Although the British Army has only existed since
the Act of Union was signed in 1707, which amalgamated the then English and
Scottish Parliaments into a single political legislature, the earliest and therefore
the oldest military regiment in Britain is said to be the Royal Scots, or the
Royal Regiment of Scotland, which has existed since 1633, a decade or more
before the New Model Army of England was first raised by the English
Parliament.
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| Sir John Hepburn |
When Charles II died on the 2nd February
1685, his younger brother James II succeeded to the English, Scottish and Irish
thrones, although his right to rule the kingdoms was immediately contested by
James Scott, the 1st Duke of Monmouth, who was an illegitimate son
of the late monarch, Charles II. However, despite Monmouth’s royal bloodline
and his protestant faith, he failed to gain any widespread support for his
royal claims, which resulted in his ill-equipped forces being easily defeated
by James II’s far better armed and much more experienced troops, including the
Royal Scots. In the year following the suppression of Monmouth’s claim, the
regiment was reported to have been increased in size when a second battalion
was added to their ranks, possibly illustrating King James II increasing
concerns over the security of his own reign, which was said to have come under
increasing threat largely because of his Roman Catholic faith and his habit of
appointing fellow Catholics to important government posts. Almost inevitably,
with Parliament and the monarch at odds with one another, a number of England’s
leading nobles and members of Parliament were reported to have approached
James’ son-in-law, William of Orange, to invade the country, in order to remove
King James II from power.
According to some sources, His Majesty’s Royal
Regiment of Foot, the Royal Scots, were said to be the only British regiment
that actually remained faithful to the unpopular Stuart king, to the point that
when James finally abandoned the country in favour of William and Mary in
December 1688, members of the Royal Scots mutinied rather than serve the new
foreign monarchs and as a result had to be forcibly disarmed. It was also
reported that as a direct result of the army’s faithfulness to the monarch, as
opposed to the people through Parliament, one major piece of legislation passed
by the English legislature was the Bill of Rights 1689, which finally put an
end to a British monarch’s right to raise a standing national army and placing
control of such military forces firmly in the hands of the country’s political
representatives, a situation that remains in force to the present day.
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| Charles II |
Within late 17th and early 18th
century Britain, several military conflicts were reported to have raged around
the attempts of the exiled Stuart family to regain their rightful place on the
thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland, a royal claim that was only finally
extinguished by the Act of Settlement 1701, which was intended to ratify the
right of succession to the Three Kingdoms, ensuring that only Protestant heirs
or relations of William and Mary could ascend to the monarchy of the various
kingdoms and that Roman Catholic heirs could not. Although this particular
piece of legislation had not been passed by the time the ousted king, James II,
attempted to recover his throne through the support of Roman Catholic’s in
Ireland, all of the subsequent Jacobite rebellions that took place in Ireland
and Scotland ultimately proved to be military disasters for the Stuart cause.
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| King James II |
In addition to those that were killed outright by
the soldiers, a further forty or more men, women and children were reported to
have died from starvation and exposure, after they were driven out of their
homes in order to escape the murderous onslaught. Although no single individual
ever faced charges for what was later deemed to be murder by a Scottish court
of inquiry, the outrage was even reported to have cast a shadow over the reign
of the monarch’s William and Mary, as well as helping to harden the attitudes
of those Jacobites who would continue to fight for the Stuart family’s cause
for the next sixty years or more. However, for Britain’s evolving military
forces, this particular period of Scottish history was reported to have been
incredibly valuable, with a significant number of loyalist regiments being
raised, which would go on to play a vitally important role in helping to create
the British Empire, by imposing Britain’s political will around the globe,
guarding its overseas territories from foreign enemies and helping some of
their regiments achieve almost legendary status in some of history’s bloodiest
conflicts.
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| William of Orange |
Much of the problem for the army as an employer was
that it also had to contend with the various merchant companies who regularly
recruited the very best soldiers and officers for their own private armies, in
order to impose its commercial will on the native population of the Indian
subcontinent and elsewhere. Although these private armies were thought to have
performed reasonably well when faced with most native forces, who were less
well trained and well-equipped, in 1756 Britain found itself at war with its
traditional European adversary, France, which was reported to have had a much
larger and more effective land army. Known formally as the Seven Years War,
this military conflict has occasionally been called the “First World War”,
simply because it involved the two sides waging war against one another in
Europe, Asia and North America, as well as on the high seas, becoming one of
the most extensive conflicts that had ever been fought up until that time.
Driven by the competing imperial ambitions of Britain, France and their
respective European allies, for the most part, Britain’s military forces were
reported to confronted their adversaries in North America, including the
territories of Canada, India, the Caribbean and West Africa, as well as in the
world’s great oceans, where the Royal Navy continued to reign relatively
unchallenged. However, in the initial stages of the conflict, British land
forces were reported to have fared comparatively badly, often failing to match
the effectiveness of their French enemies and regularly falling victim to the
many unknown diseases that plagued many of Britain’s overseas territories. As a
result, British officials were often forced to raise additional native levy
forces, who were not only less prone to outbreaks of disease, but who knew the
local terrain far better than the incoming foreign soldiers and in some cases
proved to be far more successful troops than their British counterparts.
Although Britain did not supply significant numbers
of ground troops to the European theatres during the Seven Years War, Royal
Navy ships and raiding parties were reported to have played an important role
in attacking French interests along the coast, thereby diverting French troops
from more important uses. For its part, the ships of the Royal Navy were also
known to have thwarted a number of planned Franco-Spanish naval operations that
were intended to be launched against Britain and her allies, including a
military invasion of Britain, which was finally undone after the Royal Navy
defeated a combined Franco-Spanish fleet at Quiberon Bay on the 20th
November 1759. However, Britain only sent its first land forces into the
European theatre in April 1758 when some nine thousand men were despatched to
support the Hanoverian army of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, who was reported to
have made significant gains over the French before being forced back by a much larger
enemy force.
