The period through which the army passed in the second part of the eighteenth century was distinguished by a marked change in the causes which led to the wars culminating in the separation of the American Colonies from the mother country. There were still Continental troubles in which English forces and others were engaged, where political, balance of power, or dynastic influences were as heretofore the primary causes of such campaigns. Minden is one of these; and, without entering into the whole of the military history of the time, the battle is especially noteworthy as adding additional laurels to those the army had already gathered. It may be well, therefore, to refer to it here, though somewhat out of the order of dates, as it is a more or less isolated factor in the general story. The Seven Years’ War broke out in 1756, and in 1759, after sundry successes, the French menaced Hanover. Their opponents, commanded by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, were assisted by a small British contingent commanded by Lord George Sackville, consisting of six cavalry regiments: the Horse Guards, the 1st and 3rd Dragoon Guards, the 2nd, 6th, and 10th Dragoons; and six infantry battalions: the 12th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, 37th, and 51st. There was much man?uvring on the part of Prince Ferdinand, before he succeeded in drawing his opponents across the marshy Wastau brook which unites with the river Weser at Minden to form a deep re-entrant bend. Crossing both these streams by numerous temporary bridges, the French, under Contades, deployed108 some 50,000 troops against 36,000;26 but the flanks of his line of battle being unsuitable for the action of cavalry, the whole of that arm, some 10,000 strong, and the flower of his army, was stationed in the centre. On the other hand, the English flanks were strengthened by cavalry, that on the right commanded directly by Lord George Sackville; and on both sides the artillery were chiefly on the flanks. Partial attacks, and an artillery duel on both sides therefore began the action, but the “soul of the fight” was the contest between the French cavalry and the two English brigades in the centre, which yet again emphasised, if such emphasis were necessary, the steadily increasing fighting power of well-disciplined infantry.
Gallant as was the charge of the Mousquetaires, grey and red, desperate as was their onslaught, the footmen received them with close volleys at forty yards, and, as Contades himself bitterly remarked, “I have seen what I never thought to be possible—a single line of infantry break through three lines of cavalry, ranked in order of battle, and tumble them to ruin.” These six battalions marched, not as ordered, to attack “you six on sound of drum,” but translated the command into “by sound of drum”; and so, with drums playing, entered into the crucial battle with a brigade in both the first and second line. After the first repulse of the enemy, they formed in single line of battalions, with the Hanoverians on their left, and when the cavalry was routed, drove back with heavy loss a Swiss and a Saxon brigade that attempted to stop their splendid advance. Had Lord George Sackville charged with his cavalry as he was ordered to have done, and should have done, the French army would have been destroyed. As it was, only the Hessian and Hanoverian cavalry on the left were of any service. The French lost about 7000 men, 43 guns, and 17 colours, while in the British division alone, 1394 officers and men had fallen. Of all the regiments, none was more distinguished than “Kingsley’s,” now the 20th; but though the “order of the day” after the battle stated that the regiment “from its severe loss, will cease to do duty,” the109 “Minden Boys,” the “Men of Kingsley’s stand,” were far too proud to accept even so kindly meant a rest, and two days later we read that “Kingsley’s regiment, at its own request, will resume its portion of duty in the line.” Well might His Serene Highness Prince Ferdinand state publicly that, “next to God, he attributes the glory of the day to the intrepidity and extraordinary good behaviour of these troops.” The six Minden regiments were honoured by being permitted to wear the laurel wreath in their colours, and to this day, on the 1st August, the men deck themselves with roses in remembrance of the battle, in which tradition says men walked to death with roses they had plucked on the way in their breasts. One curious fact in connection with the battle is that Colonel Preston, who commanded a brigade of cavalry, wore the last buff-coat that has been seen on a field of battle, which saved him from being wounded, though cut at “more than a dozen times.”
Minden preserved Hanover and Brunswick from the hands of the French, and obliged them to leave Westphalia; while the British colours waved in many a skirmish in the great war, as well as in the greater battles of Warburg, Zierenburg, Kloster Kampfen, Kirch-Denkern, and Wilhelmstahl. This latter name is borne by the 5th Foot as the first name on its colours, for there it behaved with the most brilliant bravery, taking a French standard and twice its own strength in prisoners. After this battle the regiment was permitted to wear French Grenadier headdresses, instead of the three-cornered hat then generally in use, and these they retained until replaced later by the fusilier “cap.” In the ranks of the 5th at Wilhelmstahl, fought Ph?be Hassell, who was pensioned by George IV., and who lies, quiet enough now, in the churchyard at Hove.
