Destructive and Formidable: British Infantry Firepower 1642-1756

by David Blackmore

  32 Reverend Percy Sumner (ed.), ‘General Hawley’s “Chaos”’, JSAHR, 26 (1948), p. 93.

  33 Cumberland Papers, Order Book, 30 April to 18 June 1748 (M).

  34 A New Exercise, 1757, p. 9.

  35 See above, pp. 91–2.

  36 See above, p. 98.

  37 A New Exercise, 1757, p. 5.

  38 For an example of such criticism see British Library, Add Mss 27892, Brig. Gen. James Douglass, Schola Martis, or the Art of War . . . as Practised in Flanders, in the Wars, from Anno 1688 to An: 1714, f. 219r.

  39 The feather spring is at the muzzle end of the musket lock and acts on the pan cover and frizzen, holding it either open or closed. A New Exercise, 1757. pp. 7–8.

  40 New Manual Exercise, 1758, p. 13.

  41 A New Exercise, 1757, p. 10.

  42 A New Exercise, 1757, p. 6.

  43 Bland, Military Discipline, p. 10.

  44 Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 199.

  45 Douglass, Schola Martis, f. 219r.

  46 See above, pp. 111–12.

  47 ‘Observations relating to military exercise as now practised in the English Army’, Lloyd’s Evening Post and British Chronicle (London, 1759), 28–30 March 1759, p. 310, the piece was written in 1757.

  48 Anon., The Complete Militia-Man (London, 1760), p. 38. Square toes is a reference to old-fashioned footwear and thus, here, to the older officers of the army.

  49 Anon, A System of Camp Discipline . . . to which is Added General Kane’s Campaigns of King William (London, 1757), p. 59.

  50 See above, p. 112.

  51 ‘An officer’s observations on the present methods of firing, from his letter to his friend, lately published’, London Magazine or Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer, 29 (December 1760), p. 631.

  52 ‘Observations on the present methods of firing’, London Magazine, p. 631.

  53 ‘Observations on the present methods of firing’, London Magazine, pp. 632–3.

  54 Wolfe, Instructions, p. 35.

  55 ‘Observations on the present methods of firing’, London Magazine, pp. 631–2.

  56 David Blackmore, British Cavalry of the Mid-18th Century (Nottingham, 2008), pp. 80–1.

  57 ‘Observations on the present methods of firing’, London Magazine, p. 631.

  58 Anon., ‘Observations relating to Military Exercise’, p.310.

  59 ‘A letter from an officer to his friend’, Monthly Review (November 1760), pp. 375–7.

  60 The Complete Militia-Man, p. xi.

  61 The Complete Militia-Man, p. 38.

  62 The Duke of Richmond to Lord George Lennox, 9 September 1757, in HMC, Bathurst Manuscripts, p. 681.

  63 Duke of Cumberland to Lord Barrington, 28 August 1757, in Pargellis, Military Affairs, p. 398, quoted above, p. 123.

  64 Rex Whitworth, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland: A Life (Barnsley, 1992), pp. 194–9.

  65 Wolfe, Instructions, p. 45 and the Duke of Richmond to Lord George Lennox, 9 September 1757, Bathurst Manuscripts, p. 681.

  66 The Complete Militia-Man, p. 42.

  67 The Complete Militia-Man, p. 42.

  68 The Duke of Richmond to Lord George Lennox, 9 September 1757, Bathurst Manuscripts, p. 681

  69 Wolf, Instructions, pp. 48–50.

  70 Campbell Dalrymple, A Military Essay (London, 1761), p. 51, also says that good infantry could fire four times a minute.

  71 Knoch, ‘The insufficiency of fire-arms for attack or defence, demonstrated from facts, &c’, Edinburgh Magazine, 3 (November 1759), pp. 583–5.

  72 The Complete Militia-Man, p. 75.

  73 Cumberland Papers, Orderly Book Extracts, 2/2 f. 4r, see above, p. 104.

  74 Wolfe, Instructions, p. 49, see above, p. 124.

  75 The Complete Militia-Man, p. 74.

  76 Reid, Wolfe, p. 115.

  77 William Windham, A Plan of Discipline for the Use of The Norfolk Militia (London, 1759), n.p. (advertisement) and p. 11.