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| Duke of Wellington |
The seven Years War was also thought to have seen
the birth and development of the first specialist American militias who were
able to conduct armed campaigns against those native Indian tribes who were
actively supporting the French cause in North America. Units such as Rogers’
Rangers were reported to have been independent light infantry companies that
were used for reconnaissance and special operations against both French and
hostile Indian forces during the period of the Seven Years War, which is often
referred to in North America as the French and Indian War. Founded in 1755 by
Major Robert Rogers, although they were thought to have been regarded by most
British commanders as little more than a local militia, the fact that these
units could and would fight in the most atrocious conditions and were
responsible for countless attacks against enemy forces undoubtedly made them
one of the most effective fighting forces of the entire conflict, regardless of
the fact that the British authorities singularly failed to recognise their
achievements.
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| Major Robert Rogers |
Although France was reported to have tried to
undermine British interests in India, mostly through the actions of their local
native allies, who were becoming increasingly concerned by Britain’s growing
influence within the subcontinent, France’s reluctance, or inability to provide
significant numbers of regular troops to support such native resistance, almost
inevitably ensured that the British East India Company would go on to
successfully suppress all such French inspired campaigns. Although French
agents were reported to have tried to foment anti-British feeling throughout
much of India, for the most part such campaigns were largely unsuccessful and
it was only in the region of Bengal where they achieved some degree of success,
encouraging their traditional ally, Siraj-ud-Daulah, to take up arms against
British interests.
The most infamous incident connected with this
particular Indian Nawab, or ruler, was reported to be that of the Black Hole of
Calcutta, where captured British and Anglo-Indian prisoners from the captured
Fort William in Calcutta, were said to have been held overnight in such cramped
conditions that many of them died as a result of crushing, suffocation and
exhaustion. Although some later reports would claim that well over one hundred
and twenty prisoners had died as a result of their incarceration, in all
probability only some forty-odd people died because of the conditions, which
had little to do with Siraj-ud-Daulah himself, who was said to have been
unaware of the prisoner’s physical predicament. However, Siraj’ initial attack
on Fort William, along with the subsequent incarceration and deaths of the
British prisoners was said to have been used as part of a much wider political
campaign to remove Siraj-ud-Daulah from power and have him replaced by a more
pro-British leader.
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| Clive of India |
Having made diplomatic approaches to Britain and
her allies, the Seven Years War was only formally ended with the signing of the
Treaty of Paris 1763, which saw a number of France’s lost colonies and
possessions returned to her, including the economically vital sugar producing
islands of Guadaloupe and Martinique. However, as part of the same agreement
France was also reported to have surrendered its North American territory of
Louisiana, which was ceded to her military ally Spain, in compensation for the
Spanish lands of Florida that had been captured by Britain during the war.
Additionally, France was also compelled to formally grant possession of its
remaining New France territories in North America to Britain, thereby creating
the basis for the later state of Canada, which Britain managed to retain
following the later American Revolutionary War that brought an end to Britain’s
ownership of her thirteen American colonies. Even in India, France was reported
to have lost control of many of its pre-war possessions, although she was
granted the return of her former trading posts, allowing her to recover much of
the commercial business that she had once enjoyed, but without having the
military and political influence that had proved to be so troublesome to
Britain’s own interests. Finally, in the European theatre, national boundaries
were said to have reverted to their earlier limits, although Prussia, one of
Britain’s leading allies, was reported to have gained substantial influence in
continental Europe, establishing the basis for the later unified German state,
which Britain and numerous other European nations would have cause to confront
in future decades.
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| Royal Navy |
Typically, these seasoned soldiers would regale any
potential candidate with talk of the comradeship and adventures that they had
experienced in some or other military campaign, often failing to mention the
hardship and brutality that formed part of the same military service. In most
cases, young recruits would agree to join particular regiments, having been
regally entertained in a local tavern and having consumed more alcohol than was
good for them, would wake up the following morning to find that they had
inadvertently taken the “King’s shilling” and with little chance of escaping
the bargain that they had made the previous evening. Alternatively, new
recruits could often be found amongst the local criminal classes, with local
magistrates and judges giving convicted miscreants the choice of serving time
in prison, being transported overseas, or saving themselves by serving in the
nation’s military forces. As a consequence of having an army that was largely
made up of conscripts, discipline within the various regiments was reported to
have been severe, with public lashings, starvation, imprisonment and even
capital punishment used to exercise control over the growing ranks of generally
poorly educated, badly paid, overworked and often highly disaffected men who
made up the majority of the British armed forces.
The officers who were chosen to lead, what the Duke
of Wellington would later refer to as the “scum of the earth”, or the British
soldier, were often little better than the common men that they led, save for
the fact that they were better educated and had significantly more money, or at
least their wealthy families did. In common with their lowest soldier, many of
these supposedly professional officers were often paid a pittance for their
military service, monies that were generally in arrears and that were
insufficient to cover the running costs of having to provide much of their own
military equipment, including a horse, if they happened to be commissioned
within a cavalry unit. As a result of the practice of individuals being able to
buy their commissions, almost inevitably this was thought to have had a
damaging effect on the overall performance of the British army, with
significant numbers of badly trained, foolhardy and even cowardly officers
being responsible for leading British regiments into battle against enemy forces.
It is fair to say though that amongst both the officer corps and the common
ranks there were any number of highly capable and extremely proficient
soldiers, whose own military experience not only helped to maintain discipline,
but also ensured that each regimental community managed to function efficiently
and effectively.
