Fusiliers (59 page)

113 ‘
The sailing up Chesapeak Bay
’: Dansey letter 30 August 1777,
HSD
.

114 ‘
Fox had chided him for being “too violent” a Whig
’: Fox letter to Fitzpatrick of 3 February 1777, in
BL, ADD MS
47580.

— ‘
Nothing in the world can be so disagreeable
’: this is one of five Fitzpatrick letters from America printed in vol. VII of
The Letters of Horace Walpole
, edited by Peter Cunningham, London 1891.

— ‘
I think it amounts very near to a demonstration
’: ibid., letter of 1 September 1777.

— ‘
extirpating the whole race
’: ibid., letter of 2 June 1777.

— ‘
the most unpleasant, formal, precise, disagreeable people
’: ibid.

— ‘
We shall find the rebels enough to do at Philadelphia
’: Dansey, as above.

115 ‘
taking post at
Cooch’s
bridge
’: this passage is based on Ewald’s diary and the journal of 1st L. I. Officer Sol Feinstone, Collection no. 409,
DLAR
, and Dansey’s letters,
HSD
.

— ‘
the 1st Light Infantry had taken an American prisoner
’: Feinstone no. 409,
DLAR
.

117 ‘
In one place they laid a clever ambush for the
Queen’s
Rangers
’: in Ehwald.

— ‘
Everyone that remembers the anxious moments
’: Feinstone no. 409,
DLAR
.

118 ‘
without hurry or confusion
’: ibid.

— ‘
For damned fighting and drinking
’: Meadows’s words were recorded by Hunter of the 52nd L. I.

— ‘
Nothing could be more dreadfully pleasing
’: Captain Hale’s letter to his parents of 21 October 1777 (in Wilkin), a startling passage that says much about why British soldiers or officers fought.

119 ‘
the impatient courage of both officers and men
’: Feinstone no. 409,
DLAR
.

— ‘
had nothing to expect but slaughter
’: ibid.

— ‘
Of all the Maryland regiments only two
’: letter of Major Stone in
Chronicles of Baltimore
, by J. Thomas Scharf, Baltimore 1874.

— ‘
The British grenadiers worked their way forward in the textbook style
’: reported by Hale and Captain Friedrich von Muenchausen in
At General
Howe’s Side
, journal translated by Ernst Kipping, Monmouth Beach N. J. 1974.

120 ‘
a bounty of a hundred dollars per gun
’: this nice detail comes from Henry Stirke (a lieutenant in the 10th Light Company serving with 1st L. I. Battalion), ‘A British Officer’s Revolutionary War Journal 1776–1778’, edited by S. Sydney Bradford,
Maryland Historical Magazine
, no. 56, June 1961.

— ‘
The 4th and 5th Regiments went over first
’: Knyphausen’s report to Howe is in
TNA: PRO CO
5/94.

— ‘
fortunately being directed too high
’: letter of Serjeant Major Thorne to Earl Percy, 29 September 1777, in
DON
.

121 ‘
the Light Infantry met with the chief resistance
’: Andre.

— ‘
Nearly seventeen years had passed since he was shot
’: Mecan’s memo of 5 July 1775, Gage Papers,
WLCL
.

— ‘
favourites for bullets in the arms or legs
’: this idea appears in a couple of Dansey letters,
HSD
.

— ‘
The consequences of this victory
’: Fitzpatrick 26 October 1777 (in Cunningham).

122 ‘
Cornwallis could stand this no longer
’: unfortunately I have not found any letter of Cornwallis’s in which he describes this dramatic and extraordinary act, but it is clear, since the death sentences carried out on 15 September do not appear in General Orders or the
TNA: PRO WO
71 Court Martial series that it was a summary process. Peebles’s approving tone suggests also that the event needs to be seen in the context of the continuing tensions between lenient commanders-in-chief and more junior officers who felt discipline was being neglected.

— ‘
the Commander-
in-chief, considering the punishment
’: General Order of 2 September 1777, in Kemble.

124 ‘
had put on their cartridge-pouch belts
’: Feinstone no. 409,
DLAR
.

— ‘
The battalion was so reduced by killed and wounded
’: Hunter.

