Army and empire: British soldiers on the American frontier, 1758-1775

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Army and Empire

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studies in war, society, and the military editors Mark Grimsley Ohio State University Peter Maslowski University of Nebraska editorial board D’Ann Campbell Austin Peay State University

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Mark A. Clodfelter National War College Brooks D. Simpson Arizona State University Roger J. Spiller Combat Studies Institute U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth Timothy H. E. Travers University of Calgary Arthur Waldron U.S. Naval War College

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Army and Empire

British Soldiers on the American Frontier, 1758–1775 [-3], (3)

Michael N. McConnell

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© 2004 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America 䡬 ⬁ Library of Congress Catalogingin-Publication Data McConnell, Michael N. (Michael Norman) British soldiers on the American frontier, 1758–1775 / Michael N. McConnell. p. cm.—(Studies in war, society, and the military) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. isbn 0-8032-3233-0 (cl.: alk. paper)— isbn 0-8032-0479-5 (electronic) 1. Great Britain. Army—Military life. 2. Great Britain. Army—History—18th century. 3. Frontier and pioneer life—United States. 4. Great Britain— Colonies—America—Defenses. I. Title. II. Series. u767.m37 2004 973.2'7—dc22 2004008420 Set in Jansen by Kim Essman. Printed by Thomson-Shore Inc.

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For my mother and father Joan S. McConnell Fred N. McConnell and to the memory of Rose Ann Lee David Lee Elizabeth Thorpe

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Contents

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction The British Occupation of the West Frontier Fortresses Military Society on the Frontier The Material Lives of Frontier Soldiers The World of Work Diet and Foodways Physical and Mental Health Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Figures 1. Cantonment of forces, 1766 2. Sir Jeffery Amherst, commander in chief, 1759–63 3. Gen. Thomas Gage, commander in chief, 1763–75 4. Draft of the Mississippi River, 1765 5. General Forbes’s Marching Journal to the Ohio 6. Fort Pitt, November 1759 7. Fort Ligonier, June 1762 8. Plan of Fort Niagara, 1764 9. View of Detroit, July 25, 1794 10. Sketch of the fort at Michilimackinac 11. Plan of Mobile, 1770 12. Plan of Pensacola, 1765 13. Women’s, men’s, and children’s shoes 14. Whistle, harp, whizzer, and marbles 15. Snuff box, ring, thimbles, pins, combs 16. Pencils, padlock, key, coins 17. Cooking and dining utensils 18. Map of Niagara River 19. Niagara River gorge from the west 20. Iron shovel and axe heads 21. One of two stone redoubts at Fort Niagara 22. Bake house at Fort Niagara 23. Chamber pot, toothbrush, medicine bottles, pill tile 24. Plan of Croft-Town, 1770 25. View of Fort Erie, 1773 Maps 1. The Army and the West, end of 1760 2. The Army and the West, summer 1763 3. The Army and the West, end of 1766 4. The Army and the West, summer 1773

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Tables 1. Army manpower losses and gains in North America, 1766–67, 1770 2. Health of British forces overseas, 1768–75 3. Army rates of sickness and death in North America, 1766–67, 1770

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Acknowledgments

This book took longer to complete than I had originally planned and, as sometimes happens, it took a decidedly different turn from what I had originally intended. That it reached completion at all owes a great deal to the kindness and generosity of many institutions and individuals. Research trips to the William L. Clements Library and the David Library of the American Revolution were both profitable and enjoyable thanks to Professors John Dann and David Fowler and their capable staffs. I also owe thanks to the David Library for a research fellowship. The Alderman Library, University of Virginia; the British Library; the Burton Historical Collection of the Detroit Public Library; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania; the Oneida Country Historical Society in New York; the National Archives of Canada; the National Army Museum in London; and the Scottish Records Office all cheerfully supplied materials and answered queries about their collections. Brian Dunnigan, formerly executive director of the Old Fort Niagara Association, generously shared his own work and research files at an early stage of my research and has since been of particular help as the head of research and publications at the Clements Library. The Fort Ligonier Museum in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, has become something of a second home over the past few years. Not only have I learned much about British soldiers in America from the director, Martin West, and curators Penny West and Shirley Iscrupe, I have always enjoyed a warm welcome and generous hospitality. Marty shared his impressive knowledge of eighteenth-century fortification and military technology, while Shirley proved to be a most valuable guide through the museum’s archaeological collections. Fort Ligonier also provided venues for sharing ideas and research, as did the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, David Curtis Skaggs of Bowling Green University, Warren Hofstra of Shenandoah University, and the Organization of American Historians. James Merrell was generous enough to read the entire manuscript at a critical stage; his insights and editorial skills spared me any number of errors

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and fractured phrases. Martin West, Warren Hofstra, and Harold Selesky also read the manuscript at various stages and offered much sound advice, while Peter Way shared materials and insights from his own research on common British soldiers in America. I have also benefited greatly from the comments and critiques of several friends and colleagues here in Birmingham. Wendy Gunther-Canada, Carolyn Conley, Andrew Keitt, Daniel Lesnick, Raymond Mohl, and James Tent brought insights to bear from fields as diverse as medieval Italy and modern political theory as they listened patiently to half-formed ideas. Eddie Luster and Rebecca Naramore of the Sterne Library interlibrary loan department managed to fill every request, no matter how obscure. Alice and Michael continue to offer the kind of moral support that can be found nowhere else. So do my parents, whose own love of history and learning set me on a career path that has been rewarding in so many ways.

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1. The army’s West: “Cantonment of the Forces in N. America, 1766.” (Courtesy of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.)

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Introduction

Few men had greater firsthand knowledge of Britain’s army in America than its mustering agents. James Pitcher, “Commissary of the Musters,” and his two assistants were responsible for verifying the number of soldiers in each regiment. Theirs was important work; the musters, held twice a year, provided an independent account of the army’s strength, serving as a check of the monthly reports submitted by the regiments. Since pay and allowances were based on these returns, no part of the army could expect its allotment until Pitcher had verified the returns based on his department’s own inspections. 1 During the interlude between the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution, Pitcher and his men once again prepared for long, dangerous journeys from army headquarters in New York City; their travels would take them to every corner of Britain’s North American possessions as well as to the island garrisons located on Bermuda and the Bahamas. Pitcher headed for the Ohio Country, following Forbes’s Road west, to sprawling Fort Pitt. One of his assistants headed up the Hudson River on the first leg of a trek that eventually took him through the Great Lakes to distant Fort Michilimackinac at the confluence of Lakes Huron and Michigan. The other man traveled south by ship and cross-country, ending his trip in the new and sultry province of West Florida, where redcoats stood guard at the former Spanish and French forts of Pensacola and Mobile. 2 Altogether, 1765 these agents covered some 9,800 miles, much of it through the western periphery of British America, lands only recently attached to the empire. Indeed, their travels followed the course taken by British expansion during and immediately after the Seven Years’ War: over the Alleghenies to the upper Ohio valley, up the Mohawk valley to Lake Ontario, and around the Niagara portage to the upper Great Lakes—the pays d’en haut of New France and the heart of the French-Indian trading and alliance network. Much farther south, British troops clung to decayed outposts in West Florida, having arrived only two years earlier. This new imperial frontier, however, was by no means fixed. In addition

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to the string of forts guarding portages and rivers, Pitcher and his agents would have seen the ruins of posts abandoned during the recent war with trans-Appalachian Indians, and not until the end of 1765 did the redcoats finally take possession of Fort Chartres and the Illinois Country. 3 The journeys of Pitcher and his men revealed many features of the evolving network of British garrisons and of military life in the West. First, and perhaps most compelling for travelers, were the distances that defined the new imperial frontier, which stretched in a broad “z” shape from the Great Lakes to Pensacola Bay (see map 1)—the region’s expanse was better measured in weeks or months than in miles. Moreover, the West held a widely varied landscape, from the upper Great Lakes with their numbing winters to the tropical coast of the Gulf of Mexico, frequently invaded by violent hurricanes. The West occupied by redcoats was also a network of fortifications: some impressive works of earth and stone, others mere stockades. Though British soldiers were used to serving in widely scattered detachments in Britain or Ireland, at home this generally meant duty in garrison towns or known havens of smugglers. In contrast, British forts in western America were not only widely separated from each other but from the civilian world within the settled colonies as well. Nevertheless, as Pitcher and his assistants visited one post after another, they would have seen unmistakable signs of “society,” however small or crude by the standards of colonial or British civilians. At nearly every fort lived at least a few wives and children, dependents whose poverty left them little choice but to follow the regiments. Englishmen—and women—found themselves serving alongside Irishmen, Scots, Germans, Frenchmen, and African Americans; these redcoats in the West served in an army whose manpower came from virtually every corner of the British Atlantic. In their barrack rooms, as well as on their persons, these people could display at least some elements—be it fancy cloth or fine china—of the dynamic world of commerce that helped define Britain’s relations with its far-flung colonies. The mustering agents would also have understood that what defined the daily activities of these military communities, which ranged in size from a few dozen inhabitants to 200 or 300, was less the relentless routine of close-order drill and musketry than the heavy labor and drudgery involved in keeping themselves fed, clothed, and housed. The impermanent nature of fortifications built of wood and earth meant that redcoats also spent long hours wielding picks, shovels, and broadaxes in an endless cycle of building and rebuilding. In their off-duty time, common soldiers and officers alike

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could be found nurturing garden plots, tending livestock, hunting, and fishing, all in an effort to supplement the filling but seldom nutritious rations of salt pork, peas, and bread. The mustering agents would also have found unmistakable signs of ill health among the troops and dependents as well as notes in regimental books recording deaths. Added to the sprains, lacerations, and broken bones commonly associated with military and civilian labor, soldiers faced dangers from the climate—from tropical diseases to frostbite. The need to move men and supplies throughout the West exposed redcoats to the risk of drowning, dying of exposure, or crippling injury on breakneck mountain roads. Moreover, all of these dangers beset an army whose manpower continued to age because of life enlistments and a shortage of recruits. From the autumn of 1758, when British and provincial soldiers first entered the lands west of the Appalachians, until 1774, when mounting colonial resistance to parliamentary acts drew most of the army in America to Boston, the protection and management of the West and its peoples was a principal concern of the army and its leaders in Whitehall. Much of the permanent force kept in the American colonies after 1763 saw service in the West; between 1758 and 1774 fully one-fifth of Britain’s infantry regiments spent time standing guard over the Great Lakes, the Gulf Coast, and the Ohio and Mississippi valleys in between. The military landscape that Pitcher and his men encountered on their travels into the West represented an altogether unprecedented experience for Britain’s regular army. Nothing in the army’s past could fully prepare redcoats for the challenges of duty on the far western periphery of British America. The duty of occupying territory and giving weight to governmental authority was not in itself new to the British army: redcoats had maintained a long-standing occupation of Ireland, campaigned against Jacobites in the Highlands of Scotland, and chased smugglers along England’s coasts, and they had provided security in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland as well as in the slave-based sugar islands in the West Indies. What was different about the British army’s experience in the American West was not merely the physical magnitude of the territory but the distinctive social and cultural complexity of the world within which redcoats lived and worked. Elsewhere they found themselves in a recognizable “British” world (in Ireland or Scotland) or in places where the natives, whether African or Acadian French, were essentially separate—either enslaved or bent on living their own lives undisturbed by empire. But the region beyond the Ap-

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palachians was alive with what must have seemed to redcoats a bewildering array of peoples and interests. Natives who were once the allies of the French now found themselves facing a British regime that had long been the enemy. Indians’ control over their own lands and economies became increasingly problematic with the presence of British traders on the Great Lakes and colonial settlers in the Ohio Country. As the army attempted to introduce what has been called “garrison government” into the West, it was inevitably drawn into the wider world around it. 4 More than just military posts existing as enclaves in others’ lands, British garrisons were yet one more type of community in a complex matrix of peoples and cultures. The chapters that follow are an exploration of redcoats’ lives in the West, emphasizing themes that are fundamental to any larger exploration of the army’s role as an agent of empire on Britain’s frontier in America. Chapter 1 examines the army’s occupation of the West beginning in the waning days of the Seven Years’ War, and chapter 2 takes a close look at the paramount feature of that occupation: the fortified garrisons that defined the army’s West and shaped the lives of those who lived within their walls. Those people are the subject of the remaining chapters. Chapter 3 examines the makeup of frontier garrisons, emphasizing the social and ethnic complexities of what on the surface appears to be a uniform military force. Chapter 4 expands the picture of garrison communities by looking into the material lives of soldiers and military dependents. The next three chapters take as their topics the related themes of work, diet, and health—issues that dominated the lives of all ranks of redcoats in the West. The conclusion looks back on the West over a decade and a half of military occupation, examining both changes and continuities in the army’s experience. This book follows a path charted and developed by a new generation of scholarship on the British army and its experiences in the colonies. These studies, in turn, have built upon the emphasis of the “new military history” on armies as social as well as military organizations and their relationships to the states and societies that spawned and sustained them. Current scholarship on the British army in America covers a wide range of topics: encounters between regulars and provincials, common soldiers’ emerging identity as a labor force and their encounters with wholly new concepts of war making, and the redcoats’ experience in waging a war for empire between 1755 and 1763. 5 In one important respect, however, this study departs from the literature on redcoats in America. Instead of following the army through its war

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against the French, it explores the postwar, peacetime army in the West. The difference is an important one. The army during the Seven Years’ War was bigger and better financed than the peacetime force that followed. Redcoats during the war also engaged in campaigns that placed a premium on the army’s fighting skills; garrisons on the postwar frontier, in contrast, seldom engaged in tactical exercises or the large-scale operations that typified the battalions of Amherst and Wolfe. And whereas these generals led armies that numbered in the thousands, western military forces rarely counted more than a couple of hundred soldiers at any given place; regiments, even companies within regiments, were widely dispersed across a highly variable physical and cultural landscape. The questions that inform the following chapters, then, have less to do with war than with peace, less to do with the details of tactics and military organization than with what might be called the “housekeeping” associated with occupying and maintaining strong points on the outer limits of empire. Housekeeping seems to be a useful way of conceptualizing much of what shaped military life in the West. Indeed, a theme that runs through the story is how domestic and unmilitary these scattered garrisons were, and how military expectations and routines had to give way before the unique demands of life beyond the settlements. Over time, in fact, forts and garrisons in the West took on aspects similar to those rural civilian communities back east.

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«1» The British Occupation of the West

The surrender of French forces at Montreal on September 8, 1760, brought the fighting in North America to an end. Nevertheless, for Sir Jeffery Amherst’s victorious armies there was still much to do: regiments had to be assigned winter quarters in Canada, provincial troops had to be sent home, and several thousand French and Canadian soldiers had to be disarmed, paroled, or held until they could be sent out of the colony as prisoners of war. Equally important, news of the capitulation had to be carried to distant French outposts and those forts provided with British garrisons in order to ensure, as Amherst later put it, “a quiet possession of the whole” of Canada. This task fell to Maj. Robert Rogers and his now-famous corps of rangers. With some 200 men, a Canadian guide, Joseph Poupao, dit La Fleur, and engineer Lt. Dietrich Brehm to take soundings and make maps, Rogers was ordered to cross the Great Lakes to Detroit, accept the town’s surrender, then occupy as many of the outlying forts as he could. It was a tall order. Winter came early in the pays d’en haut, and it was a region inhabited by Indian societies that had been French allies and commercial partners for years—they were unlikely to welcome news that their French “father” had been driven from Canada. On November 13 Rogers and his men left Montreal in a flotilla of the light, maneuverable whaleboats rangers favored. Ten days later, having passed through the stunning maze of the Thousand Islands, they landed at Cataraqui and made ready for the first leg of their journey through the inland seas: the trip across Lake Ontario to Fort Niagara. 1 Crossing the Great Lakes in boats with only a few inches of freeboard was altogether different from the rangers’ forays down the narrow Champlain corridor. An officer who crossed Lake Erie a year earlier found the experience “Extreamly Hazardous, and Dangerous” since the “slightest wind” whipping across the shallow water produced high waves. Indeed, the rangers were held up for two days at Cataraqui because of what Rogers called the “tempestuousness of the weather,” which brought alternating squalls of

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snow and rain as well as dense fog. Altogether Rogers’s force lost nine days’ travel to foul weather during their seventy-two-day passage to Detroit. 2 When Rogers’s men arrived at Fort Niagara on October 2, the garrison there attempted to use draft horses to haul boats and bulk supplies up the Lewiston escarpment—with little success. The animals were so weakened by lack of proper forage that soldiers “were obliged to do the whole,” and their labor resulted in ruptures, bruised backs, and exhaustion so severe that men were unable to “do Any one thing for three Days” after duty on the road. The work was still not finished on October 5 when Rogers, fearing that “the winter season was now advancing very fast,” left his men to follow as best they could and hurried on with a small party to Fort Pitt, where he was to receive further orders from Gen. Robert Monckton and pick up additional troops to man the new western garrisons. 3 Following the south shore of Lake Erie, Rogers’s party came first to

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Fort Presque Isle; they then followed the Allegheny Valley to Fort Pitt and General Monckton. Three days later, on October 20, the major was on his way north, up the Allegheny, followed by Capt. Donald Campbell and 100 men of the Royal American Regiment. By the end of October Rogers and Campbell were at Lake Erie, where they found the main body of rangers attempting to repair several boats damaged on the way from Niagara. Campbell’s regulars, though hardened by long service in South Carolina and the Ohio Country, had serious reservations about traveling across the choppy lake, forcing Rogers to “recommend” to them “not to mind the waves of the lake” but “to stick to their oars.” Even this was not enough; before leaving Presque Isle Rogers assigned his best steersmen to Campbell’s boats. 4 The final leg of the journey passed without incident, though crossing the cold and rough water must have proven mentally and physically exhausting. Finally, on November 29, Rogers reported that “I drew up my detachment on a field of grass,” and with as much pomp and ceremony as dirty, tired troops could muster, he accepted the surrender of Detroit’s small French garrison. For Rogers and his rangers their last mission was over; for Campbell’s redcoats and those who followed them, life on the far frontiers of empire was just beginning. 5 The Rogers expedition opened a new phase in the British army’s American experience. Before the surrender of Detroit, redcoats had only reached the outer margins of the pays d’en haut, at Fort Niagara and in the upper Ohio Valley. After 1760 a new western frontier of British America developed: at first a wartime expedient, it was given further definition by the 1763 Peace of Paris, which transferred—without the consent of the natives living there—not only Canada but the Floridas and the Illinois Country to British sovereignty. Occupying this new territory posed immediate challenges for the army. Under the best of circumstances movement to, and through, the West was a physical hardship; at worst it could be hazardous, even life-threatening. Taking post at distant places like Fort Michilimackinac, Fort Chartres, or Mobile required reliable transportation, which only emerged over time as the army gained experience. Needed, too, was knowledge of the West: its geography, weather, and resources as well as its peoples. Once past Niagara, Rogers and his men entered a region largely unknown to the British. The army gradually filled the blanks on its mental map of the West. With the occasional help of

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local informants, colonial and Indian, a succession of army engineers— Brehm, Bernard Ratzer, Thomas Hutchins, and Harry Gordon among them—charted the courses of the Niagara, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers and the shores of the Great Lakes while taking note of the resources of the trans-Appalachian region. At the same time the army imposed its own landscape on the West as it moved over the Alleghenies and beyond the Niagara portage. Aided by improvements in transportation and a growing understanding of the region, redcoats built or occupied numerous forts tied together by roads, portages, sailing routes, and naval installations, all of which helped define Britain’s armed frontier in America. The greatest obstacle facing the army as it moved west was the sheer immensity of the territory in its charge. The experiences of James Pitcher and his assistants typify the logistical difficulties in traveling to, and through, the armed frontier. Whenever it could, the army moved men and materials by water, though even this easiest form of travel posed problems. In the late autumn of 1765 Capt. Thomas Stirling’s detachment of the 42nd Foot, the Royal Highland Regiment, took forty-seven days to travel the estimated 1,278 miles down the Ohio River from Fort Pitt to Fort Chartres in the Illinois Country. Three years later the 34th Foot, ordered home from the Illinois, spent nine weeks pulling against the Ohio’s current before reaching Fort Pitt. Seasonal conditions also influenced travel on the Ohio River. Merchant John Jennings made the passage from Pittsburgh to Fort Chartres in just thirty days in 1766, propelled by spring floods in March and currents that sent him downstream—by his estimation—at anywhere from twenty to sixty miles a day. Later that same year engineer Capt. Harry Gordon spent fifty-three days on the same route. Gordon left Fort Pitt on a swift, deep current easily able to carry boats with seven tons of supplies aboard. Two weeks later, at the mouth of the Scioto River, Gordon’s “leasurely Trip” abruptly ended when his convoy encountered the low water typical of midsummer, a problem that continued to the mouth of the Ohio. These same conditions could add days, even weeks, to upriver travel. 6 Beyond Fort Chartres, the Mississippi River offered challenges of its own. Draining half the continent, its current could carry men downstream at speeds unimaginable on land. John Jennings arrived at New Orleans— a distance estimated at 963 miles—in just fifteen days. Captain Gordon made it downstream in twenty-six days in a current of three to five knots. Upstream, against such force, travel was altogether different. Maj. Arthur Loftus, armed with information on the river and its peoples supplied by French officers at New Orleans, was ordered to occupy the Illinois Country.

