Fusiliers (63 page)

253 ‘
a guarded, cautious, manner
’: Balfour to Cornwallis, 26 April 1781,
TNA
:
PRO
30/11/6.

— ‘
Universal disaffection must moulder us away
’: Balfour to Lewis, 17January 1781,
LOC
.

254 ‘
They have adopted the system of murdering every militia officer
’: Balfour to Cornwallis, 26 April 1781,
TNA: PRO
30/11/6.

254 ‘
impaling the severed heads of suspected spies
’: see for example the case of Harry, Lord Rawdon’s slave spy, as described in Major Doyle’s letter of 27 November 1782 in
TNA: AO
13/4.

— ‘
were executed five of our deserters
’: Seymour journal, Force Papers,
LOC
.

— ‘
Balfour ordered more than 130 American militia
’: the order was given on 17 May,
History of South Carolina in the Revolution
1775–1780, 2 vols, by Edward McCrady, New York 1901.

255 ‘
in June
1781
there was a general exchange of prisoners
’: ibid., including numbers of survivors, etc.

— ‘
these vessels were in general infected with small pox
’: Peter Fayssoux quoted by McCrady.

— ‘
Clinton started firing off letters about his grievances against the commanding
officer
’: these can be found in
TNA: PRO
30/55/29 and 30. Clinton’s
American Rebellion
contains many criticisms of Balfour’s conduct.

— ‘
I find the Commander in Chief has been a good deal displeased
’: Mackenzie’s diary.

256 ‘
I therefore think it my duty to exculpate Lt Col Balfour
’: Cornwallis to Clinton, 26 April, 1781,
TNA: PRO
30/55/30.

— ‘
I can be the only proper judge
’: Clinton to Cornwallis, 15 June 1781,
TNA
:
PRO
30/55/30.

— ‘
Clinton harboured ideas of conquering a peninsula
’: see his
American
Rebellion
, for example.

257 ‘
It is the King’s firm purpose to recover these [southern] provinces
’: Germain to Cornwallis, 4 June 1781, in Ross.

— ‘
How great was my disappointment
’: Clinton’s Rebellion again.

258 ‘
The marches up into Virginia passed virtually without incident
’: details of march, Calvert’s journal.

259 ‘
he showed up the mediocrity and lassitude of those few British officers
’: Mackenzie’s diary.

— ‘
Words can ill describe the admiration’: Memoir of General Graham, With
Notices of the Campaigns in Which he was Engaged from
1779 to 1801, edited by his son Colonel James J. Graham, Edinburgh 1862.

— ‘
I can testify that every soldier had his negro
’: Ewald.

260 ‘
desultory expeditions
’: the phrase is used in a couple of letters, including Cornwallis to Leslie, 28 June 1781,
TNA: PRO
30/11/87.

— ‘
As the General’s plan is only defensive in this quarter
’: Cornwallis to Balfour, 16 July 1781,
TNA: PRO
30/11/88.

— ‘
determined to throw all blame on me
’: Cornwallis to Rawdon 23 July 1781,
TNA: PRO
30/11/88.

261 ‘
the number of Fusiliers shrank from over 400 on paper
’: return of 15 August 1781,
TNA: PRO CO
5/103, gives the breakdown of all the different detachments.

— ‘
a vacant commission… was given to Watson
’: Cornwallis to Clinton, 10 April 1781,
TNA: PRO
30/55/29.

262 ‘
How will this look to the loyal subjects there?
’: Ewald.

— ‘
hundreds of wretched negroes that are dying
’: O’Hara’s letters from Portsmouth, including an explanation of the 23rd’s mission in the evacuation, are in
TNA: PRO
30/11/70.

263 ‘
For six weeks the heat has been so unbearable
’: Ewald.

— ‘
only negroes could labour under such conditions
’: this view is expressed in a letter from Cornwallis to O’Hara, 4 August 1781, in Ross.

264 ‘
On
5
September, the
23rd
were given custody
’: Calvert’s journal.

— ‘
I am now busy fortifying a harbour
’: Cornwallis to Grant, 24 August 1781, from the James Grant of Ballindalloch Papers,
NAS, GD
494/1/46. This is the same Grant who led the 23rd’s division at Long Island.

265 ‘
proceeded from the noble Earl’s misconception
’: Tarleton, History.

— ‘
some better prospects than have of late presented
’: Balfour to Lewis, 17January 1781,
LOC
.