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| British Infantry |
As a military community, the family quarters were
also thought to have been governed by a whole series of rules and regulations,
which ensured that the civilian camp remained calm and peaceful, vital
requirements in a community that was often bristling with weaponry and where
personal scores could quite easily be settled by the use of deadly force. In
order to maintain discipline, especially in an environment where the presence of
women might cause personal rivalries or jealousies, most regiments were thought
to have arranged their own procedures for dealing with such incidents, with men
who were found guilty of attempting to covet another man’s wife reasonably
expecting to face the most severe form of censure, right up to being executed
for his actions. Likewise, those who the regimental commanders felt might be a
cause of disunity within the civilian camp, such as an erstwhile husband or
wife, a disruptive teenager, or a young man who did not want to enlist
alongside his father, would often be ordered to leave the camp, their
behaviour, or refusal to serve, being regarded as reason enough for the army to
stop feeding, housing or transporting them. In most cases though, according to
some records, most young men either chose to enlist with their fathers, or were
otherwise found an apprenticeship with some or other local tradesman, whilst
soldier’s daughters were either found some form of domestic employment, or were
married off to a suitable partner, who may or may not have been part of the
camp community.
One of the most traditional aspects of these early
British army units was undoubtedly the russet red tunics that had first been
adopted during the English Civil War by units of the New Model Army, a result
of the newly raised military force being clothed, armed, fed and paid by the
English Parliament. Although previous royal regiments were reported to have
been dressed in varieties of red ever since the late 15th century,
often in conjunction with other royal colours, the emergence of a standardised
uniform, for a brand new professional English army was thought to have marked
the beginning of a British army look that would continue right through to the
late 19th century, when most regiments were outfitted with the much
more practical khaki colours of the Indian subcontinent.
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| British Redcoats |
By modern standards of course, red uniforms would
seem to be the most impractical sort of tunic to wear, given that today’s
weaponry is far more lethal and far more accurate than those that were employed
during the 17th and 18th centuries. Unlike today, where
battles are often conducted from a distance and through the use of specialised
weaponry such as missiles, tanks, drones and fixed wing aircraft, the
battlefields of the 17th, 18th and 19th
centuries were often highly confusing places to be, with deafening noise, poor
visibility and close quarter combat being regular features of such military
engagements. The sorts of weaponry available to most infantrymen of the period,
were reported to have included various types of muskets, such as the heavy
Wheel lock and Matchlock guns that were fired from a movable stand, to the
lighter Flintlocks and Cap locks that could be carried and fired by hand whilst
on the move, as well as having a detachable bayonet that could be used in
hand-to-hand combat. However, the biggest drawback of these early firearms was
that they lacked any sort of accuracy, only being reliable over comparatively
short distances, often as little as fifty yards, thereby presenting little
danger to soldiers beyond that range, whether they were wearing red uniforms or
not.
However, as battle was joined between facing
armies, the smoke and noise caused by the firing from dozens of cannons and
many hundreds, possibly thousands of muskets would have quickly seen the
immediate area enveloped by swirling clouds of gun smoke, making it hard for
the already confused and often frightened soldiers to find their bearings in a
cauldron of competing sights, smells and sounds. However, the presence of
familiar red tunics would no doubt have provided some sense of security for the
British troops that were awaiting the advance of enemy troops, or those who
were ordered to move forward against the massed ranks of their adversaries already
fixed positions. With hundreds or thousands of red uniformed British soldiers
moving towards an enemy line, it was said to have offered some degree of
comfort to many of the troops that they were simply one amongst several
hundreds potential targets, for the enemy musketeers, making their own death or
survival little more than a chance event, which was regarded as being one of
the major advantages of wearing the famous red tunics.
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| Colonel Smith (Lexington) |
Significantly, at the time of the outbreak of the
American Revolutionary Wars in 1775 the total military strength of the British
army worldwide was reported to have numbered less than forty thousand men, most
of who were scattered around the globe defending Britain’s vast overseas
possessions, including those on the Indian Subcontinent, West Africa, the
Caribbean and North America. The man in charge of British forces in North
America just prior to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War and whose actions
were said to have precipitated the revolt, was General Thomas Gage, an
individual, better suited to being a colonial administrator, rather than an
outstanding military commander.
According to some sources, Gage was thought to have
gained his position as Commander-in-chief of British forces in North America
largely through the lobbying of his well placed friends and relatives, as
opposed to having attained it through his own abilities, a fact that would
become all too evident, when he was finally faced with the prospect of imposing
unpopular British legislation on a generally resistant and highly antagonistic
colonial population.
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| General Thomas Gage |
The Stamp Tax itself was said to have proved to be
so unpopular, on both sides of the Atlantic that in 1766 the British Parliament
was reported to have repealed the legislation, although by that time,
significant damage had been done to the previously cordial relations which had
existed between Britain and her American colonists. However, despite ending the
divisive tax, at the same time, the British legislature was reported to have
introduced the Declaratory Act of 1766, which formally asserted Parliaments
right to enact legislation both on the British and American populations,
essentially ignoring colonial demands for the sort of political representation
that was enjoyed by the population of Britain. Around the same time that
colonial leaders were becomingly increasingly irritated by the often high
handed attitude of British Parliamentarians, the London based legislature also
introduced the Quartering Act of 1765, which permitted British troops to be
accommodated in private dwellings, irrespective of the individual householders
permission, helping to add to the growing resentment felt by most of those
colonists who happened to live in the towns and cities of America’s eastern
seaboard.
It was said to be during General Thomas Gage’s
tenure as Britain’s military commander-in-chief that local tensions were
thought to have risen to such an extent that he ordered large numbers of
British troops to withdraw from the frontier areas of British North America,
back to some of the larger urban centres, including Boston and New York, both
of which were said to have been inhabited by highly resentful and suspicious
colonial populations.