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He left the city with his 22nd Regiment on February 27, 1764. Struggling against the current, suffering the mass desertion of his sick, malnourished men (perhaps bound for the dubious sanctuary of New Orleans or nearby native towns), Loftus was stopped by the Tunicas near “Roche d’Avion.” When finally defeated by river and natives, Loftus’s force had progressed roughly 200 miles upriver in twenty-three days—fewer than nine miles a day. The following year, Maj. Robert Farmar and the 34th Regiment finally succeeded where Loftus had failed. Referring to the “Hardships and immense Difficulties” of what he termed, with decided understatement, “this tedious passage,” Farmar reported his arrival at Fort Chartres on December 2, 1765, after a trip of five months and five days. Farmar’s was the last major expedition up the Mississippi; all subsequent troops movements and supply convoys used the longer but faster Ohio River route. 7 To the north British troops faced equally great distances. While the Great Lakes offered easy access to the interior, travel here, too, was better measured in weeks than in miles. Traveling from Cataraqui at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, it took Rogers’s expedition thirty days to reach Detroit, with another month consumed by the major’s trip to Fort Pitt. Three weeks seems to have been the average travel time from Niagara to Detroit, including the trek over the Niagara portage, which alone could take anywhere from a couple of days to a week or more. By 1765 it took some forty-eight days to travel from the east end of Lake Ontario as far as Fort Michilimackinac, then the western limit of British occupation. Further, as the rangers discovered, changes in the weather or the seasons could complicate travel across the lakes. Royal Indian Superintendent Sir William Johnson was forced to remain at Fort Niagara during the summer of 1761, awaiting boatloads of supplies needed for an important Indian congress at Detroit. The boats arrived eleven days behind schedule due to storms and adverse winds. “Foul winds” also added to Capt. John Montresor’s difficulties in 1763 as he attempted to lead reinforcements to Detroit, then under siege by Pontiac’s Indian coalition. 8 Rogers was able to make his way to Fort Pitt thanks to newly built forts and a well-marked, if not always accessible, system of roads and streams. The main route into the Ohio Country, however, remained Forbes’s Road. In early 1762 Col. William Eyre, sent to inspect flood damage at Fort Pitt, made the 200-mile trip from Carlisle to Pittsburgh on horseback in twelve days. Four years later missionary Charles Beatty, heading for the Delaware towns in the Muskingum Valley of Ohio, spent ten days on the road in midsummer. An alternate route from the settlements, using the

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4. The work of army engineers: “A Draught of the River Mississippi” by Lieutenant Philip Pittman, 1765. (Courtesy of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.)

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the upper Potomac River and the old Braddock Road north of Winchester, allowed summer travelers to reach Pittsburgh in fourteen days, roughly the same time necessary to make the journey down Forbes’s Road. 9 By any calculation, the scope of operations in the West was unlike anything in the army’s previous experience. In Britain garrisons and patrols were distributed along the coasts to combat smuggling or stationed in the interior of Ireland and Scotland to watch over potentially rebellious peoples. In each case garrisons were, at most, a day or two apart. Even during the Seven Years’ War, regiments and companies normally served together or were stationed within easy reach of land-bound or waterborne support. By contrast, Captain Campbell’s Royal Americans at Detroit were separated by days of hard travel in poorly charted country and virtually isolated in the depths of winter. Their comrades at Fort Pitt and its tiny outposts were tied to the settlements by a single road, often impossible for wagons or packhorses to travel in winter or in heavy rain. And British troops, perched on the humid banks of the Mississippi, found themselves weeks or months from the nearest help, while downriver on the gulf, redcoats stood guard over windswept beaches devoid of civilians. Under such circumstances, the army’s disposition in the West after 1760 took on the aspect not of a welldefined military zone such as existed in Flanders or across the Great Glen in Scotland, but of small enclaves imbedded along a broad arc of land and water stretching from the western Great Lakes to Mobile Bay. 10 The great distances separating garrisons from each other and from sources of supply complicated the army’s occupation of the West; so, too, did the conditions of lakes, rivers, and roads. Over the decade and a half after 1760, however, military travelers enjoyed modest improvements as modes of transportation changed, as civilian settlements along favored routes increased, and as the army learned more about western conditions. The army’s oldest route west, Forbes’s Road, continued to be one of the most heavily traveled. Built by British and provincial forces in 1758, the road began at Carlisle and followed older trading paths along the Juniata Valley. Once beyond the headwaters of the Juniata, however, the narrow dirt road snaked its way over a succession of steep, heavily wooded ridges. Engineers tried to follow the best possible route for wagons and gun carriages: cutting switchbacks, corduroying the road through Edmund’s Swamp, and building protective redoubts at places where exhausted teams and escorts could turn off for water and rest. Forbes’s Road was, in its own way, an engineering marvel—an American version of the military roads built through the Highlands of Scotland a generation earlier. 11

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This highway to the West was most often a nightmare of inclines, steep slides, and narrow rutted tracks that together added up to an exhausting, sometimes dangerous, journey. Moravian missionary John Heckewelder doubtless spoke for many who took to the road in the early 1760s when, upon catching sight of Fort Pitt, he felt “as if relieved from an insupportable weight” and rejoiced that “we again found ourselves in the company of the living.” Col. William Eyre viewed the road with the critical eye of an engineer. He was unimpressed by what he found. The road up and across Sidling Hill was “very bad” and all the more dangerous because the west side of the ridge had too few “zig zags”(i.e., switchbacks). At Stoney Creek west of Fort Bedford, the road was “extreamly bad, both stony and swampy,” in places “so very terrible as to surprise one How the Waggons got on.” He learned, in fact, that few wagon convoys attempted to cross this stretch of road. The story was the same near Fort Ligonier, the road again “excessively bad,” soggy and strewn with stones, though it began to improve a bit as Eyre neared Bushy Run and the last leg of his trip into Pittsburgh. 12 Forbes’s Road was “excessively bad” because it had been so heavily traveled. In the aftermath of the French retreat from the Ohio Country, the British army pushed hundreds of men and thousands of tons of food and equipment down the road toward the Ohio. Far from a wilderness trail, the road in its early years was a congested highway: packhorses and wagons moving up and down country in a steady stream in fair weather and foul, churning the narrow track into a quagmire, weakening already fragile bridges and causing further erosion along the uphill passages. This occurred at the same time that labor devoted to maintenance was rapidly diminishing because troops were occupied with building Fort Pitt. After 1763 troop reductions all but ended repairs on the road. In June 1766 engineer Gordon predicted that the road, being so “extreamly bad,” would “be most probably impassable for Carriages” by the following summer. 13 Thus while Eyre, Heckewelder, or the many military “expresses” that traveled the road on foot or horseback could usually make the trip from Carlisle to Fort Pitt in less than two weeks in the 1760s, the story was much different for columns of troops or their indispensable convoys of supplies. Under favorable conditions, Gen. John Forbes calculated, “we allow 42 days for the Horses to go from Carlisle to Pittsburgh, and return again.” The problem, of course, was that conditions along the road were rarely favorable. Equipment was seldom in good order, wagons “so badly fitted out,” according to Gordon, “that the Drivers can hardly prevent running against every Tree in the Road.” Early thaws meant adequate forage but

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5. “General Forbes Marching Journal to the Ohio by John Potts,” showing the route of Forbes’s Road. (Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Shippen Collection, Philadelphia.)

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also brought swollen creeks that held up traffic or drowned men foolish— or impatient—enough to try the fords. In autumn and winter a lack of forage led to starving draft animals and frostbitten escorts. Indeed, in the depth of winter Fort Pitt, like the forts on the Great Lakes, was all but cut off from the outside world. At all seasons of the year, garrison officers faced teamsters “complaining bitterly against the road.” The sheer size and number of ridges to cross were the worst obstacles. It took one convoy eight hours to reach the summit of Allegheny Mountain, a feat that required the “utmost invention . . . to surmount the Aerial Heights” of the ridge. As bad as such trips were for drivers, they were murderous for horses, which died by the score from overwork and malnutrition. At Fort Bedford Capt. Lewis Ourrey reported that losses among packhorses were as high as 60 percent, while John Heckewelder found the road well marked by “a large number of carcasses of horses” that had been dragged off to the side after they had collapsed in harness. 14 A decade after Eyre and Heckewelder made their way west, Forbes’s Road could still pose daunting challenges—at least to the uninitiated. Missionary David McClure wrote of “clambering mountains” along “a zig zag or serpentine path” and rejoiced at the “divine protection” that brought him safely to Pittsburgh. Yet much had changed. Charles Beatty made his way through a land filling up with people. Rather than the “howling wilderness” filled only with “blackened ruins of houses and barns” produced by a decade of vicious border warfare, Beatty found in 1766 that he could travel from one prospering village to the next, preaching to local inhabitants, stopping for the night at one of the many taverns along the roadway. By then travel on the road was a common, everyday affair; army couriers from Fort Pitt routinely journeyed east carrying mail to the Lancaster post office, while parties of recruits, messengers, and merchants made their way west to the Ohio and beyond. 15 Another road into the West had been opened in 1755 when Gen. Edward Braddock led a small army toward Fort Duquesne by way of the Potomac Valley, Fort Cumberland, and the Youghiogheny River. In the wake of his crushing defeat, Braddock’s Road, a southern portal to the Ohio, was slammed shut by the French, not to be reopened until 1759. Seeking a faster, cheaper alternative to Forbes’s Road, the army fortified Redstone Creek, determined to use the lower Monongahela River instead of the “immense” (and immensely expensive) “land Carriage” from Carlisle. In so doing the army drew on the rich farmlands of western Maryland and the lower Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The price, however, was intercolonial

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rivalry, as Pennsylvania and Virginia each strove to monopolize the route west. As early as 1758 at the height of his campaign against the French, Forbes had to contend with the distracting lobbying of colonels George Washington and William Byrd III, both of whom pressed the general to abandon the new road through Pennsylvania in favor of Braddock’s Road, which also led in the direction of lands coveted by the Ohio Company of Virginia. Forbes was disgusted by their “Scheme against this new road,” which he believed “was a shame” for any officer to countenance. Nevertheless, the tug-of-war continued, forcing a perplexed Col. Henry Bouquet to complain in 1760 of being caught between the two colonies. Convinced that maintaining both roads was impossible, he suggested a compromise by which the roads would be linked in such a way as to avoid the worst stretches of Forbes’s Road over Sidling Hill. While the army ultimately relied on the Pennsylvania route, with its direct link to headquarters in New York and the rich markets of Philadelphia, Braddock’s Road continued to serve as a conduit for supplies and people, many of them illegal squatters bent on taking Indian lands. 16 Forbes’s Road remained so important to the army because the only alternate route into the Ohio Country—by way of Lake Erie—ultimately proved to be impractical. As Rogers, Bouquet, and others who had to make their way through the Allegheny Valley discovered, the route was a tangle of difficulties born of weather, seasonal change, and geography. In fact, in 1753 the passage between Presque Isle and the Allegheny River nearly defeated French efforts to occupy the Ohio Country. British soldiers, after struggling to master the overland and river routes north of Fort Pitt, finally gave up; the small outposts that guarded this avenue, destroyed during the 1763 Indian war, were never reoccupied, and the Allegheny route was finally abandoned. 17 The reasons for this are made clear by the experiences of the soldiers ordered to clear and fortify the route beginning in the summer of 1760. Efforts by Virginia and Pennsylvania provincials to rebuild French forts Venango, Le Boeuf, and Presque Isle were continually hampered by seasonal fluctuations in the Allegheny River and French Creek. In late July 1760 General Monckton took advantage of heavy rains and rising river levels to send troops upstream to Venango. Little more than a week later, Lt. Robert Stewart learned from local Munsees that “it was impossible for anything longer than a Bark Canoe” to go beyond Venango. Moreover, the trek from Fort Pitt—eleven days to cover 112 miles of river interrupted by shoals, bars, and rocks—had left Stewart’s men “much fitter

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for an Hospital” than their normal duties. A month later Stewart and his sick stranded troops found “great Joy” in the rising river and the promise of a quick trip upriver to French Creek. That same rising water nearly spelled doom for a supply convoy on its way down swollen French Creek; the soldiers were forced to “wade to their Chins” through a torrent that almost drowned one man. Overland travel by way of the Venango Path and other native thoroughfares was not a solution for strangers like these soldiers. Without Indian guides—or experienced woodsmen like Rogers’s Rangers—“a Soldier could Scarce have had a chance to reach Pittsburgh” from its northern outposts. This was especially true in winter, when lakeeffect snows could quickly bury trail markers and sudden freezes could completely stop waterborne traffic. As a result of these difficulties, the shortlived outposts along the Allegheny corridor became more closely tied to the Great Lakes garrisons—especially Fort Niagara—than to Fort Pitt. 18 The development of an effective transportation system was equally vital to the survival of the new garrisons in the Great Lakes basin, though the challenges were of a different sort. Here, great distances and the weather proved to be major obstacles as did, of course, Niagara Falls. The light, swift whaleboats used by the rangers proved inadequate on the lakes. Fragile craft, they were prone to damage in shallow water and in heavy weather; ideal for carrying lightly armed troops on scouts and raids, the boats could not carry the tons of supplies needed at the forts. By 1763 bateaux and fully rigged ships had become the mainstays of transport and communication throughout the lakes region. The army’s early workhorse on the lakes—and on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers—was the bateau, a vessel that, like much else in the colonies, reflected “European adaptation to North American conditions,” specifically, the need to haul bulk cargo over interior waterways under conditions that would tax lighter craft, including native canoes. Peter Kalm, a Swedish naturalist who traveled through British America and New France in 1750, left the most complete description of the bateau. Made of pine boards, the boat was flat-bottomed, “that they may row better in shallow water.” “They are sharp at both ends . . . and are rowed as common boats.” They also had a low freeboard; Kalm estimated the “height from the bottom to the topp” of the almost vertical sides to be no more than two feet. Though the English bateaux that Kalm described at Albany may have varied in size and material from those built in Canada, the bateau of about twenty-four feet in length and some three to four feet in the beam appears to have been commonly used by the army on the Great Lakes. 19

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The bateau could also “be built quickly and inexpensively by unskilled carpenters,” a considerable advantage for an army often short of skilled shipwrights. Bouquet learned that six men could build a twenty-four-foot bateau in just two days—provided they had an adequate supply of nails and oakum for caulking the seams. And unlike canoes which, according to Kalm, “break easily and . . . cannot carry a great cargo,” the bateau could, by Bouquet’s account, “easily carry Sixteen or seventeen Barrells” of provisions—nearly half a ton. Moreover, the larger boats—up to thirty-four feet long—could carry twenty men in addition to fifteen barrels of supplies. 20 Cheap, capacious, and easy to build, the bateau also had some drawbacks as a Great Lakes transport. Though it could be equipped with a small sail, the craft normally required as many as six men on the oars and tiller, making it labor intensive. Under oars alone, a loaded bateau required a week or more of hard labor to make the trip across Lake Erie from the Niagara River to Detroit. In addition, while the bateau could carry a ton or more of cargo, the constant demands raised by far-flung garrisons for meat, flour, iron, and ammunition meant that many boats would be needed in regular service, a further drain on manpower and materials. Finally, its light construction and low freeboard made it vulnerable in rough weather. Thus while the bateau continued in use on the lakes, its work was increasingly taken over by the larger ships of the Naval Department. The Naval Department, like the armed frontier it served, was a product of the Seven Years’ War. Waterborne transport became essential as the British army attempted to seize control of the defended corridors into the heart of New France: the Champlain Valley, lower Great Lakes, and St. Lawrence River. Led by experienced naval officers like Commodore Joshua Loring and army officers with maritime experience such as Capt. Alexander Grant of the 77th Foot, the Naval Department undertook to supply the army’s demand for sailing vessels; by 1763 it consisted of two principal divisions: one on Lake Champlain, the other on the Great Lakes and divided into two administrative districts: Lake Ontario and the upper lakes. In early 1763 six vessels were serving on the lakes: a sloop and schooner on Lake Erie and two sloops and two snows on the vital Lake Ontario passage that bound up-country posts with their base of supply in Canada. Altogether, some seventeen ships served the army on the Great Lakes before the American Revolution. 21 Many of the vessels that served on the upper lakes were built at the army’s dockyard facility on Navy Island in the Niagara River, one of a network of posts established to control traffic across the Niagara portage.

