by Stuart Reid
J: AFTER THE BATTLE, GUILFORD COURTHOUSE, 1781
Fought on 15 March 1781, this was one of the most fiercely contested battles of the American War of Independence. General Nathaniel Greene’s numerically superior American army was eventually defeated and driven from the field, but in the process General Cornwallis’ small British army was so crippled as to be quite unable to pursue and destroy the Americans.
The British Redcoats had not eaten for over 24 hours before the battle, and even then it had been only a miserable four ounces of very lean beef and the same quantity of flour. Moreover, they had marched 12 miles to the battlefield on empty stomachs before fighting the gruelling two-hour engagement that same day. Not surprisingly, by the end of it they were utterly exhausted and quite unable even to recover all of their own wounded before night fell. No fewer than 93 British dead and 413 wounded lay scattered over the battlefield, together with an unknown, but probably much smaller, number of American casualties. To make matters worse, the sky began to cloud over towards the end of the battle and shortly after the Americans withdrew from the field, the heavens opened.
In order to catch Greene in the first place, Cornwallis had destroyed his baggage train and with it the army’s tents. Consequently, neither the survivors of the battle nor the wounded found any shelter that night, and the resultant horror was afterwards described by a wounded Guards officer, Major General Charles O’Hara: ‘I never did and I hope I never shall experience two such days and nights as those immediately after the battle. We remained on the very ground on which it had been fought, covered with dead, with dying and with hundreds of wounded, rebels as well as our own. A violent and constant rain that lasted above forty hours made it equally impracticable to remove or administer the smallest comfort to our wounded.’
K: 21ST FOOT ENCAMPED, ROERMOND, HOLLAND, 1748
As the War of the Austrian Succession ground to an exhausted halt in the spring of 1748, the Swiss artist David Morier visited the British army in its camp at Roermond in Holland. His purpose was to carry on with the commission from the Duke of Cumberland to paint a cavalry trooper and a grenadier from every regiment in the army. Evidently, the first canvasses had already been painted in the artist’s London studio that winter, but now he took advantage of the good weather and absence of hostilities to execute a large canvas depicting the Royal Artillery as well as a further five grenadier paintings (see MAA 285, King George’s Army 1740-93, Vol. 1). Although the chief interest in these paintings has traditionally lain in the uniform details they record, the backgrounds to this particular group are equally important in providing a series of unposed vignettes of off-duty soldiers, wives and children going about their affairs in the tent lines.
On the outbreak of war with France in February 1793, wedge tents were issued 14 to a company – roughly five men to a tent. This seems to have been pretty constant throughout this period. In May 1759, the 42nd Highlanders were ordered to be ‘made up into Messes allowing 6 men to a tent and the Camp necessaries to be given out accordingly’. In 1793 at least a tin kettle and hatchet were issued with each tent, together with two blankets – presumably to replace or be spread on top of the thick carpet of grass, leaves or straw normally laid on tent floors.
Sergeants were ‘to lay always in the front tents of their different companies’. Officers, on the other hand, had to purchase their own tents – one was allowed for each captain, although according to the orderly book of the 42nd Highlanders in 1759, subalterns were expected to share one tent between two: ‘The officers to provide themselves furthwith in tents according to the pattern tent which is to be seen at the tent makers, and to have those tents ready to be shown to the Commanding Officer on the tenth of March. No more than one tent will be allowed for two subalterns, they are therefore to divide themselves and bespeak their tents accordingly as none is to be bespoke for them.’
The 21st Foot was another Culloden regiment, losing just seven wounded there, and as fusiliers all ranks were of course supposed to wear mitre caps. The design on the grenadier cap is taken from Morier, while the slightly different style displayed by the battalion company man standing on the left is taken from the 1742 Cloathing Book. Others wear what appears to have been a very common style of forage cap of the period.
34: Advance your arms. 35: Shoulder your firelock.
L: PRIVATE, 1/ROYALS, 1789
On 13 June 1789 1/Royals (later 1st Battalion, Royal Scots) were reviewed by Major General Robert Prescott at Charles Fort, Kinsale. The men were reported to be ‘of a good size, young and stout, clean under arms, well dressed, steady and attentive’. His comments on the comparative youth of the soldiers were supported by a table which shows that 48 men were aged between 18 and 19; 148 between 20 and 24; 116 between 25 and 29; 63 between 30 and 34; and only 29 between 35 and 39. Since the figures for the upper age groups obviously included the sergeants and the grenadiers, who were generally the more mature men in the battalion, the average age of the rank and file in the battalion companies must have been correspondingly lower. As for their country of origin, 240 men (unsurprisingly) were Scots; of the remainder, 84 were English and 89 Irish. These figures broadly reflected the grenadier company at the time of muster, at Limerick in the previous October. Of the 36 men then belonging to the company 17 were Scots, seven were English and the remaining 12 were Irish. Similarly, out of the 32 officers (exclusive of the regimental Colonel, Lord Adam Gordon) serving in the battalion in June 1789, 16 were Scots, eight were Irish and eight English.