Perhaps predictably, the large scale quartering of
regular British troops in a number of America’s largest cities was not
generally welcomed by the local populations, who saw the move as a form of
military occupation, which could only end in some form of bloody conflict,
given the presence of large numbers of armed troops on their streets. Almost as
soon as the British troops moved into Boston, tensions arose between them and
the local population, which was generally characterised by a series of brawls
and fights between men from both sides, although for the most part, such
outbreaks of violence rarely resulted in any lives being lost. Tempers were
thought to have been further inflamed by continuing press reports that
concentrated on the mutual antagonisms, to the point that rather than helping
to reduce the almost regular fights, the articles were thought to have
heightened tensions further, although some regiments were withdrawn from Boston
in order to prevent any serious outbreaks of disorder. However, despite the
best efforts of all concerned, the almost inevitable loss of life, which many
had feared would result from the ongoing tensions, was said to have occurred on
the evening of the 5th March 1770.
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| Margaret Gage |
Almost immediately Gerrish’s companions began to
argue with Private White and his officer, challenging them to a fight and
raising such a commotion that before long a large crowd was said to have
gathered around the two British soldiers. Another British officer, Captain
Preston, who happened to be close by and who had witnessed the confrontation,
then ordered a detachment of one NCO and seven soldiers to go and retrieve
Private White and the Captain from the increasingly angry crowd, although as
they moved towards the two men, they themselves were said to have become hemmed
in by the crowd, which by now was thought to have grown to well over several
hundred angry citizens. Believing their lives to be at risk, the detachment of
troops was reported to have loaded their weapons and aimed them in the
direction of the slowly encroaching crowd, who rather than retreating from the
small band of soldiers, were reported to have started pelting them with
snowballs and whatever else they could lay their hands on. One member of the
crowd however, a local innkeeper called Richard Holmes, was said to have
escalated matters by rushing forward and striking one of the soldiers, a
Private Hugh Montgomery, on the side of the head with a club. As he recovered
his senses, the young soldier was reported to have discharged his musket into
the crowd, but without hitting anyone with the shot, even though he later
admitted to firing the weapon deliberately.
However, as if to goad the remaining soldiers into
repeating Montgomery’s actions, the crowd reportedly began to chant “Fire” at
the group of soldiers and having repeated the chant several times, the troops
did exactly that, hitting eleven members of the crowd with the volley, killing
three of them instantly. Two more civilians would subsequently perish in the
aftermath of the shooting, bringing the total number of fatalities to five, for
which Captain Preston and his eight soldiers were charged with murder on 27th
March 1770. As a direct result of the incident, all of the remaining British
troops were said to have been withdrawn from the city and were relocated to
billets on Castle Island in Boston Harbour, whilst Captain Preston and his
co-accused were remanded in custody to stand trial at Suffolk County Courthouse
in October and November 1770.
Captain Preston and the eight accused British
soldiers were reported to have been tried separately and after a delay of
several months, in order that local tensions might be eased before any sort of
jury trials took place. Initially however, it was said to have proved extremely
difficult to find a local lawyer who was prepared to defend the soldiers,
mainly because it was felt that to do so would have a highly detrimental effect
on any attorney’s career, leading to many simply refusing to accept the papers.
Eventually though, John Adams, one of the areas leading lawyers, colonial
leaders and later America’s second freely elected President, agreed to take the
case, mainly to ensure that all of the accused men received a fair trial and
that justice was seen to be served. At Captain Preston’s subsequent trial, the
basis of Adams’ defence was that the British officer had not actually ordered
his men to fire their weapons into the crowd and was therefore not responsible
for the actions that led to the deaths of the five colonial civilians, an
argument that was eventually accepted by the jury after a trial lasting some
six days. The second trial, which involved the eight British soldiers, who were
accused of firing into the crowd, took place in November 1770 and centred round
Adams’ main argument that the troopers had opened fire on the crowd ostensibly
because they felt their own live were at risk from the large and extremely
angry civilian crowd.
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| John Adams |
It was incidents, such as what later became known
as the “Boston Massacre” and the introduction of a new “Tea Act” in May 1773
that were said to have created even greater divisions between the British
Parliament and the colonial leadership in America, which inevitably led to the
conflict that the British establishment regarded as a rebellion, but that most
colonists saw as a war of independence, the American Revolutionary War. One of
the most notable events that led to the outbreak of war between Britain and its
American colonists was said to have been the Boston Tea Party of December 1773,
the criminal destruction of several tons of tea by colonists, reportedly
because the cargoes would have been taxed without their consent, if indeed the
tea had ever been officially landed, which was not the case.
Even the likes of Benjamin Franklin were reported
to have been outraged by the actions of the colonists, who were said to have
disguised themselves as native Indians to carry out the raid and a number of
local American merchants even offered to compensate Britain for the loss of the
cargo, although all such offers were subsequently refused. Today the Boston Tea
Party is widely regarded as being symbolic of the American revolutionary cause
and its opposition to the supposedly overbearing and illegal taxation imposed
by a wholly unrepresentative British government, significantly a viewpoint that
was only widely promoted some fifty or sixty years after the raid first took
place. However, even though the “Tea Party” itself was thought to be little
more than an aggravating assault on a single British tea clipper and its cargo,
the action of the so-called patriots who carried the raid, was said to have had
a far more serious consequences for the wider colonial community. As a direct
result of the attack, the British Parliament was said to have been so incensed
that they immediately introduced a series of legislative Acts, which were not
only designed to punish the port of Boston and its population for the
destruction of the tea, but also to reinforce the generally held view of the
elected assembly that Parliament’s authority was absolute, not only in Britain,
but throughout its colonial Empire.
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| Benjamin Franklin |
By imposing these Acts on the people of
Massachusetts, the British Parliament had, in the view of many American
colonists, violated their basic rights, not only constitutionally, but also
under the terms of the colonial charters which had been used to establish the
British settlements in the first place. Even outside of Massachusetts, the
introduction of these new Acts was reported to have caused outrage amongst the
colonial population, especially amongst those who believed that a formal
American separation from Britain was the only legitimate way forward and who
used the imposition of such unfair legislative Acts to underpin their own
argument for full American independence.