Again, during the war with Spain, an army which included the Buffs and 16th Light Dragoons served there under the command of the Earl of Loudon; and one of his brigadiers, Burgoyne, won a minor but brilliant victory at Valencia de Alcantara, where the cavalry carried the city sword in hand, and held it till the infantry arrived.
110 Peace followed a year later, and though England restored many of her conquests, she retained much. The army was recalled from Germany, and its own retirement from active service saw also that of its popular leader, the Marquis of Granby. He had shown much courage and some skill in the field. He had been most solicitous for the welfare of his men, and there is no doubt of their appreciation of him. The numerous inn signs bearing his portrait and his name are but relics of the days when he was regarded as the soldier’s “friend,” whom the men delighted to honour, and “to drain a tankard to his health.” But his mantle was not taken up by his successor for a while at least; for at Quebec, the year after his withdrawal from public life, the 15th, 27th, and two battalions of the 60th all but mutinied because of the introduction of a daily stoppage of fourpence a day for the food ration, a system of supporting the soldier out of his own pocket that lived on till within the last twenty years.
But it is round the great contest on the American Continent which was to result in, first, the conquest and retention of Canada, and then the loss of our own possessions in North America, that the national interest centres. By 1755 the French had practically absorbed Canada with its dependencies, and furthermore claimed authority over the whole valley of the Mississippi from its source to its mouth; and had linked its conquests or its occupation together by a series of forts from Quebec on the St. Lawrence river to the point where the Alleghany and Monongahela unite to form the Ohio, and where Pittsburg now stands. Here Fort Duchesne was erected. In fact, the French laid claim to what would now be called the Hinterland of the whole of Eastern North America without possessing much of its coast line, and it was to break through this fancied and fragile chain that the first hostile expedition was despatched. It was commanded by Braddock with a mixed force of colonials and the 44th and 48th Regiments, while on the staff served George Washington; but through gross ignorance and carelessness it fell into an ambush and was heavily routed. Other equally feeble efforts were made on other111 points in the enemy’s defensive line, but all were more or less ineffective, and this naturally led to reprisals and increased activity on the part of the French.
Quebec. (1759.)
Hence the British army in America, whose headquarters were at New York, was reinforced by the 17th, 42nd, and 2-60th Regiments, and the conquest of Canada was decided on. An attempt against Fort Ticonderoga in 1758, when the 42nd lost 647 men, failed, as did a first expedition against Louisburg, Cape Breton; but in 1758 the Earl of Loudon was despatched to Nova Scotia with the 1st, 17th, 27th, 28th, 43rd, 46th, 53rd, and 56th Regiments, which were formed into three brigades, of which Brigadier-General James Wolfe commanded that composed of the grenadiers, light infantry, and Black Watch, and behaved with distinguished gallantry.
Fort Duchesne, a second time threatened, was abandoned by the French, and in 1759 Wolfe led the expedition against Quebec, where he met a glorious death during its capture. The regiments present were the 15th, 28th, 35th, 43rd, 47th, 48th, 60th, the old 78th, or Fraser Highlanders, which was disbanded in 1763; while the grenadier companies of the regiments, with those of the 22nd, 40th, and 45th (at Louisburg), and also the light infantry companies, were formed into separate corps as usual. The fortress was far too strong to be assaulted frontally, with a wide river covering it, and to pass that at any time in boats was a risky and difficult operation. But the rear of the town was but weakly defended, and faced an open plain, which was regarded as practically unassailable, owing to the steep and almost precipitous nature of the approaches to it. It was due, it is said, to a Scottish officer called Macculloch that the design to attack on this side was formed; and it was executed with much difficulty, though with the greatest good fortune, as the river bank was guarded by sentries. But these were evaded, and when Wolfe landed, the obstacles to the advance even there were such that Wolfe exclaimed to one of the Highland officers, “I do not believe, sir, there is any possibility of getting up, but you must now do your best.” And they did so. Slinging their muskets112 the Frasers gained the summit by sheer hard climbing, and, driving back a piquet, seized a path by which the other troops mounted; so that when the sun rose, it shone on Wolfe’s line of regiments in contiguous columns advancing against Quebec. Montcalm moved out resolutely to meet the threatening danger. But the battle was soon over. The Frasers charged, Highland fashion, with dirk and claymore; and Wolfe and Montcalm were both mortally wounded. Wolfe lived long enough to hear the shouts of victory; Montcalm died before the actual capitulation of Quebec; and Lieutenant Macculloch died a pauper in Marylebone Workhouse thirty-four years later. This capture of Quebec practically meant the conquest of Canada, which, with Newfoundland, etc., was ceded to Great Britain; and though there were troubles on the Pennsylvanian frontier, to suppress which a regiment of Highlanders was despatched, nothing of real importance occurred till the revolt of the American Colonies in 1774.