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Employing civilian shipwrights and soldier-laborers drawn from nearby Fort Niagara, Navy Island was by 1763 a complex of sawpits, storehouses, barracks, and wharves. It served as the principal naval depot during the 1760s. In 1770, however, administration and shipbuilding were moved to Detroit, a reflection of that growing community’s role as the center of commerce and British rule on the upper lakes. Even so, the posts along the Niagara River, especially Fort Erie after 1764, continued to serve as entrepôts and wintering facilities for ships and crews. 22 The Naval Department’s greatest assets were speed and economy. Its ships under full sail with a good wind could, according to Loring, make the trip from Fort Erie to Detroit in three days. The ships could carry tons of bulk cargo. The schooner Huron, built at Navy Island in 1761, was rated at eighty tons; it could carry more supplies to the western forts than dozens of bateaux and, with a crew of sixteen, was more efficient to operate than the smaller craft. The ships were just as vulnerable to bad weather, decay, and accidents, however. Despite the efforts of shipwrights, the vessels were often out of repair and needed constant—and costly— attention. The army’s estimates for the department in 1766 included Ł4,815 18s. 9d., of which Ł3,779 3s. 5½d. was for skilled labor. The sloop Michigan, also built in 1761, was judged the following year to be good for only two more years. Four other vessels inspected in 1762 needed repairs ranging from new masts or caulking to complete overhauls and were deemed unfit for carrying armaments. 23 One vessel went down in Lake Erie in September 1763; two years later, while carrying supplies to Fort Niagara, the sloop Mississauga was lost on Lake Ontario. And in 1768 the Charlotte—having survived earlier mishaps including a broken anchor that sent it careening through the rapids near Fort Erie—was blown ashore and damaged by a storm on Lake Erie. The dangers of Great Lakes navigation were compounded by other problems. Ships laid up for the winter made tempting shelters for travelers; the schooner Boston burned at her moorings above Niagara Falls in October 1768, apparently when passing French traders went aboard for the night and ignited the ship with their cooking fires. The threat of fire came from other sources as well. Lt. Patrick Sinclair of the Naval Department warned that vessels moored at Fort Erie were in danger of being destroyed each time local Mississaugas routinely burned over the adjacent marshlands. There were other hazards that came with pack ice or shoal water, which could crack hulls or damage keels, while hot, dry weather dried out timbers. Altogether, five ships were lost or dismantled for salvage before 1776. 24

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Whether in small boats or in ships, men and supplies moving across the lakes faced unpredictable challenges. Although movement improved with time and experience, as the fates of the Charlotte, Mississauga, and countless small craft attest, travel through this part of the West was never easy. Even the changing of the seasons could pose special challenges for the army, especially its quartermasters. Charged with getting supplies to distant garrisons at places like La Baye (Green Bay, Wisconsin) or Fort Miamis, inland from Detroit, and keeping traffic moving through the lakes, officers had to contend with the fact that, given their enormous area, the lakes opened and closed at widely different times during the year. Lake Erie was judged safe for navigation after mid-April, but lakes Huron and Michigan would normally be closed for another month, and Lake Superior was not considered accessible until mid-June. Likewise, the upper lakes became unsafe earlier in the autumn: Lake Superior by the end of September, while Lake Erie could still be crossed—at some risk—until late November. Taken together, the army’s active season was effectively limited to a period from early May until late October; isolation for weeks during the winter became a routine, if unwelcome, part of garrison life on the lakes. 25 No other feature in the Great Lakes basin inspired as much comment— or posed as many difficulties for the army—as Niagara Falls. A regimental surgeon visited the falls four times during his first year at Fort Niagara and was delighted to “always discover new beauties” in the water and rocks. Capt. Lewis Ourry, who knew the falls only from others’ descriptions, called them “one of the greatest Natural curiosities in the World”; French captain Pierre Pouchot compared the falls favorably to those he had seen in Switzerland. 26 Below the falls the river passed through a narrow gorge, in places over 300 feet deep, for seven miles until it reached the edge of the Niagara Escarpment. From there the river cut its way through a broad, level, and wooded plain for another six miles until it emptied into Lake Ontario beneath the walls of Fort Niagara. It was the first stretch of the lower river— the gorge—that blocked the army’s movement through the lakes. The British discovered, as Mississaugas and Senecas before them had learned, that the only way past the falls was to scale the escarpment. The geography of the Niagara River thus represented what soldiers then knew as a “defile”: a “straight narrow passage” through which troops were compelled to march in close columns, vulnerable to ambush; like a defile, the portage constricted and slowed military traffic through the lakes. 27 In July 1759, when an army led by Gen. John Prideaux and Sir William

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Johnson took Fort Niagara, the British inherited the French portage network, which then consisted of a collection of storehouses atop the escarpment, the road, and a small stockade at the southern end of the road, above the falls. During the next several years the army put its own stamp on the portage, adding fortifications, improving the road, and maintaining the base on Navy Island. In the process, carriage along the portage was improved, made safer and more predictable as engineers found ways to lessen the burdens of what still remained the most demanding passage the army used in the West. Initially local garrisons had to make do with few resources in operating the portage. Col. William Eyre, Niagara’s commander in 1760, complained that the few horses “were weak” from lack of forage and so “little Accustom’d to [portaging] as to be scarcely of Any Service.” Inevitably it fell to Eyre’s troops “to do the whole.” The situation remained unchanged for months. The Royal Americans who relieved Eyre’s garrison in mid-1760 were no better off despite the arrival of wagons and fresh horses from the army’s base at Fort Ontario. In fact, the draft animals only compounded Maj. William Walters’s problems. “Very poor and almost tired out,” these nags suffered all the more since Major Walters’s troops had little time to collect fodder. This vicious cycle continued through the winter and into the new year, as horses died for lack of food and shelter. Meanwhile, the difficulties on the portage were magnified by General Amherst’s preoccupation with settling garrisons into French forts to the west. By midsummer 1761 the tempo along the portage increased dramatically as troops and materiel were moved to the lakes. Major Walters apologized for a hasty report by explaining that “We are greatly Hurry’d in getting” Maj. Henry Gladwin’s “Batteaus & provisions over the Landing” and “have not one moments time to spare” from labor that consumed most of the four companies of Royal Americans as well as Gladwin’s 300 troops. Walters may have been feeling particularly vexed at that moment: he had recently taken receipt of new freight wagons only to discover that they had been sent without harnesses. 28 Despite the early setbacks, time and hard experience allowed the army to sort out portage operations and control the flow of traffic to the western outposts. To Walters’s relief, engineer Lt. George Demler was able to modify artillery harnesses well enough to keep “light wagons” moving along the portage road. More important, Lieutenant Demler urged that the emaciated horses be replaced by slower but sturdier oxen which, he

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argued, “would be of better Service and Easier maintained.” By the spring of 1762 Walters—at some risk to his own purse—purchased four of the beasts and was delighted to find that they could haul loads equal to those pulled by sixty of his overworked Royal Americans. Later that year, as draft horses continued to die, Walters’s oxen had all but taken over the heavy work of pulling bateaux and supplies along the maze of tracks that led to the top of the escarpment. Even winter snow and ice no longer threatened operations; locally fashioned sleighs allowed the teams to keep working as long as fodder lasted. 29 At the same time the portage was being transformed into a network of forts and facilities designed to ensure its security and enhance its usefulness to the army. In addition to Navy Island, the old French post above the falls was rebuilt as Fort Schlosser, after Capt. John Joseph Schlosser of the Royal Americans, who first commanded there. At the escarpment—what the British called the “lower landing” to distinguish it from Schlosser’s “upper” post—a complex of storehouses and stockaded fortifications took shape, eventually known, perhaps facetiously, as “Mount Pleasant.” Finally, in 1764 Gen. John Bradstreet’s army further strengthened the portage defenses by erecting Fort Erie at the south end of the Niagara River as well as by building a chain of stockaded redoubts along the road itself. The Niagara portage became one of the most heavily fortified places on the frontier. 30 The most innovative—and from the soldiers’ standpoint perhaps the most welcome—development on the portage was the incline used to haul boats and cargoes up the escarpment. Long attributed to engineer Lt. John Montresor, who designed the redoubts and Fort Erie in 1764, the tramway had its origins at least two years earlier as local officers struggled to overcome the logistical logjam on the portage. In the fall of 1762 Niagara’s commander ordered that a “truck or Carriage” be constructed “with runners to carry up 2 or 3 Barrels at a time, or a Batteau.” Two or three men, “by the use of a Cable and large Wheel,” could pull the cargo up the track. At the same time troops were set to work leveling the river bank at the foot of the cliffs to make shifting goods from ship to shore easier. Montresor improved this arrangement, running what became known as “cradles” from the river to the fortifications atop Mount Pleasant, bypassing altogether the sinuous trail up the escarpment. The system was still operating in the late 1760s, now under civilian management, and the “machines” were still impressive enough to provoke comments from passing travelers. As military activity on the lakes subsided and fell into routine, however, the cradles, like much

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else on the armed frontier, began to deteriorate; in 1772 army headquarters agreed that new machinery would be needed if the remaining portion of the tramway was to remain in service. 31 As the army moved west it necessarily tried to make sense of the physical and human geography in encountered. Indeed, once beyond the Alleghenies or Lake Ontario, British knowledge of the lands, climates, and peoples they had inherited through war was very limited at best. True, army officers had John Mitchell’s and Lewis Evans’s famous maps of the Middle West as guides, but these were a decade old by the mid-1760s. Moreover, British cartographers’ information came from colonial traders and travelers whose own knowledge of the West was limited to native customers and clouded by the tensions between France and Britain in the 1740s and 1750s, which discouraged exploration. The upper Great Lakes and Gulf Coast were known largely through secondhand accounts, as was the Mississippi valley. As a result, movement west by redcoats beyond Fort Pitt and the Niagara River, or to Mobile and Pensacola bays, constituted an exploratory process as the army encountered and learned to adjust to new lands and conditions. Through observation and experience as well as from information supplied by natives and local French and Spanish settlers, army officers began to construct a coherent picture of the lands they entered, picking up details about the complex seasonal rhythms of travel through the Great Lakes or when rivers were likely to be suitable for heavy traffic. Soldiers’ observations also suggest the sorts of interests and imperatives that determined how they would see the West. Rogers and others were impressed with the lands south of Lake Erie and made special note of its meadows, abundant fresh water and, most of all, the stands of timber: “white, black, and yellow oak, . . . walnut, cyprus, chestnut, and locust trees.” 32 Rogers’s impression of a bountiful region was echoed by other observers; the major’s engineer, Deitrich Brehm, found the lands around Sandusky full of “Wines [sic], Aples, Haythornes, and other Fruits of all sorts.” He was also pleased to report that the lands surrounding Detroit could easily support a garrison with winter wheat, corn, apples, pears—even vines transplanted from France seemed to thrive. Capt. Donald Campbell agreed, adding that Detroit sat in “a most Beautifull Country . . . and every Thing in great Plenty before this last year.” 33 Initial word from West Florida also waxed enthusiastic. Based on information from his quartermaster general, Lt. Col. James Robertson, Gen. Thomas Gage was inspired to report that the gulf climate was “whole-

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some” and that “the inhabitants enjoy as much health . . . as in any part of America,” since “Florida is subject to no Epidemical disorder.” What Gage failed to understand was that Robertson’s report cited conditions prevailing during the winter of 1763; as local garrisons would soon discover, summer and autumn typically were times of sickness and death. 34 Yet while most initial impressions of the frontier painted an encouraging picture, not everyone was impressed. Perhaps struck more by the distances he traveled and the physical isolation of his new home than by the majesty of forests and falls, Captain Schlosser wrote from Niagara of “our exile,” a view doubtless shared by many of his soldiers, whose knowledge of the West was even less expansive than that of their more privileged officers. 35 Struck by the profound contrasts between the settled colonies and the frontier and by the sheer size of the western country, army officers began to collect practical information about their new homes. Captain Campbell’s early enthusiasm about Detroit gave way somewhat as he learned that “There is noe dependance on the lake” during the winter and that he and his men would be largely isolated in a French and Indian world. Indeed, as he struggled to learn about his neighbors, Campbell expressed his concern upon meeting Wyandots, “as we did not know what Reception we were to have.” 36 On his return from Detroit, Brehm made a point of noting the location of native towns along the south shore of Lake Erie, while troops sent to the Illinois Country in 1765 likewise took notice of the French and Indian settlements around Fort Chartres. Capt. Thomas Stirling quickly learned, for example, that peaceful occupation of so distant a post meant dealing with the local population “According to the Laws and Customs of the Country.” Maj. Arthur Loftus was urged to “follow the French Method” of giving gifts to natives he encountered on his abortive trip up the Mississippi in 1764. On the distant Gulf Coast, largely devoid of Indian and European settlers, the initial lessons were largely geographic. The new garrison bound for Mobile discovered to its dismay that sandbars and shoals made entry into the bay hazardous without skilled pilots and that transports could not sail farther than nine miles from the fort; the redcoats would have to take to small boats and oars or march overland to reach their new home. 37 The army also collected information on the West in a more systematic fashion, by dispatching exploratory missions to survey, map, and report on lakes, rivers, and native peoples. The Rogers expedition was the first of these. Lieutenant Brehm kept his own record of the journey, the routes traveled, and details of land and people intended to aid subsequent occupation

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of the region. General Amherst planned for Rogers and Brehm to continue into the upper lakes, but bad weather and an uncertain reception by natives kept them from venturing beyond Detroit. Nevertheless, Brehm’s journal included much valuable information: the first detailed British account of the Niagara passage, a sketch map of Lake Erie, and notes on his route, the surrounding countryside, and the Indian inhabitants. 38 Brehm had better luck the following year when he accompanied troops sent to complete the occupation of the upper lakes. That summer Maj. Henry Gladwin of the 80th Foot left for his new command at Detroit with his own regiment, more Royal Americans, and Indian Superintendent Sir William Johnson. In early September 1761, Gladwin ordered Capt. Henry Balfour of the 80th to continue beyond Detroit, taking new garrisons of Royal Americans for the French posts at Michilimackinac, La Baye, and outposts south of Lake Michigan. Equally important, Balfour’s expedition would represent the army’s first look at the western Great Lakes. The results of the expedition were rendered in two maps, most likely prepared by Brehm, that provided detailed information not only of the eastern side of the Michigan peninsula and the important Straits of Mackinac, but of northern Lake Michigan and far-off La Baye. Moreover, the so-called Balfour Expedition Maps included the courses of the Maumee and St. Joseph’s rivers southwest of Detroit. Brehm’s work meant that the commander in chief would have fresh and accurate information about the western lakes. 39 Ens. Thomas Hutchins of the Royal Americans also helped enlarge British understanding of the pays d’en haut. Acting for Deputy Indian Superintendent George Croghan, Hutchins left Fort Pitt on a journey to native towns that took him down the Ohio River, then across country to Sandusky, on to Detroit, and around the Michigan peninsula to La Baye. He returned by way of the St. Joseph’s River, overland to the Ohio, then on to Fort Pitt. From April to September 1762, Hutchins attempted to gauge the cultural geography and political temper of natives living south of Lake Erie. The information he gathered on the land and waterways became the basis of his now-famous “A Tour from Fort Cumberland Northwestward.” Perhaps based in part on information gained from the Balfour expedition, Hutchins’s account nevertheless provided much new—and daunting—information. His map filled in details of Lake Michigan’s eastern shore, and his calculations confirmed the vast extent of the upper country. The accompanying narrative provided descriptions of the landscape, the location of river crossings, and evaluations of the land’s qualities and resources. More important still, Hutchins included a detailed account of the

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Indian towns he visited, the number of fighting men—which he estimated at over 4,600—and their widespread dissatisfaction with British conduct since the conquest of New France. 40 By the spring of 1763, then, the army had amassed a considerable store of information about the pays d’en haut. In the meantime, similar efforts were under way in other parts of the West. Entering the gulf coastal region, naval and army officers had the benefit of two generations of French cartography to guide them; settling into Mobile and Pensacola was largely a matter of refining information on ship channels, tribes, and the often volatile weather that swept the gulf. Yet the army did make a contribution of its own when engineers produced detailed surveys of the Iberville River during an abortive attempt to open an alternate passage to the Mississippi River. 41 The lower Ohio Valley and the Mississippi River were, like the Great Lakes, largely unknown to the army. The efforts to garrison the Illinois Country between 1763 and 1765 required information about the land, the Indians, the local French population, and, especially about the two great rivers the redcoats would have to use to enter and remain in the region. Accordingly, in 1766 engineers Harry Gordon and Thomas Hutchins traveled down the Ohio to Fort Chartres, then on to New Orleans, taking soundings and noting the currents as they went. The result was Hutchins’s important The Courses of the Ohio River, the first English account of the river below Pittsburgh. Earlier, Lt. John Ross had made the trip up the Mississippi to the Illinois Country. Based on his own observations and those of French explorers and traders, he gave the army a detailed survey in his map “Course of the River Mississippi.” Capt. Philip Pittman wrote The Present State of the European Settlements on the Mississippi, which provided the first complete picture of that portion of Britain’s American empire. Thus as redcoats ventured into the West they did so on aided by a gradual accumulation of current information, much of it based on deliberate surveys by trained engineers. 42 The British occupation of the West occurred and changed over time, never conforming to any preconceived plan. Instead, the network of garrisons and routes evolved between 1760 and 1774, expanding at some times and places, contracting at others; at no moment could its development be considered fixed or complete. Neither did western garrisons represent a contiguous line of fortifications. Rather, soldiers found themselves inhabiting enclaves in other peoples’ lands, small symbols of Britain’s claim to sovereignty.

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The nature of the army’s presence in the West was a reflection not so much of British strength as of weakness. Far from the center of state power in Britain as well as the settled periphery of the empire in America, the West that the army attempted to control was a region at the very limit of the king’s writ—a place where British authority, though assumed, was of questionable validity. Driven by an urgent need to impose order on an ill-defined and volatile region, Amherst, for example, quickly decided to blanket the Great Lakes basin with garrisons. Later, the declining number of forts and soldiers on the frontier after 1765 reflected a growing awareness, both at army headquarters in America and at Whitehall, of the army’s very real limitations in the face of vast distances, numerous Indian and colonial peoples, and shrinking resources. In both cases the shifting configuration of the armed frontier depended largely upon imperial policies that were often developed contingently in response to relations with native peoples. 43 Within months of the surrender of Detroit, Amherst mounted a major effort to complete the occupation of the West. On the lakes convoys of bateaux, joined by the new vessels of the Naval Department, carried mountains of supplies to the new base of operations for the upper lakes, Detroit. In midsummer an important expedition left Fort Niagara. Three hundred men of the 80th Light Infantry, distinctive in their short brown coats and black felt jockey caps, were to escort Royal Americans and Sir William Johnson to Detroit. From there the troops, led by the 80th’s major, Henry Gladwin, would be sent out to former French posts at St. Joseph, Ouiatenon, Miamis, Michilimackinac, Sault Ste. Marie, and far-off La Baye. To help secure the passage across Lake Erie, troops from Gen. Robert Monckton’s force at Pittsburgh would erect a new fort at Sandusky. These efforts were complicated by more than the weather and limited transportation. While his orders were being sent out to Monckton, Gladwin, and other officers, Amherst had to confront the fact that his army in America was growing smaller even as its responsibilities expanded. The conquest of New France did not end the Seven Years’ War. Far to the south British forces were gathering for assaults on France’s rich Caribbean sugar islands. General Monckton would soon leave the Ohio Country to lead this amphibious attack, taking with him eleven battalions of seasoned British infantry from North America—nearly half of Amherst’s force. Of the remaining troops, most would have to remain in Canada to watch over some 70,000 newly conquered subjects. So stretched were Amherst’s resources that western duty fell largely to a single battalion, Bouquet’s of the Royal

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Americans, augmented by whatever troops could be temporarily spared from occupation duties elsewhere. 44 The army’s manpower problem only grew worse. In 1762 Spain entered the war as a French ally, and troops that had recently taken the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique were now diverted to an attack on Havana. Worse, campaigning in the tropics resulted in high levels of death and sickness from malaria, yellow fever, and scurvy, reducing Amherst’s oncecapable regiments to bands of invalids. Four of his regiments returned from Cuba numbering only 2,128 men—about half their authorized strength. By the time they arrived at Staten Island in late September 1762, 506 had died, the rest so ill that they completely overwhelmed the army’s hospital facilities. Amherst claimed, with only slight exaggeration, that “there are not twenty men to be collected from the whole” fit for active service. 45 Years of hard campaigning, battle casualties, sickness, and desertion had taken their toll. Recruiting never managed to keep pace with attrition, and Amherst’s forces were chronically below strength by as much as 20 to 25 percent. This led the government to reduce the size of the entire army to levels that could be more realistically maintained. Thus by mid-1761, responding to orders from Whitehall, Amherst informed his subordinates that hereafter regiments would be reduced from 1,000 men each to 700. Two years later, in a further effort to cut costs, the army was once again reduced, down to 500 men per regiment—half their wartime levels. 46 Adding to these pressures on manpower was a liberal wartime recruiting policy that allowed men to enter the ranks for three years or the duration of the war instead of through open-ended “life” enlistments. In a bid to maintain the manpower required for occupation duties in Canada and the West, Amherst decided to hold redcoats beyond their enlistments. This proved highly unpopular with enlisted men, who openly objected to this violation of contractual obligations. By 1762, especially in new regiments like the Royal Americans, growing numbers of men were demanding discharges. Desperate officers in the West received “Insolent Letters”—thinly veiled threats by soldiers fed up with vague promises that they would be released. Other redcoats simply voted with their feet. Commanders feared mass desertions that would further diminish already dwindling numbers of soldiers. 47 Even as it was moving into the West, then, the army was in the midst of coping with the unsettling transition from war to peace. Its strength was being substantially reduced even as its American commitments grew larger. The battalion of the Royal Americans, on which the burdens of frontier

