Fusiliers (55 page)
British troops seizing Rhode Island in 1776 (detail), drawn by an eyewitness, one of the impressive amphibious operations launched by the Howe brothers. The troops in the rowboats also wear uniforms adapted for the campaign.
With the arrival of Admiral d’Estaing’s squadron in American waters in 1778, British naval superiority was lost. Only the storm that dismasted the French flagship,
Languedoc
, and other vessels, leaving them at the mercy of British ships, here the
Renown
, prevented dire consequences.
A later view of British soldiers attempting to storm one of Yorktown’s outer redoubts. The emphasis is on the patriotic drama of the moment, rather than accurate depiction.
The taking of the British ship
Romulus
in Chesapeake Bay was one of a series of naval setbacks that announced the arrival of a powerful French squadron off Virginia and sealed the fate of Britain’s Yorktown garrison.
The march to Yorktown’s surrender field, drawn by an artist who witnessed the scene (detail).
Abbreviations Used for Manuscript Sources
| BL | British Library, London |
| CHT | Claydon House Trust (the Verney Papers) |
| DLAR | David Library of the American Revolution, Pennsylvania |
| DON | Duke of Northumberland’s papers, Alnwick Castle |
| HMC | Historical Manuscripts Commission |
| HSD | Historical Society of Delaware |
| LBRO | Luton and Bedfordshire Record Office |
| LRO | Lancashire Record Office |
| LOC | Library of Congress, Washington dc |
| NAS | National Archive of Scotland, Edinburgh |
| NYPL | New York Public Library |
| REF | Royal Welch Fusiliers Archive, Caernarfon, Wales |
| SRO | Staffordshire Record Office |
| TAN | The National Archive, Kew, England |
| UND | University of New Brunswick, Canada |
| WLCL | William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor Michigan |
The March From Boston, 19 April 1775
1 ‘
It was around 9 a.m
.’: Frederick Mackenzie’s journal, published as
A British
Fusilier in Revolutionary Boston
, edited by Allen French, Boston 1926.
— ‘
After him tramped two regiments of foot
’: the 4th and 47th. Since most British regiments fighting in American deployed a single battalion, the terms regiment and battalion are used interchangeably in this narrative. The British Marines, at this time, had not yet become ‘Royal’.
— ‘
The eight companies of Fusiliers
’: the figures are approximate because Mackenzie gives a figure for rank and file (314) but not one for officers, musicians or serjeants.
2 ‘
few or no people were to be seen
’: Mackenzie,
British Fusilier
.
— ‘
It has everywhere the appearance of a park
’: Percy’s letter of 18 August 1774, printed in
Letters of Hugh Earl Percy from Boston and New York
1774–1776, edited by Charles Knowles Bolton, Boston 1902.
3 ‘
Never did any nation so much deserve to be made an example of
’: this was a letter of 6 December 1774, in
Memoirs and Letters of Captain
W.
Glanville Evelyn
, edited by G. D. Scull, Oxford 1879.
4 ‘
This country is now in as open a state of rebellion
’: Percy’s letter of 12 September 1774, printed in Bolton’s edition.
— ‘
so they pressed on proudly to the tune of “Yankee Doodle
”’: see the account of William Gordon, ‘Letter Written by an American Clergyman’, article in
Journal of American History
, vol. 4, January–March 1910.
— ‘
Captain-Lieutenant Thomas Mecan
’: details of his service from
TNA: PRO
WO
27 files at the British National Archives (inspection returns of regiments of foot) and Mecan’s memorandum of service dated 25 June 1775, Gage Papers,
WLCL
.
5
‘Robert Mason’
: details of his service from
TNA: PRO WO
12 files (muster rolls) and wo 71 (Judge Advocate) at Kew. Grimes’ details,
WO
12.
— ‘
From this casualty, the brigadier learnt
’: Mackenzie.
The Royal Welch Fusiliers on the Eve of Revolution
7 ‘
The delights awaiting
’: this dinner is described in Mackenzie’s journal, and Robert Donkin’s
Military Collections and Remarks
, New York 1777.