More stress is laid on this portion of the army’s story, because the war was between sections of the same race, and because much came of it. Great Britain commenced the American contest that at first seemed so unequal, under some disadvantages, none the less. The result of a long period of military inactivity was, as it always has been and will be, most materially felt. There were few old, or at least veteran, soldiers in the ranks who had been under fire, and the younger officers were equally inexperienced. This was natural to expect after
“The cankers of a calm world and a long peace,”
but it was at the bottom of both the want of skill with which this singular war was conducted, and the want of appreciation, at first certainly, of how such an enemy as the army of the colonists should be tactically met. It was to be a war in which bush-fighting and skirmishing were to be the leading features, as Braddock’s disaster long years before and the defeat at Ticonderoga had already conclusively proved. But the British leaders were to learn the fact, they113 might have foreseen, in the “only school fools learn in, that of experience.”
In order to understand the reason for the want of uniformity and union in the desultory campaigns that followed each other, a glance at the map is necessary. It will be seen there that when hostilities broke out, the seat of war was practically cut in two by the Hudson, at the mouth of which was New York; and beyond Albany, up stream, a series of forts guarded the line of approach from Canada by way of Quebec, Lake Champlain, and Saratoga. This general line, therefore, cut the confederation into two unequal parts, and separated the, at first, more resolute New England States from those of the south, who, again, to begin with, were somewhat lukewarm in the national cause. It was the obstinate folly of the British Government, even more than the feeble conduct of her warlike operations in America, that led to the final result. Again, the command of the sea gave Great Britain the advantage of being able to transfer her troops to any part of the long American coast line, and attack or threaten the hostile levies formed at different parts, but whose own power of concentration was hampered by bad roads, a sparse population, and the physical difficulties offered by the numerous rivers and estuaries. These latter, on the other hand, were of the highest value to the sea power; and it was not till France threw her sword into the scale that the balance of power at sea was equalised and American success became a certainty. The temporary loss of that naval supremacy, with all the world against us, was the direct cause of the surrender at York Town, and the termination of the struggle. More than all, perhaps, this very prolongation of hostilities strengthened and gave experience to the colonists, which was all they wanted. They had the courage and a cause already. Howe and other English generals gave them confidence and trained their leaders.
Boston was the active centre whence the “disease of disagreement” spread. Stout, hard-headed Puritans, whose ancestors had left the mother country for freedom’s sake,114 were as little likely to submit to “taxation without representation,” in the latter days of the eighteenth century, as their forebears had been a hundred years before. “Let us be of one heart,” says one of them, “and stand fast in the liberties wherewith Christ has made us free, and may He, of His infinite mercy, grant us deliverance out of all our troubles.” But the home Government thought otherwise. Boston, as a port, was to be closed. General-Governor Gage was sent there to garrison it; and so doing, applied the match to all the political tinder which surrounded him, and was fully ready to burst into a flame. For not far from Boston the colonists had collected some military stores at Concord and Lexington, and these Gage decided on seizing. He had been ordered to “take possession of colonial forts, seize all military stores, to repress rebellion by force, and imprison all suspects,” so the fault was not all his. But the detachment of the 10th and the marines were beaten back badly, and took refuge behind the reinforcements sent to help them in such a condition of rout that they “flung themselves down on the ground, with their tongues hanging out of their mouths, like those of dogs after a chase.” It was a bad beginning, to say the least of it, but it was curiously followed up; for the assailants were themselves assailed, and Boston was besieged by the “Provincials,” who had many men, boundless enthusiasm, but only a few guns and only sixty barrels of powder “in all Massachusetts.” But by now they had that courtly Virginian gentleman, George Washington, at their head, and without him the revolution that made an empire would have had faint chances of success. The only point of interest in this siege of Boston is the battle of Bunker’s or Breed’s Hill. It was the last effort but one to complete the ring of investment. The American General Prescott had attempted to hold this peninsula, between the Charles and Mystic rivers, and had fortified it with a poor breastwork and a still weaker obstacle afforded by a post and rail fence, screened by new-mown hay. But the fatal British failing of despising an adversary who could shoot, received additional emphasis. The casual attack of115 the flank companies of the 5th, 38th, 43rd, and 52nd, together with the 47th, the 1st marine battalion, and the 23rd, the latter of which suffered most severely, was met by a deadly fire at thirty paces, and it took three efforts to carry the weak defensive position, and then with a loss of 1200 officers and men out of about 2000. To add to the misery of the defeat may be added the absurdity of making the men go into action carrying 125 pounds of heavy marching order weight. It was the first pitched battle of the war, small as it was, and the colonists had won. Its moral value, therefore, far outweighed its other importance, and it was soon followed by the retirement of the British from the town. The district east of the Hudson was never again seriously troubled, while in the meantime Ethan Allen and Benedek Arnold had captured, and still guarded, the road to Canada by way of the Hudson and Lake Champlain.