  78 The Duke of Richmond to Lord George Lennox, 9 September 1757, Bathurst Manuscripts, p. 681.

  79 Mackay, Rules of War, Article X, see above, pp. 58–9.

  80 The Complete Militia-Man, p. 84.

  81 Nosworthy, Anatomy of Victory, pp. 276–7.

  82 Christopher Duffy, The Military Experience in the Age of Reason (Ware, 1998), pp. 207–9.

  83 George Durant, ‘Journal of the expedition to Martinique and Guadeloupe, October 1758 – May 1759’, in Alan J. Guy, R. N. W. Thomas and Gerard J. deGroot (eds.), Military Miscellany I (Stroud, 1997), p. 51.

  84 Andrew Cormack and Alan Jones (eds.), The Journal of Corporal Todd, 1745–1762 (Stroud, 2001), p. 182.

  85 HMC, Manuscripts of M L Clements (London, 1913), pp. 560–1.

  86 www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=1759-08-01_-_Battle_of_Minden (accessed 3 March 2012); http://vial.jean.free.fr/new_npi/revues_npi/4_1998/npi_498/4_odbf_010859.htm (accessed 3 March, 2012).

  87 NAM 7510/92, A copy of a letter written by an officer of the 12th Foot to his mother on the 9th August 1759.

  88 Cormack and Jones, The Journal of Corporal Todd, p. 63.

  89 NAM 7510/92.

  90 NAM 7510/92.

  91 NAM 7510/92.

  92 ‘A Letter from Mons. De Contades to Marchal Belleisle, in answer to his published in the London Gazette of the 18th of August’, London Chronicle (Semi Annual), 423, 11–13 September 1759.

  93 The Hon. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the Army (London, 1899–1930), vol. ii, p. 517.

  94 Cormack and Jones, The Journal of Corporal Todd, p. 141.

  95 Cormack and Jones, The Journal of Corporal Todd, p. 143.

  96 Cormack and Jones, The Journal of Corporal Todd, p. 177.

  97 Cormack and Jones, The Journal of Corporal Todd, p. 165.

  98 Fortescue, History of the Army, vol. ii, p. 530.

  99 Cormack and Jones, The Journal of Corporal Todd, pp. 165–6.

  100 A New Manual and Platoon Exercise, with an Explanation (Dublin, 1764), pp. 5–6.

  101 The Manual Exercise as Ordered by His Majesty in 1764 Together with Plans and Explanations of the Method Generally Practis’d at Reviews and Field Days (Boston, 1774), pp. 15–16.

  102 A New Manual and Platoon Exercise, with an Explanation (Dublin, 1764), pp. 15–19.

  103 Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 418.

  104 See above, p. 111.

  Chapter 8

  1 The nature of the challenges presented to the British Army by the North American environment are discussed in full in Stephen Brumwell, Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755–1763 (Cambridge, 2002).

  2 Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (Toronto, London and New York, 2000).

  3 Stuart Reid, Wolfe: The Career of General James Wolfe from Culloden to Quebec (Staplehurst, 2000), p. 200.

  4 Saul David, All the King’s Men: The British Soldier from the Restoration to Waterloo (London, 2012), p. 188.

  5 The Hon. J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. ii (London, 1899), p. 381.

  6 Colonel J. F. C. Fuller, British Light Infantry in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1925).

  7 David Gates, The British Light Infantry Arm, c. 1790–1815 (London, 1987).

  8 Ian M. McCulloch and Tim J. Todish, British Light Infantryman of the Seven Years’ War, North America, 1757–63 (Oxford, 2004).

  9 Brumwell, Redcoats, chapters 6 and 7.

  10 Brumwell, Redcoats, p. 193.

  11 Brumwell, Redcoats, p. 6.

  12 ‘Reflections on the War with the Savages of North America’, in William Smith, An Historical Account of the Expedition against the Ohio Indians in the Year MDCCLXIV under the Command of Henry Bouquet Esq. (London, 1766), pp. 45–6. The author of these reflections is identified as Bouquet by Brumwell, Redcoats, p. 198, n. 24.

