Warrior [19] British Redcoat 1740-93 Read online

  Warrior • 19

  British Redcoat 1740–93

  Stuart Reid • Illustrated by Richard Hook

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  RECRUITMENT

  PAY AND SUBSISTENCE

  LIVING CONDITIONS

  CAREER

  TRAINING AND TACTICS

  PLATE COMMENTARY

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  GLOSSARY

  BRITISH REDCOAT 1740-93

  INTRODUCTION

  During the 50-year period covered by this study, the British army earned itself a formidable reputation as a fighting force and laid the foundations of one of the greatest empires in history. It was however a profoundly unpopular institution at the time, and formed from a far lower proportion of the population than almost any other army in Europe. A combination of popular distrust of an organisation chiefly employed at home as a police force and its demonisation in American mythology has created a popular image of the army as being little removed from a penal institution – a walking concentration camp run by aristocratic dilettantes.

  Highland soldier as depicted for Major George Grant’s Highland Military Discipline. [Author]

  The reality was very different, and the purpose of this study is to portray the ordinary British infantry soldier as he really was, rather than the grotesque caricature created largely by American propaganda.

  First it may be helpful to outline the nature of the organisation in which the Redcoat served. That organisation varied throughout the period according to short-term Treasury policy and whether a regiment was carried on the British or Irish Establishment. Prior to 1770, regiments stationed in Ireland were normally maintained only at cadre strength, but after that date the two Establishments were harmonised. Infantry regiments normally comprised only a single battalion of nine or ten companies. Each company was run by three commissioned officers – a captain, a lieutenant and an ensign, who form no part of this study, and three sergeants, three corporals, two drummers and, depending upon circumstances, anything between 30 and 70 – or occasionally 100 – private sentinels.

  RECRUITMENT

  Most recruits were young men, frequently teenagers and almost invariably unmarried at the time of enlistment. Few of those who joined the army in the 18th century recorded their reasons for doing so, but the most basic motivation was probably economic: whatever its disadvantages, the army would at least promise a relatively secure source of food, shelter and clothing. Recruiters would certainly take advantage of periodic economic recessions that afflicted the clothing industry to sign on out-of-work weavers or other cloth workers. However, for the most part, recruits seem to have been youths picked up at country fairs or after the harvest.

  Reconstruction, 13th Foot c.1745, which successfully captures the rather scruffy appearance of soldiers on service. The large quantity of facial hair may appear surprising, but one of Barrell’s grenadiers, as depicted by David Morier, has an equally heavy beard. [Author’s collection]

  Rear view of the same soldier, providing a good view of the hairy duffle-bag style knapsack. One of Morier’s Culloden paintings depicts the officers and men of the 13th wearing black gaiters rather than the white ones shown here. [Author’s collection]

  Although older, married agricultural workers could normally hope for at least a certain degree of stability in their working lives, it was a very different story for the young and unskilled casual labourer. The best he could expect was to be taken on by a farmer for six months or perhaps a year at a time. If master and man agreed well enough, the engagement might continue, ultimately allowing him to marry and settle down. Otherwise it was customary to seek fresh employment at one of the traditional hiring fairs, and no fair was complete without at least one, and usually two or three, predatory army recruiting parties ready to snap up men who were unable to find a new master or those who were simply bored and fed up with the unceasing grind of farm work.

  One of the verses in an old recruiting song for the 42nd Highlanders is quite explicit about this particular motive:

  It’s in by the barn and it’s out by the byre,

  This auld farmer thinks you’ll never tire,

  It’s a slavery job, o’ low degree,

  So ‘list my bonnie laddie and come alang wi’ me.

  Another often quite important factor, still encountered today, was peer pressure. On 22 December 1751 Captain Archibald Grant wrote from Leeds: ‘Last Tuesday being Mercat day I inlisted four very good Recruits, in my opinion all Shoemakers in this Town, they came together in a body and told me that if I would take them all they would Enlist but they were determined not to separate.’

  Reconstruction: Corporal, 13th Foot c.1748. Note the much trimmer appearance with the coat-skirts turned back and the waistbelt worn under the coat. The dirty smudge on the right knee shows that he has been kneeling to fire in the front rank. [Author’s collection]

  There were, of course, others who had more pressing reasons, both legal and domestic, for enlisting – pregnant girlfriends being a timeless classic.

  While it is quite easy to be cynical about the motives impelling recruits, there is no real reason to doubt that at the end of the day the great majority of volunteers for the British army in the 18th century were drawn by the promise of an easy life and military glory. This is not to say that they were all naive enough to be taken in by false, or at best exaggerated, promises, but rather that they were attracted by a vision of something more exciting than labouring from dawn to dusk for the rest of their lives in the parish where they had been born.

  Certain categories of men could not, in theory at least, be enlisted into his majesty’s service. Apart from the obviously ruptured and lame, these included Roman Catholics, indentured servants and apprentices, and members of the militia. Others, depending upon how choosy the recruiters could afford to be, might include sailors and colliers – both notoriously prone to bronchial and tubercular diseases – and the usual crowd of petty criminals and vagabonds whom the local authorities were usually keen to wish upon the army. At the end of the day, though, the only real qualifications for a soldier were that he should be at least 5ft 6in tall (or thought likely to grow to it), sound in mind and limb, and prepared to swear before a magistrate that he was indeed a Protestant and not afflicted by anything else which might debar him from serving.