— ‘
As respectable a corps of gentlemen
’: this letter was from James Rivington, the New York publisher and loyalist, to Henry Knox, Boston bookseller and later commander of George Washington’s artillery; it is cited in
Historic
Mansions and Highways Around Boston
, by Samuel Adams Drake, Cambridge
MA
. 1899.
8 ‘
His father John has been wounded
’: an interesting detail from
Officers of
the Royal Welch Fusiliers (
23rd
Regiment of Foot) 16 March 1689 to
4
August 1914
, compiled by Major E. L. Kirby
MC TD FMA DL
, privately published for the regiment in the 1990s.
— ‘
Old Mindonians
’: this term is used in a letter of 26 August 1780 from Lieutenant Thomas Barretté to General Henry Clinton, in the Clinton Papers,
WLCL
. Barretté was a latecomer to the 23rd, having joined in 1778.
— ‘
A couple still bore the scars
’: Grey Grove and David Ferguson were among those wounded. Details of Minden in this passage were taken mainly from
Regimental Records of the Royal Welch Fusiliers
, compiled by A. D. L. Cary and Stouppe McCance, vol. I, 1689–1815, London 1921.
— ‘
Such ease and expertise these
Fusileers
shew
’: the poem was printed in the
New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury
, no. 1149, 1 November 1773. It is attributed to ‘J. H.’.
9 ‘
nothing should induce him to go to America
’: this was Horsfall quoted in a letter from Mackenzie to his father in
A British Fusilier
.
— ‘
The captain commanding the regiment’s grenadiers
’: William Blakeney’s attitudes will be described later and his reluctance to serve will be seen in letters in
TNA: PRO WO
1.
9 ‘
quite reverses our characters
’: Williams’ journal was published as
Discord
and Civil Wars, being a Journal Kept by Lieutenant Williams
, edited by Walter S. Merwin, Buffalo
NY
1954.
10 ‘
Though I must confess I should like to try what stuff I am made of
’: letter of 5 December 1774 by George Harris of 5th Regiment in
The Life and
Service of General, Lord Harris
, by Stephen R. Lushington, London 1840.
— ‘
These people, most of them originally Scotch or Irish
’: Blunt’s letter to Sir Thomas Wilson, 6 July 1774
BL ADD MS
49607
A
. It also contains an early reference to the rebels calling themselves ‘Patriots’.
— ‘
Grey Grove, who had a reputation
’: Mackenzie describes him as a drunk, saying that Grove often needed his ‘dose’ twice a day during the passage from England; his bitterness about being passed over is shown in a letter of 4 March 1775 in
TNA: PRO WO
1/2.
— ‘
had been petitioning unsuccessfully for removal to a staff job
’: a letter from the Secretary at War to Captain Joseph Ferguson of the 23rd, 9November 1775, alludes to his earlier requests. In
TNA: PRO WO
4/95. Ferguson’s younger brother David was also anxious to get promoted out of the regiment. Donkin was also trying to get a staff job.
11 ‘
Robert Donkin, the regimental savant
’: his knowledge of these subjects is shown in the book
Military Collections
; the Secretary at War’s response to his requests for removal to the staff, dated 18 July 1772, is in
TNA: PRO WO
4/90.
— ‘
only the youngest … cheerful about his duty
’: Captain Edward Evans, according to Mackenzie.
— ‘
Bernard and Grove were well into their forties
’: the ages of many of these officers can be found in
TNA: PRO WO
27 files, Inspection Returns. Some other details from Kirby and the ‘Army List’ annually published by the War Office.
— ‘
One or two … could call on considerable reserves of family cash
’: I am referring here particularly to the Ferguson brothers. Mackenzie refers to Ferguson’s wealth, and a later letter from Joseph Ferguson to Earl Percy (in don) indicates his willingness and ability to buy the lieutenant colonelcy of the 23rd – it will be dealt with in a later chapter.
— ‘
Donkin, on the other hand, had some powerful friends
’: his letters and
Military Collections
show he enjoyed Earl Granard’s patronage early in his career, then Gage’s and later Henry Clinton’s. Donkin also tried to forge connections with Earl Percy, and it seems from his papers that a letter cited later shows Donkin’s inability to buy his promotion.