But the disasters around Boston had stirred the home Government into unwonted activity. In 1776 the army in America was composed of the 4th, 5th, 10th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18th, 22nd, 23rd, 27th, 35th, 38th, 40th, 42nd, 43rd, 44th, 45th, 49th, 52nd, 63rd, 64th, and 71st Foot, with the 16th and 17th Light Dragoons and some battalions of Hessians. Opposed to them was the main Colonial army under Washington, at or about New York. The only plan of campaign, if such it could be called, that Howe formed, was to seize New York, occupy a central position, and support the two wings that, operating from the Canadian lakes for the Upper Hudson on the one hand and from some naval base hereafter to be determined on the southern coast, were to crush between them the widely extended forces of the “Confederacy.” The internal difficulties of co-operation were as bad for his divided wings as for Washington’s extended front; but he had the great advantage of being able to threaten the enormous coast line of the States. Thus the first move in the game was the attack on Long Island; but though Washington was defeated, he was enabled, through the supineness of his adversary, to withdraw his whole force to the mainland. For while Howe thought, reposing in his116 tent after the battle, that “they are at our mercy to-morrow,” it was not to be; for when that morrow came, “the whole continental force had crossed the East River, and our empire over thirteen colonies had slipped away too.”
Still the British army pressed on, drove the adversary from New York, defeated him again at “White Plains” farther back, where Washington checked Howe’s advance by no stronger entrenchments than those hastily erected with stalks of Indian corn, roots outward, and after some minor action dispersed the American forces, and Washington retired south behind the Delaware. The invader had done little after all. The Americans were not defeated, as the next step proved. For if the Colonists were dispersed by defeat so were also the British “by order” through the Jerseys; and General Howe held his soul in peace at New York.
To await a rude awakening. For, notwithstanding winter snow and ice-clad rivers, on Christmas night 1776, Washington took the offensive. Everyone knows the picture of his “Crossing the Delaware.” How the Continentals were being hardened in! They “left the marks of their march in the bloodstained footsteps of those whose boots barely covered their feet,” but they succeeded. Trenton was taken. A night march, covered by the clever stratagem of leaving fires alight when the main body moved off, and a rearguard to work noisily at trenches, resulted in a battle, after which the 40th, 17th, and 55th British regiments fell back in disorder, and the ultimate result was the abandonment of the Jerseys by the British army. In June 1777, the relative strength of the combatants was 30,000 British troops against 8000 Americans. As Colonel du Portael writes: “Ce n’est pas par la bonne conduite des Americains, que la campagne en général s’est terminée assez heureusement; mais par la faute des Anglais.” This is the key to the whole situation.
The first attempt to reach the nominal capital, Philadelphia, had thus failed. The next was more direct, and was to be assisted by an invasion from Canada. The latter can be dismissed in a few words. General Burgoyne selected so bad a line of march on Saratoga, not far from Albany,117 on the upper reaches of the Hudson, that he was compelled to surrender there. The fighting had been most severe. At Stillwater and other places, the 9th, 20th, 21st, 62nd (who in this war got their name of “Springers,” from acting as the light infantry, whose order to advance was “Spring up”), the grenadiers, and the light companies of the 35th and 24th behaved with the greatest gallantry, as did the 9th, of which regiment there is an interesting story to tell. With the army its warlike stores should have been surrendered; but the colonel of this regiment, with a feeling that can be comprehended, without actual sympathy, removed the colours from the staves and secreted them. On returning home, they were remounted, and presented to the king, who returned them to the officer, to be retained as an heirloom. Passing through many hands, they finally descended to the Chaplain of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, who presented them to that institution, where, “trooped” by a battalion of the regiment then at Aldershot, they were placed in the college next the pair of colours which were borne by the 9th during Peninsular fights. But those which were carried in America are distinguished from the later ones by the absence of the St. Patrick’s Cross in the “Jack.”