  There were also a fair number of men who found themselves in the army through no choice of their own. General conscription did not exist as such, but in times of crisis Parliament was prone to passing temporary Acts allowing local authorities to impress an alarmingly broad range of men. Generally known as ‘vestry men’, they could include every petty criminal for miles around. Such involuntary recruits were very much a mixed blessing and hardly served to raise the status of soldiers. After the battle of Culloden, in 1746, the vestry men rounded up for that particular emergency were either employed in prisoner handling or else discharged with almost indecent haste.

  ‘Taking the shilling’

  Ordinarily, the process of becoming a soldier could be quite a lengthy one. The first point of contact was obviously with a member of a recruiting party. Generally this was the sergeant in charge, since the officer’s job was basically to keep an eye on the money and to smooth matters with the local magistrates. A bounty of several pounds was offered to all recruits, but the amount actually paid was a matter for negotiation. Just as a man would haggle with a farmer over his ‘fee’, he would expect to negotiate with the recruiting sergeant. If less than the authorised sum was eventually agreed, the sergeant and his officer would expect to split the difference. However, if recruits were difficult to come by, it might be necessary to pay over the odds, w
hich bit into their anticipated profit.

  Once the bargain was struck, the recruit traditionally received a shilling. Equally traditionally, this was turned into ale at the earliest opportunity. Then he was given a fairly basic medical examination and taken before a magistrate or justice of the peace, who attested him – that is, administered the oath, after which he was considered to be subject to military law as defined by the annual Mutiny Act.

  Pikeman demonstrating ‘Charge your pike’ in De Geyhn’s 1607 Exercise of Arms. Note the very close resemblance between this posture and Bland’s ‘Charge your bayonets’. [Author’s collection]

  The next step was to march the would-be hero either up to regimental headquarters, where he would be approved or rejected by the commanding officer. If the regiment was serving overseas, he would be taken to its rendezvous. In wartime, this was normally an ‘additional company’ staffed by officers drawn from the half-pay list. If the officer in charge of the company considered the recruit suitable, he would be taken from there and passed on to one of the depots or stations established for training and exercising of recruits prior to their being shipped overseas. There they would be signed as ‘Recruits passed by Field Officers, who will have instructions to inspect them, will be deemed as approved by the Regiment’.

  Although there were often complaints about the quality of men recruited for the army in the 18th century, there were in fact some quite daunting financial penalties which normally served to filter out the more unsuitable candidates. However, in wartime these were often disregarded in the desperate scramble to find enough men.

  If a man turned out the morning after ‘taking the shilling’ to be physically unsound or otherwise unsuitable to serve his king, the recruiting sergeant lost the money which had been expended in persuading him to enlist. Similarly, if a man was rejected when he reached the regiment, the officer in charge of the recruiting party lost all the money spent on him up until that point. If he was accepted by the regiment but then rejected by an inspecting general, it was the regiment which suffered. Since by that time he would have been paid or at least credited with his bounty and issued with some of his clothing and equipment, the loss was relatively large.

  In theory, a soldier could demand his bounty as a lump sum in cash, and it was quite common for Highland recruits, in particular, to remit the bounty home to their parents. Normally, however, it took the form of a paper transaction and was credited to the soldier’s individual account from which deductions were in due course made for his ‘necessaries’. Normally these included his knapsack, various extra items of clothing such as shirts and stockings, and more mundane items such as clothes brushes and the blackballs needed for cleaning his boots.

  James Aytoun, who enlisted in the 58th Foot at Edinburgh in January 1786, considered himself quite fortunate in this regard: ‘I received £1 11s 6d bounty and as I had plenty of shirts, Quartermaster Sergeant Elliott only bought for me out of my bounty two pairs of good shoes at five shillings a pair and two pairs of good, white stockings at two shillings per pair.’

  PAY AND SUBSISTENCE

  For most of the period pay was a princely eightpence per day, of which sixpence was accounted subsistence and the remaining tuppence the ‘off reckonings’ which – less certain administrative deductions – were made over directly to the colonel of the regiment and used by him to pay for most of the soldier’s clothing. Any surplus left over was the colonel’s perquisite.

  Clothing is discussed more fully in MAA 289: King George’s Army (2), but essentially a soldier was entitled to a complete suit of clothing annually. It comprised a coat, waistcoat or waistcoat front, breeches, hat, stockings, shoes and a couple of shirts – paid for out of his ‘off reckonings’. Any additional items of clothing, which could range from fatigue jackets to additional shirts, gaiters, stockings and shoes, were then paid for through stoppages from his subsistence.

  The only time a soldier might actually hope to finger any of the ‘off reckonings’ was when the clothing to which he was entitled was not delivered for any reason, or was of a lower standard than usual. An example of this was when the short jackets were substituted for the usual heavy regimental coat for service in the West Indies. In this instance, the soldier was entitled to have a ‘refund’ of 1s 9d.

