolls, another document sheds more light on Mayell. After his discharge he received an out-pension, meaning that he returned to the region where lived before joining the army and collected a semi-annual payment amounting to five pence per day. Mayell's army discharge, a document that survives for many pensioners, is missing; his name does, however, appear on a list of out pensioners that provides additional details. He was born in the parish of Milksham in the county of Wiltshire, and pursued the trade of a shoemaker before joining the army. Our theory that he enlisted at an early age is proven incorrect; he was 47 years old in 1786, meaning that he was about 27 when he joined the 22nd Regiment - not an unusually old age for an enlistee, but certainly only than his service record would have had us guess. Adding to the confusion is that he had served 27 years as a solder in 1786, meaning that he must have had service prior to joining the 22nd regiment.

Another document clarifies some aspects of Mayell's career. on 23 January 1766 he and his wife Jane were examined at the Quarter Sessions in the town of Kendal, Westmorland. The reason for the examination is not given; perhaps they were assumed to be vagrants or had somehow drawn suspicion to themselves. Mayell deposed that he was born in Milksham, Wiltshire (which agrees with the pension records) and served two years of a six-year apprenticeship to a shoemaker in Bradford, Wiltshire, and that he had been discharged from the army as "unfit for duty." This explains the length of service given in the pension records; he had indeed served in the army before, but unfortunately we do not know exactly when or in which regiment. We can guess that he was in his early teens when he left his apprenticeship - again, in unknown circumstances - and he may have enlisted any time between then and the age of about 19, to have had about 7 years of service by 1766. John and Jane Mayell were given a pass to go back to Bradford where he'd worked as a shoemaker, but within three months he was in the army again.

Having received a pension after his discharge in 1786, Mayell was obliged to return to active service in British garrisons if the need arose. In 1790, pensioners were called to serve. Due to ill health Mayell was unable to travel to Bristol for an examination to determine whether he was fit, but instead received an examination from a doctor in Devizes, Wiltshire, saying that he was unfit. His failure to appear in Bristol caused him to be dropped from the pension rolls, but he wrote a petition and included the doctor's endorsement which allowed his status to be restored. The petition survives, and reveals two details about Mayell: he could write (the deposition is written in the same hand as his signature), and that he had been wounded in the shoulder. No indication is given of when he received this wound.

Already we have more documents concerning Mayell than we have for most soldiers, and yet each one introduces more questions about his career. A final (so far) document does clarify one aspect of it. In October 1781 the 22nd Regiment of Foot was among those that embarked in New York to relieve General Cornwallis's besieged garrison at Yorktown. The fleet sailed too late and soon returned to port having effected nothing. The 22nd was, however, embarked on a warship, the Robust. Unlike the transports ships that were privately owned vessels operating under contract, warships belonged to the navy; as such, they maintained muster books recording who was on board and when, including passengers. These muster books survive, and that of the Robust lists each man in the 22nd Regiment who embarked. The 22nd embarked eight companies of soldiers (the grenadiers and light infantry were detached at this time) but included only four drummers. Also listed are six men who were "Musick", a term denoting the regimental band, among them John Mayell.

Regimental bands of music were not part of the regimental establishment and were funded at the whim of the officers. There was no regulated size or composition, and information on them is fragmentary. In 1773 the 22nd Regiment procured clothing for 11 band members, consisting of scarlet coats with buff facings and silver buttons, and cocked hats with silver lace. The only known instruments are French horns, clarinets and a pair of cymbals, but there were surely some others. Band members are not listed as such on muster rolls and so are difficult to identify; the six men on board the Robust are the only ones of the 22nd to be positively identified. Some are listed as drummers on the muster rolls for their entire careers, while others follow patterns similar to that of John Mayell albeit not on the same dates.

