We being desirous to distinguish Our Forty Second Regiment of
Foot with some mark of Our Royal favor, Our Will and Pleasure
therefore is, and we do hereby direct, that from henceforth Our
said regiment be called, and distinguished by the title and name
of Our Forty-Second, or Royal Highland Regiment of Foot, in all
commissions, orders, and writings, that shall hereafter be made
out, or issued for and concerning the said regiment. Given at Our
Court at Kensington this 22nd day of July 1758, in the thirty
second year of Our reign. By His Majesty’s command.
(Signed) BARRINGTON.
The vacancies occasioned in the 42nd were filled up in regular
succession and the seven companies which had been ordered at the
same time as the change of title were immediately recruited. These
were completed in three months and embodied at Perth, October
1758, each company being 120 men strong, all with few exceptions
Highlanders and hardy and temperate in their habits. (Lord John
Murray’s orders were preemptory that none but Highlanders be taken,
but a few O’Donnels, O’Lachlans and O’Briens passed muster as
MacDonnels, MacLachlans and MacBriars.)
These seven companies with the three additional companies raised in
1757 were formed into a Second Battalion. The officers appointed
to the seven new companies were Robert Anstruther, who was senior
captain and served as Major, Francis MacLean, Alexander Sinclair,
John Stewart of Stenton, William Murray of Lintrose, Archibald
Campbell, Alexander Reid, and Robert Arbuthnot, to be captains;
Alexander MacLean, George Grant, George Sinclair, Gordon Clunes,
Adam Stewart, John Robertson, son of Lude, John Grant, James
Fraser, George Leslie, John Campbell, Alexander Stewart, Duncan
Richardson and Robert Robertson, to be lieutenants and Patrick
Sinclair, John Macintosh, James MacDuff, Thomas Fletcher, Alexander
Donaldson, William MacLean, and William Brown, to be ensigns.
The seven new companies embarked for the West Indies where they
joined with the Old Buffs, Kings, 6th, 63rd, 64th, 800 marines and
a detachment of artillery amounting in all to 5,560 men under the
command of Major Generals Hopson and Barrington and of Brigadier
Generals Haldane, Armiger, Trapaud and Clavering, in an exposition
against Martinique and Gaudaloupe. This resulted in the capture of
Gaudaloupe but was not altogether a success and a great many men
were lost by fever and sickness. Of the Royal Highlanders Ensign
MacLean was killed, Lieutenants MacLean, Leslie, Sinclair and
Robertson were wounded, and Major Anstruther and Captain Arbuthnot
died of the fever. One hundred and six privates were killed,
wounded or died of disease.
This was a severe initiation for the new recruits who had been
herding sheep on their native hills nine months before, but as has
always been the case with the Black Watch they acquitted themselves
with distinction. The seven companies were then embarked for New
York to join the First Battalion where they arrived in July. They
just missed being at the capture of Ticonderoga. Major Gordon
Graham was ordered at the end of July by General Amherst then at
Crown Point to take command of the seven companies and to march
them up to Oswego. In August they were ordered to join the First
Battalion, Capt. Stewart with 150 men being left at Oswego and the
First and Second Battalions, now united, served together for the
rest of the campaign.
We will now return to the Veterans of the previous year. After
wintering in New York (or on Long Island, as another authority
states) the old Black Watch now the first Battalion of the Royal
Highlanders, recruited again to its full strength and the three
additional companies now a part of the Second Battalion, joined
Amherst at Fort Edward in June, 1759.[33] Col. Grant of the 42nd
with the Royal Highlanders and light infantry of the army moved
forward to Lake George the 20th and the main part of the army
followed on the 21st. For five years now Lake George had been the
annual mustering place of armies.
The campaign this season comprehended three very important
enterprises--Wolfe was to attack Quebec from Lower Canada, Prideaux
was to proceed against Niagara, and Amherst, now Commander in Chief
and successor of General Abercrombie, was to drive the French from
Lake Champlain and if possible join Wolfe on the St. Lawrence.
The army under Amherst consisted of the Royals, 17th, 27th, Royal
Highlanders, two battalions of the 55th, Montgomery’s Highlanders,
nine battalions of Provincials, and a battalion of light infantry
and a body of Rangers and Indians with a detachment of artillery.
When joined by the 2d battalion of the Royal Americans from the
West Indies, this army amounted to 14,500 men.
Major Alexander Campbell of the 77th writes from Fort Edward, June
19th, 1759:
“Our General is beloved by his soldiers, Honoured and Esteem’d
by his officers, Carful of mens lives and healths, in short he
is the man I would choose to serve under of any I know in the
service. Our Regiment are healthy and in High spirits as are the
whole army, and I hope we soon will stricke a stroke that will
bring credite and Glory to our General and Army and Satisfaction
to our Country and friends.”
Amherst never remained long in one place without building a fort.
Fortified places were built at intervals of three or four miles
along the road to Fort Edward and especially at the station called
Halfway Brook, while for the whole distance a broad belt of wood on
both sides was cut down and burned to deprive a skulking enemy of
cover. At Lake George he started a fort, now called Fort George,
the ruins of which are in the Lake George Battle Ground Park of
which this Association is custodian.
July 21st, 1759, Lake George again witnessed a military pageant as
the army embarked for its second attack on Fort Ticonderoga. At
daylight they landed, beat back a French detachment and marched
by the portage road to the sawmill. There was little resistance
and the army marched to the former line of entrenchments which had
proved so fatal to Abercrombie. These had been reconstructed partly
of earth and partly of logs, and as the French made no attempt at
their defence the English encamped along their front and found them
excellent shelter from the cannon of the fort. It is the general
impression that the French retreated with only faint resistance and
that there was hardly a shot fired at the second attempt to capture
Fort Carrillon but the following letter from Capt. Murray would
correct this impression:
“Camp at the Lines of Burning Theanderoga, 27 July, 1758.
My Dear Brother:--I write you these few lines to acquaint you
that I am in perfect good health and that the army landed at this
end of the lake the 22nd, invested the Fort the 23rd and was
very buisy carying on the worcks till the 26th in the night, at
which time we had three batteries ready to open, when the enemy
abbandoned and set fire to the fort. During the time that the
enemy remained they could not keep a hotter fire, for I dare say
that fired ten thousand cannon shott and five hundred bombs and I
don’t believe there has been forty men killed and wounded during
that hott fire, altho’ all the Bombs fell in different parts
among us and that we were nigh point blank of the cannon shott
but the line that had been of so much hurt to us last year saved
our men this.
Your most afft. Brother, James Murray.”