The Patriot Army in 1775

 

Regular United States Infantry during the Revolutionary War were known as “Continentals” or the “Continental Line.”

Massachusetts and Virginia each furnished the largest of the state Lines.  Each state was responsible for equipping its own soldiers.

At the beginning of the war equipping troops with proper firearms was a major problem.  Although men usually brought their own weapons when mustered (long rifles or hunting guns), the lack of uniformity among these weapons was a problem. 

The notorious inaccuracy of the musket made the use of the bayonet a key element in battlefield tactics. 

The opposing armies lined up facing each other in ranks two or three deep and fired in the direction of the enemy. The musket was highly inaccurate at a distance greater than 80 yards.

Speed in loading and firing was more important than aiming.  The volume of fire was considered the measure of a good army. Presumably if you fired enough times you were bound to hit someone.   

The battlefield tactics of the time called for reliance on the musket with a bayonet.

Civilian hunting guns and rifles were not designed to mount a bayonet. If a fight was confined to shooting, the Americans had an advantage with their longer range rifles.

If a battle ended with a bayonet charge, of which the British were masters, the Americans would be outmatched.

In 1777, General Washington formed a Corps of Riflemen under the command of the Virginian Daniel Morgan to take advantage of the long range shooting capability and accuracy of the rifle.  These riflemen were a special unit, protected by regular Line troops when threatened by bayonets. 

The musket problem was not resolved until 1777.  France became the primary supplier of military style muskets. 

Some 102,000 muskets were delivered to America between 1776 and 1781.  By 1777 the entire Continental Line was equipped with French muskets.

Until the formation of the Continental Line in 1775, the American colonies had depended on home grown militias for their day to day protection.

 

In times of peace the militia was more of a social or drinking club than a military organization. Discipline was lax and training sketchy. Even in times of war, militiamen were reluctant to serve more than a few weeks away from home.  Without them, who would work the farm and provide for the family? 

 

Notwithstanding the shortcomings of the militia, militiamen often provided essential manpower on the ground at key moments.  British commanders had to take into account the size of militia forces operating against them when planning campaigns.  Such forces might be unpredictable, and unsteady in a pitched battle against British regulars, but they could inflict significant damage, especially in guerilla style attacks.

Even though the militia force was large and useful, General Washington was convinced that ultimate victory over the British would require the creation of a national, disciplined, professional army.  He created this Continental Army which would serve the American war effort well, with the militia providing significant support.

The Most Famous Pictures of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

 

The first widely distributed artistic rendition of the Battle of the Little Bighorn was called “The Battle on the Little Big Horn River:  The death struggle of General Custer.”  Using a wood engraving based on a drawing by W.M. Cary, The Daily Graphic: an Illustrated Evening Newspaper, published in New York, was able to portray the scene of battle as early as July 19, 1876. 

The newspaper, which was the first in America to publish daily illustrations, may have been the first in print, but the depiction was not accurate.  Custer is seen standing on a boulder, waving a saber, in a double breasted coat with a sash, which made him look more like a desperado or a pirate than a soldier.

Many regard Edgar S. Paxon’s “Custer’s Last Stand” as the best pictorial representation of the battle.  Arriving in Montana in 1877, the artist spent twenty years researching, and eight years painting the monumental work, interviewing nearly one hundred men on both sides including the Sioux chief Gall.

From these interviews Paxson, in his effort to achieve historical accuracy, made detailed journals about the equipment, attire, and physical location of each man on the battlefield.

The painting now resides at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Wyoming.

In 1884 the artists Cassilly Adams completed a painting he named “Custer’s Last Fight.”  The painting was sold to John Ferber the owner of a saloon in St. Louis, Missouri, where the picture was prominently displayed.  The brewer Adolphus Busch acquired the painting and the saloon in 1892 when Ferber went broke.

Busch commissioned Otto F. Becker, to produce lithographs based on the painting to be used as advertising.  The first advertising prints appeared in 1896 with a run of fifteen thousand prints.  There have been eighteen subsequent editions with over one million copies having been produced. The original Adams painting was destroyed by fire on June 13, 1946.

