Destructive and Formidable: British Infantry Firepower 1642-1756

by David Blackmore

  4 John Houlding, Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715–1795 (Oxford, 1981), p. 174.

  5 Houlding, Fit for Service, pp. 172–4.

  6 Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 174.

  7 Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 167.

  8 Brigadier General Richard Kane, Campaigns of King William and the Duke of Marlborough, Also a New System of Military Discipline, for a Battalion of Foot on Action (London, 1745) and Robert Parker, Memoirs of the Most Remarkable Military Transactions from the Year 1683 to 1718 (Dublin, 1746), pp. 138–9.

  9 See above, pp. 64–5.

  10 The New Exercise of Firelocks & Bayonets; Appointed by his Grace the Duke of Marlborough to be Used by all the British Forces (London, 1708).

  11 Walter C. Horsley (trans.), The Chronicles of an Old Campaigner, M. De La Colonie, 1692–1717 (London, 1904), pp. 184–5.

  12 Chandler, Marlborough as Military Commander, pp. 141–51; Holmes, Marlborough, pp. 282–96; Charles Spencer, Blenheim: Battle for Europe (London, 2004), pp. 229–91.

  13 BL Add Mss 61408, Josiah Sandby, Journal, f. 159.

  14 BL Add Mss 61408, Josiah Sandby, Journal, f. 159.

  15 National Army Museum, 6807/392A+B, Journal of Robert Stearne, vol. i, n.p.

  16 Parker, Memoirs, p. 89.

  17 BL Add Mss 61408, Josiah Sandby, Journal, f. 168.

  18 David G. Chandler (ed.), A Journal of Marlborough’s Campaigns During the War of the Spanish Succession, 1704–1711, by John Marshall Deane (JSAHR, Special Publication no. 12, London, 1984), p. 11.

  19 David Chandler, Military Memoirs of Marlborough’s Campaigns, 1702– 1712 (London, 1998), pp. 171–2.

  20 Chandler, Marlborough, pp. 172–8; Holmes, Marlborough, pp. 332–47.

  21 BL Add Mss 61371, f. 119, Marlborough’s instructions to Ingoldsby, 4th November 1706.

  22 John Millner, A Compendious Journal of all the Marches, Famous Battles and Sieges (Uckfield, 2004), p. 194.

  23 BL Add Mss 61398, Adam Cardonnel’s letters, June 06 to Sept 07, Whitehall, 16 Dec 1706 to Ingoldsby.

  24 BL Add Mss 61163, Ingoldsby Correspondence, Ingoldsby to Marlborough, 31 December 1706, ff. 44–6.

  25 The Exercise of the Foot with the Evolutions (Dublin, 1701).

  26 BL Add Mss 61163, f. 45.

  27 For the training in general of the British Army during the eighteenth century see Houlding, Fit for Service.

  28 BL Add Mss 61163, Ingoldsby Correspondence, Ghent, 2 March, 1707, to Marlborough.

  29 Humphrey Bland, A Treatise of Military Discipline (London, 1727), p. 146.

  30 Dutch Nationaal Archief, Familiearchief Van Wassenaer van Duvenvoorde, Inv. Nr. 1223, Stukken van Willem Baron van Wassenaer, colonel-commandant van het eerste bataljon gardes.

  31 Mackay, Rules of War, Article VI.

  32 Millner, Compendious Journal, p. 199.

  33 Chandler, Deane, p. 48.

  34 Winston S. Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times (two volumes, London, 1947), vol. ii, p. 448.

  35 C. T. Atkinson, ‘Wynendael’, JSAHR, 34 (1956), p. 30.

  36 Cathcart Mss, National Library of Scotland, Acc 12686, as cited in Atkinson, C. T., ‘Gleanings from the Cathcart Mss’, JSAHR, 29 (1951), p. 67.