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duty fell, was some 233 men—20 percent—below strength in mid-1760. Some 400 of the fewer than 800 men remaining had been sent to Fort Niagara that summer. Of those who remained in the Ohio Country, Rogers took 100 with him to Detroit at the end of the year. Moreover, many enlisted men were taken from garrison duty by the constant need to keep bateaux moving along lakes and rivers. Ordered to detach men from Detroit to outpost duty, Captain Campbell objected, arguing that his “small garrison” was fully occupied and that it was “impossible to take possession of these posts at present.” Instead, half the Niagara garrison was eventually sent out with Gladwin and later to complete the occupation. 48 By early spring 1763, the northern portion of Britain’s new frontier had reached its greatest extent. From Fort Bedford on Forbes’s Road to Fort Edward Augustus at La Baye, some 750 men in ten companies of the Royal Americans were divided among fourteen posts; garrisons ranged in size from the 193 men at Fort Pitt to Ens. James Gorrell and his seventeen men at Edward Augustus. Though augmented by small numbers of other troops, including men from the Royal Artillery, this western force was hard-pressed to impose imperial authority over so large a region. Sir William Johnson was only one of those who recognized the vulnerability of such a force and who questioned the usefulness of forts that “may prove a means of retarding the progress of an Army” but that could “in no way prevent the Invasion of the Indians,” who could easily ignore such defenses. Others, like the soldiers’ commander, Henry Bouquet, worried more about the corrosive effects of frontier service on a regiment that was “divided and scattered throughout our immense conquests,” especially when he reflected on the fact that his troops had seen six years of hard service in America “and [have] not been together from the beginning of 1757.” 49 By late autumn 1763, British troops were beginning to come ashore on the Gulf of Mexico to occupy West Florida. Wasted by malaria and yellow fever from service in Cuba, the remnants of three regiments—little more than 600 men fit for duty—took up their new posts on the gulf: the 22nd and 34th Foot to Mobile and its outposts, the 35th to Pensacola. Within weeks of their arrival, detachments had been sent out to Fort Tombecbe, renamed Fort York, on the Tombigbee River in the heart of the Choctaws’ country and to the Iberville River. Like their comrades to the north, Maj. Robert Farmar’s redcoats on the gulf found themselves quite alone—most of the French and Spanish settlers had departed—and living within a world still controlled by Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws whose warriors numbered in the thousands. 50

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While redcoats were extending their hold over West Florida, coalitions of natives in the Ohio Country and Great Lakes were systematically wrecking the northern flank of the armed frontier. Beginning in May 1763, the vulnerability of small, widely separated outposts was driven home as Senecas, Ottawas, and others destroyed, captured, or forced the evacuation of all the garrisons save Detroit, Forts Niagara and Pitt, and two outposts along Forbes’s Road. The lesson was clear to the army’s new commander in chief, Gen. Sir Thomas Gage. With the return of an uneasy peace in 1765, only Fort Michilimackinac, recognized for its strategic value as “the place of deposit and point of departure” in the upper lakes, was reoccupied, while new construction of western forts came to a halt. The end of hostilities coincided with a new phase in the army’s western adventure, one characterized by “retrenchment” as shifts in imperial policy, straitened budgets, and growing unrest in the seaboard colonies put limits on—and in some cases ended—the troops’ mission on the frontier. 51 Rejecting Amherst’s determination to recover all the posts lost in the Indian war of 1763, Gage took a more realistic approach to western defense. Recognizing that troop reductions would “occasion some Distress” on his already limited forces, Gage acknowledged that the “Multiplicity of Forts . . . already occupied” “will not admit of any Increase.” Accepting, too, that the government seemed “much tired of the Expense of Supporting Forts” and not convinced that his army could continue to regulate trade and Indian affairs, Gage began to consolidate his western forces, reducing garrisons to the minimum necessary to maintain a respectable presence among the Indians while keeping control of important inland passages such as the Niagara portage and the Forks of the Ohio. 52 Policy decisions in London made it easier for Gage to pursue his goal of withdrawing as many troops as possible from exposed frontier garrisons. Plans to use the army to regulate Indian trade were abandoned after 1768 and with that went the justification for keeping troops beyond the Appalachians. 53 Retrenchment took place on several levels. First, small outposts no longer useful were abandoned or turned over to civilian caretakers. By mid-April 1766 Forts Ligonier and Bedford had been evacuated, leaving Fort Pitt the only remaining post in the Ohio Country. By the end of 1772 it would also be abandoned, its value as a guardian of the Ohio River gone when the decision was made to withdraw troops from the Illinois Country that same year. To the south, Gage likewise ordered the vulnerable outposts at Tombecbe, Natchez, and Fort Bute abandoned and troops concentrated at

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Mobile and Pensacola. Operation of the Niagara portage was turned over to a civilian partnership of John Stedman and Francis Pfister, the latter a half-pay officer and acting engineer at Fort Niagara. Finally, the remaining large forts were to be made defensible by smaller garrisons by means of economical stockades and blockhouses rather than the extensive—and expensive—systems of ramparts and batteries typical of eighteenth-century fortifications. 54 Only briefly was the army’s retreat from the West reversed; from late 1765 until 1772 redcoats were sent to garrison the Illinois Country. The region’s permanent garrison, the 34th Foot, only arrived at the end of 1765, just weeks after a small force of Highlanders had reached Fort Chartres after an “Extreamly difficult and tedious passage.” Earlier attempts to occupy the Illinois Country were defeated by the Mississippi River, Tunica Indians, and the war against natives in the Great Lakes and Ohio Country. 55 Several companies of troops remained in the Illinois Country until 1772, when the need to reinforce the garrison in Boston led Gage to abandon Fort Chartres, by then threatened with destruction by the encroaching Mississippi River. Only a token garrison—a 50-man company led by Capt. Hugh Lord—remained at nearby Kaskaskia: a force adequate to show the flag and remind Spaniards across the Mississippi that this was still British territory. 56 The changing nature of the armed frontier can also be found in the movement of soldiers to and from the western forts. This was particularly true in the matter of troop rotations, the deliberate effort by army administrators to spread American duties among the infantry regiments. Redcoats may have looked upon frontier assignments as a form of banishment, but by midcentury, duty on the edge of empire was much different than it had been in earlier years, when regiments could languish far from home for years—even decades—on end, without hope of relief and a chance to return to Britain or Ireland. Initial efforts to rotate regiments through overseas stations were interrupted by the Seven Years’ War. After 1763 a new rotation scheme was put into effect that lasted, with minimal disturbances, until the outbreak of the American rebellion. 57 George III, “wishing to have all his Regiments of foot bear an equal share of foreign service,” had determined a “Plan of Rotation” that would result in a fixed number of American regiments being sent home in 1765, 1766, and 1768 and replaced by formations sent out from Ireland or Britain. This

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created a logistical nightmare for Gage and his quartermasters since regiments selected to go home had to be relieved by others within the colonies, then sent down to a port of embarkation, usually New York, Philadelphia, or Quebec. The newly arrived units would then have to be distributed through the colonies. Nonetheless, the plan at least held out the prospect that service on the frontier would not become an open-ended commitment. Indeed, news of an impending move could produce a range of feelings among the troops. Col. John Reed of the 34th Foot noted that his regiment’s orders to leave the Illinois Country had “given General Joy” to his men. Orders to the relieving regiment, however, the 18th, were kept from the troops until the last possible moment to limit desertions. 58 We can gain some appreciation of what was involved in rotating regiments through the frontier by examining one episode in 1766–67. By the end of 1766 Gage had relieved the 17th Foot, which had been on the Great Lakes since late 1764, with the second battalion of the Royal Americans from Canada. At the same time he moved the 17th and 46th regiments to New York and the 28th Foot from its station in Canada to New Jersey; they were to go to Britain the following year with the arrival of four new regiments: the 10th, 16th, 18th, and 26th. These, plus a regiment that had arrived the previous year, would replace five regiments with long service in America and on the frontier: the 17th, 27th, 28th, 42nd, and 46th, thus keeping the total number of regiments in America constant at fifteen. Such proceedings continued from 1765 until 1774, when the 8th Foot was sent out to the Great Lakes; because of the American Revolution, the 8th remained in the West until 1784. Altogether some thirteen battalions in twelve regiments saw service on the frontier before 1775, roughly one-fifth of Britain’s infantry. 59 Over fifteen years, then, the occupation of the West was never entirely settled but was continually evolving and being reconfigured in response to the challenges of war and peace. Never planned with the same method that defined the armed borders of European states, the army’s stations nevertheless reflected a logic born of peculiarly American conditions: the natural routes into the West and the army’s roles as imperial defenders and border police. As a result, throughout the period most troops were concentrated along three widely separated axes: the Great Lakes region, with its lucrative fur trade and mix of Indian and French inhabitants; the upper Ohio Valley, the main avenue into the rich Middle West; and the Gulf Coast, adjacent

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to territories occupied by France and Spain. Beyond these three concentrations, an outer cordon of posts covering access to roads, portages, and the interconnecting waterways of the West appeared and then were abandoned according to changes in imperial interests. By 1772 only two concentrations of troops in the West survived, in the Great Lakes and on the gulf.

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Town Fort Town/fort 1770 Date established 1770/1772 Date established/date abandoned ren ce

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bam

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Apalache 1764

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3. The Army and the West, end of 1766: Retrenchment and Consolidation

Atlantic Ocean

«2» Frontier Fortresses

Fort Pitt must have been an impressive sight in 1761. Covering over seventeen acres, the fort filled the point of land between the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, and its massive size (some 66,000 cubic yards of earth were excavated to form its ramparts) emphatically underscored Britain’s claim to the Ohio Country. Yet nestled in the amphitheater-like lowlands, surrounded by ridges and forests stretching for miles, tied to the east by the single, fragile thread of Forbes’s Road, the fort might also have impressed a visitor with its isolation and vulnerability. 1 But it was strength and power, not weakness, that struck those who, like Quaker merchant James Kenny, watched the fort rise over the ruins of French Fort Duquesne. A resident of the frontier boomtown of Pittsburgh that grew up next to the fort, Kenny kept detailed notes about the fort in his journal. Even though work had been going on since the summer of 1759, two years later Kenny could only record that the earthen ramparts were “very near rais’d.” These walls of solid earth, twenty feet high when complete, were protected in turn by a dry ditch that surrounded the entire perimeter. The walls formed a pentagonal work with projecting bastions at each corner. The landward side, covering the main gateway and “next to ye Inhabitants,” was faced with locally made bricks to a height of fifteen feet “and Corners of ye Angles of Hewn Stone,” while the ramparts facing the rivers were of “Earth & sodded all so that it grows thick of land Grass.” Visible through embrasures in the parapets were the fort’s armament: thirtyseven guns ranging from large twelve-pounders and eight-inch howitzers to small, squat coehorn mortars and light swivel guns. 2 Within the ramparts “a Row of Barracks” stood along each wall, facing a parade ground of nearly one and one-half acres. Even more impressive was the new commanding officer’s quarters, “a large Brick House built this summer in ye South East Corner,” its roof still being laid. With “fine steps at ye door of Hewn free Stone” and a cellar, it was an appropriate symbol of Georgian elegance and royal authority. Even the barracks were imposing: three buildings, each of two stories, for enlisted men and another for offi-

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-1.4995 6. Fort Pitt, November 1759, from A Set of Plans and Forts in North America by Mary Ann Rocque (London, 1763). (Courtesy of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.)

cers. Together they were designed to hold a wartime garrison of between 700 and 1,000 men. To store the food and munitions for such a force, bricklined chambers—casemates—were built into the ramparts themselves, one of which, according to Kenny, was designed to hold “prisoners that are to be tried for their Lives.” 3 Fort Pitt and many of the other strongholds built by the army in America reflected prevailing European notions of military engineering. These had evolved in response to the appearance of gunpowder artillery and the subsequent long creative struggle between attack and defense. That contest began in fifteenth-century Italy, where architects-turned-engineers perfected new ways of countering the destructive power of the new mobile artillery. The result was a revolution in fortification, part of the larger “military revolution” of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The high, thin stone walls and turrets of castles and burghs gave way to ramparts of earth, built low and thick and covered by projecting works: bastions and ravelins as well as broad ditches, all designed to absorb artillery fire and keep attackers’ guns as far from the main defenses as possible. 4


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The forts in the West were, thus, colonial expressions of this European concept of defense—in design if not in size or permanence. Located along strategic waterways and overland passages, Fort Pitt and other imperial outposts defined the military landscape of British America in the same way that barrier fortresses in the Low Countries or fortified garrisons in the Scottish Highlands did in Europe. Indeed, by 1763 chronic warfare along contested frontiers had turned North America into “as extensively fortified a zone as any in the world.” At the same time, though, works that defined Britain’s armed frontier in America varied considerably in size, construction, and quality. 5 Fort Pitt, the largest fortification built west of the Alleghenies, represented what might be seen as the high end on a scale of defenses; at the low end stood small outposts such as Fort Ouiatenon on the Wabash River, a simple rectangular stockade roughly 160 by 200 feet enclosing crude wooden buildings. Smaller still but reflecting the geometric plans favored by professional military engineers was Fort Venango, built in 1760 at the confluence of the Allegheny River and French Creek. Here, a star-shaped ditch protected a sixty-foot square blockhouse that included living quarters, a storeroom, and a small magazine. 6 Southeast of Venango on Forbes’s Road, Fort Ligonier reflected yet another variation on the engineer’s art of adapting European defenses to American conditions. A rectangular fort with projecting bastions at each corner, Ligonier was “Partly Stockaded and partly Logg’d horizontally,” that is, with walls consisting of a crib of squared timbers filled with rubble and earth. To Col. William Eyre’s practiced eye, such a structure—half stockades, half horizontal logs—suggested that the fort “was never finish’d.” However, its builders in 1758, notably engineer Capt. Harry Gordon, knew what they were doing. Stockades and log cribbing were easy to erect, and the thicker portion of the ramparts was designed to protect otherwise vulnerable magazines and storehouses in the direction of an expected French attack. 7 Perched above the mouth of the Niagara River, Fort Niagara presented an altogether different aspect. “Well fortified towards the land,” one visitor observed, with works “of earth surrounded by piquettes” beyond which was a ditch, a “covered way, and Ravelin.” Niagara’s sodded earthen ramparts enclosed a triangular piece of land with bastions covering the vulnerable landward side, another example of how conventional defensive works could be adapted to local topography. To the west, Detroit and Fort Michilimackinac were less forts than fortified towns. Detroit’s eighty houses were

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3.50195 7. Fort Ligonier, painted in June 1762 by its commander, Lieutenant Archibald Blane of the Royal Americans. The painting shows the horizontal log construction of the east face of the fort; the roofs of storehouses and the officers’ quarters can be seen above the ramparts. (Courtesy of the Fort Ligonier Association, Ligonier PA.)

surrounded by tall palisades with bastions, blockhouses, and gates, with an elevated gun battery on the landward side. Michilimackinac was much the same though smaller, with light artillery mounted on its bastions to cover both land approaches and the Straits of Mackinac. 8 In contrast to the rough stockades of Detroit and Michilimackinac, former French and Spanish strongholds in the Illinois Country and along the Gulf Coast reflected a more regular design. When British troops marched into Fort Chartres in 1765 they found a large four-bastioned stone fort with walls two feet thick, entered through “a very handsome Rustic Gate” that opened onto a parade square surrounded by substantial masonry and wooden buildings. One engineer allowed that “it is the most commodious and best built fort in North America,” though constantly threatened by the encroaching Mississippi River. 9 Fort Condé at Mobile—renamed Fort Charlotte after Britain’s queen—


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0.557 8. “Plan of Fort Niagara,” drawn by Lieutenant George Demler in 1764. The “Bottoms,” with its traders’ establishments, is below the fort; the garrison’s extensive gardens are also depicted. The inset is a plan to limit erosion along the Lake Ontario shore. (Reprinted by permission of the British Library, ms 57708.)


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9. “A View of Detroit, July 25, 1794,” showing the town’s waterfront as its British garrisons might have known it. (Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.)

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10. “Sketch of the Fort at Michilimackinac” by Lieutenant Perkins Magra in 1766. The private buildings marked “f” were occupied by the British garrison at the time. (Courtesy of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.)

was equally impressive. Extending ninety yards on each of its four sides from bastion to bastion, the fort reflected French ambitions for their Louisiana colony. The ramparts were of brick and contained casemates for stores, while the barracks were built to house a garrison of 200 men. Away to the east, Spanish Pensacola, like Detroit, was as much an armed settlement as a fortress. Its principal defense was an irregular wall of “high stockades” enclosing “huts” for soldiers and a house for the local governor. 10 Thus the army’s built environment on the frontier varied considerably in size, building materials, and the extent to which it conformed to standard European designs. However, fortified places did not end with the ramparts. Each fort stood in the midst of a clearing defined by the range of the largest cannon mounted on the walls. Such clearings deprived an approaching enemy of cover and ensured that any attack or siege would take place in full view of the garrison. Timber and brushwood collected from the clearings provided building material and fuel. These “garrison grounds” could be quite extensive. A plan of Fort Niagara prepared by engineer Lt. George Demler in 1760 clearly shows an arc around the fort at a distance of 2,000 yards—the effective range of the garrison’s artillery. The portion

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11. “A Plan of Mobile” by Lieutenant Philip Pittman, showing the layout of Fort Charlotte and the French town in 1770. (Courtesy of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.)

directly in front of the ramparts had been clear-cut to a distance of 1,500 yards. 11 These clearings often held other important facilities for the garrisons. Most important of these were the gardens, which provided the only reliable source of fresh vegetables for soldiers’ rations. At large forts like Niagara or Pitt, these gardens could cover several acres. The garden at Fort Pitt also contained a deer park and formal park for the officers, and one visitor commented on the “good Orchard & gardens” he found at the fort. At Niagara a smaller “prettily situated” formal garden with a “Summer house” for the enjoyment of officers and their guests was tucked inside one of the bastions. Gardening at small outposts was a necessarily more modest affair, but every fort had its “Garden and Turnip Fields” or cabbage patches. Also distributed around the garrison grounds was evidence of what it took to build and maintain these forts. Kilns and brickyards, stables and livestock pens, pastures and woodlots, even breweries, dotted the landscape. Nearby there might be signs of a quarry or coal pit and, inevitably, there was the “Burrying Place” fenced apart a short distance from the fort gates. From a distance, to the unpracticed eye, the largest of these fortifications must have taken on the aspect of a busy settlement. 12

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-2.0181 12.“A Plan of Pensacola” by Elias Durnford, lieutenant governor of West Florida, in 1765. The outline of the proposed enlargement of the fort can be seen beyond the older Spanish ramparts; note also the two “bathing houses” in the shallows of the bay. (Courtesy of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.)


