The Trafalgar Chronicle

Peter Hore

• Éditeur: Seaforth Publishing
• Année: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781473899780
• Sujet: Historia
• Sous-sujet: Historia militar y marítima

The Trafalgar Chronicle, the yearbook of The 1805 Club, has established itself as a prime source of information and the publication of choice for new research about the Georgian navy, sometimes also loosely called Nelson's navy. Successive editors have widened the scope to include all sailing navies of the period, while a recurring theme is the Trafalgar campaign and the epic battle of 21 October 1805. Contributors toTheTrafalgar Chroniclehave included leading experts in their field, whether they are Professor John Hattendorf from the US Naval War College in Newport, RI, Professor Andrew Lambert from Kings College, London, or antiquarians and enthusiasts. Each volume is themed and this new edition looks in detail at the Royal Marines and the United States Marine Corps. The RM were founded in 1664, but their ‘royal’ title was only granted to them on 29 April 1802. The USMC traces its roots to the Continental Marines of the American Revolutionary War (or American War of Independence), when two battalions were formed by Captain Samuel Nicholas after a resolution of the Second Continental Congress on 10 November 1775. Both corps have similar duties, then and now, and in this volume there are newly researched articles about their common roles in the age of sail. The main piece has been written by Major General Julian Thompson, and there are leading articles by American and British scholars including Dr Charles P Neimeyer, the Director and Chief of Marine Corps History at Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia. There is also a unique autobiography by a marine who took part in the battle of Trafalgar, the War of 1812, the bombardment of Algiers and the First Ashanti War. Other issues are investigated, includingVictory’s true colours in which Andrew Baines, ‎Head of Historic Ships at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, describes the research which went into revealing how Nelson’s flagship looked in 1805. Scholars and students, experts and enthusiasts fascinated by the era of the sailing navy will be absorbed by this handsomely illustrated journal.

Notes

The Marines: The Early Days

1 Britt Zerbe, The Birth of the Royal Marines, 1664–1802 (The Boydell Press, 2013), p22.

2 Ibid, p25.

3 Seymour’s 4th Foot, Saunderson’s 30th Foot, Villiers’s 31st Foot, and Fox’s 32nd Foot. A succession of amalgamations, name changes, and cuts in the years between 1714 and the present day have seen these regiments becoming: 4th Foot – part of The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment; 30th Foot – part of The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment; 31st Foot – part of The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment; 32nd Foot – part of The Rifles.

4 A Spanish coastguard cut off the ear of one Captain Jenkins, or so the captain claimed. Jenkins was brought before the House of Commons to exhibit his ear in a bottle. Winston Churchill wrote: ‘whether it was in fact his own ear or whether he had lost it in a seaport brawl remains uncertain, but the power of this shrivelled object was immense’. Winston Churchill, History of the English Speaking Peoples, Purnell, vol 5, chapter 2, p2104.

5 Zerbe, p44.

6 Ibid, p45.

7 Despite the imposition of a tariff on the price of commissions imposed by George I, who disapproved of purchase, there was a wide variation in the price of commissions. See Alan J Guy, Colonel Samuel Bagshawe and the Army of George II (Army Records Society, 1990), pp13–14 and 38 for a résumé of the system.

8 See also orders for the Officers of Marines on Board HMS Mars, 31 May 1799, in Brian Lavery (ed), Shipboard Life and Organisation, 1751–1815 (Navy Records Society), pp227–33.

9 See Andrew Lambert, The Challenge: Britain Against America in the Naval War of 1812 (Faber & Faber, 2012).

10 Admiral Carden in early 1915, at the start of the Dardanelles campaign.

11 Richard Brooks, The Royal Marines: 1664 to the Present (London: Constable, 2002), p10.

The Marines in Boston, 1774–75

1 Britt Zerbe, The Birth of the Royal Marines 1664–1802 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2013), p229. See also Thomas Boas, “ For the glory of the Marines”. The organisation, training, uniforms, and combat role of the British Marines during the American revolution (Devon, Pennsylvania: Dockyard Press, 1993).

2 John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, The private papers of John, Earl of Sandwich: First Lord of the Admiralty, 1771–1782, ed George R Barnes and John Owen (London: Navy Records Society, 1932), vol I, p55.

3 General Thomas Gage to Vice-Admiral Samuel Graves, 17 February 1774, in Naval documents of the American Revolution (NDAR), (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1964), vol I, p31.

4 Major John Pitcairn to Lord Sandwich, 14 February 1775, in John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, vol I, p58.

5 Major John Pitcairn to Lord Sandwich, 4 March 1775, in John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, vol I, p60.

6 Ibid, p61.

7 Allen French, ‘The British expedition to Concord, Massachusetts, in 1775’, The Journal of the American Military Foundation, I (1937), pp1–17; Major John Pitcairn’s Report to General Gage, 26 April 1775: www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/revolution/account3_lexington.cfm.

8 ‘A circumstantial Account of an attack that happened, on the 19th April, 1775, on his Majesty’s Troops by a number of the people of the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay’, in NDAR, vol I, p195. See also david H Fischer, Paul Revere’s ride (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

9 Nathaniel Philbrick, Bunker Hill. A city, a siege, a revolution (London: doubleday, 2013), p128.

10 John Barker, The British in Boston being the diary of Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s Own Regiment from November 15, 1774 to May 31, 1776, ed Elizabeth E dana (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1924), p35.

11 Cyril Field, Britain’s sea-soldiers. A history of the Royal Marines and their predecessors (Liverpool: The Lyceum Press, 1924), vol I, p151.

12 Ibid.

13 ‘Narrative of Vice Admiral Samuel Graves’, 19 April 1775, in NDAR, vol I, p193.

14 Craig J Brown, Victor T Mastone and Christopher V Maio, ‘The revolutionary war battle America forgot: Chelsea Creek, 27–28 May 1775’, The New England Quarterly, 86:3 (2013), pp398–432.

15 Vice Admiral Samuel Graves to General Thomas Graves, 25 May 1775, in NDAR, vol I, pp523–4.

16 General J Burgoyne to Lord Stanley, 25 June 1775, in C Field, vol I, pp154–6.

17 Ibid, p155.

18 Richard M Ketchum, The battle for Bunker Hill (London: Cresset Press, 1963), p121. See also Richard Frothingham, History of the siege of Boston and the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill (Boston: Charles C Little and James Brown, 1896).

19 Samuel Gillespie, An historical review of the Royal Marine Corps, from its original institut...