This painting has been criticized for having many historical inaccuracies, including what appears to be a Zulu warrior rushing at Custer.

The renowned artist of the American Old West, Charles M. Russell produced the lithograph “The Custer Fight” in 1903 depicting the battle from the view of the Native American combatants.

"The Battle of Little Bighorn" was painted by Kicking Bear in 1898 at the request of the western  artist Frederick Remington.   Kicking Bear fought at the Little Bighorn.  His drawing is a significant view of the battle as seen by Native Americans.

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

The British Army in 1775

 

In 1775 Great Britain depended on the Royal Navy to maintain trade and project British power.  Throughout the war the British could strike when and where they would along the virtually undefended American coastline. 

The British army numbered 48,000 men, about a quarter of the size of the French army.  Unlike the navy which depended on conscription and impressment for manpower, the British Army at the time of the American Revolution was a volunteer force. 

Volunteers were farm laborers or the unemployed, and usually in their early twenties.  A life in the army provided steady pay, regular meals and an escape from poverty.  The non-commissioned officers were the backbone of the army and insured strict discipline and rigorous training.

As the war progressed, the army expanded rapidly.  Some fifty thousand British soldiers fought in America. 

Two short periods of impressment were tried, in which unemployed men were taken into the army.  This proved so unpopular in Britain that it was quickly abandoned. 

The British turned to a well-established eighteenth century custom to augment their numbers namely hiring foreign auxiliaries.

Approximately 30,000 German troops were hired by the British to fight during the American Revolution. Most of these troops were from the German princely state of Hesse-Cassel, and hence the term “Hessians” came to be applied to all German troops in America no matter which princely state from which they may actually have originated.

Soldiers were a major export for Hesse-Cassel.  Boys were registered for military service at the age of seven.  Men from the ages of sixteen to thirty presented themselves annually for possible induction.  School dropouts, bankrupts, and the unemployed could be inducted at any time.  Life in the Hessian army was marked by harsh discipline, but had economic benefits.  Wages were higher than farm work and there was a promise of additional official money from the sale of captured military property.  There was also the lure of making money by plundering civilians, which although officially forbidden was widespread.

Early in the war, the Continental Congress devised a plan offering fifty acres of land, freedom to practice their religion, and civil liberties to German deserters.  Thousands of former Hessian soldiers did indeed remain in America after the war.

Benedict Arnold after the American Revolution

 

After betraying his country, Benedict Arnold accepted a commission in the British army.  After the war Benedict Arnold was not celebrated when he arrived in England.  

He tried to advise British politicians to continue the fight for America despite the defeat at Yorktown.  Members of Parliament expressed the hope that the government would never put Arnold at the head of a part of the British army lest “the sentiments of true honour, which every British officer (holds) dearer than life, should be (offended).”  

Arnold next tried his hand at business.  He was turned down for a position in the East India Company where great fortunes were being made with the explanation that the purity of his conduct was generally thought low.  

In 1785, Arnold tried land speculation in Canada and trading in the West Indies.  The entire family moved to Canada in 1787, where the quarrelsome Arnold became involved in a series of bad business deals and petty lawsuits.  He became so unpopular that the townspeople of Saint John, New Brunswick burned him in effigy in front of his house as his family watched.  

The family returned to London in 1791. In July 1792, Arnold fought a duel with the Earl of Lauderdale who had impugned his honor.  When war broke out with France he outfitted a privateer and sailed for the West Indies.  By 1801 Arnold’s health began to fail.  After four days of delirium he died on June 14, 1801 at the age of sixty leaving debts and a name synonymous with treachery.

Banastre Tarleton after the American Revolution

 

 Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton who led the fearsome Loyalist British Legion returned to England in triumph at the end of the American Revolution.  He was universally acclaimed for his legendary exploits in the American war and became a close friend of the Prince of Wales (the future King George IV).  In 1787 Tarleton wrote History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America.  In 1790 he was elected to Parliament, where he served for over twenty years. In the Napoleonic Wars, Tarleton served under the Duke of Wellington reaching the rank of lieutenant general in 1801.  In 1815, he was awarded a baronetcy.