  37 Chandler, Marlborough, pp. 213–22; Holmes, Marlborough, pp. 382–90.

  38 Chandler, Deane, p. 60.

  39 Millner, Compendious Journal, p. 216.

  40 Matthew Bishop, The Life and Adventures of Matthew Bishop (London, 1744), p. 169.

  41 Parker, Memoirs, p. 125.

  42 Kane, Campaigns, p. 1.

  43 BL Add Mss 23642, Parker’s letter to Lt. Col. Kane, Dublin, 13 Sept 1708.

  44 Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 177.

  45 Parker, Memoirs, p. 125.

  46 Cornwall Record Office, DD.R.H.839 (formerly DD.R.H.388) Exercise of Firelock and Bayonet . . . appointed by his Excie. Lieut. Genll. Ingoldsby.

  47 BL Add Mss 29477, The Exercise of the Firelock and Bayonett with ye Doublings and Hollow Square.

  48 The New Exercise of Firelocks & Bayonets.

  49 Chandler, Marlborough, pp. 254–67; Holmes, Marlborough, pp. 423–32.

  50 John Wilson, ‘The Journal of John Wilson’, in David G. Chandler (ed.), Military Miscellany II: Manuscripts from Marlborough’s Wars, the American War of Independence and the Boer War (Stroud, 2005) p. 78.

  51 Parker, Memoirs, pp. 138–9.

  52 Parker, Memoirs, pp. 138–9.

  53 Chandler, Art of Warfare, pp. 117–20; Nosworthy, Anatomy of Victory, pp. 56–7; Kane, Campaigns of King William, p. 112.

  54 Mackay, Rules of War, Article XVIII.

  55 D’Auvergne, A Relation, 1692, p. 48.

  56 Chandler, Art of Warfare, p. 78.

  57 BL Add Mss 23642, Parker’s letter to Lt. Col. Kane, Dublin, 13 Sept 1708.

  58 Bishop, Life, p. 213.

  59 BL Add Mss 29477, ff. 117v–107r, the folios with the drill on are written from the back of the book.

  60 BL Add Mss 29477, f. 107v.

  61 BL Stowe Mss, 481, f. 131r.

  62 BL Stowe Mss, 481, f. 131v.

  63 BL Stowe Mss, 481, f. 134v–135r.

  Chapter 6

  1 For an extensive discussion of the negative effects of peacetime soldiering on the army’s readiness for war see John Houlding, Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715–1795 (Oxford, 1981).

  2 Roger, Earl of Orrery, A Treatise of the Art of War (London, 1677); Sir James Turner, Pallas Armata (London, 1683).

  3 Exercise for the Horse, Dragoons and Foot Forces (London, 1728), hereafter the ‘1728 regulations’.

  4 Humphrey Bland, A Treatise of Military Discipline (London, 1727); Brigadier-General Richard Kane, Campaigns of King William and the Duke of Marlborough, Also A New System of Military Discipline, for a Battalion of Foot on Action (London, 1745).

  5 Royal Collection, Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book Extracts, 2/2 f.4r (M), Lt. Col. John La Fausille’s Ms.

  6 Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 179.

  7 Bland, Military Discipline, Preface, n.p.

  8 It went unrevised until the eighth edition of 1759 and the last, ninth edition was published in 1762.

  9 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 73

  10 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 72; Mackay, Rules, Article IX; see above, p. 52.

  11 British Library Add Mss 29477, ff. 117v–107v, see above, p. 91.

  12 Bland, Military Discipline, opposite p. 2

  13 National Army Museum, NAM6807.205, The Exercise of the Firelock and Bayonett that was ordered to be used by all the Regimts in Ireland 1723.

  14 1728 Regulations, p. 80

  15 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 60.

  16 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 69.

  17 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 68.

  18 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 81.

  19 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 68.

  20 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 66.

  21 See above, p. 45.

  22 1728 Regulations, p. 76.

  23 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 127.

  24 Bland, Military Discipline, pp. 67–8.

  25 See above, p. 86.

  26 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 80.

  27 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 79.

  28 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 92.