As for the clothing and equipment, the sergeants’ halberds and fusils had been provided in 1782 and 1788 respectively, the firelocks and bayonets in 1782 and the cartridge boxes in 1787. No adverse comments were made of them, and they should have been in pretty good condition since they were comparatively new. Hats were well cocked and ‘according to the King’s regulations’, while black spatterdashes were worn according to orders. Prescott considered the clothing to be ‘good, well fitted, perfectly agreeable to King’s regulations’.
All in all, it was a very favourable report, and it found the battalion fit for service. So on 29 January 1790 they embarked for Jamaica, and ultimately to their effective destruction, on San Domingo.
(1) Based on a watercolour sketch by Dayes, this soldier is dressed for home service according to the King’s Regulations. Apart from minor regimental idiosyncrasies such as the sideburns – a feature which crops up in other contemporary illustrations of regimental personnel – he provides an excellent picture of the ordinary British soldier on the eve of the great war with France. Although a grenadier, as shown by his laced shoulder wings, he wears an ordinary cocked hat in place of the unpopular bearskin cap prescribed in 1768. Judging by other contemporary illustrations and inspection reports, this was very common practice.
He is armed with a Short Land pattern firelock and bayonet. Both the sword and the brass match-case had been abolished after the American War of Independence on the grounds that they were useless encumbrances and were never carried by grenadiers in action – the battalion comp –anies had officially lost their swords in 1768, but had ceased wearing them many years before.
Not withstanding these sensible measures, the uniform was generally rather too tight and uncomfortable, and although the 2nd Battalion of the Royals appears to have worn it when they went to Toulon in 1794, the 1st Battalion, which was fighting at the same time against republican rebels on san Domingo, would have resembled the far more sensibly dressed soldier of Plate F.
(2) Regimental breastplates: (a) officer1/Royals; (b) private 1/Royals, and button loop of regimental lace. The button itself bore the device: FO1OT
(3) Breeches: normally made from white wool, they could be replaced in warmer weather by lighter garments made of duck or linen. Note the fall front which superseded the earlier fly front under the 1768 warrant.
(4) Shirt, with typical cuff-link contrived from two buttons.
(5) Half gaiters as worn by light infantry and by other soldiers i
n warm weather or upon long marches.
(6) Buckled shoes.
(7) Bayonet scabbard and belt.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Advice to the Officers of the British Army, with the Addition of some hints to the Drummer and Private Soldier (1782), (2nd Edn. London 1948)
Atkinson, C.J., Jenkins Ear, The Austrian Succession War and the Fortyfive. (Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, vol.22)
Aytoun, James Redcoats in the Caribbean (Blackburn 1984)
Bailey, D.W., British Military Longarms 1714-1865 (London 1986)
Blackmore, H.L., British Military Firearms 1650-1850 (2nd Edn. London 1994)
Bland, Humphrey, Treatise of Military Discipline, (1727)
Boatner, Mark, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (Mechanicsburg PA 1994)
Bowler, R. Arthur, Logistics and the Failure of the British Army in America, (Princeton NJ 1975)
Bruce, A, The Purchase System in the British Army, (Royal Historical Society 1980)
Bulloch, J.M., Territorial Soldiering in North-East Scotland (New Spalding Club, Aberdeen 1914)
Chandler, David, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough (London 1976)
Darling, A.D., Redcoat and Brown Bess,(Ottawa 1970)
Fuller, J.F.C., British Light Infantry in the Eighteenth Century (London 1925)
General Wolfe’s Instructions to Young Officers (London 1768)
Gentleman Volunteer’s Pocket Companion describing the various motions of the Footguards in the Manual Exercise, (London 1745)
Grant, George, The New Highland Discipline, (London 1757)
Guy, A.J., Oeconomy and Discipline: Officership and Administration in the British Army 1714-63 (Manchester 1985)
Guy, A.J., Colonel Samuel Bagshawe and the Army of George II, 1731-1762, (Army Records Society 1990)
Houlding, J.A., Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army 1715-1795, (Oxford 1981)
Hughes, B.P., Firepower: Weapons Effectiveness on the Battlefield 1630-1850, (London 1974)
Katcher, Philip, Armies of the American Wars 1753-1815 (London 1975)
Lens, Bernard, The Granadiers Exercise 1735 (London 1967)
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 &c.