266 ‘
make the most striking example of such
’: Balfour to Clinton, 6 May 1781,
TNA: PRO
30/11/109.

— ‘
Balfour sought support, writing to Colonel Lord Rawdon
’: Rawdon’s version of the Hayne affair, in a letter of 1813, is in Lee’s
Memoirs
.

— ‘
He had hanged five men in Camden
’: although Garden suggests Rawdon hanged men frequently in Camden, searches by the local chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution indicates just five: Sam Andrews, Josiah Gayle, John Miles, Eleazar Smith, and Richard Tucker.

— ‘
In October 1780 … he had executed a deserter from his own regiment
’: Calvert journal. I have found no evidence of any other execution of this type while Cornwallis was in charge.

267 ‘
By all the recognised laws of war
’: Rawdon in Lee.

—
‘Hayne was the only person executed while Balfour was Commandant of
Charleston
’: this is asserted by Garden and I have found no evidence to contradict him.

— ‘
the prime offenders in dispensing this type of execution were loyalist
Americans
’: the journal of George Nase, now in the University of New Brunswick, suggests that there were six executions in South Carolina and Georgia after Cornwallis quit the state. Most occurred in loyalist regiments. I am grateful to Todd Braisted for bringing these facts to my attention. The most serious accusation of ‘British’ barbarity during these southern campaigns, that of executing thirteen surrendered defenders of a fortified house in September 1780 at Augusta, Georgia, was also attributable to a loyalist American, Colonel Thomas Brown.

— ‘
Humanity… ought to be as dear in a soldier’s estimation
’: Rawdon’s letter of 21 February 1782 to the Duke of Richmond, in Fortescue, vol. V.

— ‘
The more he is beaten, the farther he advances
’: Mackenzie’s diary.

269 ‘
a brief exchange of musketry
’: Calvert notes the driving in of the regiment’s pickets. His journal notes of the siege are scant, perhaps indicating sickness. Lamb and Saumarez from the regiment have a little more to say.

— ‘
two 12-pounder cannon and some small mortars called coehorns
’: Ewald.

— ‘
signs of the French establishing works
’: personal survey at battle site plus use of the accounts and maps in
The American Campaigns of
Rochambeau’s
Army 1780,
1781
, 1782, 1783
, 2 vols, translated and edited by Howard Rice, Jr, and Anne S. K. Browne, Princeton 1972. This is a very useful collection of journals, sketches and maps.

270 ‘
This … gave us the greatest possible advantage
’: Clermont-Crevecoeur’s journal in Rice and Browne cited above.

269 ‘
all horses except those belonging to the cavalry
’: Ewald.

271 ‘
Charles Mair, an officer serving with the 23rd’s light company
’: Graham of the 76th, who, confusingly, calls Mair Moore.

— ‘
A rocket rose from the redoubt at once
’: Prechtel.

— ‘
Six of the Touraine regiment’s grenadiers were hurt
’: Clermont-Crevecoeur in Rice and Brown.

272 ‘
four 12-pounders; two 24-pounders
’: ibid.

— ‘
three of his twenty-nine years at the Metz artillery school
’: the Rice and Browne volumes contain a later memorial by this officer, outlining his career, as well as much other interesting information.

—
‘We are certainly now at the most critical period of the war
’: Mackenzie’s diary.

273 ‘
An initial estimate of
5
October was given
’: Clinton’s
American Rebellion
spells out these discussions.

— ‘
The Fusiliers in the redoubt received their rude awakening
’: many accounts describe the stepping up of fire and the driving off of the
Guadeloupe
; however, Ewald gets a little confused about dates at this point and I have relied more on the French journals in describing this episode.

275 ‘
People were to be seen lying everywhere, fatally wounded
’: Dohla. This German private’s account of the siege is remarkably good – too bad there is no equivalent from a British ranker.

— ‘
were greatly exposed to the fire of a battery of nine guns
’: Lamb (ed. Hagist). His estimate of guns is one fewer than Clermont-Crevecoeur’s, but close enough.

— ‘
With such works on disadvantageous ground
’: Cornwallis to Clinton, 11 October 1781, in American Rebellion.

— ‘
I am doing everything in my power to relieve you by a direct move
’: Clinton to Cornwallis, 30 September, ibid.

276 ‘
On the evening of 12 October, the
23rd
were ordered out
’: Ewald.