  13 The Journal of Robert Orme, Lieutenant, Orders given at Alexandria 27 March 1755, in Winthrop Sargent (ed.), The History of an Expediti
on against Fort DuQuesne in 1755 (Philadelphia, 1856), p. 293; Halkett’s Orderly Book, Orders 27 March 1755, in C. Hamilton (ed.), Braddock’s Defeat (Norman, Oklahoma, 1959).

  14 Pierre Pouchot, Memoirs on the Late War in North America between France and England, ed. Brian Leigh Dunnigan, trans. Michael Cardy (Youngstown, 1994), p. 82.

  15 The Public Advertiser, 3 November 1755, in N. Darnell Davis, ‘British Newspaper Accounts of Braddock’s Defeat’, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, October 1899.

  16 The Journal of Captain Robert Cholmley’s Batman, in C. Hamilton (ed.), Braddock’s Defeat (Norman, Oklahoma, 1959), p. 28.

  17 The Journal of a British Officer, in C. Hamilton (ed.), Braddock’s Defeat (Norman, Oklahoma, 1959) p. 50.

  18 The Journal of Captain Robert Cholmley’s Batman, p. 28.

  19 The Journal of Robert Orme, p. 356.

  20 London Evening Post, 26–28 August 1755, in Davis, ‘Newspaper Accounts’.

  21 Pouchot, Memoirs, p. 139; The Journal of Robert Orme, p. 356.

  22 Journal of the Operations of the Army from 22nd July to 30th September, 1755, Departement de la Guerre, Paris, in E. B. O’Callaghan and B. Fernow (eds.), Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York (Albany, 1853–7), vol. x, pp. 337–8.

  23 The Journal of a British Officer, p. 50.

  24 Pouchot, Memoirs, p. 83.

  25 Gentleman’s Magazine, August 1755, p. 380.

  26 Letter to his father, 21 September 1755, Beckles Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (London, 1909), p. 274.

  27 Stanley Pargellis, ‘Braddock’s Defeat’, American Historical Review, 41:2 (January 1936), pp. 253–69.

  28 Samuel Blodget, A Prospective Plan of the Battle near Lake George and the Eighth Day of September, 1755 (London, 1756), p. 4.

  29 Major Robert Rogers, Journals of Major Robert Rogers (London, 1765), pp. 59–65.

  30 Captain John Knox, An Historical Journal of the Campaigns in North America for the Years 1757, 1758, 1759 and 1760 (London, 1769), vol. i, pp. 6 and 54.

  31 Smith, Expedition against the Ohio Indians p. 49.

  32 Huntington Library, LO 6927, George Scott’s proposal for light infantry, 13 February 1758.

  33 Huntington Library, LO 5065, 5072, 5074, 5075.

  34 Knox, Journal, vol. i, pp. 159–60.

  35 Orders at Halifax, 12 May 1758, Knox, Journal, vol. i, p. 161.

  36 CSK, Amherst Papers, Orders before Louisbourg, 1758, U1350/ 030/1, Amherst MSS, Kent County Record Office.

  37 Knox, Journal, vol. i, p. 273.

  38 Knox, Journal, vol. i, p. 314.

  39 Huntington Library, LO 1060, Robert Napier, Exercises for the American Forces, approved by His Royal Highness, 18 April 1756.

  40 Wolfe to Lord George Sackville, Halifax, 24 May 1758, in Willson, Wolfe, pp. 366–9.

  41 Stanley M. Pargellis, Lord Loudon in North America, (Yale 1933, reprint 1968), p. 299.

  42 National Archives of Scotland, RH 4/86/2, Undated memo in Forbes’ hand (early 1757).

  43 British Library Add Ms 21640 f. 70, 27 June 1758.

  44 Brumwell, Redcoats, p. 217; and Pargellis, Lord Loudon in North America, p. 300.

  45 Forbes to Bouquet, 7 June 1758, in S. K. Stevens, Donald H. Kent and Autumn L. Leonard (eds.), The Papers of Henry Bouquet (Harrisburg, 1951), vol. ii, p. 50.