Peterkin, Ernest, The Exercise of Arms in the Continental Infantry, (Bloomfield Ontario 1989)
Prebble, John, Mutiny (London 1975)
Reid, Stuart, Like Hungry Wolves: Culloden Moor 16th April 1746, (London 1994)
Reid, Stuart, 1745: A Military History, (Staplehurst 1996)
Savory, Sir Reginald, His Brittanic Majesty’s Army in Germany during the Seven Years War, (Oxford 1966)
Simcoe, Lt.Col. J.G., A History of the Operations of a Partisan Corps called THE QUEEN’S RANGERS (New York 1844)
Stewart, David, Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland (Edinburgh 1822)
Strachan, Hew, British Military Uniforms 1768-1796 (London 1975)
Windham, William, A Plan of Discipline Composed for the Use of the Militia of the County of Norfolk, (London 1759)
GLOSSARY
ADDITIONAL COMPANY: regimental depot unit
ADJUTANT: battalion staff officer responsible for drill, discipline and administration
AMERICAN TROUSERS: combination breeches and gaiters
BATTALION: tactical unit comprising upwards of four companies.
BATTALION COMPANIES: non-specialist centre companies in a battalion
BLACKBALL: wax composition used for blackening shoes and other leatherwork
BLUE BONNEt: flat, knitted bonnet worn by Highland units, invariably blue.
BOUNTY: payment made or credited to soldier on enlistment
BREASTPLATE: oval or rectangular plate serving as a belt buckle on the bayonet belt and normally bearing a regiment’s badge, title and/or number.
CARBINE: firearm with .69 bore - term relates to bore not to barrel length
COMPANY: administrative unit comprising three officers and between thirty and one hundred soldiers
DRAFTING: transfer of soldiers from one battalion to another
FIRELOCK: generic term for infantry firearms, invariably used instead of a musket.
FLANK COMPANY: Grenadier and/or Light Infantry company, so termed because posted on flanks of a battalion when formally drawn up.
FLANK BATTALION: provisional unit made up of Grenadier or Light Infantry companies detached from their parent units.
FUSIL: lightweight firelock carried by officers and sergeants
GAITER TROUSERS: see American Trousers
HANGER: short, generally curved sword
HATMAN: soldier belonging to one of the centre or battalion companies, so named because wearing a hat instead of a cap as worn by the flank companies
HAVERSACK: coarse linen bag for carrying rations
HUMMEL BONNET: any bonnet lacking feathers or other adornment
INDEPENDENT COMPANY: unregimented company, used either for recruiting or garrison duties
INVALID: soldier classed as unfit for service in a marching regiment, but still capable of serving in a garrison unit
KILMARNOCK BONNET: knitted bonnet blocked upwards into drum shape, always blue, but usually with checquered band around sides.
KNAPSACK: bag carried on back, containing soldier’s personal kit
MANUAL EXERCISE: basic weapon handling drill
MATCH-CASE: brass tube theoretically used by grenadiers for carrying the slow- match needed to light the grenade fuse - in practice obsolete and decorative
NECESSARIES: consumables and small items of equipment required to be bought by soldiers, either privately or through deductions from their subsistence.
OFF RECKONINGS: that part of a soldier’s pay made over to his Colonel for the purchase of clothing
PLATOON (1): tactical sub-unit for fire-control purposes, generally between twenty and thirty strong.
PLATOON (2): slang term for volley
PLATOONING: slang term for firing by platoons
REGIMENT: soldier’s administrative and spiritual home. In British service almost invariably comprising a single battalion. In the few cases where second battalions existed, they were to all intents and purposes seperate units, not tactical sub-divisions as in continental armies
REGIMENTAL: slang – conforming to regimental standing orders
ROLLER: rolled-up neck-cloth
SQUIB: blank round
STOCK: cloth band fastened around neck with a buckle, in place of roller
SUBSISTENCE: that part of soldier’s pay allowed to him for the purchase of food, necessaries and anything else which he could afford.
VESTRY MEN: short service conscripts rounded up by parish officials
VOLUNTEER: aspiring officer, serving in the ranks in hopes of being appointed to a free commission
WATCHCOAt: heavy greatcoat, ankle-length and often with a hood. usually issued only to sentries.
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First published in Great Britain in 1996 by Osprey Publishing,
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Transferred to digital print on demand 2009
First published 1996
11th impression 2008
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Print ISBN: 978 1 85532 554 8
PDF e-book ISBN: 978 1 78096 694 6
ePub e-book ISBN: 978 1 78096 653 3
Military editor: lain MacGregor
Design by TT Designs
Filmset in Great Britain
Dedication and thanks
To Susan for taking the photographs