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Read Ebook: A Brief History of the King's Royal Rifle Corps by Hutton Edward Sir Editor
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Ebook has 274 lines and 20327 words, and 6 pages
PREFACE.
Sections
A Retrospect.
MAPS.
A BRIEF HISTORY
THE KING'S ROYAL RIFLE CORPS.
PREFACE.
This abridged history of the Regiment has been prepared by certain members of the History Committee, and edited by the Chairman.
The existing short history, written by Major-General Astley Terry and Colonel Mends and published with the Standing Orders of the Regiment, has been taken as a basis.
It has been the object of the compilers, while amplifying the short history, to form a Prelude to the large and comprehensive History of the Regiment by Captain Lewis Butler, the publication of which--from the difficulties to be overcome, the researches to be made, and the immense mass of detail to be dissected--must necessarily be further delayed.
Every effort has been made to narrate in a concise and popular form the origin, history, and world-wide services of the several battalions, so that every Rifleman may be able to learn at least the outlines of the history of his Regiment--a Corps whose battle honours are unequalled in number, and whose reputation for discipline and courage is unsurpassed in the annals of the British Army.
The gallant exploits of the Regiment are here given in no spirit of pride or self-adulation, but with the earnest hope that, profiting by the example of their predecessors, the present and future generations of Riflemen may not only successfully maintain as a sacred trust the credit and renown of The King's Royal Rifle Corps, but may also still further add to the honours and reputation already won.
NOTE.--The names of Officers of the British Army who do not belong to the Regiment are printed in italics. Campaigns and battles, which have been awarded as "Battle Honours" to the Regiment, are printed in capitals.
Designated as the 62nd, and the following year as the 60th Royal Americans, the Regiment was accordingly formed of 4,000 men in four battalions, and General the Earl of Loudoun, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in America, was appointed Colonel-in-Chief. It was recruited from settlers, mainly of German and Swiss origin, in the States of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina, to which were added volunteers from British regiments and others. Many of the senior officers and a considerable number of the Company officers were drawn from the armies of Europe, some of them being highly trained and experienced soldiers.
Through the bold initiative of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Bouquet, a Swiss officer of distinction, commanding the 1st Battalion, the 60th Royal Americans adopted Colonial methods of equipment, simpler drill, open formations, and the Indian system of forest warfare, thus early acquiring those attributes of individual action, swift initiative, and of elastic though firm discipline, which have been the conspicuous characteristics of the Regiment throughout its long and brilliant career, characteristics which have made its reputation. Thus equipped, The Royal American Regiment from its very beginning played a distinguished and memorable part in establishing British power in North America.
The great struggle between France and England for supremacy in America was at its height, when early in 1758, Abercromby, who had succeeded Loudoun as Commander-in-Chief, decided upon a general advance.
Amherst, who in 1759 had succeeded Abercromby in chief command of the Army, led the main force in its advance to Montreal, where, on the 8th of September, 1760, the 4th Battalion, a portion of the 1st, and the Grenadiers of the 2nd and 3rd, shared in the glories of the surrender of the French Army under the Marquis de Vaudreuil--a surrender through which the supremacy in America finally passed to the British Crown.
It was at once decided that Fort Pitt on the Ohio, guarding as it did the Western frontier of the Colonies, must be saved at any cost, but owing to the reduction of the Army in America after the great war, it was with the utmost difficulty that, at Carlisle, 150 miles west of Philadelphia, a small column was formed under Bouquet, consisting of barely 500 men of the 1st Battalion 60th Royal Americans and the 42nd Highlanders. This courageous band, led by the stout-hearted and experienced Henry Bouquet, marched almost as a forlorn hope to the relief of the garrison. Reaching, after a long and weary march, the dangerous defiles of Bushey Run, ten miles only from their objective and within view of the scene of Braddock's crushing defeat, a site of battle deliberately chosen by their cunning foe, the little force was suddenly attacked by a vastly superior number of Indian braves. During two long trying days the combatants fought a desperate battle, until at last Bouquet's genius as a leader achieved a brilliant victory. This victory, pronounced by an American historian "the best contested action ever fought between white men and Indians," was followed up in the coming year by a vigorous advance by Bradstreet upon Detroit by way of Lake Erie; and by Bouquet marching from Fort Pitt with a column consisting of his own Battalion of the 60th, the 42nd, and Provincial troops, which he led into the very heart of the enemy's country. Bouquet's column was triumphant, and upon reaching the Indian settlements on the River Muskingum, deep in the wild fastnesses of the primeval forest, their leader's diplomatic skill and defiant attitude completed the successful issue of the campaign. Bouquet thus rightly earned for himself and his men the credit of having finally broken the French influence and Red Indian power in the West, giving to the British Crown all the vast territories west of the Alleghany Mountains and south of the Great Lakes, comprising now the States of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Western Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois.