  46 William A. Hunter (ed.), ‘Thomas Barton and the Forbes Expedition’, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 95:4 (1971), pp. 431–83; p. 449.

  47 Hunter, ‘Thomas Barton’, pp. 431–83; p. 450.

  48 7 August 1758, Stevens, Bouquet, vol. ii, p. 673.

  49 CKS, Amherst Papers, U1350/0100/2, 18 June, 1758, Amherst MSS, Kent County Record Office.

  50 CKS, Amherst Papers, U1350/0100/2 10 July 1758, Amherst MSS, Kent County Record Office.

  51 Stephens, Bouquet, vol. ii, p. 634.

  52 Comte Maurice de Saxe, Reveries or Memoirs Concerning the Art of War, trans. Sir William Fawcett (London, 1757), p. 72.

  53 Knox, Journal, vol. i, p. 369.

  54 Paul E. Kopperman, ‘Braddock, Edward (bap. 1695, d. 1755)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 (www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3170, accessed 6 April 2012).

  55 William Faucitt (trans.), Regulations for the Prussian Infantry, Translated from the German Original (London, 1754).

  56 Anderson, Crucible of War, p. 72; John Houlding, Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715–1795 (Oxford, 1981), p. 421.

  57 CKS, Amherst Papers, U1350/030/1, Amherst MSS, Kent County Record Office.

  58 William C. Lowe, ‘Amherst, Jeffrey, first Baron Amherst (1717–1797)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2010 (www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/443, accessed 6 April 2012).

  59 Orders, 5 May 1759, Knox, Journal, vol. i, pp. 360–1.

  60 Knox, Journal, vol. i, p. 270.

  61 Knox, Journal, vol. i, p. 239.

  62 Knox, Journal, vol. i, p. 233.

  63 Knox, Journal, vol. i, pp. 331–2.

  64 Knox, Journal, vol. i, p. 332.

  65 Knox, Journal, vol. i, p.385.

  66 J. Clarence Webster (ed.), The Journal of Jeffrey Amherst, 1758–1763 (Toronto, 1931), p. 224.

  67 ‘A Journal of the Expedition up the River St Lawrence by the Serjeant-Major of Gen. Hopson’s Grenadiers’, in A. Doughty and G. W. Parmalee, The Siege of Quebec and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (Quebec, 1901), vol. v, p. 5.

  68 ‘Letters and papers relating to the Siege of Quebec in the possession of the Marquess Townshend’, in Doughty and Parmalee, Siege of Quebec, vol. v., p. 257.

  69 ‘The journal of Major Moncrieff’, in Doughty and Parmalee, Siege of Quebec, vol. v., p. 47.

  70 ‘Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec and total reduction of Canada in 1759 and 1760 by John Johnson, clerk and quarter mas’r sergeant to the 58th Reg’t’, in Doughty and Parmalee, Siege of Quebec, vol v, pp. 116–17.

  71 Louis M. Waddell (ed.), The Papers of Henry Bouquet (Harrisburg, 1994), pp. 339–43.

  72 Robert Kirk, The Memoirs of Robert Kirk, Late of the Royal Highland Regiment, Written by Himself (Limerick, 1791), pp. 77–9.

  73 Brigadier R. Alexander (ed.), ‘The Capture of Quebec. A Manuscript Journal Relating to the Operations Before Quebec From 8th May, 1759, to 17th May, 1760, Kept by Colonel Malcolm Fraser. Then Lieutenant in the 78th Foot (Fraser’s Highlanders)’, JSAHR, 18 (1939), pp. 135–68; 140–1.

  74 ‘Extract of a letter from an officer in the regulars, dated July 10, 1761’, London Evening Post, 3–5 September 1761, issue 5284.