That Mayell was a musician offers additional possibilities to his unusual career path. It was fairly common for soldiers discharged after the Seven Years War in the 1760s to reinlist, and age was less a factor for a man with prior military experience than for a new recruit. That Mayell had been considered unfit for service when examined in 1766 suggests that he was allowed to reinlist specifically because of his musical talent. He may have transferred into the 63rd Regiment because his musical skills were desired in the New York garrison. But these are only speculations. Just as the initial assumption about his enlistment age, based solely on the muster rolls, turned out to be incorrect, so could other assumptions about the bearing of his musical skills on his career. And we know nothing of his shoulder wound, or whether his wife Jane accompanied him to America. Even with five separate sources of information to draw from, much about John Mayell remains a mystery. And yet we know more about him than most.

Thomas Hanley (also Handley and Humly) 18th Regiment of Foot

2012-10-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

This installment is graciously contributed by Dr. Steven M. Baule, who is preparing a study of the service of the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot in America during the decade leading up to the American Revolution. First, I must take the opportunity to mention that my own book, British Soldiers, American War, can be ordered for November delivery from a number of outlets including Revolutionary Imprints. If you enjoy the material in this blog, you’ll really like the book!

Thomas Hanley enlisted in the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot in 1764, while the regiment was near Dublin, Ireland; he may, however, have been recruited in England. Hanley’s military career shows a common thread for musicians. He is promoted to drummer or fifer for a time and then returned to the ranks. It is probable that the men so promoted and reduced were members of the regimental band; officers may have rotated them through the rank of drummer or fifer in order for all of the bandsmen to have equal access to the extra pay allotted to a drummer or fifer (drummers and fifers were paid at the same rate as corporals). Only one member of the 18th Foot was identified in an official document as a “bandsman” between 1767 and 1775 and he did in fact follow this path of being rotated in and out of the rank of drummer and fifer. Not all regiments had a band of music, but the 18th Foot did. Its band is recorded as having played a couple of concerts in Philadelphia while the regiment was stationed there.

Hanley’s first years in the military probably involved learning basic soldier tasks: standing guard, supporting the civil powers in Dublin and possibly learning to play the drum and fife. It isn’t clear when Hanley learned to play an instrument, but he did learn within his first five years in the Royal Irish. Most likely he was able to play one or more of the following: hautboy (oboe), clarinet, serpent, and/or the (French) horn if he was in the band. Military bands of the period appear often to have been made up of about eight musicians including two hautboys, two clarinets, two serpents (an early form of bass horn) and two horns. Unfortunately, the instruments used by the 18th Regiment’s band haven’t been determined.

Hanley marched from Dublin to Cork Harbour in late April 1767 and embarked for America in May. He arrived in Philadelphia with the Royal Irish as a private in Isaac Hamilton’s company on 11 July 1767. If Hanley was already a member of the band, he performed at the commencement ceremonies of Philadelphia College in the spring of 1768. He was transferred to the Lt. Colonel’s company when the regiment was ordered to Illinois in May 1768. It is possible he was transferred so he could serve with the Drum Major and be groomed to become a drummer when a vacancy opened. He didn’t have to wait long with the toll that sickness took on the regiment in Illinois; he was appointed drummer in Captain Lane’s Company on 5 February 1769. He remained with that company, which saw several captains, for the next few years; ultimately, it became Captain Payne’s Coy in 1771. He was reduced from drummer to private on 5 March 1772.

Hanley was stationed at the North Liberties Barracks in Philadephia with eight companies of the Royal Irish and a company of the Royal Artillery. He remained as a private and potentially a member of the regiment’s band of music through the fall of 1774. He was transferred to the Grenadier company as a fifer on 8 October 1774 as the regiment prepared to move from Philadelphia. The Grenadier company and two other companies were ordered to reinforce the garrison. The other five companies marched to New York City.

While in Boston, Hanley was court-martialed on 11 February 1775 for being very drunk on the street after Tattoo and abusing his regimental clothing. He was found guilty and sentenced to 100 lashes. For some reason, most likely prior good conduct, the entire sentence was remitted.

The companies of the 18th Regiment in Boston formed a composite corps with some companies of the 65th Regiment under the command of Lt. Colonel Bruce of the 65th. The 18th’s two fifers were ordered to mount guard whenever Lt. Col. Bruce was on duty. Probably, the two fifers served as additional orderlies for Bruce. As a grenadier, Hanley probably marched to Concord on 19 April and participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June. He was on duty on 7 October 1775 on Charleston Heights when the company was mustered for pay.