 In 2006, four Patriot regimental colors captured by Tarleton in 1779 and 1780 were auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York City on Flag Day.  Lot No. 1 consisted of one flag.  Lot No. 2 consisted of the three regimental colors of the 3^rd Virginia Detachment that Tarleton captured at the Battle of Waxhaws (also known as The Waxhaws Massacre).  Passed down in Tarleton’s family for almost two hundred and fifty years these battle flags were the last American Revolutionary War colors known to remain in British hands and the last such colors to remain in private hands anywhere.  The fiercely contested auction lasted fourteen minutes and raised $17.3 million. The three Virginia flags sold for $5.0 million.  The private buyer remains anonymous, but the flags have occasionally been exhibited publicly.

Who Were the Slaves of the Founding Fathers?

Lord Cornwallis after Yorktown

 

Despite his defeat at Yorktown, Lord Charles Cornwallis was cheered when he landed in England on January 21, 1782.  He retained the confidence of successive British governments and was appointed Governor-General and Commander-in-chief in India in 1786.  He successfully led British forces to victory in the Third Anglo-Mysore War from 1789 to 1792.  In 1798 Cornwallis was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-chief of Ireland.  The spirit of revolution had swept the British out of America and now threatened to do the same thing in Ireland.  Disaffected Irishmen began to assert their “constitutional rights” and sought aid from the French who had staged their own revolution in 1789.  A massive force of 26,000 was assembled under Lord Cornwallis which crushed the Irish rebellion and repulsed a French invasion of Ireland.  Following his service in Ireland, Cornwallis was reappointed to India in 1805 where he died of fever at the age of sixty-six not long after his arrival.

How Martha Washington Lived: 18th Century Customs

The Most Famous Private Soldier of the American Revolution

 

 Peter Francisco (1760-1831) who was six feet eight inches tall, and weighed some 260 pounds has come down to history with the title the “Virginia Giant.” His deeds during the Revolutionary War became the stuff of myth and legend. Some of the stories may actually contain an element of truth, others if not true “ought to be”, in the words of the heroic storytellers of the Revolution.  The stories of the Giant’s deeds were so popular by the 1820s that the early Revolutionary War historian Alexander Garden wrote that he “scarcely ever met a man in Virginia who had not some miraculous tale to tell of Peter Francisco.”

Pedro (later called Peter) Francisco arrived at the dock in City Point aged five and was unable to speak English. It is believed that he had been kidnapped from his Portuguese parents in the Azores. He was taken in and raised by the family of Judge Anthony Winston.

 In 1776, at the age of sixteen Francisco enlisted in the Virginia Line. He fought in Pennsylvania at the Battle of Germantown and in New Jersey at the Battle of Monmouth. Francisco was part of an attack on the British fort of Stony Point in New York where supposedly, even after receiving a nine-inch wound to the stomach, he continued to fight; killing twelve British grenadiers and capturing the enemy’s flag.

  One of his most well-known feats occurred in South Carolina after the Battle of Camden. Seeing an American cannon mired in mud and about to be abandoned, he freed the 1,100-pound cannon and carried it on his shoulders to keep it from falling into the hands of the enemy.

 He fought at Guilford Court House in North Carolina. A monument at Guilford Court House National Military Park commemorates Francisco’s efforts,” To Peter Francisco a giant in stature, might, and courage who slew in this engagement eleven of the enemy with his own broad sword rendering himself thereby perhaps the most famous Private soldier of the Revolutionary War.”

 The story of “Francisco’s Fight” relates how the legendary giant, although unarmed, overpowered nine enemy dragoons who were trying to rob him of the silver buckles on his shoes. He supposedly killed three dragoons and made off with eight horses.

The First Attack on the Custer Legend (Battle of the Little Bighorn)

 George Armstrong Custer’s widow, Elizabeth “Libbie” Custer died on April 4, 1933.  She had defended her husband’s reputation for over fifty years.  Within a year the Custer legend was under attack by revisionist historians.

 In 1934 Frederic F. Van de Water wrote Glory Hunter.: A Life of General Custer.  

Custer’s primary qualities according to Van der Water were blind ambition and hubris.