Category: British Soldiery

79. April 19
By Categories: British Soldiery

Reminder: If you’re reading this in your email, you have to go to dpauthor.com and click on the Speaking of Which tab in order to view the actual blog post with the featured image.

Well, it’s almost here—the 250th anniversary of the date that armed combat erupted in a significant way between British troops occupying Boston and the provincial militia, which triggered the longest war in American history prior to Vietnam. At that time, both sides probably shared the same expectant assumption that hostilities were unavoidable in the absence of any change in the mother country’s colonial policy or the attitude of Whig-minded insurrectionists among the body politic—and now, at last, the powder keg had exploded at Lexington and Concord. The wait was over.

In his diary, Frederick MacKenzie, the son of a Dublin merchant who arrived in Boston in 1774 as a lieutenant in the British army (and would be promoted to captain in the fall of 1775), recorded his firsthand observations about the events and dismal outcome of the ill-fated and bloody expedition by his redcoated countrymen, as ordered by General Thomas Gage, into the Massachusetts countryside on April 19, 1775 to secure military supplies gathered by the insurgents. Here are some excerpts from the lieutenant’s entries in the immediate aftermath of the opening clash:

April 19—During the whole of the march from Lexington [as the British withdrew to Boston after they had exchanged shots with the militia at Lexington and Concord], the rebels kept an incessant irregular fire from all points at the column, which was the more galling as our flanking parties, which at first were placed at sufficient distances to cover the march of it, were at last, from the different obstructions they occasionally met with, obliged to keep almost close to it. Our men had very few opportunities of getting good shots at the rebels, as they hardly ever fired but under cover of a stone wall, from behind a tree, or out of a house; and the moment they had fired, they lay down out of sight until they had loaded again or the column had passed…. Many houses were plundered by the soldiers, notwithstanding the efforts of the officers to prevent it. I have no doubt this inflamed the rebels, and made many of them follow us farther than they would otherwise have done.

April 20—It is conceived by many that the expedition to Concord for the destruction of the military stores, which it is said were deposited there in considerable quantities, might have been conducted with greater secrecy, and been effected without the loss which ensued and the consequences which must now inevitably follow….

There was a general muster of all the neighboring militia only the day before (whether by accident, or in consequence of the general’s intention is not certain, but most probably the latter) so that every man was in a state of preparation and equipment. This should have been known, because if their meeting was not on purpose to oppose the troops, there was hardly time for them to disperse and return to their several homes. I believe the fact is that General Gage was not only much deceived with respect to the quantity of military stores said to be collected at Concord but had no conception the rebels would have opposed the king’s troops in the manner they did. But the temper of the people, the preparations they had been making all the winter to oppose the troops should they move out of Boston with hostile intentions, and above all their declared resolution to do so made it evident to most persons that opposition would be made on any attempt to destroy stores and ammunition which they had avowedly collected for the defense of the province….

The troops [are] ordered to lay dressed in their barracks this night.

April 21—The town is now surrounded by armed rebels, who have intercepted all communication with the country.

This was the beginning of the American siege of Boston that would last almost a year and end only when His Majesty’s forces evacuated the city on March 17, 1776—never to return.

On another April 19—exactly eight years later—the pamphleteer Thomas Paine, author of America’s first bestselling publication Common Sense, released the last of his Crisis series, wherein he ruminated about the outcome of the American rebellion. He termed it “a revolution, which to the end of time, must be an honor to the age that accomplished it, and which has contributed more to enlighten the world, and diffuse a spirit of freedom and liberality among mankind, than any human event (if this may be called one) that ever preceded it.”

Sources:

“Frederick MacKenzie: Diary, April 18-21, 1775,” in The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence, ed. John Rhodehamel (The Library of America, 2001), 5-18.

Thomas Paine, “The Last Crisis, Number XVIII,” April 19, 1783, in Thomas Paine, Collected Writings, ed. Eric Foner (The Library of America, 1955), 348-354.

47. The British Soldier in North America
By Categories: British Soldiery

In general, British regulars fought well throughout their struggle against the American rebellion, as attested to by the fact that they won most of the battles in which they were engaged. This is as one would have expected given the proud and long-standing tradition of service exemplified by many of His Majesty’s regiments. They had crossed a wide and tempestuous ocean to fight a war that many historians believe they could not win, or at least could not after the failure of General William Howe, commanding the King’s army in North America, to destroy the Continental Army in 1776 (and even more so after France entered into an alliance with young America in 1778). For notwithstanding Britain’s vaunted naval superiority and her army’s advantages over the rebels in equipment, training, experience, and discipline, the challenges of conquering and holding the vast area encompassed by her thirteen rebellious provinces, and doing so at the end of a three-thousand-mile-long supply line, were arguably insurmountable. In addition, the nature of that domain was particularly problematic for the Crown’s military designs as the predominantly hilly and forested terrain of the New World was very different from the Low Countries of Europe, where most British officers had their formative military experience, and was naturally advantageous to any defending force—which in most cases constituted rebel soldiers.

