I.

1755–1763.—ORIGIN OF THE REGIMENT AND ITS SERVICES IN NORTH AMERICA.

[Sidenote: ORIGIN.]

The Regiment was raised during 1755–56 in North America under special conditions, for the express purpose of assisting our Army to retrieve the terrible disaster which had befallen the British troops under _General Braddock_ at the hands of a smaller force of French and Red Indians in the forest fastnesses upon the banks of the Ohio River. It had been found that the slow and ponderous movements of troops trained upon the European model, with their heavy accoutrements, tight uniforms, and unsuitable tactics, were helpless against savages, and almost equally helpless against soldiers habituated to wars in the dense forests and trackless wastes of America. It was therefore decided by the British Government to raise in America, from amongst the Colonists themselves, a force which should be able to meet these conditions.

[Sidenote: 60th ROYAL AMERICANS.]

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,[1] 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,[2] who had succeeded Loudoun as Commander-in-Chief, decided upon a general advance.

[Sidenote: July 8th, 1758, TICONDEROGA.]

The 1st and 4th Battalions, under Bouquet and Haldimand,[3] formed part of the main Army in the Western Field of operations, and on the banks of Lake Champlain, at the memorable defeat of Ticonderoga, “at once a glory and a shame,” the 4th Battalion and a portion of the 1st showed a stubborn courage worthy of the highest praise, and lost very heavily in killed and wounded. On July the 27th, three weeks later, regardless of their losses, the Regiment furnished a part of the column under Bradstreet,[4] of the 60th, which, after a forced march, captured by a _coup de main_ Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario.

[Sidenote: Nov. 25th, 1758, Capture of FORT DUQUESNE.]

The 1st Battalion, employed on the Western frontiers under _General Forbes_, played the leading part in the advance against Fort Duquesne on the Ohio, in November, 1758, and led by the gallant Bouquet effected its capture from the French and Red Indians. This brilliant triumph over great physical difficulties was achieved by sheer determination, endurance, and pluck; and the solid value of the victory is thus summed up by the American historian, Parkman:—“It opened the great West to English enterprise, took from France half her savage allies, and relieved her Western borders from the scourge of Indian Wars.” Fort Duquesne, re-christened Fort Pitt, was thereupon garrisoned by a detachment of the 60th, and was destined later to play a prominent part in the subsequent operations.

[Sidenote: July 26th, 1758, LOUISBURG.]

The 2nd and 3rd Battalions, under Lieut.-Colonel Young and Major Augustine Prevost[5] respectively, early in 1758 were ordered to join Generals Amherst[6] and _Wolfe_ in the Eastern Field of operations, and they took a prominent part in the capture of LOUISBURG.

[Sidenote: Sept. 13th, 1759, QUEBEC.]

These two Battalions were subsequently in 1759 moved up the St. Lawrence to Quebec, where they still further distinguished themselves at Montmorency Falls, below Quebec, on July the 31st, and by their rapid movements and their intrepid courage won from _General Wolfe_ the motto of “Celer et Audax” (Swift and Bold). A still greater opportunity occurred on the 13th of September at the decisive battle of QUEBEC, where upon the Plains of Abraham the 2nd Battalion, whose Grenadier Company had been the first to scale the heights, covered the left during the battle against a very superior force of Red Indians and French, who made the most determined efforts to assail the flank and rear of _Wolfe’s_ army under cover of the dense bush and rocky ground.[7] The 60th thus lost heavily in killed and wounded. The 3rd Battalion played a no less important part by holding in check the enemy, who threatened the rear through the thick woods on the river banks.

[Sidenote: 1760, MONTREAL.]

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.

Following up their successes in 1758, under _Forbes_, Bouquet and the 1st Battalion had by degrees captured or occupied the whole of the French posts west of the Alleghany Mountains, and they were accordingly chosen for the arduous task of defending the various forts established in the unexplored country south of the great lakes. A region embracing thousands of miles of surface was thus consigned to the keeping of five or six hundred men—a vast responsibility for a single weak Battalion garrisoning a few insignificant forts.

In 1763 took place the general and sudden rising of the Indians under Pontiac—a formidable conspiracy, bringing ruin and desolation to the settlers in those wild regions, and even threatening the safety of the Colonies. By surprise or stratagem the Indians, in overwhelming numbers, secured many of the widely scattered posts held by the 60th, murdering some of the slender garrisons and beleaguering others. But the important posts of Fort Detroit upon the Straits joining Lake Erie and Lake Huron, and of Fort Pitt commanding the Ohio River valley, both garrisoned by the 60th under Gladwyn and Ecuyer respectively, were gallantly and successfully held against tremendous odds. The relief of these two important posts were operations of the greatest urgency, and every effort was made to get sufficient troops for this purpose.

[Sidenote: Aug. 5th and 6th, 1763. BUSHEY RUN.]

[Sidenote: Nov. 15th, 1764, RED INDIAN CAMPAIGN.]

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 (more than any others) 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.

[Sidenote: 1762, MARTINIQUE.]

[Sidenote: Aug. 13th, 1762, HAVANNAH.]

Meanwhile, in February, 1762, the 3rd Battalion, moving to the West Indies, had taken part in the capture of MARTINIQUE. It subsequently joined the expedition to Cuba under the _Earl of Albemarle_, where, led by Brigadier-General Haviland,[8] it played a leading part in the capture of HAVANNAH from the Spaniards on the 13th of August.

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Footnote 1:

Afterwards Brigadier-General Bouquet. Born 1719, died 1765. The victor of Bushey Run. A brilliant officer, of the highest capacity as a leader and administrator. It has been said that by his untimely death Great Britain lost a general whose presence might well have caused the American War of Independence to assume a different aspect. For biographical sketch _vide_ Regimental Chronicle, 1910.

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.