In response to these new measures many American
colonies were reported to have sent representatives to the First Continental
Congress, a meeting of colonial leaders, who agreed to form the Continental
Association, an arrangement which called for the wholesale boycott of British
made goods being brought into America. More importantly however, at the same
meeting, colonial leaders also agreed to support Massachusetts in the event
that the colony was attacked by British forces, a pledge that would ultimately
be tested when the British commander-in-chief in North America, General Thomas
Gage, sent troops into the towns of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, with
orders to seek and destroy armaments that were being held by local colonial
militias.
As a response to the introduction of the previously
mentioned Intolerable Acts, a number of local militias within Massachusetts had
begun to store large quantities of arms, just in case the political situation
continued to deteriorate and in the event that any sort of armed action was
taken against the local population by the estimated three thousand British
troops that were said to have been stationed in the colony. Aware that the
colonists were storing arms and ammunition, General Gage, who was generally
seen as being sympathetic to the colonial cause, mainly because he had an
American wife, undertook his duty as a British officer all the same and was
said to have made plans for seizing the American arms caches in the most
effective and quietest way possible.
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| Paul Revere |
The intention of Gage’s military expedition of the
18th April 1775 was for a force of around seven hundred regular
British troops to leave their main military bases in Boston and make towards
the colonial centre of Concord, where they expected to search for and seize the
militias arms depots, as well as arresting a number of colonial leaders, whose
activities were deemed to be suspect by the British authorities. Drawing men
from a number of the elite infantry regiments that were billeted in and around
Boston, rather than taking command of the expedition himself, Gage was reported
to have assigned a Colonel Smith who would take overall command of the force,
with a Major Pitcairn as his immediate subordinate. By the time that Gage was
announcing the military operation to his junior officers, the general was said
to have been completely unaware that large parts of the plan had already been
leaked to the local colonial forces, either by Margaret Gage, or other
sympathisers within the British camp, essentially rendering most of the
proposal useless from a strategic point of view.
He would have also have been unaware that by the
time he began to instruct his officers on the morning of the 18th
April 1775, many colonial militias were already being assembled by their
leaders, in readiness for the British advance on Concord, giving the American
forces plenty of time to prepare for the regular troop’s arrival.
Unfortunately, even though most of the British infantrymen were highly
experienced soldiers, due to the way that Gage’s forces were constituted, many
of the more senior officers who were charged with commanding each of the
various battalions and regiments were said to have been drawn from other units
and were therefore largely unknown to the men that they were expected to lead
on the vitally important expedition. However, regardless of such issues, on the
evening of the 18th April, the various British troops were ordered
to prepare themselves to leave Boston by boat, for the comparatively short
journey to Lechmere Point on the other side of the Bay, where they would join
up with the main route to Concord. However, even though the boat journey was
said to have been largely uneventful, the fact that most of the troops were
forced to stand during the trip and were then asked to wade through waist deep
freezing cold water to come ashore, was thought to have been a less the
favourable start to a campaign, which left many of the men and their equipment
soaking wet.
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| Colonial Minuteman |
With uncertainty overcoming good order on both
sides, almost inevitably someone discharged their weapon, although most reporters
later agreed that the shot had not been fired by any of the men on the common,
but rather by somebody away from the scene, with both sides subsequently
accusing one another’s supporters for the first sign of aggression. Initially
only a few shots were exchanged between the two sides, but perhaps due to their
better training, the British troops were reported to have begun to fire almost
regular volleys of shot into the American ranks, without having been given any
sort of order to fire, according to later American reports. As the minuteman
company began to withdraw with some haste, the British regulars were said to
have moved forward with their bayonets fixed, purportedly killing and wounding
several more members of the militia, who were trying to escape the scene.
According to British reports of the incident, much of the soldier’s confusion
was caused by a lack of information and leadership by their officers, who
seemed to have been taken as much by surprise as was everybody else, leading to
a temporary loss of command, during which the troops followed their normal
practice. It was only when a more seasoned officer, Colonel Smith, came forward
from the main column that some form of order was restored and the troops were
ordered to reassemble.
Having left Lexington in relatively good order, the
British force continued on its journey to Concord, no doubt aware that their
earlier actions and the deaths of the local minutemen had already been reported
to the main militia headquarters. For their part, local colonial forces were
reported to have been generally undecided as to what action to take, whether to
withdraw from the town, remain at their current posts, or march out to meet the
British troops that were fast approaching the town. According to most sources,
the decision was made to march out and confront the regular troops, although
having left Concord, within a short distance they were said to have met the
vanguard of the seven hundred-strong British force, realised they were
outnumbered by three to one and subsequently marched back the way they had just
come. Arriving back in the town with the British troops a short distance
behind, rather than face a similar fate as their comrades in Lexington, militia
leaders then made the decision to withdraw from Concord to a position just
north of the town, where they could monitor the British troops, before deciding
on any further action.
As they arrived in the town, Colonel Smith was
reported to have despatched a contingent of soldiers to guard the bridge at the
north end of town, in order to protect the main body of troops from the militia
forces that were known to be gathering in that general area. Likewise the
British commander also detached a number of men to protect their line of
retreat if that should become necessary, before ordering the remainder of his
soldiers to begin searching the town for the weapons that were believed to be
stored there. The main stockpile, which was said to have been located at a
nearby farm, was fairly quickly found, containing three large artillery pieces
and numerous pieces of shot which were subsequently destroyed and disposed of
by the troops, who also ruined a significant amount of foodstuffs that were
considered to be unusually high and might well have provided sustenance to an
enemy force. Although the British troops were reported to have ruthless in
their pursuit of any contraband items, for the most part they were thought to
have been reasonable in their treatment of the local population, reimbursing
the local businesses for any items of food and drink that were consumed during
their search of the town.
 |
| Grenadier |
However, rather than attacking the regular troops
from a distance, which would have proved largely ineffective, the militia
commanders were reported to have ordered their forces to advance on the bridge,
but cautioned them not to open fire, unless they were fired upon first. With a
much larger enemy force approaching, the British infantrymen were ordered back
across the bridge and told to adopt a street fighting position, a tactic which
was completely unsuitable for the situation that they now found themselves in.