The 18th Regiment was drafted in December 1775; that is, the able bodied private soldiers were sent into other regiments and those no longer fit for service were discharged. As a fifer, Hanley wasn’t drafted but instead returned to England with the officers, non-commissioned officers and drummers. Those privates who had previously been drummers or fifers were not drafted either, further supporting the supposition that they were part of the regimental band. They arrived at Portsmouth in February 1776. Hanley was appointed drummer in Captain Hamilton’s company when the regiment was reorganized in southern England in the summer of 1776. He was posted to the Light Infantry company in 1777 and then to the General’s company in 1778.

He was listed as sick on 6 March 1778. He was present at the Camp of Instruction at Coxheath in southern England from June to November 1778. The troops concentrated at Coxheath were prepared to thwart a Franco-Spanish invasion threat that materialized upon the French entry into the America Revolution. He was at Warley Camp in June 1779 and returned to the Grenadier company on 26 August. In June 1780, Hanley was present in Hyde Park, London to enforce civil order after the Gordon Riots. He remained a drummer when the Royal Irish were moved with the rest of the troops at Hyde Park to Finchley in August 1780. In 1781, he was with the regiment when it was posted to the Channel Islands and in 1783, he was sent to Gibraltar. He was listed as a private in the General’s company in July 1784, and is recorded as sick on both returns for 1784. He remained at Gibraltar through 1787. Unfortunately he is simply dropped from the rolls at that point, with no indication of why he left the regiment.

As a senior soldier and a musician, Hanley joined the 41st Regiment of Foot when it was changed from a regiment of invalids to a marching regiment. He served only fourteen months, however, before being discharged at Hilsea Barracks because he was “afflicted with the scurvy” on 24 March 1789.

Hanley appears to have not wished to be discharged, as he traveled to Sheerness and enlisted in Captain James Malcom’s Independent Company of Invalids there. He was discharged from that company after two months service. This discharge on 9 September 1789 appears to have been permanent He was paid nine extra days pay after discharge to provide for his travel home. Nothing more is known about his life after his discharge from the army following 25 years of service.

Moses Bright, 62nd and 7th Regiments of Foot

2012-10-12T12:19:00.001-07:00

On 31 January 1770, a man named Moses Bright from Newbury, county Berkshire, enlisted in the 62nd Regiment of Foot. At 34 he was older than most recruits but not of an unusual age for a soldier in general; most enlistees in this era were in their early twenties. This late start did not distinguish Bright from having a long and interesting military career.

Bright joined his regiment in Ireland in March. He spent the next five years in that country, marching from place to place and learning the ways of army life. By the time the regiment embarked for Canada in early 1776 he was fairly experienced, albeit strictly at peace time soldiering.

His service in America tested his mettle and proved his endurance and loyalty as a soldier. He was wounded on the famous campaign under General Burgoyne in 1777, and taken prisoner under the treaty of Saratoga. Like many of those prisoners, he managed to escape and join the British army in New York City. When he was trasferred into the 7th (Royal Fusiliers) Regiment of Foot in December 1778, he was one of 33 men from Burgoyne's army to do so including 15 from the 62nd Regiment.

With the 7th Regiment Bright and his comrades from the northern army went campaigning again. In July 1779 they participated in raids on the Connecticut seaport towns of New Haven, Fairfield and Norwalk. Moses Bright was again wounded, but again recovered and returned to active service. When the 7th Regiment was sent to serve in the southern colonies in 1780, he was in its ranks. An experienced veteran now, he was appointed corporal on 24 July 1780.

The southern campaign went poorly for the Royal Fusiliers. They were part of the force under Banastre Tarleton that was soundly defeated at the Battle of Cowpens on 17 January 1781. Many men of the regiment were captured including Moses Bright. The seasoned soldier escaped a second time, making his way to Savannah, Georgia where he rejoined elements of his regiment there and was appointed serjeant.