Most British infantry came from such humble backgrounds as farmers, laborers, and tradesmen, and a small number were convicts who opted for military service over incarceration when given the chance to do so. They had volunteered for the army and many made it a career so as to reap the benefits of steady employment and pay. Notwithstanding its inherent dangers, a soldier’s life represented an appealing alternative to working-class youth in the British Isles who otherwise faced the prospect of long hours of exhausting and sometimes hazardous manual labor or an apprenticeship under exploitative conditions in which they could be overworked or beaten without recourse. Many of His Majesty’s troops believed their unit was the best in the army and were encouraged in their conviction. They were also intensely loyal to the monarchy and in that regard stood in firm opposition to those supporting the American rebellion. The British soldier was motivated by certain ideals that were as important to him as the cause of liberty was to his American counterpart, for to His Majesty’s troops this conflict was not primarily about power or interest but rather a set of values to which they were deeply committed and that generally informed their conduct—discipline, duty, fidelity, honor, loyalty, and service.

For the most comprehensive and contemporary study of British soldiers serving during the Revolutionary War, see Don N. Hagist’s Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution (Westholme, 2020). Don, who is managing editor of the Journal of the American Revolution, has even more recently completed These Distinguished Corps: British Grenadier and Light Infantry Battalions in the American Revolution (Helion & Company, 2021).

23. The Other Side
By Categories: British Soldiery

“Rule, Britannia”

The patriotic British song of that name, written in 1740, originated from the poem ‘Rule, Britannia’ by James Thomson and was set to music by Thomas Arne. One might be tempted to cue its lyrics when contemplating the experience of the British army during the period leading up to the American Revolution, described  by one historian as a record of “victory without equal in the world.”

When the American Revolution began, Britain’s senior military officers and sergeants were seasoned veterans of a momentous global conflict—known as the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) in Europe and the French and Indian War in the American colonies—in which they had triumphed over France and Spain. During the titanic struggle, the redcoats defeated every opposing power they encountered on five continents. An impressive legacy of that remarkable record lay in the various regimental honors that spoke to Albion’s global record of military success during this period—in Europe, at Minden and Emsdorf; in India, at Plassey and Pondicherry; in North America, at Louisbourg and Quebec; in the West Indies, at Guadeloupe and Martinique); in Cuba, at Moro and Havana; in the Mediterranean, at Minorca; in the Philippines, at Manila; and on the African continent, in Senegal.

Arguably as impressive as this pre-Revolution string of victories by his Majesty’s army is the tactical skill it displayed in its effort to suppress the American rebellion during the period from 1775 to 1783. Its prowess in battle may be judged by the fact that during the eight-year-long struggle, British regulars—separate and apart from the German regiments hired by the Crown and American Loyalist units fighting on the side of the redcoats—lost only a handful of battles to rebel troops. And while that aspect of the world war fought by Great Britain against France, Spain, the Netherlands, and the American colonies ended badly for the mother country, the King’s forces succeeded in repelling the American invasion of Canada and achieved an impressive string of victories across the other theaters of combat—the West Indies, Gibraltar, India, and the Atlantic’s high seas,

Who were we fighting?

Most private soldiers in the eighteenth-century British army were of humble origins—farmers, laborers, and tradesmen—while a few were convicts who chose military service over incarceration when given the choice. They had volunteered for the army and many made it their career, as they valued the steady job and pay. However dangerous a soldier’s life might be, it represented an attractive alternative to working-class youth who otherwise faced the prospect of being employed in wearisome and sometimes hazardous manual labor or suffering through a lengthy and harsh apprenticeship.

Patrick O’Donnell observes that many of His Majesty’s soldiers “thought, and were encouraged to believe, that their unit was the best in the army” and harbored “a deep loyalty to their king that set them in firm opposition to the Americans they were battling.” (Washington’s Immortals, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2016, p. 42) These soldiers were driven by “ideals of loyalty, fidelity, honor, duty, discipline, and service that were as sacred to British Regulars as the cause of liberty was to the American rebels,” according to David Hackett Fischer, so that to them the war was not primarily about power or interest but rather “a clash of principles in which they deeply believed.” (Washington’s Crossing, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 50)

Suggested Reading

The following critically acclaimed works are worthy of consideration by the reader interested in learning more about such subjects as the colonial policies that precipitated Great Britain’s war with America, its rank-and-file soldiery during the Revolution, and British political and military leadership of the time:

An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America by Nick Bunker (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014)—a penetrating and superbly written analysis of the origins of the American Revolution from a British perspective that focuses on the last three years before conflict erupted.

Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution by Don N. Hagist (Westholme Publishing, LLC, 2020)—a study of Britain’s enlisted men of the 1770s by a noted American expert on the subject who is managing editor of the Journal of the American Revolution.

The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy (Yale University Press, 2013)—profiles of ten British political and military leaders that in the aggregate tell the story of America’s revolutionary conflict from the British point of view, although authored by an American.

With Zeal and With Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775-1783 by Matthew H. Spring (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008)—an analysis by a British historian at both operational and tactical levels of how His Majesty’s army fought against the American rebellion.