The conspicuous part played at this period by the 60th Royal Americans, and the exceptional merit of many of its officers have hitherto been better understood in the United States and in Canada than by our own countrymen. But it is now at last acknowledged that the Regiment, owing to its especial attributes, was in the forefront of all those operations which added a peculiar lustre to the British Crown at this early stage of the evolution of the British Empire in North America. There is no period in the Regimental history of which The King's Royal Rifle Corps may more justly be proud than the epoch from its birth in 1755 to the final overthrow of the French and Red-Indian power in 1764.
Footnote 1:
Footnote 2:
General James Abercromby, Colonel-in-Chief, 1757-1758.
Footnote 3:
Afterwards Lieut.-General Sir Frederick Haldimand. Born 1718, died 1791. Commander-in-Chief in North America, and Governor of Quebec--a distinguished soldier-statesman.
Footnote 4:
Afterwards Major-General John Bradstreet. Born 1710, died 1774; a successful leader of irregular troops.
Footnote 5:
Afterwards Major-General. Born 1723, died 1786; dangerously wounded in July, 1759, above Quebec; the victor of Savannah, 1779, and a distinguished soldier.
Footnote 6:
Afterwards Field Marshal Sir Jeffery Amherst, Baron Amherst, Colonel-in-Chief, 1758-1797.
Footnote 7:
The Grenadier Companies also of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions were included in the six companies composing the Louisberg Grenadiers, which occupied the place of honor in the front line.
Footnote 8:
General William Haviland was Colonel Commandant in 1761-1762.
On the termination of the French War in America the British Army was reduced, and in 1764 and 1763 respectively the 3rd and 4th Battalions were disbanded.
The discontented and hostile feeling of the American Colonies at this period rendered it advisable to transfer The Royal Americans to the West Indies, recruited as they were from the Colonists themselves. Thus it fell to the lot of the Regiment to take a prominent share in the conquest and annexation of the West Indian Islands and the adjacent coast, which took place at this period. The officers in many instances filled important posts as Governors and Administrators of the various islands.
On the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1775 the 3rd and 4th Battalions were again raised in England and despatched to the West Indies, and thence to Florida, where they figured prominently in the operations in that region.
In 1779 the 3rd and some companies of the 4th Battalion formed portion of an army under General Augustine Prevost in Georgia and South Carolina. The Regiment played a leading part at the brilliant action of Briars Creek , and also in the subsequent siege of Savannah, where a superior force of French and Americans under Comte d'Estaigne and General Lincoln was successfully held at bay by a very much smaller army under Prevost, and at the final assault was signally defeated with great loss . An improvised body of Light Dragoons , organised by Lieut.-Colonel Marc Prevost, of the 60th, did remarkable service during these operations, and at the victory on the 9th of October lost heavily, but greatly distinguished itself by repulsing the main column of the enemy and capturing the colour of the Carolina Regiment, now in the possession of the Prevost family.
Upon the termination of the American War of Independence in 1783 the 3rd and 4th Battalions were disbanded for the second time, but were again raised in 1788 and despatched to the West Indies.
The Regiment, for the most part quartered in the West Indies, took part in the following military operations:--
Capture of the Island of Tobago, a brilliant feat of arms April 17th, 1783
Capture of Martinique March 1794
Capture Saint Lucia 1794
Capture Grande Terre Guadaloupe 1794
Capture Saint Vincent 1796
Capture Trinidad Feb. 1797
Capture Porto Rico April 1797
In December of the same year the famous 5th Battalion was raised at Cowes, Isle of Wight, under Lieutenant-Colonel Baron de Rottenburg, upon the German model as a Special Corps of Riflemen. Four hundred of Hompesch's Mounted Riflemen--a German Corps raised for service under the British Crown--were drafted into the Battalion, which was armed with rifles and dressed in green with red facings. The second Lieutenant-Colonel was that celebrated Robert Crauford, who afterwards made his name so famous in the Peninsular War as the honoured leader of the Light Division. Thus, by the addition of the 5th Battalion to the Regiment as Riflemen in 1797, the gradual evolution of the 60th Royal Americans into The King's Royal Rifle Corps was auspiciously begun.
The system of organisation, drill, and tactics for Light Troops introduced into the Regiment by Baron de Rottenburg, was embodied in a Manual for Riflemen and Light Infantry. This volume was published in August, 1798, with a preface signed by the Adjutant General, and especially commended to the Army by the Commander-in-Chief as a text book on the subject.
In 1799 a 6th Battalion was added to the Regiment, so that the close of the eighteenth century saw the Regiment composed of six battalions.
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