— ‘scarcely a gun could be fired from our works’: Graham.

278 ‘
As the oarsmen pulled away … other redcoats filed down
’: Calvert.

— ‘
The British paid the Americans seemingly but little attention
’: Martin.

— ‘
As the Fusiliers passed, he recognised quite a few faces
’: according to a Hewitt family account. Since the 1st New Hampshire were not there at Yorktown as a full regiment, it is possible Hewitt was serving in their light company, which did take part.

279 ‘
made a poor appearance, ragged and tattered
’: Dohla.

—
‘May you never get so good a master!’
: Graham.

— ‘
Our ministers will I hope be now persuaded that America is irretrievably
lost
’: O’Hara to Grafton, 20 October 1781.

279 ‘
officers throughout Cornwallis’s army had drawn lots
’: the Orderly Book of the 43rd shows that this procedure was officially directed,
BL, ADD MS
42,449.

280 ‘
Peter detached the 23rd’s two colours from their staffs
’: Peter’s role is described in an old regimental record,
TNA: PRO WO
76/218. This note and the subsequent regimental histories give the honour of saving the colours to Peter and
another officer
. Mackenzie is the source for Champagne and Apthorpe’s overland journey.

— ‘
He took some pay he was owed and donned a private’s uniform
’: Lamb’s own memoirs give an extensive account of his odyssey after the fall of Yorktown.

281 ‘
The serjeant major of the 33rd spotted John Shaw
’: Shaw.

— ‘
a large detention compound near Lancaster in Pennsylvania
’: details of the camp come from Corporal Fox, a prisoner of the 47th from Saratoga, ‘Corporal Fox’s Memoir of Service, 1766–1783’, by J. A. Houlding and G. Kenneth Yates,
Journal for the Society of Army Historical Research
, vol. 68, 1990. Graham also gives some details.

282 ‘
Thomas Eyre was an American-born subaltern
’: details of Eyre’s case are in a memorial he gave to General Howe after arriving in Philadelphia, now at
TNA
. Howe writing to Washington on 8 January 1778 (in
TNA: PRO
30/55/7) made clear that he still regarded Eyre as an American prisoner, despite his arrival in British lines, and would send an equivalent American over in exchange. Washington’s reply on 20 January (
PRO
30/55/8) cannily plays on Howe’s discomfort over the matter: ‘If you suppose Mr Eyre’s representation to be just, and that he escaped from a rigorous confinement, under no obligation to his parole, I cannot conceive upon what principle you still consider him my prisoner.’

— ‘
Of all the situations of life, that of having no pursuit is the worst
’: Hughes of the 53rd, another Convention Army detainee, Journal.

284 ‘
As to the situation of affairs here they are as bad as can be
’: Dansey letter of 27 March 1782, reprinted in Iron Duke.

285 ‘
T
he Fusiliers’ imprisonment ended at 8 a.m
.’: details of prisoners’ departure, Gordon to Carleton, 8 May 1783,
TNA: PRO
30/55/68.

— ‘
The joyful news
’: Dohla.

— ‘
not many other captains left to dispute the honour
’: for Saumarez’s advocacy, see for example the petition of 12 April 1783 in
TNA: PRO CO
5/109. The same file at tna contains a return of freed prisoners of 28 May that shows the number of the captains, and the Guards being without officers. Experts on the period will wonder about Captain Charles Asgill and two other officers of the Guards, who drew lots to see whether they should be executed in retaliation for the hanging of Captain Huddy, a defected loyalist killed by his former colleagues when they recaptured him in 1782. Some officers of the Guards, to be clear, had gone into captivity at Yorktown but none remained by the time peace was declared.

286 ‘
bonfires were lit,
feux
de joie echoed across the landscape
’: there are many accounts of the celebrations, but Dohla gives a good sense of the atmosphere.

— ‘
absurd orders to the detainees not to sing their national anthem
’: Hughes describes arguments with the prison guards over the national anthem, albeit at an earlier date.

— ‘
thirty-three deserted, twenty-four died of natural causes
’: pay lists,
TNA
:
PRO WO
12/3597, give their fate and returns,
CO
5 gives the overall picture.

— ‘
Much civility has been
shewn
them on their march through the country
’: Carleton to Townsend, 28 May 1783,
TNA: PRO
30/55/70.

287 ‘
a different procession of petitioners to headquarters
’: hundreds of the petitions survive in
TNA: PRO
30/55 class of papers.

