Fusiliers (24 page)

Blakeney’s ability to avoid serving two and a half years after his wounding at Bunker Hill said much for how a wily officer could work the system. ‘I have lately received a message from Sir William Howe desiring that you may be ordered out to your duty,’ Lord Barrington, the Secretary at War, wrote to Blakeney on 9 December 1777. Barrington confessed that he was under the impression the major had returned to America months before, instead of hiding away in Newcastle. Blakeney had no intention of budging.

When he had first gone home, Blakeney had formed part of the recruiting effort, and was evidently fit enough to go looking for fresh cannon fodder. Later, on being promoted major, he had tried to swap commissions with a keener man of the same rank serving in America. Alas, the swap between fireater and firesider was stopped when that man was promoted. Blakeney then requested leave, saying that his Bunker Hill wound was playing up.

By the end of 1777, Lord Barrington was putting matters quite bluntly to him: ‘Those who are no longer capable of doing their duty should dispose of their commissions, nor expect to be continued in the army to the detriment of the service, and the prejudice of other officers who are still able and willing to serve.’ But Blakeney wanted to stay on the army list, and indeed to advance himself to lieutenant colonel, so that he might then gain further promotions by seniority alone, the better to feather his nest.

When the matter came to the attention of the King himself, Blakeney was told he must sell his majority in the 23rd and leave the army. General Howe sent him the same message. Still, Blakeney ignored the
orders of his sovereign and regimental colonel alike. He intended to hang on to his property, for that was what a purchased commission was. Blakeney’s skill at fending off these requests even extended to getting his Member of Parliament to take up the cudgels in his defence.

After months of tiresome correspondence, it must have become apparent to Howe that the issue of Blakeney’s majority would not be settled before his own departure from Philadelphia. As for the commanding officer, Benjamin Bernard had shown similar tenacity in holding on. In his case, greater sympathy was due since he had remained in America, nursing the wound suffered when the contest began, transferring himself from a succession of sick beds in rented rooms from Boston to Halifax to New York. Nevertheless a suspicious regimental colonel might have asked himself why it was that Bernard, Blakeney and Donkin, three men who were close allies in the 23rd at the outbreak of the war, sharing an Irish gentry background (such folk being among the most sceptical about the justice of Britain’s American war), had managed to avoid fighting the rebels for so long. Henry Blunt, the Fusiliers’ major until his disgrace in the summer of 1777 alluded to the subtext when pleading with a patron for reinstatement as an officer:

this war … is an unpopular war, and perhaps it may be thought I am one of those who disapprove of it. Was that the case, I have honesty enough to have declared my sentiments openly and would have given that as a reason for my retiring, but it is quite the reverse … I wish for nothing more than to be employed on it.

Blakeney did not have the honesty to tell his king and minister about his opposition to the war, for he wished to retain the benefits or army pay and pension. Bernard was a trickier case, but Howe had resolved all the same during the latter part of 1777 that he must find a new commanding officer – someone prepared to do the job properly.

Quite a few men had been readying themselves for Bernard to sell out. Robert Donkin was a shrewd fellow whom Bernard himself wanted to ease into the job. Donkin had exposed himself to even less gunfire than Blakeney, but kept safe while serving in America in a succession of staff appointments, insisting all the time to his superiors that he was zealous for the cause. Although still only technically a captain in the 23rd, Donkin had gained two steps of acting rank or brevet promotions, finding himself in temporary charge of the 44th
whose commanding officer had been killed at Germantown.

Donkin could not afford the full price to buy his way up to lieutenant colonel. Attempting it would have exposed himself to a fiasco like Henry Blunt’s. Donkin, though, had seen enough of these battles to plan his campaign carefully; he had agreed private terms, less expensive of course, with his mentor Bernard for the deal to be done. In this way, let it be clear, Bernard and Donkin had entered into a conspiracy against the other actors in this drama including General William Howe.