Meanwhile, Howe’s army, concentrated at New York after its retreat from the Jerseys, had put to sea, and, sailing south, had landed in the estuary of the Chesapeake. Washington, from the neighbourhood of the Hudson, moved down to meet him, taking up a position behind the Brandywine, but he was badly beaten by an outflanking attack, and fell back behind Philadelphia to Valley Forge, and the British occupied the capital. The battle proved conclusively that neither the American levies nor their leaders were yet able to cope with regular forces in a pitched battle. The waiting game was better, and the night attack on Germanstown a few weeks later only failed because of the grim tenacity the 40th Regiment showed in the defence of Judge Tew’s house at the entrance of the village. Beyond this, little was done in the winter of 1777, but Howe returned home, and was succeeded by Sir Henry Clinton, who soon withdrew118 from Philadelphia, and returned with the army to New York, by way of the Jerseys, where a sharp rearguard action was fought at Monmouth Courthouse, and again the Colonists were defeated in their effort to disturb the retreat. Again it was evident that the natural semi-guerilla warfare which they had first adopted was more suitable to their powers than more serious tactics. Throughout, Washington had shown little real military skill, and his tangible success was once more due to his adversary’s faults.
But one great event followed on the surrender of the British at Saratoga and the return of Clinton to New York. France, who had so long openly sympathised with the Colonists as to permit American privateers to sell English prizes in her ports, had formed with the States a commercial treaty, in which they were referred to as being “in full possession of independence,” and finally threw her sword into the scale, a course in which she was not long after followed by Spain.
Speaking generally, the theatre of war from this time forward, useless forays and wanton mischief elsewhere excepted, shifted to the South. Georgia was first reduced to submission. Then the Carolinas were attempted. Charleston was taken, the Southern Provinces occupied, and the usual desultory, haphazard fighting followed, with the customary want of practical results. The need of a connected plan of operation is apparent everywhere. Gates was badly beaten at Camden; and reprisals, that embittered even those who were not seriously disaffected to the royal cause, followed. Mistake after mistake! This, at least, was not the way to cow into submission men largely of English race. It is curious to note also in this part of the campaign that the only generals fighting on the American side who were distinctly of English birth, and had had some military training,—Gates and Lee,—had proved themselves distinct failures.
Cornwallis was next despatched to the South, and fared no better than his predecessors; while Clinton, in command of New York, directed the operations thence with119 no greater success, having to face now the greater danger of dealing with regular French troops side by side with the levies of the States.
But at this juncture, when the new allies were actually landing, and the beginning of the end had come, General Arnold was given the command of West Point, on the Hudson, the river-line dividing the New England States from the remainder, and to the retention of which Washington attached extraordinary importance. The story of his treason is one of the few bits of romance in the history of this prolonged and unhappy war. He was brave beyond measure, he was reckless and careless, he was vain, ostentatious, and extravagant; but no one dreamed he was a traitor. He had tried to obtain a loan from the French Minister and had failed, and, so doing, turned to the other side, and proposed for money and advancement to surrender West Point and the Highlands, “in such a manner as to contribute every possible advantage to His Majesty’s arms.” His immediate go-between and correspondent was a certain Major André, Adjutant-General of the British Army, and A.D.C. of Sir Henry Clinton. On the very night that Washington met the French officer at Hartford, to arrange the allied plan of campaign, André, dressed in uniform, over which he wore a long greatcoat, landed to confer with Arnold. So prolonged were the treasonable negotiations, that day broke, and retreat became dangerous. Over-persuaded, he changed into plain clothes, concealed in his boots the plans and documents he had procured, and, under a forged pass and a feigned name, attempted to cross the neutral ground, and reach Tarrytown. He was captured and made prisoner, and his captors, refusing a heavy bribe, sent him to North Castle. Meanwhile, Arnold had received information that the plot was known, and embarked on board H.M.S. Vulture under a flag of truce, and completed his treason by surrendering his own boat’s crew as prisoners of war!