  29 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 94.

  30 Bland, Military Discipline, pp. 81–2.

  31 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 91.

  32 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 134.

  33 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 133.

  34 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 146.

  35 Kane, Campaigns, p. iv.

  36 Kane, Campaigns, p. 109.

  37 Kane, Campaigns, p. 111.

  38 Kane, Campaigns, p. 112.

  39 Kane, Campaigns, p. 113.

  40 Kane, Campaigns, p. 110.

  41 Kane, Campaigns, p. 117.

  42 Kane, Campaigns, p. 118.

 
43 Kane, Campaigns, pp. 119–20.

  44 Kane, Campaigns, pp. 125–6.

  45 Lieutenant General Richard, 3rd Viscount Molesworth, A Short Course of Standing Rules, For the Government and Conduct of an Army (London, 1744), pp. iv and 12.

  46 Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 147.

  47 In 1726 Henry Hawley, Colonel of the 33rd Foot expressed a preference for wooden ramrods, Rev. P. Sumner (ed.),‘General Hawley’s “Chaos”’, JSAHR, 26 (1948), p. 93; however, in 1754 the 3rd Foot were reported as loading ‘very slow’ in part because they had wooden ramrods, Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 147, n. 105.

  48 Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 194.

  49 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book Extracts, 2/2 ff. 3v–4r (M).

  50 Centre for Kentish Studies (CKS), Amherst Papers, U1350/01/2.

  51 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book Extracts, 2/2 f. 3v (M).

  52 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book Extracts, 2/2 f. 4r (M).

  53 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book Extracts, 2/2 f. 5r (M).

  54 Bland, Military Discipline, pp. 73–4.

  55 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book, 1742, vol. i, 3 February (M).

  56 Rex Whitworth, Field Marshal Lord Ligonier (Oxford, 1958), pp. 69–88.

  57 HMC, Report on the Manuscripts of Mrs. Frankland-Russell-Astley of Chequers Court, Bucks (London, 1900), p. 278.

  58 HMC, Chequers Court, pp. 260–2.

  59 In a letter, Stair wrote: ‘I was entirely ignorant of all the operations of our army, excepting on the day of battle, when I thought it was my duty to meddle. The consequences of our victory might have been as great as our hearts could desire, but those whose advice the King took have not thought fit to take any advantage of the French.’ HMC, Manuscripts of the Earl Of Buckinghamshire (London, 1895), p. 90.

  60 HMC, Chequers Court, p. 252.

  61 Beckles Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (London, 1909), pp. 36–8.

  62 Lieutenant Colonel E. A. H. Webb, History of the 12th (The Suffolk) Regiment (London, 1914), p. 63.

  63 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book Extracts, 2/2 f. 3v (M).

  64 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book Extracts, 2/2 f. 4r (M).

  65 Gentleman’s Magazine, 1743, vol. xiii, p. 386.

  66 Gentleman’s Magazine, 1743, vol. xiii, p. 386.

  67 Webb, Suffolk Regiment, p. 70.

  68 Anon, British Glory Reviv’d (London, 1743), p. 10.

  69 Anon, The Journal of the Battle of Fontenoy . . . translated from the French (London, 1745), p. 6.

  70 Whitworth, Ligonier, pp. 97–104.

  71 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book, vol. 6/88 (M).

  72 William F. Fleming (trans.), The Works of Voltaire (New York, 1901), vol. xvi, p. 238.

  73 Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia (New York, 1864), vol. iv, pp. 438–9.

  74 Fleming, Voltaire, p. 239.

  75 Penny Post or The Morning Advertiser (London), 10–13 May 1745, issue 317.

  76 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Books, vol. 6/176 (M).

  77 Fleming, Voltaire, p. 239.

  78 Mackay, Memoirs, p. 51.

  79 Katherine Tomasson and Francis Buist, Battles of the ’45 (London, 1978), pp. 93–4.

  80 CKS, Amherst Papers, Volume 02, Military Orders 9 November 1745 to 13 December 1745, 30 November, 1745, Amherst MSS, Kent County Record Office.