288 ‘
a gentleman of character and the head of a respectable family
’: Carleton to Lord North, 31 October 1783,
TNA: PRO CO
5/111. North was still a minister but no longer prime minister.

— ‘
Those who would dare to remain in New York
’: Ewald.

289 ‘
Between 26 May and 17 June
’: return in
TNA: PRO
30/55/72.

— ‘
Each man has received two pair of stockings
’: Carleton to Fox 29 September 1783,
TNA: PRO
30/55/82.

— ‘
the transport of 3,436 people to Nova Scotia
’: figures from estimates of 24 September 1783 in
TNA: PRO
30/55/82.

— ‘
Lieutenant Colonel Balfour had in March heard
’: it was in General Orders on 20 March 1783,
TNA: PRO WO
28/9. Balfour left America well before his regiment.

290 ‘
saved Mason from the hardships of the southern campaigns
’: these details from the pay lists. Major Dansey’s letters (
HSD
) refer to the difficulties of keeping musicians in the 33rd at the end of the war.

— ‘
I am pleased to find that our groundwork
’: Dansey letter of 11 July 1783,
HSD
.

— ‘
having for sometime past had the
23rd
Regiment
’: petition of 15 July 1783,
TNA: PRO
30/55/75.

291 ‘
encroachments by rebel patrols from Connecticut
’: Ewald.

— ‘
around 1,250 men had served in the 23rd
’: these figures are the product of extensive work on the pay lists in
TNA: PRO WO
12. However, the later ones, for example about combat deaths, are gleaned from a variety of sources including returns in co 5 and even journals.

293 ‘
Some eighty-eight served there during the war
’: these figures exclude the chaplains and surgeons but include the adjutant and quartermaster. They are gleaned from a wide variety of sources ranging from pay lists to journals to death announcements in the New York press.

294 ‘
It was never said of Burgoyne’s army that they ran away
’: Lamb’s scrapbook in Hagist in
Journal for the Society of Army Historical Research
(forthcoming).

— ‘
Many other British veterans felt the same way
’: for example Harry Calvert, who wrote after the French drove back British troops in Flanders in 1794 that he had never been in a beaten army before – this episode will be dealt with later.

294 ‘
We must not only move as machines, but be as insensible too
’: Balfour to Lord Polwarth, 2 May 1779,
LBRO
L
30/12/3/10.

— ‘
bartered away by turbulence and faction
’: Dansey, 11 July 1783,
HSD
.

— ‘
The desertion of the loyalists is looked upon by all of us
’: Dansey,
HSD
. I make no apology for taking a couple of quotations from his letters, since he is one of the few writers who reflected deeply on the war’s outcome.

— ‘
four Americans among its depleted corps of officers
’: they were Apthorpe, McEvers, Skinner and Innis. They were described as ‘foreigners’ in the review of 1784,
TNA: PRO WO
27/51, and I have gleaned other details of their origins. Another American officer of the 23rd, Leverett Saltonstall, died of natural causes in December 1782.

— ‘
Charles Apthorpe’s family in particular
’: Major Hutcheson in his letters in the bl alludes to Apthorpe properties in Boston, New York city and upstate New York.

295 ‘
Men of all parties consider another revolution as inevitable
’: Carleton to North 13 October 1783,
TNA: PRO CO
5/111.

— ‘
Although I shuddered at the distress of these men
’: Ewald.

— ‘
Washington executed more of his soldiers than the British
’: in
The Morale of
the American Revolutionary Army
, Allen Bowman says there is definitive proof that Washington’s army executed forty soldiers but that the actual number was likely more than that given that 225 death sentences were passed. I have collated British executions from many sources. General Orders contain some reports of executions, but equally most incidents of capital punishment reported in them were not carried out. I have sought confirmation of executions from eye-witnesses and
TNA: PRO WO
12 Muster Roll information. A return in the Clinton Papers, wlcl, drawn up on that general’s orders, shows that just five men were executed during his years as commander-in-chief, 1778–83. A similar number were executed before Clinton, and another seven to ten in summary proceedings in the south (a journal by Serjeant Major George Nase of the King’s American Regiment in the University of New Brunswick proves to be an unusually good source of information on the ones carried out in the south, often at a colonel’s whim). Even allowing for one of two cases that I may have failed to detect, a figure of ‘about two dozen’ British military executions during these wars seems reasonable.