André was brought to trial before fourteen general officers, among whom were the Marquis de Lafayette and Baron Stuben, and was by all the customs of war, and120 “according to the law and usage of nations,” sentenced to be hanged. “His appeal to die by shooting rather than by hanging was refused. As General Greene is reported to have said, to have mitigated the sentence would have been to doubt its justice. So he died the death of a spy, as from his own confession and action he deserved, but he died bravely and calmly, like a gallant gentleman of England.” No such death created more controversy, or raised more hysterical sympathy. The whole business was bad, and André soiled his hands in touching it at all, let alone the fact of his being in plain clothes within the enemy’s lines, which at once placed him without doubt in the position of a spy. His reasons for going there, assumed to be patriotic, were largely personal, for promotion was to reward success; and they have little to do with the matter. However good the reasons, the means were vile; too vile even to justify the end.
Washington was censured severely for his severity at the time, but no one now would blame him. He had his duty to his country to do, and he did it. None the less, André’s bones were eventually moved to Westminster Abbey, and a fulsome tablet records the manner of his death.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Cornwallis in the Carolinas scored a victory at Guildford Courthouse, where the Guards, the old 71st, and the 23rd and 33rd, defeated an inferior force of militia and what were fast becoming seasoned troops, but the task was too heavy for his strength. “My cavalry,” he sadly writes, “wanted everything, and the infantry everything but shoes.” So he marched, with sundry skirmishes of little value in various places, north-east towards York Town, and Lord Rawdon, who practically commanded the other wing, fell back south-east towards Charleston, with the 3rd, 63rd, and 64th.
While Greene watched and “contained” the latter, Washington and Rochambeau, giving up the long-cherished idea of the defence of the Hudson and the capture of New York, moved into Virginia to assist York Town. When121 the first parallel of the siege was completed, Washington fired the first shot, and soon after, for the second time in this hapless war, a British general with an army surrendered to the Continental levies, just four years after the defeat of Burgoyne.
The British troops had behaved, be it said, with the greatest gallantry. The 71st, the grenadiers of the old 80th, and especially the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, had done all that men could, and the colours of the last-named regiment were, like those of the 9th at Saratoga, taken home wrapped round the bodies of two officers. Lord Cornwallis himself bears testimony that the Allies behaved with dignity, and that “the treatment in general that we have received from the enemy since our surrender has been perfectly good and proper.” Of the above regiments, the 76th, 71st, and 80th were afterwards disbanded in 1783–84.
Five days later, Clinton’s tardy reinforcements reached the Chesapeake from New York, but it was too late. French assistance, and still more French money, to the exhausted and almost bankrupt Americans had brought peace within measurable distance, and just eight years after the eventful conflict of Lexington, the news of the Peace of Paris was communicated to the army.
Though of little military value, the embers of the struggle for independence still remained alight, and so far flickered into a flame in 1814, as to make it worth while recording the last instance in which British troops fought on American soil. The New Republic had been a bit tête montée after its undoubted success against the mother country. There was unquestionably the feeling arising, first of all, of a natural continuance of sympathy for France, as well as that of having “licked the Britishers, who had licked the world.” The causes of irritation are immaterial, and to some extent childish, but they resulted in hostilities none the less. The war began with some minor affairs in Canada, chiefly between the local militias, as there were few British regular battalions in that country; but there was some severe skirmishing for some time, in which the 8th, 41st, 49th,122 89th, the Royal Scots, some local bodies of volunteers, and the 100th and 104th battalions of the line, which were disbanded after the long war, took part. Success generally rested with the Americans, and there were some smart naval actions on the Great Lakes.
But after the temporary conclusion of hostilities on the Continent in 1814, Great Britain was freer to turn her attention to this American squabble. It was scarcely worth while at any time to dignify it by the name of war. So some veteran Peninsular battalions, the 4th, 44th, 85th, 29th, and 62nd, as well as the 21st North British Fusiliers, were sent to reinforce the army in America. The fighting showed much exasperation on both sides, and there is little that is creditable to either of the combatants. An advance on Washington was first made, and after the brilliant affair of Bladensburg, where the Americans made their first serious stand, and were easily beaten, the capital was seized, and the Government stores and buildings burned. All that can be said to the credit of the British is, that “no private property was destroyed.”
The American order of battle by this time was quite European. It formed in two lines, and a reserve with cavalry on the flank, and guns more or less dispersed, while the front was covered by “strong bodies of riflemen” in skirmishing order.27
A further effort against Baltimore was equally ineffective, and Ross “of Bladensburg” fell. Finally, the army, reinforced by the 7th and 43rd, the 93rd and 95th, and two West Indian regiments, attempted the capture of New Orleans, and, to all intents and purposes, failed.