  81 See above, pp. 56–7.

  82 CKS, Amherst Papers, Volume 02, Military Orders 9 November 1745 to 13 December 1745, 30 November, 1745, Amherst MSS, Kent County Record Office.

  83 Anon, The Report of the Proceedings and Opinion of the Board of General Officers on their Examination into the Conduct, Behaviour, and Proceedings of Lieutenant-General Sir John Cope (London, 1749), pp. 53–4 and 69.

  84 For general accounts of the battles of the ’45 Rebellion see Christopher Duffy, The ’45 (London, 2003); Stuart Reid, 1745: A Military History of the Last Jacobite Rising (Staplehurst, 1996).

  85 For a study of the battle of Falkirk see Geoff B. Bailey, Falkirk or Paradise (Edinburgh, 1996).

  86 London Evening Post, 6 February 1746, issue 2849.

  87 London Evening Post, 30 January 1746, issue 2845.

  88 George Faulkener, The Dublin Journal, 28 January to 1 February 1746, issue 1971.

  89 Anon, The History of the Rebellion in 1745 and 1746 Extracted from the Scots Magazine (Aberdeen, 1755), p. 124.

  90 Nottingham University, Hallward Library, Galway Collection, Ga 12835.

  91 Bland, Military Discipline, pp. 145–7.

  92 Anon, The History of the Rebellion, 1745 and 1746 (no place or date), p. 216.

  93 John Marchant, The History of the Present Rebellion (London, 1746), pp. 398–9.

  94 Anon, The History of the Rebellion, p. 216.

  95 ‘Essay on Regular and Irregular Forces’, Gentleman’s Magazine, 1746, vol. xvi, p. 31.

  96 Cumberland Papers, Box 14/57 (M).

  97 Cumberland Papers, Box 14/7 (M).

  98 See above, p. 98.

  99 Anon, The History of the Rebellion, p. 216; Andrew Henderson, The History of the Rebellion (London, 1758, 5th edn), p. 327; Michael Hughes, A Plain Narrative and Authentic Journal of the Late Rebellion Begun in 1745 (London, 1747), pp. 38–9.

  100 Cumberland Papers, Box 14/7 (M).

  101 Newcastle Journal, 1746, as cited in Stuart Reid, ‘The Battle of Culloden: A Narrative Account’, in Tony Pollard (ed.), Culloden: The History and Archaeology of the Last Clan Battle (Barnsley, 2009), p. 114.

  102 Pollard, Culloden, p. 119.

  103 Pollard, Culloden, p. 114.

  104 Cumberland Papers, Box 14/57 (M), Cumberland to Lord Loudon, 19 April 1746.

  105 Henderson, History of the Rebellion, p. 327.

  106 Hughes, A Plain Narrative, p. 40.

  107 Tomasson and Buist, Battles of the ’45, p. 158.

  108 This figure was arrived at using information in two chapters, ‘The Jacobite Army at Culloden’ and ‘The Battle of Culloden: A Narrative Account’ by Stuart Reid in Pollard, Culloden.

  109 Anon, The History of the Rebellion ... from the Scots Magazine, p. 197.

  110 Nottingham University, Hallward Library, Galway Collection, Ga 12835.

  111 Whitworth, Ligonier, pp. 134–41.

  112 Whitworth, Ligonier, pp. 149–60.

  113 Gentleman’s Magazine, 1747, vol. xvii, p. 345.

  114 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book Extracts, 2/2 f. 61v (M); and Anon, A System of Camp Discipline... Kane’s Discipline for a Battalion on Action... General Kane’s Campaigns... (London, 1757), pp. 29–31.

  115 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book, 4/165 (M).

  116 Amherst Papers, Volume 02, Military Orders 9 November 1745 to 13 December 1745, 30 November, 1745, Amherst MSS, Kent County Record Office.