At several places, in fact, towns were a part of the military landscape. All of the posts were magnets for a variety of borderland peoples: peddlers, hunters, diplomats, and missionaries. Larger garrisons saw permanent settlements grow up beneath their ramparts. By 1761 Pittsburgh was a booming frontier town of “above one Hundred Houses,” “a thriving place,” one growing so rapidly that Col. Henry Bouquet ordered all houses numbered and no new ones built without the approval of the fort engineer. At Fort Niagara, the “Lower Town” or “Bottoms” was a “low flatt in the form of a semi-circle surrounded by the river,” which held a “number of small houses and hutts” belonging to Indian Department employees and occasional contract workers but mainly to Indian traders (dismissed by one observer as “poor ignorant Dutch People”). Detroit stood as a citadel in the midst of a sprawling settlement of French and Indians that began eight miles below the fort and continued all the way to Lake St. Clair. Mobile and Pensacola looked out over French and Spanish settlements, most of whose

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inhabitants moved out in the wake of British occupation in 1763. Likewise, Fort Chartres was surrounded by the hamlets and farmlands of the Illinois French. 13 If the western forts varied greatly in size, construction, and complexity, so, too, did the accommodations they offered their garrisons. Barracks for officers and enlisted soldiers were still not a universal feature of British army life in the middle of the eighteenth century. Regiments of infantry were officially known as “marching regiments of foot,” a label that reflected the fact that they had no fixed stations or quarters. Moving yearly from one posting to another within Britain and Ireland, regiments were lodged in public houses, barns, outbuildings—wherever space could be found at minimal expense. Only in the larger garrison towns or fortresses (such as Dublin or Scotland’s Fort George) were barracks available for large numbers of troops; British soldiers had to travel to the peripheries of the empire—to Gibraltar, Minorca, Quebec, or Fort Pitt—to find purpose-built quarters that allowed whole companies or regiments to be kept together. 14 The quality of housing, like the forts themselves, varied widely. The best quarters, those approximating what could be found in Britain, were at Forts Pitt and Chartres. At the former, the barracks had brick fireplaces and windowsills, wooden floors, rooms set aside for kitchens, and “galleries” running along the outside of the upper stories. Fort Chartres boasted barracks that contained “good spacious rooms” with lofts for stores and equipment. 15 More typical, though, were the squared-log barracks built at Fort Michilimackinac in 1769, a building divided by stone fireplaces into four rooms, or the accommodations found at the many small outposts occupied before 1763. The defensive blockhouse at Fort Presque Isle was divided into eight “large rooms with Chimneys” with smaller rooms for officers forming corner bastions. At Forts Venango and Sandusky officers and men shared space within the blockhouses. At the French-built posts in the Great Lakes region, housing usually consisted of little more than log huts or cabins indistinguishable from the housing built by local traders and farmers. 16 Perhaps the worst quarters were to be found on the Gulf Coast, where the forts at Mobile and Pensacola were already falling into ruin when their British garrisons arrived. Mobile’s barracks were in the brick casemates of the ramparts, while Pensacola could offer all ranks nothing more than “miserable bark hutts, without any sort of Fire place or windows.” And some forts had no formal barrack facilities at all. At Detroit and at Fort Michilimackinac until 1769, British troops were quartered on the local inhabitants, conditions that led to overcrowding and the inevitable friction

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between soldiers and civilians, while part of a provisions storehouse was eventually fitted out as a barrack room at Fort Ligonier. 17 Conditions at posts like Detroit or Ligonier raise the questions of how much living space a garrison could expect. What did officers mean when they complained that their troops were “crowded”? By 1760 a 20-by-20foot room was the standard living space within purpose-built barracks. The standing remains of the stone barracks at Fort Crown Point, New York, measure 220-by-20 feet, divided into eight rooms on each of two floors, separated by interior passageways. The barracks at Fort Pitt would have been very much the same. At Fort Tombecbe, north of Mobile, the barracks were 85-by-20 feet, containing five rooms, each 17-by-20 feet, while the new barracks at Fort Michilimackinac had four rooms of 21-by-20 feet. On average, then, barracks were expected to provide living spaces of roughly 400 square feet. Even blockhouses in small outposts seem to have conformed to this standard. The one at Fort Presque Isle was 56 feet square—roughly 3,100 square feet—and was divided into eight rooms, each of just under 400 square feet. 18 At the French and Spanish forts very different conditions seem to have prevailed. The bark-covered huts at Pensacola, the brick casemates at Mobile, or the crude post-set houses at places like Fort Ouiatenon varied greatly in size. The two barracks at Fort Chartres measured approximately 120by-16 feet and 122-by-30 feet, each divided into five rooms of 20-by-16 and 20-by-30 feet each. The Spanish fort at Apalache had barracks—little more than single-room buildings—ranging in size from 16-by-16 to 28-by19 feet. Houses used as billets at Fort Michilimackinac were equally small, one example measuring 26-by-23 feet, its 600 square feet divided into two rooms. 19 According to army regulations, these rooms were to hold “as many soldiers as can be put without Inconveniences, or Prejudices to their health,” but no room “is to have less than twelve.” What this meant in practice depended, of course, on what local commanders understood to be inconvenient or prejudicial to good health. At twelve men per room—half of whom were expected to be absent on duty at any given time—a barrack room of 400 square feet holding six bunks (two men per bunk) and at least one table and two forms (benches) would have provided adequate space. 20 In reality, crowded barrack conditions may have been the norm at several posts. Its normal garrison of two companies of infantry—some eighty officers and men—would have posed a major imposition at Fort Michili-

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mackinac where, in the mid-1760s, there were only eight small houses available for the troops. In fact, even the new barracks built in 1769 failed to relieve the pressure. Capt. George Turnbull complained that although his garrison included more than seventy private soldiers, the barracks would only accommodate sixty—at fifteen men per room. Likewise, the fragile huts at Pensacola were unable to house the full regiment stationed there after 1763. Even at posts better provided with barracks, like Forts Pitt, Niagara, or Chartres, poor maintenance created crowed conditions since many rooms stood empty, unfit for either troops or supplies. Ultimately, what did relieve crowding in barrack rooms was the steady decline in the size of western garrisons after 1763. In its final years, Fort Pitt was home to fewer than 100 men, who would have found ample living room in barracks designed to hold several times that number. 21 Regulations on the billeting of soldiers made more generous allowances for officers. Field officers or fort commanders were allowed two rooms to themselves, captains one room, while two subalterns (lieutenants and ensigns) were expected to share a room. Garrison and regimental staff (surgeons, commissaries, and the like) also enjoyed separate quarters. Thus in matters of housing as in much else, the army reinforced the social hierarchy upon which good order and discipline were thought to depend. 22 The quality of quarters also served to define the social gulf between officers and common soldiers. Officers’ quarters were physically separated whenever possible from those of enlisted men. At Mobile the officers were housed in a separate compound within the town some distance from the fort. Further, wherever possible garrison quarters were designed and built to underscore differences in rank and status. Col. Henry Bouquet and other commanders at Fort Pitt found spacious living in the “large Brick House” that so impressed James Kenny. Subordinate officers found room in their own barracks or in the town of Pittsburgh. The officers’ quarters at Fort Pitt were also built to a different standard; the interiors were plastered and each room had its inner chamber or closet. No similar refinements appear in descriptions of the soldiers’ barracks. Contrasts in the quality of housing can also be seen at the imposing ruins of Fort Crown Point on Lake Champlain, built at the same time and on the same plan as Fort Pitt. The officers’ quarters included tile floors and fireplaces made of bricks shipped to the site from Albany. The enlisted barracks were built of the same solid limestone, but with rough brick floors and stone fireplaces built into interior partitions. 23 In the same manner, officers elsewhere were able to live in substantial

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quarters with a degree of privacy and comfort that soldiers could never enjoy. At both Detroit and Fort Michilimackinac officers were able to rent or buy rooms or houses for themselves. At Fort Niagara, common soldiers lived in wooden barracks. Their superiors took rooms in the “Great House”—the self-contained fortified manor-style house that was the original French fort. The building dominated the interior of the fort and, when in good repair, reflected the “good order and Elegance” that officers expected to find in the quarters they shared. 24 By contrast, social distance dissolved at small outposts as officers and soldiers shared the same Spartan, cramped quarters. Lone subalterns like ensigns George Price or Joseph Schlosser, who commanded tiny garrisons like Forts Presque Isle or Ouiatenon, lived in billets identical to those of their men, sometimes merely a separate room within a blockhouse full of soldiers, munitions, and supplies. At Fort Erie, Ens. Jeremy Lister’s quarters were separated from his soldiers’ barracks by a fireplace and wooden partition. 25 Set apart as much as possible by rank and condition, redcoats on the frontier thus found themselves occupying quarters designed to reinforce a social system that lent order and meaning to military—as well as civilian—life. Yet regardless of the distance, physical and symbolic, that separated common soldiers from officers and subalterns from their superiors, all soldiers in the West shared the experience, sooner or later, of manning forts that were, in some cases, utterly ruinous. To outsiders, places like Fort Pitt projected images of power and solidity. James Kenny, watching the ramparts rise foot by foot, described them as “Great Banks of Earth” surrounded by “Great Trenches” enclosing handsome buildings. Even a decade later missionary David McClure found a “handsome & strong fortification” at Pittsburgh, one that held “comfortable houses,” especially the brick “Governor’s house.” 26 Soldiers knew better. Just a year before McClure passed through on his way to preach to Delaware Indians in Ohio, engineer Capt. John Williams reported that virtually all of the buildings were in ruins. Years earlier, in 1767, the fort’s commander, Capt. George Edmonstone of the 18th Foot, declared that the place provided “only a Shadow of Defence.” As evidence he pointed to the stray cattle from the town that easily entered the fort across the eroded remnants of the “Great Banks” of ramparts that so impressed Kenny and McClure. Edmonstone’s report echoed others from across the West. Few aspects of frontier service produced as much correspondence

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and generated as much complaint as the physical state of frontier forts: roofs that leaked, ramparts that collapsed, ditches that silted up, and rotten stockades that fell down. As early as the mid-1760s, Britain’s defended places in western America seemed, indeed, to offer only a shadow of defense, a mere pretense of power. 27 To be sure, some of the forts the army inherited after 1759 had suffered from damage or neglect during the war. After a two-week pounding by British artillery in 1759, Fort Niagara’s ramparts were breached in several places and its wooden buildings heavily damaged. Mobile and Pensacola suffered from years of neglect and were both in advanced stages of decay when redcoats arrived late in 1763. And throughout the Great Lakes, small French forts and trading posts were allowed to suffer as their small garrisons were moved around, helping to defend the shrinking perimeter of New France. At most places, however, damage to British forts was not the result of gunfire or wartime neglect but of climate, weather, and chronic shortages of manpower as well as the mounting costs of maintaining so many outposts in the West. 28 Designed with the objective, in its namesake’s words, of “maintaining His Majesty’s Subjects in the undisputed Possession of the Ohio,” Fort Pitt began to take shape in the summer of 1759. By mid-August the site was a hive of activity as gangs of carpenters turned fresh lumber from a newly built sawmill into barracks and storehouses. Lime burners and thirty brick makers labored to produce the mountains of bricks needed for casemates, chimneys, and the scarp of the landward walls. Deciding that earthen ramparts would “turn out better” than walls made of wooden cribs, Gen. John Stanwix and his chief engineer, Capt. Harry Gordon, pushed the work ahead, coordinating the labor of regular and provincial troops and civilian artisans while coping with shortages of tools and forage for draft animals and the outbreak of dysentery from bad water—all in a country alive with French and Indian spies and raiders. Despite the problems and inevitable delays, Gordon could boast that the work “goes briskly forward.” 29 Progress reported in mid-September slowed to a halt not long after as autumn weather arrived. By the following June, the new commander in the Ohio Country, Gen. Robert Monckton, learned to his dismay that “the Fortifications at Pittsburgh” were not “Quite so Formidable” as he had been led to believe, and neither were they “in so good Repair.” Indeed, it would be another two years before this backwoods Gibraltar would be considered finished. 30 In December 1760 the main gateway was still not completed. June of

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the following year found the garrison scrambling to enclose still unfinished ramparts in the face of a threatened Seneca assault that summer. Efforts to push ahead resulted in shoddy workmanship. “Works raised in haste,” Colonel Bouquet reported in frustration, “must be pulled down & made up again.” Worse still, faced with the need for as many as 20,000 bricks per day, brick makers began turning out inferior products that rapidly deteriorated. Overtaxed woodcutters and sawyers supplied lumber made from green wood. As a result, by early summer 1760 brand-new barracks “want already much repair.” 31 By far the greatest threat posed to the works, however, was water. The fort’s location on a flat point of land surrounded by rivers and ridges made flooding a real possibility and guaranteed that Fort Pitt would remain in a constant state of disrepair and decay. Even as advanced parties were leveling the charred ruins of Fort Duquesne and preparing the ground for new construction, Col. Hugh Mercer warned that if the Forks site was finally approved, the fort’s foundations should be made of brick or stone in order to withstand floods that, he knew, had driven the French to higher ground. The lack of a good alternative site commanding the rivers and the costs associated with more elaborate building techniques meant that a largely earthen fort would rise on the edge of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. When the floods did come the results, as Mercer feared, were devastating. 32 Weather conditions in early January 1762 were ideal for a major catastrophe. A month of snow and freezing weather ended with a thaw and heavy rain on January 8. That evening, according to James Kenny, “ye Ice broke up . . . and ye Rivers rose very fast.” Driven by the currents, the ice, carrying trees, rocks, and other debris, raced downstream toward Fort Pitt. That night, as he struggled to save some bateaux belonging to his employers, Kenny saw the “rivers drove thick and rugged all over with Ice.” By dawn of January 9, residents of Pittsburgh were taking to boats and canoes in order to escape the flood and reach higher ground, hurrying to get out before cellars and walls collapsed. Next door, Colonel Bouquet could only watch helplessly as “water came up through the Drains, Gates, and Sally Ports” and “boiled in large Springs out of the ground” all over the parade ground. Casemates and magazines flooded before anyone could get to the precious stores and gunpowder. By midmorning the rivers crested at ten feet above flood stage, with ice crashing against houses and barracks as everyone made for high ground. Soldiers, their families, and others grabbed whatever weapons, clothing, and food they could and bailed out of secondfloor barrack windows into waiting boats. Bouquet and two junior officers,

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stranded atop the ramparts, were taken to their quarters by Kenny in one of his bateau, who then “row’d them thro the fort.” 33 Almost as quickly as it had come, the flood subsided. In the predawn hours of January 10, a hard freeze set in and the waters slowly receded. By noon, according to Kenny, the worst was over; he and other townspeople began to survey the damage. Finding “Many Houses drove away,” Kenny was nonetheless relieved to “here [sic] of none being Drowned yet.” 34 As the flooding abated, the full extent of the damage to Fort Pitt became apparent. Most of the sod work placed to hold the earthen ramparts together had been washed away. The walls themselves had begun to fall into the ditch, knocking over palisades in the process. Only the landward ramparts, faced with brick because of their expected exposure to artillery fire, survived largely intact. A separate artillery barracks beyond the fort walls near the Allegheny River was gone; the wooden barracks within the fort were so badly damaged that a later inspection concluded that they “cannot be fit long to receive the Troops.” Indeed, only the brick and stone commandant’s house appears to have been undamaged. The largest British fortress in the West, not yet complete, had been reduced in a matter of hours to an unstable, misshapen enclosure, barely able to shelter its garrison, troops too few to undertake extensive repairs. 35 Bouquet, trying to put the best face on a major disaster, conceded in his report that the fort would always be exposed to flooding but quickly assured General Amherst that “Those Floods must happen Seldom, the oldest Indians not remembering any So high.” In the meantime, he said, future damage could be reduced by reinforcing the ramparts and putting the magazines above ground. 36 Others were less optimistic. Sent by Amherst to inspect the damage, Col. William Eyre traveled west along the muddy track of Forbes’s Road in April and was disgusted by what he found. Fort Bedford was overrun with “Vast Quantities of Rats” that threatened to consume precious stocks of forage and food. Fort Ligonier, whose odd construction Eyre noted, contained wagons and gun carriages “all spoiling for Want of being under Cover.” Angry enough at such neglect, Eyre was appalled by what he found upon reaching Fort Pitt. He was not only stunned that the French had neglected better sites in favor of the Forks but found it unforgivable “That we repeated the Mistake by doing it in a more expensive Manner.” Agreeing with Bouquet on the extent and severity of the damage, Eyre offered an alternative solution. He urged that the fort be abandoned altogether to be replaced by a single blockhouse at the Forks supported by a stockaded

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post on the high ground about a mile to the east. Otherwise, he stated, the existing fort would require extensive repairs at a cost he estimated at Ł7,000. 37 Finding the money would have been difficult enough; abandoning a large fortress fatally weakened through human error was even harder. Fort Pitt continued to stand for another decade, its diminishing garrisons living in the few habitable barrack rooms or lodging in Pittsburgh. Indian lore notwithstanding, the place was flooded again in March 1763; ice and a sudden thaw were again the culprits. This flood claimed at least two lives. One, a carpenter named Shepard who worked for the garrison, died when he fell into the swollen Allegheny River while trying to reach his house and safety. 38 Fort Pitt never recovered from the floods of the early 1760s. When in the summer of 1763 the fort was attacked by Ohio Indians, the garrison was forced to use bales of deer hides and earth-filled barrels to reinforce the sagging ramparts. By the end of that year, the walls facing the rivers were virtually defenseless; only detached redoubts—including the famous “Fort Pitt Blockhouse”—allowed troops to protect the fort’s perimeter. And the deterioration continued. Chickens, dogs, and livestock added to the ravages of the weather by “Scratching the Parapet” or grazing on the sod-covered walls. Little could be done to stabilize or rebuild the works; money and skilled labor were both in short supply, and authorities in London refused to approve extensive repairs. A soldier who had been stationed there years earlier and saw the fort again in 1768 discovered that it was “now a most shocking place; the works and Barracks . . . all gone to Wreck.” In 1771 a visiting engineer found only the “name and Vestiges” of a fort. A year later the place was abandoned, beyond the army’s ability to hold or repair. But the fort had not outlived its usefulness—Fort Pitt became a source of scrap iron, bricks, and lumber for the rapidly growing town of Pittsburgh. 39 Fort Pitt was built to give Britain undisputed control over the upper Ohio valley. To the north, across Lake Erie, Fort Niagara guarded entry into the upper Great Lakes and the portage around Niagara Falls. It also served as an important point of contact between British authorities and the western Six Nations Iroquois. Much smaller than Fort Pitt, Niagara had evolved from a small French post into a complex fortress. Yet despite its crucial importance to Britain’s military and diplomatic position in the West, Fort Niagara, too, deteriorated over the years. Perched above the mouth of the Niagara River, the fort and its garrison faced years of heavy lake-effect snows and annual cycles of hard freezes and thaws that played havoc with its earthen ramparts