Who else was there to beat? Joseph Ferguson had got himself promoted to a majority away from the 23rd, but hankered after the lieutenant colonelcy of the Fusiliers, describing it as ‘the corps I love’. Ferguson at least could raise the money, for
£
900 was normally needed, the difference between the price of a major’s commission and a lieutenant colonel’s. Both Ferguson and Donkin, however, were thwarted.

By mid-January, the identity of the officer that had gained the prize was being whispered through the coffee houses and taverns of Philadelphia. Bernard was out, and the new lieutenant colonel would be Major Nisbet Balfour of General Howe’s staff. One of Earl Percy’s correspondents in the city reported with the relish of an inveterate gossip, ‘This matter seems to give no
little
offence.’

Ferguson was quick to denounce it, and knew how he had been beaten: ‘I offered the sum to purchase, but I have no interest.’ Balfour, of course could wield decisive ‘interest’ or patronage in this matter – he had served Howe as part of his inner circle, but could fully expect to be cast out by the new commander-in-chief. If Howe was to show Balfour gratitude, he must do it before leaving Philadelphia.

When Donkin realised that he had been beaten he was furious, because he had previously gone to Howe to press his case in person. During their interview Howe had insisted, as a means of fobbing off Donkin with his small purse, that Bernard should only sell for the full price. Alas, Howe was a more powerful practitioner of the black arts of promotion. The general’s request for payment of the
£
900 for the lieutenant colonelcy was simply a tactic to get rid of this particular applicant. Donkin’s anger was vented on paper when he discovered not only that he had been refused the job, but that his rival could not afford the full price either: ‘Balfour with his master’s authority snatched the bit out of my mouth, by paying only
£
400.’

Those who discussed the matter over a bumper of negus at the Indian Queen or Smith’s Tavern could have fed Donkin’s anger with all sorts of stories about Balfour. Was he not one of the cabal who had urged the commander-in-chief towards the disastrous abandonment of Burgoyne?

Rumours were widespread in Philadelphia that the surprise at Germantown was also the fault of Howe’s favourite. Some said that an American deserter had gone in the night before with warning of Washington’s attack, but that Balfour had been too lazy to get out of bed and question him. Another account suggested there had been no warning and that Balfour had been so furious about it that after the battle he had bellowed at the locals that he would devastate the country for miles about, blaming them for allowing the rebels to approach the King’s army unreported.

Unknown to those officers chewing the fat in Philadelphia, one other protagonist claimed great hurt at Howe’s proceedings with Balfour. Blakeney wrote full of grievance to the War Office, wondering how he could have been subject to ‘this very great injustice’, since – the major insisted – he had been on his way to America when the news of Balfour’s appointment arrived. Just a few lines later, he contradicted these assertions of fitness by pleading, ‘I hope, as my health still continues in a very precarious state, that His Majesty will not insist on my setting out to join my regiment.’ When Blakeney’s intervention was reported to Howe, he replied with cold anger to the Secretary at War, ‘Had [Blakeney] been present with his regiment after upwards of two years absence, I should not have put any officer over him.’

For all the opprobrium and expressions of wounded honour that greeted Balfour’s appointment, Howe had undoubtedly chosen a singularly able officer. Lord Rawdon, for example, had recommended Balfour to his uncle as ‘one of my most intimate acquaintances … a very worthy man’.

Balfour was desperate for advancement, driven by family circumstances that few of his rivals could have guessed at. Although he had ties of marriage to the aristocracy of Galloway in south-west Scotland, a father who had been laird, and one or two valuable political contacts, none of these acquaintances was willing to buy him up the army or indeed to exert influence in Nisbet’s favour.

When General Howe sent the captain home with dispatches announcing the capture of Fort Washington in the autumn of 1776, it
opened the way to promotion which might have been effected without purchase, for such was the customary reward for a man bringing good news to his sovereign. Howe, though, insisted Balfour pay full price for his majority. Balfour thus found himself being forced to borrow money at punitive rates in order to take advantage of the ‘honour’ his patron had given him.