125 ‘
For Shame! For Shame, Light Infantry!
’: ibid. Howe had of course seen the Light Infantry retreat before, in front of the rail fence at Bunker Hill.

— ‘
the morning was so foggy
’: Stirke.

— ‘
instantly attempted wheeling
’: Feinstone no. 409,
DLAR
.

126 ‘
upon which the officers
’: ibid.

— ‘
a significant proportion being from the 9th Virginia
’: Peebles suggests the whole regiment laid down its arms.

— ‘
The movement of the army
’: Balfour’s letter of 25 October 1777, Polwarth Papers,
LBRO
l30/12/3/3.

127 ‘
The most favourable accounts are that [Burgoyne]
’: Smythe’s letter of 26October 1777 is in
DON
, Peebles alludes to the Reading newspaper.

— ‘
made him one of the happiest men in the army
’: this was Francis Hutcheson to Earl Percy, 30 January 1778,
DON
.

— ‘
Percy paying the entire £550 cost of his step
’: this is in Hutcheson’s letter above. This sum was the difference between the cost of Smythe’s captaincy and the captain-lieutenancy he sold in the 49th. This officer had played a similar factor’s role for General Haldimand. Interestingly, Percy’s cash for Smythe’s purchase was initially put up by Henry Clinton, and Percy repaid him, an interesting token of the intimacy between the two men.

127 ‘
Percy had rendered himself impotent
’: so argued an article in
Town and
Country Magazine
in 1772. A résumé of these matters may be found in his entry in the 2005 edition of the
Dictionary of National Biography
but the charge is a calumny since the earl fathered children when he subsequently remarried.

128 ‘
Russell was quite unable to afford a commission
’: his details come from Kirby.

— ‘
never was a person that had a
people’s
affection
’: Smythe to Percy 21 January 1778,
DON
.

— ‘
plain officers of the Fusiliers … received a courteous reply to their letters but
rarely more
’: examples are Jo Ferguson, Henry Blunt and Robert Donkin, all of whose letters are in the don archive. Donkin accounts for the ‘rarely’ since Clinton invented a lieutenant colonel’s job for him in 1779 and may have done so partly through Percy’s representations, although I have not seen evidence of it.

129 ‘
I cannot easily express to you
’: Dansey letter of 4 October 1777,
HSD
.

— ‘
Light Infantry accustomed to fight from tree to tree
’: Hale in Wilkin.

— ‘
The brigades have been looked upon as nurseries
’: ibid.

130 ‘
totally unfit for our service
’: Howe’s letter to Lord Germain, 20 January 1777,
TNA: PRO CO
5/94.

— ‘
If all reasoning and speculation was not exploded
’: Fitzpatrick letter to Fox of 5 November 1777, in
BL, ADD MS
47580.

131 ‘
very peaceable, quite different from our Jersey excursions
’: Captain Hale’s letter of 23 March 1778 in Wilkin.

— ‘
Captain Richard Fitzpatrick in a letter to his friend
’: dated 5 November 1777, in
BL, ADD MS
47580.

132 ‘
Rooms are opened at the City Tavern
’: Hale’s letter as above.

— ‘
a fine girl, of good fortune
’: this ‘Loyalist manuscript’ is a long letter describing the American dating scene contained in
The Life and Career of
Major John Andre
, by Winthrop Sargent, Boston 1861.

— ‘
Colonel Birch of the light dragoons and Major Williams
’: in Sargent.

133 ‘
I have lately received a message from Sir William Howe
’: Barrington’s letter of 9 December 1777 is in
TNA: PRO
30/55/7.

— ‘
Blakeney had formed part of the recruiting effort
’: see, for example, Blakeney’s letter to Barrington of 16 February 1776 in
TNA: PRO WO
4/94, in which the captain has been busy recruiting in Watford.

— ‘
he had tried to swap commissions
’: Blakeney suggested it on 13December 1777 (in
TNA: PRO
30/55/7); by a letter of 21 January 1778 in
TNA: PRO WO
1/1002 Barrington told Blakeney such an exchange was hopeless.

— ‘
Those who are no longer capable
’: Barrington
TNA: PRO
30/55/7.