The whole war is regrettable from every point of view. The operations on the part of the British so far lacked method and cohesion, as to class them rather as filibustering expeditions than serious war. The conduct of the Americans throughout offers no redeeming point, as they fired on a flag of truce, and caused retaliatory measures because of their unwarrantable action in the early operations in Canada.123 The peace that was signed in 1815 was a relief to both sides; but it left a bad feeling behind which time has failed entirely to eradicate. In the War of Independence, as in this struggle, and to some extent in the Civil War of 1864, we have always most unfortunately been opposed to our own kith and kin. Be the faults what they may, they can scarcely be deemed entirely one-sided. But the evil legacy of armed opposition has a grim tendency to live on, whether it be with a successful or a defeated antagonist.
One curious old custom arose out of the fighting of this time, with one regiment of the line, the 29th. Tradition is doubtful as to the precise time and place, the when and where the custom originated. Long before 1792, and up to about 1855, the officers were always accustomed to wear their swords at mess, and thus got the name of the “Ever-sworded Twenty-ninth.” The custom is referred to in the old standing orders, and is believed to have arisen from a detachment of the regiment having been surprised by Indians at St. John’s, and massacred, the deed being prompted by the French inhabitants from a feeling of revenge. Even now the captain and subaltern of the day appear with their swords at dinner, and in an officer’s diary of 1792 it appears that, on one occasion, “One of our very best men, weighing twenty stone, found it so inconvenient that he was allowed to dine without his sword, provided it hung up immediately behind him.”
The tactical changes that had occurred up to 1793 were not numerous, at least as far as Europe was concerned. The number of ranks was reduced to three, and the battle formations were becoming more linear and less heavily columnar. Minden, again, had shown again what resolute infantry could do, and in that battle the effort to bring about a mutual co-operation of the three arms to a common end is increasingly apparent.
But America had taught much. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that the campaigns there had turned men’s minds in the direction of the fighting of the future, the value of independent fire action, and—a century before it was seriously organised—the value of mounted infantry. Bunker’s124 Hill, and even Lexington, had borne grave testimony to the value of fire action. Tarleton, in Carolina, with his mounted troops from the old 63rd Regiment of the line, had proved conclusively the value of a mobile infantry. It took long, doubtless, for these ideas to bear fruit, but they did so in due course. The originally mounted infantry man—the dragoon—had ceased to be. He had become part of the cavalry of the time. He was to be revived, but not for another hundred years, to do his original duty, that of a mounted man fighting on foot, and then under another name.
Much besides had happened militarily in this period of the army’s story besides the campaigns already referred to. The “Horse Guards” as Army Headquarters had been so created in 1751. Light troops had been added in 1755 to the dragoons, some of which were eventually to come on the establishment, when amalgamated, as light cavalry regiments; and about the same time second battalions were added to existing regiments, and of these, fifteen, numbering from the 61st to the 75th, commenced later on an independent existence. Many of these had been raised for a campaign, disbanded, and re-formed more than once. Thus the 73rd, formed as a second battalion to the 42nd after the disaster of Ticonderoga, took that number in 1786, but it had been held successively by a second battalion of the 34th, then by the 116th and the present 71st. These sudden alterations of strength in the Army List produced evils and suffering in every way. It was stated in 1763, after the reduction, that there were upwards of 500 ex-officers in gaol for debt, because of want of employment. Most of the regiments, both old and new, had flank companies of light infantry and grenadiers, which were detached to form, for the time, separate battalions during a campaign; and the former were the precursors of the light infantry battalions of later years. The old force of Marines was disbanded in 1748, to reappear seven years later as a more purely naval force under the Admiralty, instead of being an army force, borne on the military establishment, and lent, more or less, to the navy. The Royal Artillery, first organised in a small way125 by Marlborough, had become an independent body as far back as 1715, but it was not till 1743 it appeared on the estimates, nor until 1751 that officers were commissioned. Similarly with the Royal Engineers. At first practically civilians, military rank was not given them until 1757. The army was growing up into a more complete machine.
Fire Arms.
Arquebus (Match Lock) 1537.
Firelock (Wheel Lock) 1620.
Musket (Brown Bess) 1800.
Magazine B.L. (Lee-Metford) 1896.
Plug-Bayonet.
Socket-Bayonet.
Modern Bayonet.