  Daily Rates of Pay and Subsistence, 1740

  British Establishment Irish Establishment

  Pay Subs Pay Subs

  Sergeant 1s 6d 1s 0d 1s 6d 1s 0d

  Corporal 1s 0d 8d 1s 0d 9d

  Drummer 1s 0d 8d 1s 0d 8d

  Private 8d 6d 7d 5d

  The subsistence portion of the soldier’s pay was, in theory, issued every two months to the regiment. In practice it would then be passed on to the soldier weekly or at shorter or longer intervals if the circumstances demanded it. Out of the 3s 6d subsistence due a soldier each week, his captain was normally authorised to deduct sixpence ‘for shoes, stockings, gayters, medicines, shaving, mending of arms, loss by exchange of remittance of their pay but nothing else except such things as may be lost or spoiled by the soldier’s negligence and the captain is to accompt with them for the residue every two months’.

  Reconstruction: ‘Rest your bayonet’ Bayonet Drill according to The Gentleman Volunteer’s Pocket Handbook 1745 – apparently a straight crib from Bland 1727.

  ‘Charge your bayonet breast high’ – the 1st Motion. [Author’s collection]

  Whether any ‘residue’ from these stoppages actually became available was, of course, a different matter entirely, as James Aytoun, who had the misfortune to be drafted into the badly run 30th Foot, recalled: ‘I have to observe that no man, or at least very few that died in Dominique, was out of debt in the company’s books. The men’s account was never settled nor arrears paid off more than once in six months and frequently on a longer period. It was always observed that a careful soldier was severely watched by the adjutant and pay sergeants, more so than a prodigal, because the prodigal took from the pay sergeant shirts, shoes etc. at an extravagant price and sold the same for less than half their value. In doing so they were rarely out of debt to the pay sergeant. Officers of company seldom gave themselves any concern about their company’s accounts. The pay sergeants were heirs at law and, as already observed, most men when dead were in debt in the company’s book. It was very easy making a dead man “debtor to balance” … Adjutant Russell was a mean tyrant. He fixed malignant eye on the best men in the regiment. On one occasion, when told by Sergeant Thomson that one man in the company always received the arrears in full and supplied himself with shirts etc, said our redoubtable adjutant, “Why do you not get him flogged?”’

  ‘Charge your bayonet breast high’ – the 2nd Motion.

  ‘Push your bayonet’.

  It is hard to say how typical Aytoun’s experience was. It is equally clear that in the better-run units it was quite common to allow the men to purchase their necessaries for themselves instead of stopping the cost out of their subsistence. Nevertheless this was regarded as a privilege rather than a right. On 20 April 1761, for example, the commanding officer of the 42nd Highlanders directed that certain items, including black ribbons for new cockades, needed to be procured. Normally they would have been paid for out of the weekly stoppages, but: ‘It is however left to the Commanding Officer of Companys to allow such men as they can depend upon to provide these articles for themselves.’

  The remaining three shillings of the soldier’s basic pay – plus any additional money which he might earn when off duty, or engaged in roadwork or other exceptional fatigues – had to cover the cost of all his food and drink.

  If it was practicable to do so – for example, when a regiment was marching from one quarter to another within the British Isles – he would be given his daily subsistence in hard cash and allowed to purchase whatever he required either from civilian markets or from the sutlers who usually accompanied an army. This was not always possible on active service, of course, or on board a transport. In the latter cas
e the soldier was provided with rations and the cost of them was deducted as a further stoppage.

  Bayonet drill – ‘Culloden variant’: The three soldiers on the left are charging their bayonets in the normal way, standing at a right angle to the enemy, with feet set squarely apart. The three soldiers on the right are thrusting to their right instead of straight ahead. The left foot has not moved and the change in direction is accomplished simply by moving the right foot half a pace backwards.

  Locking: The platoon on the left is deployed in the usual order – according to the 1728 regulations half a pace distance between files and two paces between ranks. The platoon on the right has locked up in order to fire a volley. As soon as it has been delivered, the men will step back to leave a two-pace interval between ranks before reloading.

  Normally he was then entitled to receive one pound of bread and either one pound of beef or nine ounces of pork each day, together with lesser quantities of ‘small rations’ – usually oatmeal, butter or cheese, pease and occasionally rice.

  Like most soldiers, James Aytoun was actually much less concerned with strong drink than with food, and his memoirs cover the subject in some detail. In 1786, while still a recruit with the 58th Foot, he describes how, while quartered in Ireland, a butcher in his mess and some other men would periodically buy a sheep which ‘when killed and all counted, cost us about Id per lb’. Others would sometimes visit Downpatrick market to purchase oatmeal for the breakfast porridge. On the other hand, on Dominica, where he served with the 30th Foot, rations were issued, but were rarely consumed by the soldiers themselves: ‘We sold all our butter, rice, pease and beef and part of our pork and bought green plantains, vegetables and roast coffee and treacle and made a shift to have a jug of coffee and a piece of bread for breakfast and an ounce or two of pork for dinner with a plate of tolerable good broth made from the salt pork. . . Any supper or third meal we had was a little pork brine, Cayenne pepper and the remainder of our bread.’