134 ‘
Blakeney’s skill at fending off these requests
’: Barrington’s letter of 9 March 1778 to the MP, Thomas Clavering, is in
TNA: PRO WO
4/102.

134 ‘
this war … is an unpopular war
’: Blunt to Percy, 24 September 1777,
DON
.

135 ‘
Donkin … had seen enough of these battles
’: these details come from a letter Donkin wrote to Percy on 17April 1778, in
DON
.

— ‘
the corps I love
’: Ferguson’s letter to Percy, 2 February 1778, don.

— ‘
this matter seems to give no little offence
’: Francis Hutcheson to Percy, 30January 1778,
DON
.

— ‘
I offered the sum to purchase, but I have no interest
’: letter to Percy, above.

— ‘
Balfour with his
master’s
authority snatched the bit
’: Donkin, as above.

136 ‘
Balfour had been too lazy to get out of bed
’: related by Hunter, who being in the 2nd Battalion of LI, that bore the brunt at Germantown, had every right to feel aggrieved.

— ‘
he had bellowed at the locals that he would devastate the country
’: this version is found in ‘Diary of Robert Morton’, by Robert Morton,
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
, vol. I 1877.

— ‘
this very great injustice
’: Blakeney’s letter to the War Office comes quite a bit later on 10 February 1779 and is in
TNA: PRO WO
1/1002. I could not resist the temptation to use it here in the narrative, since it is the most remarkable example of the self-pitying whining of an eighteenth-century ‘gentleman’ that I have come across.

— ‘
Had [Blakeney] been present
’: Howe’s letter is dated 19 February 1779, by which time he was back in London and is also in tna: pro wo 1/1002.

— ‘
one of my most intimate acquaintances
’: Rawdon’s letter is in Bickley.

137 ‘
I believe I must keep out of England now
’: Balfour, 5 June 1777,
LBRO
l29/215.

— ‘
It will cost me but four hundred
’: Balfour, 5 February 1778,
LBRO
l30/12/3/4.

— ‘
Balfour family fortunes had been almost ruined
’: following details gleaned from various letters in lbro, and the Army Lists various years 1760–79.

— ‘
you see what it is, to be
well connected’: both quotations in this paragraph come from a letter to a friend, ‘Lewis’, of 15 May 1780, in Balfour Papers (actually comprising three letters from Nisbet and one from Katherine to said Lewis) in
LOC
.

138 ‘
Certainly, there was at least one daughter
’: Balfour makes reference to ‘my natural daughter Euphemia’ in his will in
TNA: PROB
11/1671.

— ‘
Balfour also proved to be a tireless advocate of merit
’: we will see this with Peter, Blucke, Apthorpe and others mentioned later.

— ‘
wasted no time in getting to grips with his soldiers
’: Lamb (ed. Hagist) lauds Balfour’s leadership in turning around the regiment.

139 ‘
To build us habitations to
stay
(not to live) in
’: [original emphasis] J. P. Martin,
Private Yankee Doodle
, New York 1962.

— ‘
around one quarter of the 10,000 men
’: this estimate by Mark M. Boatner III in Encylopedia
of the American Revolution
,
PA
1994.

— ‘
it was one constant drill
’: Martin.

— ‘
One of those being marched about … was William Hewitt
’: Hewitt enlisted in this company on 1 February 1778, according to the muster list in
Revolutionary Muster Rolls
, 2 vols, New-York Historical Society Collections, 1914. His view of the justice of the Patriot cause comes from the family memoir alluded to earlier.

140 ‘
His men became subject more often to the gallows
’: see, for example, Bowman. He charts the gradual ratcheting up of punitive powers in Washington’s army.

— ‘
The scene that unfolded on the Delaware
’: one of the best sources on the Mischianza is a letter from Andre, reprinted in Sargent.

141 ‘
a most pompous piece of pageantry and parade
’: Smythe to Earl Percy, 23 May 1778,
DON
.

— ‘
I do not believe
’: Andre’s letter, in Sargent.

142 ‘
collect the formidable army that is to be offensive
’: Smythe to Percy, 25 March 1778,
DON
.