Redcoat

The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket

Richard Holmes

• Publisher: HarperPress
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780006531524
• eBook ISBN: 9780007374052
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

(This edition includes a limited number of illustrations.)

‘Redcoat is a wonderful book. It is not just a work of history – but one of enthusiasm and unparalleled knowledge.' BERNARD CORNWELL

References

Introduction

¹ The best sources are Mitchell and Deane Abstract of British Historical Statistics, and the ‘Economic History Services’ interactive website gives useful details of the comparative cost of living year by year. E. W. Gilboy’s seminal Cost of Living and Real Wages in Eighteenth Century England, is by far the best source for detail. Other useful sources include Lorna Wetherill Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain 1670–1760, G. E. Mingey Rural Life in Victorian England, Carole Shamas The Pre-Industrial Consumer in Britain and America. Too many of the men who plied their muskets in line and square ended up in the workhouse, and Ian Moore’s Oldchurch – The Workhouse is a useful study of one such establishment.

The Age of Brown Bess

¹ Christopher Hibbert (ed) A Soldier of the Seventy-First, London 1976, p. 62.

² This account of a clash between a British line and a French column in Spain or Portugal in 1808–1814 is a pastiche. I have chosen the 37th (North Hampshire) Regiment because I serve in one of its successors, and my own scarlet mess-kit is faced with its yellow, though any stains come from mellifluous port rather than villainous saltpetre. The components of the story are pillaged from contemporary accounts. The description of the pas de charge is Captain Gronow’s and its nickname is recalled by Rifleman Harris; Private Thomas Pococke of the 71st Regiment had a narrow escape from a bayonet that stuck in his pack, and knew well that French soldiers often kept valuables (and, interestingly enough, pancakes) in their shakos. The conduct of the British line is founded on contemporary drillbooks, although, as H. Dickinson noted in his 1798 Instructions for Forming a Regiment of Infantry, ‘some trifling deviations…are permitted in most Regiments.’ The manner in which our young colonel (who seems to resemble the legendary John Colborne of the 52nd) handled his battalion, and, in particular, his decision to fire by ranks is an issue explored at length later on. And for our young ensign running forward with his colour, under the protecting pike of his covering colour-sergeant, we have Charles Hamilton-Smith’s picture, drawn from life, for he was himself a serving officer, of an ensign of the 9th Regiment.

³ Thomas Creevey The Creevey Papers (ed John Gore), London 1934 pp. 128–9.

⁴ Howard L. Blackmore British Military Firearms, 1650–1850, London 1994...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• MAPS
• I THE AGE OF BROWN BESS
• THAT ARTICLE THERE
• SCARLET AND BLUE
• TO FLANDERS, PORTUGAL AND SPAIN
• RED COAT AND BROWN BESS
• ENGLAND, HOME AND BEAUTY?
• II ALL THE KING’S HORSES AND ALL THE KING’S MEN
• SWORD AND STATE
• LINE OF BATTLE
• III BROTHERS OF THE BLADE
• SCUM OF THE EARTH
• EPAULETTE GENTRY
• IV HORSE, FOOT, GUNS – AND WOUNDS
• MARCHING REGIMENTS
• GALLOPING AT EVERYTHING
• THE NIMBLE GUNNER
• CURRENCY OF WAR
• V HOME FIRES
• MORE LIKE PRISONS
• DAUGHTERS OF THE REGIMENT
• CARROT AND STICK
• VI FOREIGN FIELDS
• CHAIN OF COMMAND
• THE TROOPER’S ON THE TIDE
• THE PAINFUL FIELD
• THE IMMINENT DEADLY BREACH
• CAPTAINS IN OPEN FIELD
• EPILOGUE
• WORTHY OF REMEMBRANCE
• References
• Bibliography
• Index
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Praise
• Also By Richard Holmes
• About the Publisher