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as well as the wooden and stone buildings within. Moreover, the waters of shallow Lake Ontario were driven by prevailing winds against the southern shore, gradually undermining the defenses there. When the British occupied the fort in July 1759, their first order of business was to repair the heavy damage caused by their siege batteries. Colonel Farquhar and the men of his 44th Foot worked hard to get buildings in order before winter as well as re-sodding the ramparts, filling in shell holes, and setting up new outer stockades. Nature cooperated, and by the following spring Farquhar’s successor, Colonel Eyre, could report that the “Moderateness of the Thaw” prevented the “Works from Tumbling down so much as they would otherwise.” However, storm surges continued to eat away the lakeshore, which was “giving way very prodigiously in several Places under the Fort.” Amherst, meanwhile, with an eye to the army’s purse and with few directions from home, cautiously kept repairs to a minimum and made no effort to replace the French works with new walls (which, he warned, his engineer staff “is very fond of”). 40 Repairs seem to have barely kept pace with the seasonal deterioration of the defenses and buildings. The autumn of 1760 saw the “works of the fort” so “greatly out of repair” that the new commander, Maj. William Walters of the Royal Americans, was compelled to “Imploy all the men off duty Every day on that Service.” Six months later the sod work on the ramparts had given way under ice and snow, carrying rotting palisades into the ditch. By early 1765 another observer could only compare the fort to a “ruinous old house which must always be attended with a constant expence.” Not only were the gates improperly hung and without locks, the ramparts continued to erode away and the soldiers risked serious injury because “the great Bridge”(spanning the ditch at the main gate) was “so rotten that everything is in danger that comes over it.” 41 Visitors to the fort, who presumably should have been impressed by the size and complexity of the fortifications, instead found much to criticize. Viewing works that had obviously “fallen into decay,” one outsider judged that “at present it is in a defenceless state.” The problem, as elsewhere, was the garrison’s inability to set right all that the weather ruined in the course of a year. General Gage understood as much when he explained that “by Frost and Rain,” Niagara had been “rendered almost defenceless.” As a result, garrison life at the fort soon took on a predictable routine. Shut in during the hard Canadian winters, the troops would spend spring and summer repairing damage and making what the engineers deemed

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necessary improvements, though to little purpose. Inspecting engineers would leave, pronouncing the fort in stable, defensible condition; within months new reports of damage would come flooding back to New York. In at least one instance, engineer Capt. Thomas Sowers had hardly left the fort after directing yet another season’s work when the commander reported that a large portion of the landward ramparts had collapsed once more into the ditch. So bad had things become as early as 1766 that a disgusted Capt. John Brown, just arrived with a new garrison, found it impossible to “keep out the Hogs” and warned that “any Straggling Indian” could enter the fort at will—and this only a year after engineer Harry Gordon reported that the fort was in sound condition. 42 While redcoats waged their battle against the elements and shoddy workmanship at Forts Pitt and Niagara, fellow soldiers far to the south found themselves engaged in the same struggle. At Pensacola the enemies were not ice and snow; instead, garrisons faced tropical storms, voracious insects, and a debilitating climate that seemed capable of ruining men and fortifications equally. Here on the Gulf Coast, as at the other end of the armed frontier, defense proved to be more in name than a reality. 43 First occupied by redcoats in the autumn of 1763, Pensacola offered a sorry prospect. Consisting of little more than an irregular stockade, a half mile in circuit, enclosing “a few straggling houses,” the fort and town sat on low, sandy ground in a region notorious for its unhealthy climate. Soldiers from the Royal American Regiment and the 35th Foot, already sickly and decimated from service in Cuba, were forced to set up housekeeping in “extreamly bad” barracks “neither secure against rain or Wind” and without fireplaces or even wooden floors, conditions guaranteed to swell sick lists. Adding to the discomfort was the fact that the garrison hospital was “in the same bad Condition,” right down to the dirt floors. Small comfort, perhaps, that the officers were living in the same squalor, in thatch-covered huts without windows or floors. 44 Indeed, for years to come, troops had to struggle not only with the elements but with disease and death as they worked to maintain Pensacola. A year after its arrival, the garrison had managed to put the fort in “tolerable good Order,” yet warnings continued that unless better quarters were provided, the soldiers would be in “an uncommon distress” from the stifling heat inside their windowless rooms. Despite constant work and annual programs of rebuilding, however, the fortifications and buildings appear to have fallen to ruin faster than men could repair them. Humidity and insects

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turned the eight-foot-high stockades into tottering ruins. Worse, storms roaring in from the gulf blew down the barrack huts and swept away months of work on wharves and fortifications. 45 Conditions like those at Forts Niagara, Pitt, and Pensacola were to be found throughout the West. Weather, declining manpower, and prohibitive cost combined to turn strongholds into places barely able to support garrisons. Fort Cavendish (Fort Chartres) was constantly threatened by the Mississippi River. Efforts to stabilize the riverbanks proved only a temporary expedient. Over 200 feet of ground was lost to the river in only four years—in the opinion of the engineers, the fort would soon be surrounded by water and completely undermined. 46 Fort Charlotte at Mobile and its outposts on the lower Mississippi were hardly better off. At Mobile the brick casemates leaked as water seeped through cracks in the mortar, while the exterior face of the ramparts was falling down due to encroaching weeds and grass. Worse, the place was “situated among Swamps” that produced air “stagnated and corrupt” in a place devoid of fresh breezes in the heat and humidity of midsummer. By 1770 West Florida’s governor, Elias Durnford, concluded that the “ruinous Condition” of the fort would cost thousands of pounds to repair. Small outposts were, if anything, in even worse condition. Fort Bute, built to control the lower Mississippi, was a mere stockade and “is attended with constant Expense” because the wood rotted so quickly. At the old French fort at Natchez, renamed Fort Panmure, the stockades were likewise rotten; the magazine inside the small fort was constructed only of “thick mud walls,” while the barracks were as dilapidated as the fortification that enclosed them. 47 Conditions were only slightly better in the north, where Detroit and Fort Michilimackinac stood guard over the upper lakes. Detroit’s extensive stockades and bastions were found to be in “a very bad State” after Pontiac’s siege in 1763; repairs and rebuilding went on for several years. Fort Michilimackinac, while much smaller than Detroit, suffered from the same problems: aged, rotten stockades and inadequate buildings for its garrison. Built so close to the Straits of Mackinac that “the waves break against the stockades,” the prevailing winds also blew sand that found its way into eyes, shoes, and every crack and crevice in the fort. The sand also acted as a strong abrasive, beating continually against the stockades and rendering them “old and ruinous.” Unlike other garrisons, however, the troops at these posts could at least draw on nearby civilian labor; after 1763 the local

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French owed their corvée to the British king and, through him, to his army. Without civilian tools, teams, and energy, the small number of redcoats on the lakes—no more than eighty men at Fort Michilimackinac, double that number at Detroit—could never have kept up with even the routine repairs to their forts. 48 The army’s strongholds, great and small, were in a chronic state of ill repair throughout the West by the late 1760s. The necessity of building with local, perishable materials accounted for much of the problem; wood, earth, and sod could not stand for long against floodwaters, Canadian winters, or tropical vermin. Cost, the great distance between these forts and their bases of supply, and dwindling manpower only added to the manifold difficulties associated with maintaining fortifications on the frontier. Faced with endless complaints about crumbling fortifications, Gage decided upon two courses of action: he would reduce the number of western garrisons while at the same time reducing the size and cost of those that remained. By 1765 Whitehall seemed, to the commander in chief, “much tired of the Expence of Supporting the Forts . . . so far as to have it in their Thoughts to Abandon the whole.” No wholesale retreat from the West was practical, but Gage agreed that many of the forts could be abandoned. He told his superiors that he could easily dispense with “several small Posts” and “reduce the Garrisons of the [remaining] Forts to such Numbers, as shall be Necessary only for their mere Defence.” This, he argued, would produce “a very great Savings . . . in the Article of Expence.” Moreover, faced as he was with rising colonial discontent, these steps would allow him to bring “some Force . . . into the inhabited Country” where it could be used to keep the peace. 49 Based on these considerations, Gage decided to keep up the Great Lakes forts, whose troops were necessary to protect traders and maintain British influence among western Indians. Likewise, Pensacola and Mobile would be held as a defense against Spanish or French attacks on West Florida. Beyond these places, the posts on the armed frontier were gradually abandoned, beginning with Forts Ligonier and Bedford in 1766 and culminating with Forts Chartres and Pitt six years later. 50 By reducing the size of the remaining forts, Gage also hoped to realize savings in money and manpower. What Gage had in mind can be understood by looking again at Fort Niagara. As early as the spring of 1765 Gage told its commander to devote his efforts to improving the barracks and that “the Fort must be shut in by Pickets,” by which he meant stockading sufficient to

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make the place proof against small arms’ fire. A year later the plan had grown to include two stone redoubts, or “blockhouses,” one in each of the landward bastions, to serve as strong points in case of attack. By 1768 Gage had decided to scrap the blockhouses, level the earthen ramparts, and reduce the fort to a simple stockade covering barracks and storehouses small enough to be defended by a single company—forty to fifty men—of infantry (only onethird its current garrison). As it happened, however, work already begun on the multistoried redoubts was allowed to go forward, and a small inner fort of stockades was erected. The transformation of Fort Niagara reflected a scheme that was introduced throughout the lakes. At both Detroit and Fort Michilimackinac, newly built barracks were stockaded, setting them apart from the towns and creating, in effect, citadels that smaller garrisons could more easily defend. 51 On the Gulf Coast much the same pattern prevailed. Although he admonished local commanders to undertake no new work without orders, Gage reminded his own superiors that unless the fortifications at Mobile and Pensacola were substantially improved, the forts would be incapable of withstanding an attack. The solution, again, lay in constructing inexpensive works. Rather than replace the extensive stockades at Pensacola, Gage once again recommended “a new form” that included fortified blockhouses requiring fewer troops. He even suggested that costs could be further reduced by taking the bricks from Mobile’s ramparts and using them for the new work at Pensacola. 52 The defended places that defined Britain’s new American frontier varied greatly in size, design, and substance, from small stockades to elaborate earth and brick monuments to the military engineer’s art. There were, however, important common features. Regardless of their size or shape, all the western forts succumbed to the effects of climate and weather on building materials that fell apart faster than small garrisons could make repairs. But if they were reduced to mere shadows of defense in the eyes of worried commanders, these forts did provide homes for small military communities and focal points for a range of activities and experiences, some peculiar to the army, others much like those to be found in the wider British Atlantic world.

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«3» Military Society on the Frontier

The infantry regiment was the basic unit of Britain’s army in America. Composed, on paper, of roughly 450 officers and men divided into nine, then ten, companies, regiments in the West were most often scattered among a number of garrisons, seldom serving together. To look at the army on the frontier strictly from this organizational perspective, however, would be to miss a great deal about military life as experienced by those in the ranks. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the army was both more and less than the sum of its parts. It was not yet an institution in the modern sense; loyalties and identities within the army were closely tied to individual regiments, some with long histories reflected in titles, traditions, and a range of other “tribal” idiosyncrasies. Soldiers belonged to a regiment more than to the army as a whole, and officers sought rank in regiments associated with family, friends, or patrons. These regiments were also complex small societies that in a number of ways reflected the larger civilian world of Britain and its empire. In this, the British army displayed a tendency among armed forces that had developed at least since the fifteenth century, when mercenary bands and state-paid forces began to replace knights and their feudal levies as society’s first line of police and defense. More out of necessity than design, these emerging armies accumulated large civilian followings: soldiers’ wives and children, servants, skilled workers, as well as those, including prostitutes and sutlers, whose livings depended upon the soldiers. So numerous were these “followers” that an early modern army on campaign took on the aspect of a “walking city,” with dependents often greatly outnumbering the men in the ranks. As they continued to grow in size and destructive power, the notion of armies as mobile societies took on a new meaning. Composed of men who had taken up arms as a profession, individual regiments and the armies of which they were a part tended to develop their own peculiar identities that set them apart from the larger civilian world that paid and feared them. By the eighteenth century this distinctly military identity included not only the unique expe-



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riences of encampment, battle, and siege but also uniforms and icons that tended to reinforce an emerging sense of a brotherhood-in-arms. British regiments, for example, were distinguished not only by their red coats but by distinctions designating their particular unit by ethnic origin or their colonel. The colors of their “facings”—lapels, collars, and cuffs—varied, as did their “colors”: quadrangular silk flags measuring 6-by-6½ feet that were emblazoned with royal emblems and other symbols such as thistles, harps, or coats of arms. By 1768 regimental identity evolved even further when the numbers of each regiment, based on seniority in the line, were stamped on soldiers’ uniform buttons and other metalwork. 1 The British army in America, then, was more than a strictly military formation; with their wives, children, and other followers, British regiments


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were mobile communities within an army that was becoming a society apart from the civilian world around it, distinguished by clothing and equipment, rules and regulations, and a growing sense of professionalism forged in battle and encampment. 2 Nevertheless, the army, especially its officer corps, shared British society’s prevailing assumptions about the social order. Perhaps the clearest expression of these social values as applied to the army comes from Capt. Bennett Cuthbertson, a veteran officer and author of a widely read guide for regimental officers. Cuthbertson saw the regiment as a clearly stratified society. At its center was the commanding officer, who was urged to act as a benevolent “parent” to his subordinate officers, men who, in turn, were expected to conduct themselves like “obedient children.” Beyond this “family” of commissioned officers and social peers stood the larger community of subordinates. Cuthbertson’s views the rank and file of the regiment are revealing. The position of enlisted men as inferiors was based not only on their rank but on their “natural profligacy,” which set this “lower class” apart from the gentleman officers who led them. In this Cuthbertson echoed the aristocracy’s and gentry’s belief that common folk were “rough and savage in their Dispositions, being of leveling Principles,” as well as “insolent and tumultuous”—characteristics that their betters felt duty-bound to suppress by enforcing proper conduct. 3 These attitudes were reflected in the daily rhythms of regimental life. Officers remained aloof from their men in an effort to maintain proper social distance. They knew little about their soldiers’ lives beyond their names. Common soldiers were confronted with numerous regulations intended to enforce “proper subordination” and to bar them from displaying the “least appearance of freedom” with their social and military superiors. Further, although officers like Cuthbertson encouraged both officers and enlisted men to eat with their comrades in proper “messes” as a way of fostering comradeship and community, the social distance between a dozen men crowded around a barrack-room table and those enjoying the more spacious conviviality of officers’ quarters was unmistakable. The army also reflected the paternalism that came to characterize the attitudes of ruling elites in the British Atlantic world. Thus while officers were urged to make every effort to enhance their “consequence” in the eyes of soldiers, who were to be kept always in proper subordination, these same colonels, captains, and subalterns were encouraged to act as “a sort of Guardians to the Men” under their command. 4 The case of noncommissioned officers was more complex, as their place

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in regimental society was not as clearly defined as that of officers or common soldiers. Sergeants and corporals approximated within the regiment the roles of overseers and foremen in the civilian world. Raised from the ranks, these men relied heavily on their officers to sustain their authority within the barracks. Like civilian foremen, noncommissioned officers shouldered much of the responsibility for regimental discipline and management. They suffered the isolation that came from being neither commissioned officers nor ordinary soldiers, unable to form close social bonds with either end of the regiment’s social spectrum. Noncommissioned officers received better treatment from their superiors. For example, Cuthbertson recommended that these men not be disciplined in front of the rank and file and that they not be subjected to corporal punishment; they should be treated with the “utmost civility.” The reasons for such counsel are not hard to understand. Sergeants and corporals were selected for their literacy and ability to train and discipline awkward recruits and to accustom men to the rhythms of regimental life. They were also expected to keep the company books. More important, long-serving noncommissioned officers were the very heart of the regiment; they, more than their officers, held the ranks together and ensured mastery of close-order drill—which could mean survival on the battlefield. Seasoned, trustworthy sergeants and corporals were therefore important to their superiors; officers’ careers and reputations often rested on the skills and loyalty of these men. 5 Standing outside the uniformed ranks of the regiment were still other members of these military societies. Each regiment included a surgeon and at least one surgeon’s mate. Medical practitioners, often with medical degrees, these men owed their appointments not to the army but to their colonels and were paid by stoppages from each soldier’s pay. Their social standing within the regiment depended heavily upon the colonel’s patronage and acceptance by his military “family”; surgeons or mates who lacked standing among the officers could find themselves leading isolated, unhappy lives. Chaplains, like surgeons, were also appointed by regimental commanders, though many seem to have turned their duties over to deputies. 6 Beyond these layers of regimental society—officers, noncommissioned officers, private soldiers, and civilian staff—could be found a fluctuating group of dependents: the “underclass” of regimental society. Despite the efforts of officers like Cuthbertson to discourage the enlistment of married men or marriages by their soldiers, wives and children were a common feature of regimental life. Indeed, Cuthbertson acknowledged the inevitability

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of marriages by urging fellow officers to act as their soldiers’ “guardians” and conduct a “strict inquiry” into the “morals” of a soldier’s intended: only when an officer was convinced that a woman would not threaten the order or harmony of the regimental community should he give his permission to a marriage. Regiments might also include a number of servants in addition to the soldier-servants—“batmen”—routinely assigned to officers. In the colonies these servants could include slaves as well as hired men. 7 The army thus reflected the social structure of the larger British Atlantic world. This was equally true of its ethnic composition. The army in America was far less “English” or even “British” than it was a cosmopolitan force that filled its ranks with people from all corners of the British Atlantic and beyond. While the army normally discouraged the enlistment of Irish Catholic subjects (although regiments stationed in Ireland routinely found recruits among the local population), the pressing need for men during the Seven Years’ War meant that restrictions on Irish recruits were largely ignored. Many of these men were enlisted in Ulster, which had a large Protestant population, or from the area around Dublin, where the largest concentration of British troops could be found, and included Robert Potts from County Down, George Brewin from Roscommon, and Hugh O’Donnel from Donegal. So many Irish enlisted during the war that the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day became a normal ritual in British regiments—Irish soldiers were advanced a shilling in pay for their merrymaking while English soldiers took up their normal duties. 8 Scots, both Highlanders and Lowlanders, represented another substantial portion of the army’s manpower. The largest numbers could be found in Scottish regiments, of course, but like the Irish, Scots were widely distributed through the ranks. Many, like John McIntosh of Inverness or Alexander Gordon of Caithness, were bilingual, speaking both Broad Scots and Gaelic fluently. Others, including Neil McDonald from the northern Highlands, could speak only Gaelic. These men, along with an increasing number of Scottish-born officers, represented better than a quarter of British troops in the colonies. 9 Men from Britain’s Celtic fringe were joined by a variety of others, such as Christopher Kloss, one of many Germans who enlisted during or after the Seven Years’ War. Germans also found their way into the army by enlisting from the ranks of French regiments taken prisoner in America. French and Swiss soldiers also entered British service in the same way. Another

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large contingent was drawn from the colonies themselves. The regulars never enjoyed great success in their efforts to recruit colonists during the Seven Years’ War, especially after provincial regiments were formed that offered high enlistment bounties and much shorter terms of service. Yet even after 1763 the army continued to absorb a trickle of British Americans. These recruits came from throughout the colonies and included men like John Mull from Pennsylvania, Robert Howey from New Jersey, Samuel Horton from New England, and Daniel Kieff from the fishing settlement at Casco, Maine. Not all of these men were white; Henry Wedge, a black man recruited in Pennsylvania, was a member of Fort Niagara’s garrison. Unlike blacks enlisted as musicians or drummers, Wedge seems to have carried arms in the ranks of the Royal American Regiment. Finally, there were men like William Simpson of the 29th Foot, “born in the Regiment”— a further reminder that the army consisted not merely of fighting units but of a collection of small, complex regimental societies. 10 The officers who led such men were an equally mixed lot. The union of England and Scotland offered new opportunities for Scots who aspired to professional soldiering and who could now seek commissions in the British army instead of going abroad to France, Spain, or Holland. By midcentury one in four British officers was a Scot. Like Scots among the enlisted men, these officers could be found throughout the army, not just in traditionally Scottish regiments. Likewise, members of the Irish Protestant gentry also sought commissions; in one Nova Scotia garrison during the Seven Years’ War twenty out of thirty-four officers were “Hiberians” who enjoyed entertaining “all the gentlemen of this garrison” on St. Patrick’s Day. 11 English, Irish, and Scots served alongside numbers of foreign and provincial officers. With the rapid expansion of the army during the Seven Years’ War, the government offered commissions to German, Swiss, Dutch, and Huguenot professionals seeking active service. Men such as Henry Bouquet, Frederick Haldimand, and Dietrich Brehm were offered commissions— often without purchase—and staffed new regiments, in particular the Royal Americans, who recruited from the heavily German parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Some of these provincials likewise sought regular commissions. Thomas Hutchins served in Pennsylvania’s provincial forces before taking rank in the Royal Americans. One of his fellow officers was Ens. Robert Holmes, a former lieutenant in Rogers’s Rangers. Another Pennsylvanian, George Price, earned his commission after serving as a gentleman volunteer in the Royal Americans. Finally, a handful of officers had risen from the ranks. Typically these men had been long-serving sergeants whose