As they rushed to assemble in their ranks, at least one soldier was said to
have fired his weapon in the direction of the advancing militia, causing a
handful of his comrades to do the same, as a result of which, at least two
minutemen were killed and wounded, causing both sides to open fire on one
another. Limited by the width of the road that they were walking down, the
first few ranks of minutemen were reported to have fired around one another,
killing and wounding a large number of the British troops who had been
incorrectly gathered into a relatively tight group, making one big target for
the minutemen to aim at. With most of their officers and senior NCO’s killed or
seriously wounded, the remaining British troops were said to have taken to
their heels, abandoning their wounded comrades at the bridge and leaving behind
the other British troops that were still searching the immediate area for the
militia’s secret arms supplies. As they fled back towards the town, the flight
of the soldiers was only brought to a halt by the arrival of two Grenadier
companies, under the command of Colonel Smith, who had moved forward towards
the bridge having heard the exchange of gunfire that had taken place between
his troops and the minutemen. However, having observed that members of the
local militia were content to remain in a defensive position and not open fire
on his troops, Smith was reported to have rounded up all of the search parties
who had been looking for the hidden arms caches and retired back to Concord,
where the main British force was said to have continued searching for weapons,
before finally reassembling to make their way back to Boston.
According to some sources, having killed and
wounded a number of the British troops that were holding the northern bridge,
members of the militia were thought to have acted in a variety of different
ways, with some retiring back up the hill, others advancing over the bridge,
whilst a handful of others left the scene entirely. However, most of them
remained nearby and simply waited for orders to be issued, as to what action
they should take next, retreat, advance or hold their ground, although with no
command to fire being given, as the advancing British Grenadier companies
arrived at the bridge, the minutemen simply waited to see what action the
troops would take. As the British soldiers retired back towards Concord, having
recovered their scattered search parties and the wounded troops from the
bridge, so the militia were left in control of the immediate area, later moving
towards the town as the British forces moved out, on their way back to Boston,
their mission having been largely accomplished. Most historical reports suggest
that as the regular troops travelled back along the main road to Lexington and
then Boston, their every move was shadowed by a growing number of colonial
militia, who were intent on attacking the British party at every opportunity, a
tactic which was said to have been expected by Colonel Smith, who put out
flankers on both sides of the main column, in order to deter any large scale
and unexpected attack on his main body of troops.
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| Militiaman |
Each of these militia ambushes, set up by the
various colonial units who had been drawn into the area, were thought to have
steadily reduced the British force, which lost handfuls and then dozens of men
to each and every assault, but were still able to push forward, overcoming each
and every enemy position that was placed in their way. However, by the early
afternoon of the 19th April 1775 and having been on their feet for
very nearly seventeen hours straight, during which they had been soaked, shot
at and seen many of their friends and comrades killed or wounded, even some of
the surviving British officers were beginning to find it difficult to keep
their men encouraged.
Fortunately for Colonel Smith and his remaining
troops, just as it seemed that they would be unable to continue with their
journey, the arrival of a second larger British contingent, numbering around a
thousand troops, who were equipped with cannon, was thought to have saved the
day. Under the command of Earl Hugh Percy, although this second British force
was reported to have been ill-provisioned for any sort of large scale
expedition, ostensibly because Percy was in such a rush to make his way to
Lexington, ultimately their arrival was said to have saved Colonel Smith’s
original force from being captured or destroyed by the colonial militia, which
would have been a complete disaster for the British authorities.
 |
| Earl Hugh Percy |
Although the colonial forces were thought to have
been initially been stalled by the arrival of Percy’s military column and its
cannons, within a relatively short time they were said to have adapted their
strategies, so that they shadowed the now much larger British force at a
distance, occasionally firing into the ranks of the military column, with the
expectation that their shot would kill or wound somebody. The fact that they
refused to engage the British troops in a more formal battle line, was said to
have irritated many of the regular officers and soldiers, as did the colonial’s
habit of using trees, walls and even private houses as firing positions, a
custom that would inevitably lead to civilians being caught up in the
increasingly bitter march. As the British column moved closer to its ultimate
objective, their military base at Boston, so the numbers and formation of the
militia was said to have grown, making them more of an obvious target for Earl
Percy’s cannons, which were said to have been used to great effect on the
latter part of the journey, with many minutemen being killed and wounded by the
British artillery. Apparently aware that the colonial’s would attempt to ambush
him on the final part of his march to Boston, Percy was reported to have moved
his column along a much more circuitous route and away from a large militia
force, who subsequently found themselves unable to intercept the regular
troops, much to their own frustration.
Although the detour was said to have taken the
British troops into the neighbouring town of Charlestown, rather than Boston
itself, the settlement still allowed the exhausted British troops to take up a
series of well-defended positions from where they could be reinforced by other
British infantry units and protected by the guns of HMS Somerset which was
stationed in the nearby harbour. For many of Colonel Smith’s surviving troops,
those who had participated in the original operation against Concord, their
undertaking had proved to be a remarkable feat of military strength and discipline.
