THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
(1775-1782).
Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye,
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
SMOLLETT.
In the earlier chapters we have dealt with the actions in which the
Black Watch, Fraser’s, and Montgomery’s Highlanders were engaged. It is
now time that mention was made of the other Highland regiments that were
formed about this period, and that were, to some extent, recruited from
the troops disbanded shortly before the American War of Independence. It
would take too long and be too confusing to enter into any detail
concerning the various false starts that many Highland regiments made.
The actual date of their respective foundations will be found in the
list of regimental battle honours, or in the chapters devoted on
occasions to the exploit of a particular battalion.
The various Highland regiments that were raised after the Black Watch
were largely the outcome of personal enterprise. The chief of the
Macleods, for instance, raised the battalion that afterwards became the
1st Highland Light Infantry. The principal cities in Scotland each
contributed towards a regiment, and the great families of Seaforth,
Gordon, Argyll, and Macdonald did much in the time succeeding and
preceding the American War to foster the military spirit. The regiment
created by the Earl of Seaforth ultimately became the 1st Seaforth
Highlanders.
There is, I think, only one particular point to note before we continue
this narrative. In times of major warfare, such as in the great
campaigning of the Napoleonic wars, the Crimea, and South Africa,
several Highland regiments, not necessarily all, were banded together
under the control of a commander, and called the Highland Brigade. A
brigade may consist of three or four or more battalions, each battalion
roughly a thousand odd men, and naturally comes into severe fighting.
In the Crimea the Highland Brigade was composed of three regiments, the
Black Watch, the Camerons, and the 93rd Sutherlands. It was commanded by
the famous Sir Colin Campbell. In the Indian Mutiny no regular brigade
was formed. In the Egyptian war in 1882 the Highland Brigade was under
the command of Sir Archibald Alison, and included the Black Watch, the
Highland Light Infantry, the Gordons, and the Camerons. In the Boer War
of 1889-1902 the Highland Brigade was under the command of General
Wauchope, and included the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch, the 2nd
Seaforth Highlanders, the 1st Argyll and Sutherlands, and the 1st
Highland Light Infantry. It was these four regiments that met with the
severe reverse at Magersfontein.
At the time when the American War of Independence broke out George III.
was upon the throne. He was an Englishman born and bred, and, after the
earlier Georges, that in itself made a great appeal to the imagination
of the English people. He was a man possessed of a great sincerity and a
greater obstinacy, who lived as much as possible amongst his tenants in
the country or within his own domestic circle. He evidenced, in brief,
most of the virtues with many of the weaknesses of the English
character. Though he displayed to a large degree the genial spirit that
made men call him ‘Farmer George,’ there was also rather too much John
Bull in his personality. His were the virtues of an honest, determined,
rather stupid Englishman. It might be said that such a nature as this,
particularly in the riotous eighteenth century, could achieve nothing
but good. Unfortunately he not only ruled his family so harshly that
they all turned out extremely badly, but he also tried to carry out the
same attitude towards America. He scolded the colonists as though they
were naughty children, and the colonists, many of whom had no
acquaintance with England, and whose forebears had left the
mother-country for the very good reason that they were happier out of
it, met this intolerance with a bold and determined front. They
naturally resented the autocratic demands of the Government; they could
not tolerate the attitude of the English officers, while although they
had outgrown Jacobite sympathies, they cherished no loyalty to a
Hanoverian king.
In 1761 the Importation Act was passed, an attempt to enforce payment of
duty, in consequence of which English ships went far to ruin trade with
the West Indies. The end of the French and Indian wars had brought with
it a great increase to the National Debt, and it seemed only fair to the
Government that, as the conflict had been undertaken principally to
guard the interests of the settlers, the cost should be shared by them.
To this the colonists retorted that they too had fought, and that Canada
was ample compensation to the British for any loss of capital.
In 1765 the Stamp Act was passed, ordering that all documents of every
description must be printed on paper purchased from the Government.
On October 1, 1768, seven hundred soldiers marched into Boston and
attempted to overawe the residents. To use a familiar catch-phrase, ‘the
Government was asking for trouble.’ But the colonists still displayed
great patience, and though disaffection simmered, it was not until 1773
that any sign of rebellion was visible. It was then that fifty men,
dressed up as Red Indians, flung a cargo of tea into Boston Harbour, and
on March 31, 1774, the port was ordered to be closed by the Government.
Once started, deeds followed fast upon words, while incident hurried
upon incident. Little things acquire an indescribable importance at such
times, just as a spark will blow up a magazine. Finally, on July 4,
1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed, and the war commenced.