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soldierly conduct and reliability were rewarded by their colonels. Lt. John Potts stepped down from his additional post as adjutant in the Royal Americans in favor of Sgt. John Burent. George Butricke, another sergeant in the 60th Foot, transferred to the 18th Foot and took a vacant ensigncy in that regiment. 12 While men from many nationalities were acceptable to the army, officers were, at least in theory, particular about the physical qualities required of the recruits. Cuthbertson summarized the accepted standards when he recommended that no man over thirty years of age be enlisted; in his opinion, those between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five made the best foot soldiers. Enlistees should exhibit a soldierly carriage; men who were “In-kneed, or splay-footed” were to be rejected, while “fine Hair is . . . to be particularly desired, it being so great an ornament and addition to the appearance of a Soldier.” Recruiting officers went armed with similar specifications: they were to accept no one under five feet four inches unless the recruit was a growing boy, and all men were to be “broad shoulderd, well limb’d, and without . . . Ruptures, Scal’d heads or sore legs.” Finally, recruits were to be enlisted “without Restriction of Time”—that is, for life, whenever possible. 13 Most soldiers in the postwar army in America were in their midtwenties and seem to have met the minimum height requirement. There was, of course, considerable variation. Christopher Kloss, at seventeen, was among the youngest men, while Robert Plunket (sixty) and Archibald McLane (sixty-one) were two of the oldest. Age did not necessarily reflect length of service. Plunket and McLane were relatively old men when they enlisted at the ages of fifty-four and fifty-two. At age fifty-two John Balfour had already served twenty-three years in the line, while James Ashcroft was a seasoned campaigner at age twenty-six, having enlisted when he was sixteen. Though a youngster compared to Plunket, Ashcroft and the other longserving soldiers like Balfour were the men who held the ranks together. These military “gray heads”—the army’s equivalent of town elders—not only exhibited martial skills acquired through long practice and combat service in the colonies (and perhaps in Europe), they were also a store of advice and lore, keepers of regimental traditions and, if they were reliable, good examples to set before less-experienced recruits. Indeed, the army that faced the West after 1760 had a high percentage of veterans in its ranks, the average private having served eight years by the end of the Seven Years’ War. 14

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If recruits benefited from the experience of veterans, the army could always make use of the skills and trades that new men brought into the ranks. The eighteenth-century army was heavy in fighting men but contained few specialists outside of engineer officers and the Royal Artillery; teamsters, packhorse men, road builders—even drivers for the artillery train—were normally hired from the local civilian population. Skilled laborers—masons, carpenters, metalworkers, wheelwrights, and leather workers—were especially needed on the frontier, where building and hauling occupied much of the soldiers’ time and energy. Despite the constant need for skilled workmen, however, the army was never able to recruit men strictly on the basis of their civilian trades. The result was a body of enlisted men drawn from a wide range of occupations. While nearly half were laborers or men of no specific trade, perhaps onethird were from the building trades, the cloth industry, and leather crafts. Laborers, carpenters, weavers, and cordwainers served alongside the occasional butcher, gardener, printer, “carver & gilder,” wig maker, or jockey— or with men like Bombardier John Hudless of the Royal Artillery, who attempted to pass himself off as a fencing master. 15 Though redcoats represented a spectrum of occupations, collectively they came from either the least skilled levels of society or were men whose work was most vulnerable to fluctuations in the economy. Indeed, the backgrounds of soldiers offer a clue about why they enlisted: a steady income and regular meals in the army often proved more attractive than the depressed wages, underemployment, and severe working conditions faced by common laborers, marginal farmers, miners, or weavers. Ironically, army service may only have reinforced the distinctions between different types of laboring men, reproducing the class system that dominated the civilian workplace. Soldiers who performed extra labor for the government—building fortifications and roads or transporting supplies to other outposts—were entitled to additional wages based on a scale that rewarded men according to their skills. Thus masons, woodworkers, or shipwrights had the opportunity to earn more than men who had been ordinary sailors or laborers. Tailors and cobblers could always earn extra money from messmates in exchange for altering or mending clothes or shoes. 16 Cuthbertson urged officers to encourage literacy among their men, offering as a model the pioneering school established by the Royal Highland Regiment. He was particularly concerned that the regiments maintain a sufficient number of literate men of good character from which to draw

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noncommissioned officers. Nevertheless, literacy varied widely within the army’s enlisted ranks. Men who earned additional wages on the “king’s works” were paid according to lists that noted the number of days that each man worked; soldiers then signed or made their mark to indicate the accuracy of each account. The number of redcoats able to sign their names can serve as a crude indication of levels of literacy. Signatures on pay lists, of course, are not a certain guide; they say nothing about soldiers who did not engage in public works. Further, it is possible that men who could not write could nonetheless read: this was a time when literacy within British society as a whole may have been on the increase. Not surprisingly, all noncommissioned officers on these lists could sign their names, as could members of the Royal Artillery, a technical service that required a greater degree of learning from its men than did the rest of the army. Among the infantry, however, the ability to sign one’s name ranged from less than one in four to as many as half of those on the pay lists. Men with backgrounds in skilled trades were no more likely to be able to sign their names than men identified as husbandmen or laborers. Additional clues to common soldiers’ literacy can be found in references to private correspondence. In 1763, for example, officers trying to cope with a backlog of mail found 120 letters addressed to soldiers of the two Highland Regiments (the 42nd and 77th Foot) in addition to letters for those regiments’ officers. Provincial newspapers periodically ran notices of mail being held at local post offices. This included letters for common soldiers, such as James Galbraith of the Royal American Regiment and Barney Hacking of the Royal Artillery. Although evidence about soldiers’ level of literacy is scant, one thing is certain. Literacy reinforced the complex social order that existed within regimental societies. Common soldiers who could read, keep simple accounts, and write a fair hand were far more likely to advance to the rank of corporal, sergeant, or sergeant major. It was even conceivable that literacy could carry an ambitious recruit all the way to the commissioned ranks, to membership in his colonel’s “household” and the status of gentleman. 17 Though better educated than their men, commissioned officers (except the artillery and engineers) were not expected to be of an academic turn of mind, nor did they necessarily have much formal schooling. Many had taken commissions in their late teens or early twenties and had spent the bulk of their service time learning their military trades and developing the “connections” necessary for advancement. Only the Board of Ordnance— not a part of the army—provided formal training for its gunner and engineer

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officers. Those serving in the line, like Ens. Jeremy Lister, were expected to learn the rudiments of drill and tactics, as well as the complexities of regimental finance and record keeping, through practical experience, the examples set by long-serving superiors, or through whatever instruction they could secure. 18 By midcentury a class of career officers was emerging within the army: men who had spent years in the service, steadily advancing in rank and typically ending their careers as captains, majors, lieutenant —colonels, or adjutants. The half-pay system, whereby the government was able to retain a cadre of officers available to command an enlarged wartime army, meant that there remained a pool of experienced men from which company-level officers could be drawn. Ens. James Gorrell and Capt. Beamsley Glazier of the Royal Americans are two examples. Both had served as regular officers in King George’s War (1744–48), then accepted half pay when their regiments were subsequently disbanded. Each entered provincial service at the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War—Gorrell in Maryland, Glazier in New York—before moving once again into the regular army. 19 The careers of men like Gorrell and Glazier are also a reminder that lower-ranking officers were not necessarily young men. Glazier was in his midfifties when, still a captain, he held command at Fort Niagara. His case was not unusual. Officers requesting permission to leave the service often included testimonials of long and active service. Capt. Archibald Hamilton of the 31st Foot applied for half pay in 1768, reminding his superiors that he had served for twenty-one years. Indeed, by the late 1760s all ranks in the army were growing older in America as wartime enlistments were replaced by lifelong service and as officers held on to commissions for as long as possible, without many prospects for advancement. Thus in 1767 Gen. Sir Thomas Gage complained that the officers of the 21st Foot at Pensacola were “old Officers,” with at least one man a wounded veteran of King George’s War. For newly commissioned officers like Lister, this meant sharing duty with thirty- and forty-year-old subalterns and captains, many with ten or more years of active service. The child-officer was more myth than reality in this army, and the occasional youngster armed with a commission was usually sent packing. This was the case with Ensign Bowden, “so Young and little” that his commander was “ashamed to forward him to the [46th] Regiment” and instead “asked Leave to put him in School.” 20 A soldier’s appearance was of fundamental importance to his officers. Cuthbertson gave special attention to the standards he believed every man should

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attain. A soldier’s headgear—either a felt tricorner hat or, for grenadiers, an embroidered cloth miter (changed to a fur-trimmed version in 1768)— should be “well cocked, brush and worn,” since it was the “principal ornament” of what was supposed to be an imposing martial figure. The hat was to sit atop a head of hair that was properly combed and powdered when on parade. A soldier was to appear in a clean, well-maintained uniform, down to shoes “well blackned and buckled straight,” with metalwork brightened, leather belts clean and freshly pipe-clayed. Soldierly bearing was to be enforced outside the barrack square as well. Cuthbertson insisted that enlisted men never leave their quarters without swords or bayonets— even when otherwise unarmed—“nothing being more unsoldierlike than seeing” redcoats without their side arms. 21 Each soldier received yearly a coat, waistcoat, breeches, shoes, stockings, a hat, and linen shirts. These, like his musket and side arms, he paid for through deductions—stoppages—from his wages. Through the late 1760s his clothing conformed to a style largely unchanged since the beginning of the century: the coat was cut “full-bodied” in the lower torso and skirts, with wide lapels and rolled cuffs of a color meant to distinguish regiments one from another; the waistcoat was sleeved and reached to midthigh over breeches generously cut in the upper legs and seat. In 1768 a new set of clothing regulations went into effect. The infantryman’s coat was replaced by a tight-fitting, less functional version modeled on Prussian uniforms. Red breeches and waistcoats were now to be white. Because of the time and distances involved, regiments in America took longer to adopt the changes, and redcoats in the West could be found wearing a combination of new and old styles as old stocks of clothing were used up even after the new issues arrived. 22 Though giving the overall appearance of uniformity, the soldier’s clothing in fact bore distinctions that set his regiment and his comrades apart from other redcoats and in small ways helped reinforce a sense of identity and belonging to the regimental society of which he was a member more so than to the army as a whole. To the practiced eye, the army appeared as a collection of regiments distinguished by dress, age, and honors, distinctions that tended to reinforce localism within the army as surely as dialects, local histories, or economies enforced similar localism within Britain and its colonies. 23 What all of this meant for the common soldier, of course, was considerable time spent in stitching, polishing, and mending clothing and gear all designed to dress him to suit his sovereign’s—and his officers’—sense of

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proper military style and appearance. In reality, though, the ideal levels of uniformity were seldom attained, at least for long periods of time; soldiers drafted from one regiment into another would continue to wear their old uniforms until the next issue, while recruits might spend days or weeks in civilian dress as they awaited their uniforms from regimental agents. Moreover, the clothing itself conspired against the neat, crisp figures that stare at us from period portraits. Despite the best efforts of regimental tailors, uniforms were often ill fitting. Poorly manufactured cloth shrank, while nonfast dyes ran in wet weather. Rain or snow could quickly turn a well-cocked hat into a saturated, misshapen mess. Sweat, dirt, or the soot from barrack-room fires stained clothing, as did the “black ball” wax used for polishing shoes and black leggings. Sunlight quickly faded red coats that also showed signs of mending and patching despite officers’ best efforts to prevent their men from doing menial chores in full uniform. The adoption of Prussian-style details only added to the difficulties of maintaining proper appearance. The pipe clay used to whiten leather belts also ran in wet weather, covering uniforms with grayish white streaks. And the lard used when powdering the hair added more stains—and odors. After only a few weeks of normal activity, British soldiers took on a worn, faded aspect, a caricature of martial splendor. 24 In America uniformity often seemed the exception rather than the rule, especially on the frontiers, where regiments faced shortages of nearly everything from clothing to medicines. Clothing and equipment in the West wore out much faster than quartermasters and regimental agents anticipated. In Britain each soldier received two pairs of shoes a year; in parts of America a soldier’s shoes wore out every two or three months due to heat, humidity, ice and snow—and the near absence of anything that approximated a road as Europeans understood the term. Replacement footwear and clothing often arrived wet and rotting from poor handling during the long journey from Britain to distant outposts. 25 Redcoats often had “Scarce Shirt, Shoe, or Stockings” or had “but the neck and wristbands of their Shirts.” They were often forced to buy clothing from local traders since their own uniforms were “worn to rags.” War-raised units, like Capt. Joseph Hopkins’s Queen’s American Rangers, frequently suffered clothing shortages. Hopkins’s company was organized so quickly from volunteers and drafts that he had no time to make contracts with suppliers; his men continued to sport a motley assortment of old uniforms until they were finally disbanded in 1763. 26 Military dress reflected conditions on the frontier in other ways as well.

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Regulars adapted elements of native dress, using blue or green cloth leggings, often tied with red garters, patterned after native mitasses, while some redcoats took to wearing more comfortable and durable moccasins in place of shoes. Cold weather found Highlanders fashioning “under jackets” as well as leggings from blankets, while fur caps, mittens, and Canadian-style blanket-coats protected sentries from the biting cold of a Great Lakes winter. On the humid Gulf Coast, by contrast, soldiers wore their linen “small clothes” and put heavy wool regimental coats aside. Chronic manpower shortages were frequently met by drafting: taking men out of homebound regiments to fill up those arrived in the colonies. This, too, added to the patchwork appearance of redcoats, as men within the same garrison and regiment sported a variety of uniforms. 27 An army in the field would quickly attract hundreds, even thousands, of followers: tradesmen, laundresses, sutlers, drovers, wagoners, prostitutes, and the simply curious. In static garrisons like those in the American West, however, most of these folks would be absent: either not needed or simply not to be found. The notable exceptions were women and children; truly military dependents, these wives, sons, and daughters of common soldiers could be found nearly everywhere the redcoats served, adding an important—and frequently overlooked—dimension to army life. Women and children had been part of European armies for generations and guaranteed that a large measure of civilian domestic life followed men into the ranks. Sometimes valued for their labor, which ranged from mending clothing to tending the sick and injured, women and children were more often seen as a drain on the regiment’s resources. Male children might someday enter the ranks as musicians, drummers, or fighting men; but boys and girls were also a burden: needing food, getting underfoot, susceptible to the crowd diseases that flourished in military settlements. Nevertheless, they and their mothers continued to march with husbands and fathers and could account for as many as one-quarter or one-third of the regiment’s total numbers. 28 By the mid-eighteenth century women and children had become a permanent part of regimental society and were as subject to regulation as the soldiers themselves. Regiments serving abroad were permitted to take up to six women per company provided they agreed to work for their keep. Presumably any wives beyond this number were expected to remain at home and support themselves and children as best they could. Despite orders to the contrary, during the Seven Years’ War dependents, especially women,

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belonging to regiments in America followed the army into the field and faced the same risks as the soldiers. Women experienced the nightmare of Braddock’s defeat near Fort Duquesne in 1755 and four years later served in the numbing cold of the Canadian winter with Wolfe’s victorious army at Quebec. Their numbers could be substantial. Along with some 6,300 soldiers at Quebec in February 1760 were at least 569 women—8 percent of the total force—and an unknown number of children. Thomas Barton, an Anglican minister serving with General Forbes’s army in the Ohio Country, baptized soldiers’ children as the army made its way across the Allegheny Mountains toward Fort Duquesne in the summer of 1758. 29 Women and children were also a part of the new military garrisons in the West at the end of the war. Determining precisely how many dependents were at various posts is difficult since the army rarely enumerated them and only counted those women who were authorized to go with the troops (and thus receive rations). The figures we do have, however, indicate that frontier garrisons often had a decidedly domestic character. There were at least 7 women drawing rations at Detroit in the spring of 1763 in a garrison of 176 men. The detachment of Maj. David Hay’s company of the Royal Artillery that embarked for Britain a decade later included 23 men, 19 women, and 15 children. Dependents could be found at even the smallest outposts; one redcoat at Fort Venango, Private Rocherey, managed to support his wife and 2 children at a post that numbered fewer than three dozen men in 1762. A list of women and children belonging to the 31st Foot at Pensacola in 1768 is particularly revealing. There were 80 women, all enlisted men’s wives and listed as “Mrs.,” and 68 children in a regiment that contained only 341 officers and men. The largest family included 4 children; five others had 3 children each. The 31st’s barrack rooms would have been alive with family life and the activities of small children—noisy games, the clatter of overturned crockery or furniture, the simple toys left between the bunks. Such an impression is borne out elsewhere. A census of Pittsburgh taken in 1761 reveals clusters of soldiers, most from the Royal Americans, living with their wives and children in four of the “neighborhoods” identified in the town. There were twenty-two families in all, and nine of them included children—a total of 55 people. 30 Families of common soldiers always led a precarious existence. Within regimental society they were identified as the “useful poor” who, in the words of one army surgeon, “ought to be considered in this society as other poor are in other societies.” Like the poor in the civilian world, the army’s dependents lived under a paternalistic regime that identified officers as

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guardians over both soldiers and their families. What these officers and their families took for granted—food, shelter, and security—were redefined as “indulgences” for dependents of the rank and file, to be enjoyed only insofar as their behavior and moral character seemed to justify. Although their status as the “useful poor” meant that they “should be assisted” and their labor “promoted” for the good of the service, common soldiers’ families were particularly vulnerable to periodic shortages of food or shelter and always faced the ambivalent attitudes of their superiors. 31 During the Seven Years’ War, regiments were allowed to provide rations for those women carried “on the strength,” that is, authorized to follow the troops into the field. Yet these wives were only entitled to half a normal enlisted man’s ration per day, and no particular arrangements at all seem to have been made for children. By 1763, however, women were being stricken from the ration lists as the army tried to reduce costs at the end of the war; even though soldiers’ families continued, out of necessity, to follow their regiments, they were less likely to receive any support. Still, regimental officers, as “parents” and responsible social superiors, were sometimes reluctant to comply with the new regulations, which placed women and