The newly made major had evaded his creditors, and returned to the American war, telling one friend, ‘I believe I must keep out of England now, for fear of a confinement a little closer than Boston was.’ Being out of the country, in other words, he escaped the spectre of financial ruin and debtors’ prison. Howe belatedly realised his error in expecting such a man to pay the regulation price for a second promotion, and tried to make matters right by offering Balfour the lieutenant colonelcy of the 23rd at a knockdown price. ‘It will cost me but four hundred,’ wrote Balfour, ‘which with my last purchase will bring me monstrously in debt, but I must trust to fortune to clear me.’

Selling the command of the Royal Welch Fusiliers at a discount had irked Donkin and Ferguson beyond measure, but it was the only way for Howe to get the man he wanted in the job, since the Balfour family fortunes had been almost ruined by army service and the purchase system.

Balfour’s father Henry had died late in 1776 while serving as a major, and two of his three brothers had also died in the army. An ailing officer could sell out, redeeming his investment in commissions; a dead one could not. These three having perished in the service, the family had sunk thousands into military careers with Nisbet’s mother Katherine being unable to redeem a single pound. Anxious at her growing impoverishment and lonely existence at the Balfour seat in Dunbog, Nisbet had petitioned the American Secretary, asking him to provide a pension for her. There was no reply. Matters were only made worse by the fact that Henry had never actually married Katherine, and that Nisbet had no wife or heirs himself. The Balfour line thus confronted financial ruin and extinction.

Faced with such dire circumstances, Nisbet Balfour was guided by his own moral code as he piloted his way through the army, dodging death and the cold indifference of officialdom alike. His first rule was to do whatever was necessary to gain the right person’s patronage; as he wrote to one friend triumphantly, ‘You see what it is, to be
well
connected
.’ Having succeeded in this aim, Balfour’s second rule was
not to care too much about upsetting those without similar interest: ‘The friend you like, and the woman you love, are the only objects worth giving oneself a moment’s trouble about.’ Fuelled by ambition, bereft of doubt, Balfour exuded considerable presence.

Balfour’s choice of words about the woman one loved rather than married was revealing. Like his father, Nisbet never endured a church wedding, but did not allow this omission to prevent him siring children. Certainly, there was at least one daughter that he provided for.

The qualities that had gained General Howe’s notice were: bravery, as Balfour had shown in front of the rail fence at Bunker Hill and on several other occasions; total loyalty to his patron; sound political acumen; an apparently tireless application to official correspondence; and a fine eye for military detail. As a commanding officer of the 23rd, a junior dispenser of patronage in his own right, Balfour also proved to be an advocate of merit, finding innovative ways to advance those without fortune.

As for the man’s faults, certainly he had a fearsome temper. Of the two tales told against him about Germantown, that of him threatening to torch the villages for miles around seemed the more believable, the idea that he was too lazy to interview a prisoner less so. Balfour was a big man, broad too, and when in full flow was undoubtedly an intimidating presence. His greatest flaw though was that in playing the game to ensure he was ‘well connected’, Balfour entered rather too fully into the violent partisanship that characterised high-level army or parliamentary politics. He was ready to consider almost any step in support of his master.

On 31 January 1778 Balfour’s appointment was announced in General Orders, and for the first time in years the Fusiliers had an effective commanding officer. He wasted no time in getting to grips with his soldiers, many of whom he already knew, since his old regiment, the King’s Own or 4th Foot, had served in the same brigade as the 23rd in Boston. Balfour’s proximity to General Howe would have told him that, whatever strategy was resolved in London, the army would have to quit Philadelphia and he must therefore prepare his regiment for the campaign ahead.

Just twenty miles from the British soldiers in Philadelphia, Washington’s army occupied its winter quarters at Valley Forge. Arriving there on 17 December, in their tattered campaign clothes, his men had been
obliged to construct their own camp on the frozen hillsides. One private from Connecticut wrote:

To build us habitations to
stay
(not to
live
) in such a weak, starved and naked condition was appalling in the highest degree … however there was no remedy, no alternative but this or dispersion … we had engaged in the defence of our injured country and were determined to persevere as long as such hardships were not altogether intolerable.