  75 The National Archives, WO 34/53 f. 6, Massey to Amherst, Oswego, 30 July 1759; The National Archives, PRO 30/8/49 f. 9, Massey to Amherst, Oswego, 30 July 1759; Captain Charles Lee to Sir William Bunbury, 9 August, 1759, in New York Historical Society, Collections of the New York Historical Society for the Year 1871 (New York, 1872), vol. I, p. 21.

  76 Reid, Wolfe, pp. 189–94.

  77 Knox, Journal, vol. i, p. 385.

  78 Knox, Journal, vol. ii, p. 70.

  79 Knox, Journal, vol. ii, p. 70.

  80 Knox, Journal, vol. ii, p.70; ‘Letters . . . of the Marquess Townshend’, in Doughty and Parmalee, Siege of Quebec, vol. v, p. 217; ‘Expedition up the River St Lawrence’, in Doughty and Parmalee, Siege of Quebec, vol. v, p. 10.

  81 Knox, Journal, vol. ii, p. 71.

  82 ‘Letters . . . of the Marquess Townshend’, in Doughty and Parmalee, Siege of Quebec, vol. v, p. 271; Alexander, ‘Capture of Quebec’, JSAHR, pp. 135–68; 156.

  83 ‘Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec’ in Doughty and Parmalee, Siege of Quebec, vol. v, p. 104.

  84 British Library Add Mss 45662, Journal of Richard Humphrys, 28th Foot.

  85 Knox, Journal, vol. ii, p. 71.

  86 ‘Letters . . . of the Marquess Townshend’, in Doughty and Parmalee, Siege of Quebec, vol. v, pp. 217, 220 and 2
71; Alexander, ‘Capture of Quebec’, JSAHR, p. 156.

  87 Knox, Journal, vol. ii, p. 97.

  88 ‘Memoirs of the Siege of Quebec’ in Doughty and Parmalee, Siege of Quebec, vol. v, p. 121.

  89 The National Archives, WO 71/68, General Court Martial, 1 June 1761, Quebec, Lieutenant Eubele Ormsby, 35th Regiment.

  90 Knox, Journal, vol. ii, p. 57.

  91 Knox, Journal, vol. ii, p. 327.

  Chapter 9

  1 David Chandler, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough (Staplehurst, 1990), p. 113.

  2 Exercise for the Horse, Dragoons and Foot Forces (London, 1728), p. 80.

  3 Humphrey Bland, A Treatise of Military Discipline (London, 1727), p. 69; Brigadier General Richard Kane, Campaigns of King William and Queen Anne; From 1689 to 1712. Also, A New System of Military Discipline for a Battalion of Foot on Action (London, 1745), p. 112.

  4 See above, p. 21 for Tippermuir and p. 104 for Laffeldt.

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

  6 Matthew H. Spring, With Zeal and with Bayonets Only (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008), pp. 243–4.

  7 Richard Holmes, Dusty Warriors: Modern Soldiers at War (London, 2007), p. 332.

  Bibliography

  1: Manuscripts

  British Library (BL)

  Cumberland Papers (on microfilm)

  Add Mss 21506, f. 98, [John Churchill, Earl, afterwards Duke of] Marlborough to William Blathwayt, Secretary at War; Maestricht, Breda, 29 May 1689

  Add Mss 21640, Forbes Papers

  Add Mss 23642, miscellaneous papers and correspondence of Lord Tyrawley, 1679–1759

  Add Mss 27892, Douglass, Brig. Gen. James, Schola Martis, or the Art of War . . . as Practised in Flanders, in the Wars, from Anno 1688 to An: 1714

  Add Mss 29477, ‘The exercise of the Firelock and Bayonett, with ye Doublings and Hollow Square’, with copies of orders and regulations by the Duke of Marlborough by Capt. John Foster, of Dulwich

  Add Mss 45662, Journal of Richard Humphrys, 28th Foot

  Add Mss 61163, Ingoldsby Correspondence

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

  Add Mss 61398, Adam Cardonnel’s letters, June 06 to Sept 07

  Add Mss 61408, Josiah Sandby, Journal

  Cornwall Record Office