There had been slight changes in the detail and colour of regimental uniforms, but of no great moment. A black line or “worm” was added as a border to the gold lace of the regiments that fought at Quebec, a privilege asserted to be granted only when the commander-in-chief of an army is killed in battle. But its true origin seems a mystery, for the old 13th Foot is said to have been granted it after Culloden.
A curious system of regimental medals for merit depending on the length of good and faithful service was introduced in 1767 by the 5th Foot. Arms had changed but little, and the preparation of ammunition was sufficiently primitive. Sergeants and corporals were directed to “carry a mould to cast bullets, and a ladle to melt lead in, with three spare powder horns and twelve bags for ball.” Meanwhile, too, the militia had been more fully recognised as a second line for home defence; and about 1757 a practical conscription by ballot for this force was proposed, and after much opposition carried in Parliament. During training they were to be under the Mutiny Act and Articles of War. These latter, drafted originally on the general’s own responsibility when conducting a campaign, had been still reluctantly recognised by Parliament, and in 1754 had been extended, with even greater reluctance, to the East Indies and America. The old feeling of dread of independent governance by officers was still alive, though beneath the surface of things. As late as 1770, Beckford, Lord Mayor of London, remonstrated with the Secretary of State for War because a detachment returning from Spitalfields had marched past the Mansion House with drums beating, “making a very warlike appearance, and raising in the minds of peaceful citizens the idea of a town garrisoned with regular troops.” It is curious126 to watch, in the army’s growth, how persistently the civil mind was antagonistic to the force that had carried its name, its reputation, and, soon, its trade to success and esteem. Yet Lord Bavington had to accept the remonstrance, and assure the civic chief that such should not occur again without his approval and approbation.
Only the 3rd Buffs, the Royal Marines, the Royal London Militia, and the 3rd Grenadier Guards, because of their asserted origin from London trained bands, can claim as a right the privilege of marching through the city of London with fixed bayonets and colours flying.
The army meanwhile had been largely increased and as frequently reduced. Many existing regiments have more than once borne other numbers than those they at present possess, owing to these changes. Thus in 1760 there were 100,000 armed men serving the State. Of these, to give an idea of the distribution of regiments in those days, there were in Great Britain 3 regiments of cavalry and 2 of infantry. In Ireland, 3 of cavalry and 17 of infantry; in Gibraltar, 6 battalions; in America and the West Indies 26 regiments of foot; in India 4; in Africa 2, and in Jersey 1; while in Germany were 4 cavalry regiments and 16 infantry battalions.
Private 14th Regt 1792
But despite all these changes the army had grown steadily. There were practically now in the Army List, putting aside the Foot Guards and the Household Cavalry, 77 battalions of the line, 7 regiments of Dragoon Guards, and 17 other cavalry regiments which have survived until the present day. The last three of the latter had been raised in 1759, and the 17th, then commanded by Colonel Hale, who had been present at Quebec, got the authority for the new regiment to carry on their standards the Death’s Head, with the motto “Or glory,” whence comes their sobriquet of the “Death or Glory Boys.” So the 15th, at first light dragoons, had a curious origin, for present at the town where the regiment was being raised were a large number of clothiers and tailors who had come to present a petition. This they, however, abandoned, to join the ranks of the new127 regiment; but if tailors, they were still men, and performed prodigies of valour; so Granby said at Emsdorff in 1760.
The Dragoon Guards had originally been regiments of cavalry, or horse, armed like the Household cavalry, and receiving a higher rate of pay than the mere dragoon, who, essentially a mounted infantry soldier, and armed at first with an infantry weapon, did not provide his own horse. This, at first, the men in the regiments of “horse,” who were often the sons of substantial farmers and small landowners, did. When, however, the armament, equipment, and duties of both dragoon and horse were the same, and when the mounts for both were provided by the State, and the only difference was the rate of pay, amalgamation was inevitable. Hence, in 1746, three of the seven regiments of horse then existing, and in 1788 the remaining four were converted into Dragoon Guards, to distinguish them from the mere dragoon, and the same rate of pay was given to both branches.
But two marked changes had been made in regimental designations. Up to 1751 they had borne the name of their successive colonels, a method both confusing in itself and lacking in that continuity of regimental history which a number or a title bestows. In that year, numbers were given to regiments of the line, and the seniority fixed by the date on which they came on the English Establishment. Uniformity of uniform was also settled, and facings directed to be worn. Finally, in 1787, county titles were bestowed on regiments, the forerunner of the “territorial system” that obtains now.