In England the effect of the Declaration was provocative of hardly more
alarm than the outbreak of war in South Africa in 1899. In both cases it
was exceedingly difficult to estimate the power of the enemy, and hard
to believe he could resist a disciplined army. Take, for instance, a
typical blusterer of the period. Major James Grant stated in the House
of Commons that he knew the Americans very well, and was certain they
would not fight,—“that they were not soldiers, and never could be made
so, being naturally pusillanimous and incapable of discipline; that a
very slight force would be more than sufficient for their complete
reduction; and he fortified his statement by repeating their peculiar
expressions and ridiculing their religious enthusiasm, manners, and ways
of living, greatly to the entertainment of the House.”[6]
Pitt replied in memorable words. “The spirit,” he said, “which resists
your taxation in America is the same that formerly opposed loans,
benevolences, and ship-money in England.... This glorious spirit of
Whiggism animates three millions in America, who prefer poverty with
liberty to gilded chains and sordid affluence, and who will die in
defence of their rights as freemen.”
Throughout England there was the bitterest resentment against the war,
with the widest sympathy for the Americans. Many officers handed in
their papers, and meetings were held to express the indignation that
such a step should have been forced upon a loyal and long-suffering
people. Only Scotland, Tory at home and abroad, supported the king
against America, while, with pathetic loyalty, the Highlanders, some of
whom had fought for Prince Charlie against George II., risked their
lives and lost their homes in America for the cause of George III.
The Black Watch and Fraser’s Highlanders sailed from Greenock on April
14, 1776, and disembarked at Staten, where the main body was stationed.
Here the Highlanders were drilled in a new form of warfare, to enable
them to overcome the resistance of the colonists. Broad-swords and
pistols were laid aside, and greater reliance was placed upon
marksmanship. After some preliminary fighting at Long Island the
Americans, under Washington, secured a masterly retreat. In the month
following the British troops took possession of the heights commanding
New York. So far England had swept everything before her.
During the cessation that followed this engagement Washington devoted
every moment to strengthening his forces. The American troops were no
more trained than the Boers in South Africa, but like the latter they
could claim in their favour a thorough knowledge of the country with
practised marksmanship, derived from years of fighting with the Indians.
Their hatred for the English, which burned deeper day by day, was in no
degree cooled when they saw amongst the English troops both German
mercenaries and Redskins. It is difficult for us to realise how bitterly
the Americans abhorred the very sight of an Indian, while on the other
hand, an unwritten page in history is the strange alliance that bound
many Royalists to their merciless allies, and the brutal instincts such
a fellowship aroused in some of the Highlanders, particularly those of
the older, wilder generation, the scourings of the ‘45. On one occasion,
for instance, a Highlander with the honest name of Donald M’Donald, led
a party of Redskins against a block-house called Shell’s Bush. After the
siege, which most fortunately ended in favour of the settler, it was
discovered that “M’Donald wore a silver-mounted tomahawk, which was
taken from him by Shell. It was marked by thirty scalp-notches, showing
that few Indians could have been more industrious than himself in
gathering that description of military trophies.”[7]
It is also worth mentioning, for few histories have dealt with this
point, that the unfortunate Highlanders who had settled in America in
the years succeeding Culloden, and who, in their loyalty to the throne,
fought against the American settlers, were eventually left in the lurch
at the conclusion of hostilities, and forced to trek into Canada.
Amongst these hapless people who lost their homes were Flora Macdonald
and her husband. Her family divided and her future in jeopardy, she set
sail again for Scotland, and there she died at the end of the eighteenth
century, in the land where she had befriended Prince Charlie.
The capture of Fort Washington by General Howe was an important
achievement, in which the Highland regiment played an honourable part.
The Fort was well stationed upon the summit of a high plateau, as
difficult of access upon at least one side as, let us say, the flank of
Edinburgh or Stirling Castles. But where difficulties are so obvious,
caution should always be exercised the more. We have seen how the
heights of Quebec were scaled simply by challenging the apparently
impossible. In much the same manner the Highlanders cleared the
precipice beneath Fort Washington, and last, but certainly not least of
them, Major Murray, whose stoutness and valour can only be compared to
that of Sir Robert Munro at Fontenoy, was carried to the summit.