When the war was winding down and the southern colonies were evacuated and prisoners of war repatriated, men of the 7th Regiment of Foot coalesced again in New York. The end of the war brought a reduction in forces, and although the 7th Regiment was sent back to Great Britain many of its men were discharged in America, some to settle there and others to take land grants in Canada. Moses Bright became a supernumerary serjeant when the establishment of his regiment was reduced to include fewer non-commissioned officers. He had the option of remaining in the ranks as a serjeant en seconde, that is, serving as a private soldier while waiting for another serjeant's post to become available. He chose instead to obtain his discharge by finding another man to serve in his place, probably one of the many other discharged British soldiers looking for opportunities in the manpower-reduced British army.

Details on his subsequent life have not been found. He was discharged on a date typical of men who took land grants in Canada. In 1797, however, he petitioned the commissioners of Chelsea Hospitial for an out-pension and provided a testimonial from the current commanding officer of his former regiment. He appears to have served in one of the many invalid companies raised to garrison British coastal installations, receiving a discharge from one in 1802 and from another in 1804 at 68 years of age.

A veteran of campaigns in three theaters of war, twice wounded in battle, twice taken prisoner and twice escaped, everything that we know about Moses Bright's 8 years of service in the American War comes from a few sentences written in his pension petition. It is a shame that we don't have more details about the many experiences that he had.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

John Overon, 22nd Regiment of Foot

2012-09-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

Frequent mention is made here of muster rolls, key documents for chronicling the careers of British soldiers. These primary sources have some limitations and nuances that must be considered, however, and sometimes they are outright misleading.

During the era of the American Revolution, muster rolls were prepared for each six-month period for each company of a regiment. A single roll is a sheet that gives the name and rank of each officer, serjeant, corporal, drummer and private soldier in the company during that six-month period. If a man was not in the company for the entire period, then an annotation gives the date and the event that caused the change: "joined", "enlisted", "entertained", "landed", "from" another company or what have you if he came into the company; or "discharged", "died", "deserted", "to" another company or what have you if he left.

At least, that is the ideal case, and it is generally true for most regiments for most of the war years. But sometimes dates are missing, and sometimes an entire annotation is missing such that men appear for the first time with no date or reason given - or disappear. Sometimes the missing information can be deduced from other sources, sometimes not.

The muster rolls were prepared after the end of the period they described - usually within a month or two, but sometimes not for a few years. This was particularly true when regiments were captured or became very busy with intense campaigning; in some cases, the rolls for an extended period were all prepared at once, in other cases they weren't prepared at all leaving us with gaps in the records.

The purpose of the rolls was financial; each regiment was provided with sums of money to pay its soldiers, and the muster rolls were an ex post facto way of representing where the money went. As such, the dates are deceptive. The date on which a man "enlisted" was the date on which he began drawing pay through the specific company, often months or years after he actually joined the army with a recruiting party, but sometimes when he embarked on a transport before actually joining his regiment in America. When a man was discharged he usually received a few weeks' extra pay to provide for his journey home; the muster rolls give the date through which the man was paid rather than the date on which he actually left the regiment. All of this becomes clear only because, for some men, other information exists that provides actual dates and clarifies the administrative dates given in the rolls.

The geographic distribution of the army also caused nuances in the rolls. A case in point is John Overon, a five-foot-six-inch tall laborer from Balking, Essex who enlisted in the 34th Regiment of Foot in 1769 at the age of 18. He does not appear on the 34th's muster rolls until the second half of 1771. His career can then be easily traced (allowing for variations in the spelling of his name such as "Overhead") through service in Ireland and deployment to America in 1776. The 34th Regiment was sent to Canada and Overon served there for most of the war. In the first half of 1782, in circumstances that we have not yet learned, he was captured; the muster roll for that period denotes him as “Prisoner with the rebels”.

When the war ended, prisoners of war were repatriated. Some did not return, having either died in captivity, escaped and disappeared into the coutryside, or chosen to stay behind after their release. The British army gave a directive that these men be listed on the muster rolls as having "deserted" in June 1783, an arbitrary way to adminstratively write them off. Overon and some other prisoners were not even given this much attention; they simply no longer appear on the rolls. For a researcher attempting to study an individual soldier, this leaves a dead end. The only assumption is that the man had died or chosen to resettle in the colonies.