Not only had they gone nearly two days without sleep, but had also travelled
well over forty miles on foot, a good deal of the time under direct enemy fire,
something that few military units of the time would have been able to cope
with. Despite the British positions though, the militias were reported to have
continued to gather on the outskirts of Boston, with an estimated fifteen
thousand minutemen assembled there by the morning of the 20th April
1775, although virtually all of these forces were said to have been withdrawn,
once it became clear that the city was generally unassailable, without a huge
loss of life.
 |
| 18th C Redcoat |
The fact that mistakes were made by individual
British officer’s in the deployment of their men, as was the case at the bridge
located to the north of Concord and which resulted in a number of regulars
being killed or injured, had little to do with colonial military strategy, but
more to do with a highly inexperienced British officer. Likewise, the
withdrawal of the troops from Concord was simply the result of the British
forces having completed the task assigned to them, rather than any sort of
pressure exerted by the colonial militia, who for the most part seem to have
remained on the outskirts of the town, awaiting additional reinforcements who
then took up position along the British column’s line of withdrawal. Bearing in
mind that throughout much of the journey from Concord to Lexington and then on
to Charlestown, the British troops were in plain sight, unlike many of the minutemen
who were hiding themselves behind walls, trees and nearby buildings, obviously
unwilling or unable to expose themselves to direct and sustained British fire.
It is also worth recalling that at one point during the day the British troops
were thought to have been outnumbered by some three or four to one and yet the
colonial militia still did not feel confident enough to stand toe to toe with
their adversaries.
If the colonial’s did secure any sort of tactical
victory over the British in respect of this very early military engagement,
then it was almost entirely political in nature, especially given the fact that
the colonial leadership was particularly adept at producing and distributing
highly misleading propaganda, which could be used to proclaim their own version
of events to the wider world. Unlike the British authorities, who were known
for being particularly bad at reporting or justifying specific events, often
because they felt no need to do so, the colonial leadership saw the need for
and benefit of being the victim in the ongoing dispute, not only to sell such
an idea to their own population, but more importantly to sell it to the wider
world, to countries like France, Spain and the Netherlands, who would later go
on to support America’s colonial cause. As part of what became a carefully
prepared story for the outside world, details relating to the colonist’s
preparations for war, intelligence gathering and some of the less palatable
aspects of their militia’s behaviour during the Battle of Lexington and
Concord, including the reported scalping of a British soldier and the use of
civilian properties to launch attacks, were deliberately suppressed by colonial
leaders, whereas every infringement, real or invented, which had purportedly
been carried out by British troops, was meticulously reported to the watching
world.
 |
| Battle of Bunker Hill |
Although the British were said to have been aware
of the colonial’s presence on the hills above Boston, for the most part they
were said to have been relatively unconcerned, although several vessels in the
harbour were reported to have fired at them, but with little real effect.
Eventually though, General Gage was said to have become concerned enough to
order an attack against the position, which he was assured, would be easily
overcome. As tended to be the case with the highly organised British forces,
much time was said to have been lost while sufficient infantrymen were found to
be used for the attack, after which they had to be inspected and then marched
down to the harbour where they then had to wait to be embarked on the boats
that would carry them to their target. However, having landed their forces, it
was said to have come to one of the British commander’s attention that more
colonials might be present, than had first been thought, so he sent back for
reinforcements, allowing his fifteen hundred soldiers to rest and eat while
they waited for these additional troops to arrive. With the British forces
below them making it plain that they intended to attack, the colonial militia
at the top of the hills immediately sent back for their own reinforcements and
whilst they waited, arranged for their newly built redoubt, to be further
strengthened in readiness for the forthcoming attack.
 |
| General William Howe |
Eventually, as this third and final attack was made
on the militias defensive redoubt, the colonial volley fire was reported to
have caused significant losses amongst the advancing British line, but not to
the point where the assault was stalled and with some colonials running low on
ammunition and others keen to escape the scene, this time the regulars were
able to close with the militia forces. With bayonets fixed, the surviving
British marines and infantrymen quickly began fierce hand to hand fighting with
the colonists who were eventually driven off both Breed and Bunker Hill’s and
back towards their main base at Cambridge. However, by the end of the bloody and
costly engagement, which is generally known as the Battle of Bunker Hill, the
British forces were reported to have sustained exceptionally high numbers of
casualties, with over two hundred men dead and more than eight hundred wounded.
According to some contemporary reports, British officers were thought to have
suffered a disproportionate number of fatalities during the engagement,
ostensibly because they were often leading their men from the front, putting
themselves at greater risk of being killed or wounded by the guns of the
colonial militia.
Although the Battle of Bunker Hill was generally
deemed to be a British victory, largely because they managed to remove a
potential military threat to the city of Boston, ultimately the way in which
they achieved that victory and the losses that they suffered as a result of it,
proved to have much wider and longer lasting repercussions for Britain’s
interests there. Not only was General Thomas Gage subsequently replaced as the
senior British military commander in America, but attitudes on both sides of
the Atlantic were said to have hardened as a result of the ongoing conflict,
with some political and military leaders becoming increasingly sympathetic to
the colonial cause, whilst others adopted a much more hard line approach,
believing that any and all means should be used to crush the rebellious
militias and their political leadership. Unfortunately, the military commander
appointed to replace Gage, General William Howe, was said to have been the
commander who was directly responsible for the unnecessary losses at Bunker
Hill, a man whose reticence was widely known and whose reluctance to secure
victory at any cost would ultimately prove to have catastrophic results for the
British cause in America.
 |
| Sir Henry Clinton |
One of the first orders that General Clinton was
said to have received upon taking over from Howe as Britain’s overall commander
in America, was for him to withdraw his regular troops from Philadelphia and
send some five thousand regulars to the Caribbean, in preparation for any
French attacks that might be directed there by the colonial’s newest European
ally. With his land forces dramatically reduced and with little expectation
that they would be replaced from Britain or elsewhere, Clinton was initially
instructed to hold whatever grounds he could, without seeking to expand his
areas of control. However, as a highly able military commander, Clinton was
reported to have ignored his instructions and despatched what troops he had, to
a number of theatres, often with mixed results, as he lacked the numbers to
successfully suppress colonial activities outside of the main British held
enclaves.