“This hill,” says an authority, “was so perpendicular that the ball
which wounded Lieutenant Macleod entered the posterior part of his neck,
ran down on the middle of his ribs, and lodged in the lower part of his
back. One of the pipers who began to play when he reached the point of a
rock on the summit, was immediately shot, and tumbled from one piece of
rock to another till he reached the bottom. Major Murray, being a large
corpulent man, could not attempt this steep ascent without assistance.
The soldiers, eager to get to the point of their duty, scrambled up,
forgetting the situation of Major Murray, when he, in a melancholy,
supplicating tone cried, ‘Oh, soldiers, will you leave me?’ A party
leaped down instantly, and brought him up, supporting him from one ledge
to another until they got him to the top”—a spectacle not without
humour.
The Americans, flying before the Black Watch, were brought face to face
with the Hessians, and were compelled to lay down their arms. It is
unquestionable that half the success of a victory lies in the manner
that the pursuit is carried out, and unfortunately General Howe, instead
of pressing hard upon the demoralised Americans, was content to go into
winter quarters, thus permitting Washington to employ the succeeding
weeks in strengthening his army. The time lost was never recovered. On
January 22 the Hessians at Trenton were completely surprised and
defeated. It had been touch-and-go for the Americans. Defeat at that
moment would have ended the war. Immediately the whole situation was
changed, and the future grew dark for the British arms.
Shortly after, the Highlanders in their turn were nearly overcome by a
sudden attack while they were seeking some rest after long
night-watching. A force of 2000 Americans attempted to rush and take
them by surprise. Happily for the Black Watch their outposts were
resolved to die rather than retreat, and the delay saved the situation.
About the middle of June General Howe perceiving that Washington was
strongly entrenched at Middlebrook, resolved to change the theatre of
war. When it is difficult to take a position there are two actions that
are open to a commander—one is to mask it, as we have seen fortresses
masked in the German War, and the other is simply to go elsewhere. The
British forces marched away and sailed for Elk Ferry, from thence
advancing on Philadelphia. Washington, hurriedly abandoning Middlebrook,
pushed across country to oppose the crossing of the English at Brandy
Wine River. Now the fording of a river under the shield of heavy battery
fire is no light matter, but in those days, when the protection of
artillery was not so adequate as it is to-day, it could only be carried
with a terrible loss of life. Instead of a frontal attack Cornwallis
determined to carry out a flanking movement upon the American position,
so, marching up-stream, he forded the river without opposition and drove
back General Sullivan. This enabled General Knyphausen to cross with his
division, and at the falling of night the Americans were in retreat.
Washington was beaten. On the 26th, Philadelphia fell into the hands of
the British. Then followed the greatest blow of the war, and the
decisive moment was come. General Burgoyne, marching victorious from
Canada to co-operate with General Howe at Saratoga Springs, met with a
disaster the importance of which can be estimated by the memorable words
of Lord Mahon.
“Even of those great conflicts, in which hundreds of thousands have been
engaged and tens of thousands have fallen, none has been more fruitful
of results than this surrender of thirty-five hundred fighting men at
Saratoga. It not merely changed the relations of England and the
feelings of Europe towards these insurgent colonists, but it has
modified, for all times to come, the connexion between every colony and
every parent state.”
With General Burgoyne was General Simon Fraser, a Highlander of great
distinction, who had served on the Continent, in the expedition against
Louisburg, and with Wolfe at Quebec, where he was the officer who,
deceiving the French sentry, enabled the Highlanders to land
unsuspected. It is difficult to say whether the defeat at Saratoga
Springs could have been averted, but it is probable that the despatches
summoning Howe miscarried. Undoubtedly Burgoyne made a blunder in
forcing Fraser to retreat when he was driving the troops of Colonel
Morgan back. However that may be, what followed was dismal enough.
Burgoyne took up his last position on the Heights of Saratoga, holding
on till famine made further resistance impossible.
Saratoga was the turning-point of the war. France no longer hesitated,
but threw in her lot with America. The whole character of the struggle
was changed, and its wider issues lie outside our story. In 1780 the
Black Watch took part in the siege of Charlestown, which surrendered on
May 12. In the further history of the 42nd in America there is little
more that is worth recording. The capitulation of Cornwallis (with whom
were Fraser’s Highlanders) at Yorktown in 1781 practically ended
hostilities.
In the American War of Independence there was little honour or glory for
the British name or the Highland regiments. Where the cause is unworthy
of a great nation success can carry with it nothing but dishonour.
Footnote 6:
Bancroft’s _History of the United States_, vol. vi.
Footnote 7:
Stone’s _Life of Joseph Brant_, vol. ii. p. 164.