  117 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book 5/89 (M); and Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 418.

  118 Cumberland Papers, Box 14/7 (M).

  119 Anon, The History of the Rebellion … from the Scots Magazine, p. 197.

  120 Cumberland Papers, vol. 2/2 3v (M).

  121 Cumberland Papers, vol. 2/2 4v and 4r (M).

  Chapter 7

  1 Tom Pocock, Battle for Empire: The Very First World War, 1756–63 (London, 2002), p. 13; John Mollo, Uniforms of the Seven Years War, 1756–1763 (New York, 1977), p. 7.

  2 Frank McLynn, 1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World (London, 2005), p. 276; and Jeremy Black, Warfare in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1999), p. 188.

  3 David Chandler, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough (Staplehurst, 1990), pp. 130–1.

  4 Comte Maurice de Saxe, Reveries or Memoirs Concerning the Art of War, trans. Sir William Fawcett (London, 1757).

  5 Chandler, Art of War, pp. 131–6.

  6 Brent Nosworthy, The Anatomy of Victory: Battle Tactics 1689–1763 (new York, 1992), pp. 60–1.

  7 Chandler, Art of War, p. 125.

  8 Nosworthy, Anatomy of Victory, p. 201.

  9 Frederic Bere, L’Armee Fr
ancais (Paris, n.d.), p. 42, as cited in Nosworthy, Anatomy of Victory, p. 208.

  10 Nosworthy, Anatomy of Victory, pp. 209–10.

  11 Knoch, ‘The insufficiency of fire-arms for attack or defence, demonstrated from facts, &c’, The Edinburgh Magazine, 3 (November 1759), pp. 583–85.

  12 James Wolfe, General Wolfe’s Instructions to Young Officers (London, 1967), p. 32.

  13 Wolfe, Instructions, p. 35.

  14 For a general treatment of Wolfe as a professional army officer see Stuart Reid, Wolfe: The Career of General James Wolfe from Culloden to Quebec (Staplehurst, 2000).

  15 William C. Lowe, ‘Lennox, Charles, third duke of Richmond, third duke of Lennox, and duke of Aubigny in the French nobility (1735–1806)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, October 2008 (www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16451, accessed 27 Feb 2012).

  16 Major General R. H. Whitworth, ‘Some unpublished Wolfe letters’, JSAHR, 53 (1975), pp. 65–86.

  17 See Figure 6.5 above, p. 117.

  18 Duke of Cumberland to Lord Barrington, 28 August 1757, in Stanley Pargellis, Military Affairs in North America, 1748–1765: Selected Documents from the Cumberland Papers in Windsor Castle (New York and London, 1936), p. 398.

  19 A New Exercise to be observed by His Majesty’s Troops on the Establishment of Great Britain and Ireland (London, April 1756).

  20 Wolfe, Instructions, p. 55.

  21 Wolfe, Instructions, p. 34.

  22 Anon., The Complete Militia-Man (London), 1760, p. xiii.

  23 Wolfe, Instructions, pp. 34–5.

  24 Wolfe, Instructions, p. 49.

  25 Wolfe, Instructions, p. 49.

  26 Wolfe, Instructions, p. 52.

  27 Wolfe, Instructions, p. 40.

  28 For the full genesis of the 1756/7 regulations see John Houlding, Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715–1795 (Oxford, 1981), pp. 198–201.

  29 Bland states that for firing the ranks should be two paces apart when firing, that is six feet. Humphrey Bland, A Treatise of Military Discipline (London, 1727), p.10; and 1728 Regulations, p.76.

  30 A New Exercise to be Observed by His Majesty’s Troops on the Establishment of Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1757); and New Manual Exercise as Performed by His Majesty’s Dragoons, Foot Guards, Foot, Artillery, Marines And by the Militia (London, 1758), pp. 15–16.

  31 Exercise for the Horse, Dragoons and Foot Forces (London, 1728), hereafter 1728 Regulations, pp. 22–5.