But that's not what happened to John Overon. He escaped from captivity and made his way not to Canada but to New York. Rather than send him back to Canada, he was drafted into the 22nd Regiment of Foot on 1 January 1782 (another date that sounds suspiciously administrative). He continued to serve in that regiment for another ten years, taking his discharge in Dublin in July 1791 at the age of 40 after 22 years as a soldier, “being affected with a beginning consumption and otherwise infirm and Old.”

The muster rolls of the 22nd Regiment record him simply as having "enlisted" with no indication that he was in fact an experienced soldier from another regiment. The only reason we know he came from the 34th Regiment is because his discharge paper from the 22nd Regiment survives. It gives the number of years he served in each of the two regiments, which correlates perfectly with the muster rolls. Had he not received a pension, this document would not exist and we would have no way of connecting the names on the muster rolls of regiments that were posted so far from each other. There are other men for whom the muster rolls do not tell the complete story, and probably many more with interesting careers that cannot yet be deciphered.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution

John Russell, 26th Regiment of Foot

2012-08-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

Those within a reasonable distance of Fort Montgomery may be interested in attending my lecture on 13 September, dealing with a British soldier who served in the October 1777 storming of that place. This installment concerns another soldier who also probably participated in that action.

John Russell, a soldier in the 26th Regiment of Foot, had some good news awaiting him. He had inherited a valuable estate in his native Scotland, in the lowlands east of Glasgow. We don't know why Russell, son of a freeholder, had enlisted or when. Gaps in the muster rolls of the 26th Regiment prevent us from knowing when he enlisted, but his name is among the prisoners taken at St. Johns, Canada, in November 1775. An American force had surprised and seized a number of British posts between Lake Champlain and Quebec, and the prisoners, John Russell among them, were sent to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Russell fared well enough as a prisoner to be exchanged with the rest of his regiment after about a year of captivity. He was appointed corporal right around the time of the exchange. There is no reason to doubt that he was in the ranks when the regiment participated in the assault on Forts Clinton and Montgomery in October 1777. A month later, he was transferred into the grenadier company, still as a corporal. For reasons not known, he was reduced to private soldier on 5 June 1778. Such reductions were quite common; although sometimes the result of disciplinary infractions, they also occurred when a man's health prevented him from performing his duty, and even sometimes at the request of the soldier himself.

It was over three years later that news of his inheritance arrived in New York. There was only one problem: John Russell was nowhere to be found. The 26th Regiment had been drafted in late 1779; that is, the able-bodied men were transferred into other regiments, the older and unfit men were discharged, and the officers, serjeants and drummers returned to Great Britain to recruit anew. Russell had not returned with them, so word was sent to the army in New York in an effort to seek him out. An ad was placed in the newspaper:

John Russell, some time a corporal in the grenadier company of his Majesty’s late 26th regiment of foot, is desired to apply as soon as possible to James Inglis, vendue master, in New York, who has letters and instructions for him respecting a valuable freehold, and other estate fallen to him by the death of his father Mr. - Russell, of West Craigs, between Glasgow and Falkirk, in Scotland. If he does not apply in a very short time as above, or any where else execute such writings as are necessary to secure said estate, it will be legally seized upon by his brother of a second marriage; and for ever lost. It will be exceeding kind in any person who can give him information of this, or to communicate where he is, so as a letter can be sent to him.

[The New York Gazette, 19 February 1781]

Because the 26th was no longer in New York, there was no way to check the muster rolls which would've informed that Russell had deserted on 13 June 1779. Even if that was known, it was worth the effort to advertise for him; deserters sometimes returned and were drafted into other regiments if their original corps were no longer in the area. And some deserters managed to remain in the area incognito, although we can only wonder whether such a man would've been able to come forward to claim his inheritance without running afoul of military justice. We are left, however, to wonder - no additional information about John Russell has come to light.

18th Century military books and first-hand accounts of the American Revolution