As a highly experienced military commander,
Clinton’s actions were almost always directed against an enemy army, rather
than against the civilian population that might be associated with them, a
distinction that was not always shared by his political masters back in London.
However, with hostilities largely at an impasse by the end of 1778 Clinton was
said to have found his position undermined by the British government’s regular
habit of refusing his requests for specific military commanders, who he
believed might make a marked contribution to his campaign. Unfortunately, many
of those who were provided were often political appointees, those who could be
relied upon to support the government’s plans, rather than those of Clinton
himself, who was the commander on the ground. As a consequence, Clinton often
found it difficult to cultivate good working relationships with some of these
commanders, a situation that was inevitably exacerbated by the fact that the
British authorities remained unwilling or unable to send him fresh troops which
might reinforce his limited and often exhausted forces.
 |
| Lord Cornwallis |
A number of Britain’s leading admirals and generals
who would have been vitally important to Britain’s war effort in America, were
reported to have resigned, rather than participate in what was often regarded
as an unnecessary and unwanted conflict with American settlers, many of whom
originated from British stock. Even some of the senior officers who directed
the course of the war in America, were said to have been unhappy about the
situation, but excused their own involvement by insisting that they were simply
following orders and as serving soldiers had little say in exactly where they
served. However, the divisions caused by the outbreak of the American
Revolutionary War, was said to have had a marked effect on the levels of
recruitment undertaken by the British government, forcing the authorities to
rely on other sources for troops, including mercenaries from the European state
of Hesse-Kassel, whose ruler, Frederick II, was said to have hired out many of
his own troops to his nephew, King George III, for the war in America, earning
themselves the nickname “Hessians” in the process. Up to thirty thousand of these
hired troops were thought to have been employed during the American
Revolutionary War, along with an estimated fifty thousand British troops, as
well as an unknown number of freed black African slaves and the loyalist
settlers who were said to have taken up arms in Britain’s cause.
Opposing them, a reported thirty five thousand
Americans were said to have joined the Continental Army, often serving anything
between one and three years depending on their personal circumstances, whilst
this regular force was said to have been supported by another forty five
thousand militiamen, who tended to fight on a state by state, or engagement by
engagement basis. Added to these American forces, something like ten thousand
regular French troops were reported to have fought on American soil, although
many more were thought to have attacked British interests around the globe,
including in the Caribbean, India and Europe, forcing Britain to divert much
needed troops away from the American theatre, in order to protect these
overseas territories from French, Dutch and Spanish attacks. Ultimately though,
there were thought to have been any number of decisions that contrived to
defeat the British Army in America, few of which had anything to do with the
military capability of the Continental Army and its leaders directly.
 |
| George Washington |
With reasonably well trained colonial militias in
most areas of the thirteen British colonies, most of whom had been raised to fight
and defend against Indian attacks, although they lacked the uniform discipline
of regular troops, they were ideally suited to fight an extended guerrilla war
against any sort of enemy, whether European or native. This ability to launch
highly effective hit and run raids against an enemy force was said to have been
well demonstrated during the British journey back from Lexington and Concord,
when colonial minutemen were reported to have taken a heavy toll on the regular
troops, as well as managing to raise a total force of some several thousand men
by journey’s end. For the British forces to have suppressed such activity, they
would almost certainly have needed to occupy substantial areas of the country,
which given their limited numbers would have been almost impossible, unless of
course Britain had prepared to commit hundreds of thousands of troops and carry
out a highly repressive occupation of the territories, neither of which
solution was possible for, or indeed acceptable to the British government of
the day.
It was also thought to be the case that a number of
the military commanders who were given overall control of the American
colonies, seriously underestimated the ability of the colonial militias to
stand up against British regulars, which of course, they very rarely did.
General Thomas Gage was said to have been the first commander to misjudge the
mood and fighting ability of the colonials, with his own personal character
traits and the possible connivance of his wife, both helping to alert the
colonists to most of the military proposals that Gage intended to implement. It
was said to have been a combination of Gage’s and General Howe’s poor judgement
which allowed the fiasco at Bunker Hill to occur and Howe alone that permitted
the colonials to force him out of Boston, a sea port that the British forces
would have been well advised to defend with a little more vigour. Howe’s
successor, General Clinton, despite being a highly capable and quite successful
strategist was said to have helped create the final defeat of the British
forces in America, by ordering his immediate subordinate, Lord Cornwallis, to
establish a secure base at Yorktown in Virginia, an order that would prove to
be catastrophic, when the enclave was later besieged by French and American
forces.
 |
| Hessian Troops |
However,
even though hostilities between British and American forces were not brought to
a end until April 1782, when the British Parliament voted to end the war in America,
the wider conflict involving the likes of France, Spain and the Netherlands,
nations that had supported the American cause, were only finally concluded with
the signing of the Treaties of Paris and Versailles in September 1783. Although
no definitive figures exist regarding the numbers of British land troops who
died of wounds received during the fighting, a basic estimate would seem to
suggest that anything between seven and ten thousand soldiers died as a direct
result of the conflict, but with far more dying as a result of the various
diseases that all sides were exposed to during the same period. For many of the
men who survived the war, especially those soldiers specifically recruited to
oppose the colonial cause, the British defeat resulted in a significant number
of British regiments either being amalgamated or disbanded entirely, their
former members having being transferred to other units or discharged back into
the civilian community. However, with the territories of British North America,
later the state of Canada, still in Britain’s possession, large numbers of
troops were said to have been retained in order to protect these British held
lands, along with the Empire’s other overseas territories including those in
the Caribbean, West Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Even though the fate of
the thirteen American colonies and the attached western frontier had been
decided by the outcome of the Revolutionary War, ownership of the more
northerly territories would remain a source of contention between Britain and
America for the next twenty nine years, until it erupted into armed conflict
between the two sides in what became known as the War of 1812, which has been
discussed elsewhere.
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