— ‘
he had shown himself to have limited influence
’: see Bernard’s letter to the Secretary at War, 1 February 1775, in
TNA: PRO WO
1/2, about an unsuccessful attempt to get a relative commissioned into the regiment.
12 ‘
just three days later captains Grove and Blakeney joined
’: letter of 4 March 1775 in
TNA: PRO WO
1/2.
— ‘
nothing is more mortifying to an old soldier
’: letter from Captain Mackintosh, 10th Regiment, to the Secretary at War, 8 January 1776, in
TNA: PRO WO
1/992. It alludes to an earlier appeal to Gage.
13 ‘
the animal gave such a spring from the floor
’: Donkin.
— ‘
Our fathers having nobly resolved
’: the text of Warren’s address can be found in
American Archives, Containing a Documentary History of The
English Colonies in North America
, 4th series, vol. 2, by Peter Force, Washington 1839.
14 ‘
several British officers signalled their disgust
’: this sequence of events is agreed both by a British report, Mackenzie, and an American one quoted in Force.
— ‘
You and I must settle it first
’: Force. The officer’s uniform is described in this account as having blue facings and gold lace – the same distinctions as the 23rd’s. Was this angry officer Mackenzie, perhaps?
15 ‘
The people here are a set of sly, artful, hypocritical
’: letter to his second cousin 8 August 1774, Bolton.
16 ‘
Few were Welsh
’: the Inspection Returns,
TNA: PRO WO
27, give national breakdowns for 1770 and 1771 that suggest 80 per cent of soldiers were English. However, while Irish and Scots are separately defined in these records, Welsh are not, being lumped in with English. Even so, analysis both of where the regiment recruited, and the men’s surnames in
WO
12, Muster Rolls, confirms that the proportion of Welsh would be no higher than one would expect nationally.
WO
27 records also give the length of service of soldiers in the regiment, their heights and other interesting details.
—
‘My chief intention’: From Redcoat to Rebel: The Thomas Sullivan Journal
, edited by Joseph Lee Boyle, Westminster
MD
, 2004.
— ‘
afraid to return and tell my father
’: this is Roger Lamb, who originally enlisted in the 9th but from whom we will hear much later. He wrote two memoirs,
An Original and Authentic Journal of Occurences during the Late
American War
, Dublin 1809, and
Memoir of His Own Life
, 1811. A redacted version of these two texts by Don Hagist was published in Baraboo WI, in 2004, as
A British Soldier’s Story
.
— ‘
some tried … leapt to their deaths in the sea
’: Lamb.
17 ‘
two dozen soldiers of the Royal Welch had absconded
’: desertions are recorded in
TNA: PRO WO
12/3960, the 23rd’s Muster Rolls for 1774–85.
— ‘
Watson was a ladies’ man
’: his courtship of a New York woman is revealed in
TNA: PRO WO
71/83, the record of his court martial (after he was arrested in that city).
— ‘
William Hewitt, who deserted the Fusiliers
’:
TNA: PRO WO
12/3960; Hewitt’s story is also the subject of a family memoir: details are given in James Hewitt’s research on his ancestor on the web at www.thehewitt.net.
— ‘
finding they were striving to throw off the yoke
’: Sullivan journal.
18 ‘
General Gage rarely allowed executions
’: for evidence of one hanging that did go ahead in September 1774, witnessed by John Andrews, see
Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings
, 8 (1864–65), p. 367.
— ‘
harsh punishment was out of fashion in the British army
’: quite a few historians have made the mistake of assuming that the death sentences and large tariffs of lashes ordered by courts martial were always, or indeed often, carried out. Research on the Muster Rolls,
TNA: PRO WO
12/3960 shows that no man of the 23rd sentenced to death during the American war was actually executed. Furthermore the comments of Adye, Mackenzie, Peebles, Barker and other officers explicitly refer to the policy of pardons and lenient treatment of offenders.
18 ‘
I disapprove of making capital punishments too familiar
’:
A Treatise on
Courts Martial
, by Stephen Payne Adye, London 1778.
— ‘
Lieutenant Colonel Bernard’s instincts
’: at the court martial of John Jermon, Bernard’s lenity was noted. The record is in
TNA: PRO WO
71/79.