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children in jeopardy and added to the morale problems among their men. Maj. Robert Farmar of the 34th Foot, for example, explained why “I am under the necessity of Victualling the Women of the Regiment the same as the Men,” pointing out that otherwise “it would be impossible for them to subsist at Fort Chartres. 32 The differences in the lives of the wives and children of officers reflect the prevailing class system. Enjoying the privileges that came with membership in the commissioned “family,” they traveled on horseback or in wagons rather than on foot and enjoyed attention and comforts that soldiers’ families never knew. Officers’ widows, for example, could anticipate some measure of financial relief in the form of payments from regimental funds and the sale of a spouse’s personal effects; the rank and file, on the other hand, were largely left to fend for themselves. 33 When Ens. Angus McDonald of the Royal Americans at Fort Ontario asked leave to take his ailing wife to New Jersey, the request was, albeit reluctantly, granted; a similar request by a common soldier would have been unthinkable. Officers’ families also received courtesies and company that helped them make do in frontier outposts. Missionary David McClure gave a young wildcat to the wife of Fort Pitt’s commander, Capt. George Edmonstone, while Isabella Graham, wife of Royal American surgeon John Graham, enjoyed the society of other officers. With the services of two young Indian girls purchased by her husband in Canada to help with their two young daughters, Graham presided over “frugal suppers” and tea parties. 34 At the mercy of army authorities for their subsistence, common soldiers’ wives and children faced challenges and inconveniences. Soldiers’ families, unlike those of the officers, were expected to work for their keep; indeed, women who refused assigned duties could be dropped from the ration list or driven out of camp or garrison. Predictably, like the civilian poor, regimental women and older children often found themselves facing the most onerous—and sometimes dangerous—tasks within the regimental society. Tending gardens, collecting fodder, mending clothing, or preparing meals for their own menfolk or the officers were all chores expected of women within the domestic household. Serving as nurses in hospitals was something that women were anxious to avoid, correctly fearing the infections that commonly flourished in the unsanitary rooms or tents. Indeed, so unwilling were women to serve in hospitals that the army reserved the severest summary punishment for those who refused or made complaint. 35 Women were sometimes paid for the work they did; several earned

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money at Fort Bedford in 1759 by weighing and mending flour bags. Still others earned wages by cooking or cleaning for officers. These opportunities helped to supplement soldiers’ meager wages and to provide food and clothing for children. Soldiers’ wives also supported themselves and their families by becoming petty entrepreneurs. Indeed, regimental women seem to have developed their own economic networks—sometimes within, at other times outside of the army’s formally sanctioned system of exchange. Women occasionally served as sutlers for their regiments. As traders and workers they also extended credit to enlisted men and noncommissioned officers. At Fort Pitt, for example, the lively trade in liquor appears to have been largely in the hands of soldiers’ wives and other women. 36 Wives who spent long hours looking after husbands, children, and the chores of garrison life enjoyed little domestic privacy. Those fortunate enough to be living in garrison towns or at forts with local civilian pop-

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ulations might hope to be considered “sober” and “industrious” enough to be “indulged” with the privilege of living with their families outside the garrison. For most, however, domestic space meant sharing a single bunk with husband and children in a corner of a barrack room, perhaps shielded from neighbors by a blanket or piece of canvas. 37 Equally marginalized within regimental society were soldiers’ children. Often too young to perform useful chores, they must have been seen as so many extra mouths to feed: noisy, underfoot, and a constant trial to the patience of officers and common soldiers alike. By the 1760s their condition began to attract the attention of a few officers who, like Bennett Cuthbertson, accepted the army’s responsibility for its own offspring. Cuthbertson urged commanders to create grammar schools, led by a competent sergeant, as an advantage not only to common soldiers “but also the children of the Regiment” who could otherwise never hope to master the rudiments of pen and printed page. Yet even here Cuthbertson never lost sight of the practical value of a regiment’s “children”—its underclass of useful poor. Reminding his readers that a “handsome set of Drummers” was an “ornament” of any good regiment, he pointed out that a “sufficient supply” could be found among “the Soldiers’ Children.” Such “ingenious Lads,” Cuthbertson argued, “from being bred in the Regiment from their infancy, have a natural affection and attachment” to the army. Indeed, he envisioned the regiment as a “little nursery” in which the army could grow its own noncommissioned officers and steady, loyal common soldiers. Yet like their mothers, the children of the regiment led largely unrecorded lives, taken notice of only when they misbehaved—or died. 38 Despite the profound insecurities that came with their marginal position within regimental society, common soldiers’ families persisted and insisted on following husbands and fathers wherever they went, as many commanders, including the 10th Foot’s Lt. Col. Francis Smith, discovered. Arranging for his regiment’s movement to the Great Lakes, Smith found it “not easy to persuade the Women and Children to stay behind” in Quebec. Ultimately, in fact, their refusal to stay forced Smith to collect extra transport to carry them to Fort Niagara, Detroit, and Michilimackinac. Women who spent much of their married lives eking out a living behind a marching regiment necessarily developed a toughness of mind and independence—as well as pride—that enabled them to stand up to men who, like Smith, were more inclined to see them as a burden or nuisance. Such was the case of four unnamed women belonging to the Royal American Regiment who found themselves left behind at Fort Venango when their companies marched to

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Fort Niagara in 1760. Not willing to remain stranded, their insistence led Venango’s commander to give them horses from his garrison so they might catch up with the departed troops. 39 Another soldier’s wife, Susannah Robertson, took it upon herself to petition the army’s commander, Sir Jeffery Amherst. A self-described “high German born in Hanover,” she was married to a soldier-baker in the 55th Foot. Her husband, Joseph, a “weakly man,” had been denied a medical discharge and was now ordered to return to Ireland with his regiment. Calculating that their opportunities would be greater in the colony of New York and with a husband unable to support his family, Susannah asked Amherst for a “small piece of Ground for a Garden” so that she and her family could remain in America. She planned to support herself by continuing to bake for the garrisons on Lake Champlain and Lake George. Amherst’s reply to her request is not known. 40 Martha May, whose husband was in the Royal American Regiment, also found herself petitioning her superiors—but on grounds much different from Robertson’s. May wrote from the Carlisle, Pennsylvania, jail, charged with verbally abusing Col. Henry Bouquet after he had ordered her husband’s arrest. Now humbled, at least for the moment, Martha May begged Bouquet’s pardon, explaining her actions as growing from “the Love I had for my Poor Husband.” In asking for her release, May reminded the colonel that she had been “a Wife 22 Years and have Travel’d with my Husband every Place or Country the Company Marcht too and have workt very hard ever since I was in the Army.” She now asked only that “I may go with my Poor Husband one more time to carry him and my good Officers water in ye Hottest Battle as I have done before.” The pugnaciousness that first got her into trouble and the pride she took in her own long military service must have been shared by scores of women “in the Army”: seasoned campaigners who, with their children, could be found virtually everywhere in the West. 41 A visitor to any of the garrisons that defined Britain’s western frontier in America encountered small communities, fragments of larger regimental societies. Composed of men, women, and children from all levels of Britain and its colonies, these garrison communities shared much in common with the larger world from which they were drawn. Power, order, and deference were perhaps most visible, reflected in clothing, quarters, and a rigid hierarchy of rank. Yet the ethnic and racial diversity found in these imperial outposts, as well as the presence of women and children, revealed social complexity amid what was on the surface a relatively simple military for-

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mation. And with its gender division of labor, the need to accommodate and educate young children, and the tensions inherent between superiors and inferiors, a military garrison came to resemble the small civilian communities that defined the British Atlantic world. The resemblance went even further, with redcoats and their families participating, if only in small ways, in the consumer culture that was emerging within the British Atlantic world.

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«4» The Material Lives of Frontier Soldiers

On September 20, 1758, the part of Gen. John Forbes’s army encamped at Loyal Hannon—later Fort Ligonier—took part in a ritual common in eighteenth-century armies. Less than a week earlier, on September 14, a detached force of some eight hundred men led by Maj. James Grant of the 77th Highland Regiment had come to grief outside Fort Duquesne. Attacked at dawn by the French garrison and its native allies, Grant’s force had been overwhelmed, its survivors streaming back to the Loyal Hannon camp. Now an auction was to be held to dispose of the personal belongings of officers and men listed as dead or missing in the battle. Among the property of three officers of Lt. Col. Henry Bouquet’s Royal American Regiment were three “Port Mantles,” boots, several pairs of stockings and “Breeches,” shirts, handkerchiefs, gilt spurs, overcoats, and regimental clothing. The thirty-three noncommissioned officers and private soldiers who died left behind little more than their knapsacks, “coaths,” “4 pair of Breeches,” and 2 “old West coaths [waistcoats].” 1 The contrast could not have been more striking: officers taking the field with trunks filled with personal belongings; soldiers carrying their few possessions on their backs. It is a picture that conforms well to the modern popular picture of early modern armies, especially the wide social and economic gulf that existed between officers and common soldiers: the haves and the have-nots. That officers burdened themselves—and their soldierservants—with clothing, food, furniture, and the other trappings of genteel living cannot be denied. When Lt. Emanuel Hesse died in late February 1759, he left behind effects ranging from dozens of pairs of stockings, shirts, nightshirts, and other clothes to a “Spanish grammar,” “German Bibles,” and a “Smale germain flute.” Eighteen-year-old Ens. Jeremy Lister prepared for service in America by collecting a small mountain of goods. To his 30 pairs of silk stockings (nearly enough to supply Lister’s entire company of the 10th Foot), curling iron, nightcaps, watch, and spurs, he added a “Camp Bedstead and Bedding,” a musket, sword and powder horn, handkerchiefs, hair ribbons, soap, and other “odd things,” as well as trunks to hold it all



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material lives of frontier soldiers

during his voyage, first to Quebec, then the long trek up-country to his new home at Fort Erie. 2 In contrast to this material abundance, common soldiers were provided only with necessary items of clothing and equipment, which they paid for from wage stoppages. To their basic uniform clothing, soldiers were expected to add soap, razors, and other articles of grooming. In the colonies, the amount of clothing and equipment could vary from region to region; on the gulf, for example, officers recommended up to 6 shirts and 5 pairs of shoes per man per year, while up north in Canada, redcoats had to equip themselves with mittens and heavy outer coats as protection against the winter cold. Beyond this clothing and camp equipment that included tin or pewter plates, knives, spoons, and kettles, common soldiers were not expected to accumulate personal belongings. Yet another measure of the material distance between officers and soldiers are estimates of baggage taken into the field. Plans for the campaign of 1757 included calculations of the amount of baggage allowed to each regiment. Colonels could take a ton of “heavy baggage”—tents, plate, tables, and trunks—and another 1,000 pounds of “light baggage.” Captains could take nearly 1,000 pounds of personal gear, while subalterns were limited to 200 pounds. Common redcoats were assumed to have little beyond what they carried on their persons; orders made it clear that they were not allowed to stow personal baggage on regimental wagons without permission. 3 This contrast between the material lives of officers and enlisted men, reflected in the regulations, extended to garrison life as well. Members of the regimental “family” lived not only in more spacious quarters but in better furnished ones whenever possible; officers and their dependents enjoyed proper beds and could ship in other furniture: tables, chests, and chairs. Wives like Isabella Graham entertained with tea sets and obtained the latest fashions and dry goods from Britain. Common soldiers lived communally in barrack rooms furnished by the government. Such rooms contained what authorities felt to be the “Necessaries” of garrison life: rough wooden bed frames for every two men, who slept on a bed stuffed with straw and covered with rough linen sheets and woolen blankets. A table, form (bench), one candle per fireplace, and bowls and spoons for each six-man mess completed each room. What little in the way of visual depictions of barrack and camp life exists also underscores common soldiers’ Spartan living conditions. 4 The evidence, then, seems to emphasize the material differences between leaders and followers. Yet in reality the material distance between officers and soldiers, like the quality of living space, diet, and health, often

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diminished in the face of frontier conditions—which had captains and subalterns sleeping in drafty or damp quarters like their men or subsisting on a diet little different from that served in the barracks. Moreover, even some official records suggest that the common redcoat’s material life may have been richer than we might think. A small hint of what is missing comes from a court of inquiry investigating an assault by a sergeant on his officer at Fort Michilimackinac. Before he came to blows with Lieutenant Hamilton, Sergeant Dagg of the 10th Foot was seen sitting against the outside of the fort’s barracks “hemming some Stamped Linnen, or Cotton.” That printed cloth—most likely a shirt—suggests that common soldiers found ways to flesh out their material lives in ways that challenge the conventional picture of redcoats existing at the level of bare subsistence, limited to the “necessities” provided by the government. 5 Common British soldiers grew up in a civilian world undergoing what has been termed a “consumer revolution.” During the course of the eighteenth century more and more people in Britain and its colonies were able to enjoy the experience of owning consumer goods once limited to the upper classes. This consumerism was fueled in part by a desire to emulate those elites:

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forks, mirrors, and individual table settings began to appear in middling households along with the means to make and serve new beverages like tea, chocolate, and coffee. The result was not merely a richer material existence for more people but new habits and modes of behavior as new consumers learned the performances associated with such things as tea services. In the process, class lines, never rigid in Britain and the colonies, became even less well-defined as goods that once signified high status and power now came within reach of non-elites. Indeed, though they would not have viewed their lives in such terms, redcoats were in the American West in order to guarantee the continuance of a trans-Atlantic “empire of goods” that stretched from the native towns beyond Fort Michilimackinac to the counting houses of London and Glasgow. 6 Common soldiers came mostly from the lowest levels of this new consumer society. Formerly weavers, tailors, mariners, and laborers, redcoats continued to earn low wages and enjoyed limited access to the market. A private’s annual wage of Ł12 3s. 4d., left him just 6d. a day after stoppages. Although soldiers in the West frequently had opportunities to earn additional wages building fortifications or hauling supplies, their incomes still placed them squarely among the lower classes, well below the “stout midriff” of British society: shopkeepers, yeoman farmers, and professionals with annual incomes of over Ł40. Indeed, by colonial standards British soldiers ranked below mariners and even laborers in the amount of money they earned. Yet as civilians these members of the “lower sort” could still enjoy some measure of consumer comforts. They, too, spent more on bedding in the course of the century, though much less on other consumer goods like imported ceramics. Moreover, some goods, like Sergeant Dagg’s shirt, became less expensive over time. Studies based on inventories for earlyeighteenth-century Britain suggest that cordwainers, tailors, and mariners had the means to obtain tables, cookware, and at least limited amounts of ceramics. Common soldiers, then, despite their origins among the least skilled and prosperous subjects, entered the army from a civilian world where more and more working people expected to have more than the bare necessities. 7 Evidence from frontier garrisons indicates that (if only on a small scale) redcoats were able to maintain a place in Britain’s “empire of goods” that may have helped make military and American service more tolerable. It is also clear that soldiers’ access to the market was as much a function of locale

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as of purchasing power. Those garrisons along well-traveled routes through the West were much more likely to acquire consumer goods from traders and local merchants—at Pittsburgh, for example—than troops assigned to isolated outposts only occasionally visited by traders. 8 The accounts of the stores operated by the firm of Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan at Fort Pitt and (after 1765) at Fort Chartres, as well as material remains from Pensacola, offer some insight into what goods were available for soldiers as well as what enlisted men bought. The storekeeper at Fort Pitt stocked an impressive array of goods; his inventory included a set of “Chinese Cups & Saucers,” ceramic bowls—perhaps punch bowls—glasses, knives, forks, teaspoons, and an assortment of cloth, from Irish and Russia linen sheets to silk and linen handkerchiefs, calico shirts, and cotton caps. Some of these items, especially cloth, were frequently purchased by soldiers at the fort. Cpl. Giles Powers of the Royal Highland Regiment bought at least one silk handkerchief, while other men from his regiment, like Patrick Green and Joseph Dobson, purchased sheets. Still other redcoats acquired inexpensive “pinchback” (pinchbeck) buckles, shoes, checked linen and worsted breeches, and clothing patterns. What is notable in the transactions at Fort Pitt is that the majority of buyers were, like Corporal Powers, noncommissioned officers; eleven of eighteen customers were either sergeants or corporals. In all cases the purchases were small: a single piece of cloth, one knife, or a piece of thread. Yet common soldiers, if not buying as much, were clearly buying the same sorts of materials as their officers and local civilians, who also purchased everything from printed cloth to coffee to silver teaspoons. This is especially the case with purchases of drink; redcoats of all ranks stocked up on everything from West Indian rum to spirits to Bohea tea. 9 Soldiers of the 18th and 34th Regiments at Fort Chartres made similar purchases. Besides linen and thread, redcoats bought handkerchiefs, cloth, and claret. Cpl. George Eddy of the 18th bought a “fine” pair of shoes on one occasion; later, having been promoted to sergeant, he also purchased a tin teapot. Corporal Harbieson bought a piece of red flannel and a pattern for breeches. An unnamed soldier apparently did some trading of his own; a local “washer woman” bought rum, sugar, and chocolate in order to trade with the man for a piece of calico. Again, noncommissioned officers dominated the transactions. Both here and at Fort Pitt, they may have been buying for their fellow soldiers as well as themselves, in much the same way

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that officers made bulk purchases of shoes or blankets for their companies. In December 1768, for example, four sergeants and the regimental drum major all settled accounts, perhaps after having received a portion of their and their soldiers’ yearly pay; the following May, several more sergeants also settled their bills with the store. Remains from the site of British Pensacola indicate that soldiers there, too, collected an array of glassware and ceramics. While much of the tableware consisted of earthenware, the site also yielded pieces of finer creamware, pearlware, and porcelain. 10 What emerges here is a picture of enlisted men making small purchases— usually of dry goods—and, perhaps, buying on credit extended by the stores through their noncommissioned officers. The evidence from several sites occupied by the army also hints at the complex material lives of common soldiers: Sergeant Eddy’s tin teapot may have been more the rule than the exception. Soldiers in garrison even for relatively brief periods of time were capable of accumulating a range of material goods. Excavations of living quarters associated with British troops at Fort Edward, New York, during the Seven Years’ War revealed a variety of ceramics, from crude earthenware to porcelain. Moreover, much of the porcelain—fragments of cups, tea bowls, and plates—came from enlisted barrack areas. Similar collections of ceramics surface from frontier garrisons as well. The site of Fort Ligonier was strewn with delftware, porcelain, stoneware, and other types of ceramics in the form of cups, saucers, bowls, and at least one chamber pot, apparently discarded in the ditch of an abandoned battery. 11 Located on the busy Forbes’s Road, Fort Ligonier’s garrisons might be expected to have access to a wide range of goods, as would their comrades to the west at Fort Pitt. Nevertheless, the same picture emerges from sites in the Great Lakes region. Fort Niagara’s garrison also made use of the same varieties of ceramics, especially the creamware that had been gaining in popularity since the middle of the century. These and other materials were carried over the Niagara portage as well, where at the site of the “lower landing” at the Lewiston escarpment, quantities of stoneware, porcelain, creamware, and earthenware have also been recovered. Ceramics found their way much farther west, where their remains have been recovered from house sites at Fort Michilimackinac occupied by soldiers in the late 1760s and 1770s. Ceramics were not the only goods available throughout the West. In addition to cups, saucers, plates, and teapots, garrison sites have yielded forks, colanders, grills, and a tea strainer. These artifacts broaden the picture of redcoats’ material lives, suggesting that in addition to cloth,

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buttons, and needles, common soldiers also had ready access to the sorts of tableware that were helping to redefine tastes and habits throughout the British world. 12 Can artifacts like these be placed squarely in the hands of common soldiers on the frontier? Some of these goods were certainly used by officers, traders, merchants, or other civilians. Much of the finer ceramics recovered at Fort Ligonier, for example, as well as window glass, come from what has been identified as an officers’ mess; likewise, a wide range of fine ceramics, especially creamware and porcelain, was recovered from the area behind the fortified house that was the original Fort Niagara and that was used by the British as an officers’ quarters. Yet collections of delftware and stoneware were also recovered at the site of the enlisted soldiers’ barracks at Fort Michilimackinac, while items of tableware and personal belongings such as

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a toothbrush were found throughout the site of Fort Ligonier. Undecorated creamware, stoneware, delft, and faience—the latter perhaps inherited from the fort’s French occupants—were recovered near a guardroom at Fort Niagara. Equally suggestive are items recovered from Fort Crown Point in the Champlain valley of New York. In trash deposits and barrack-room waste were fragments of tea services as well as other ceramics and pieces of chamber pots. The heavy traffic through and within these garrisons, the arrival and departure of garrisons and reliefs, as well as the methods by which these materials were recovered does not permit any closer association of goods to people. Nevertheless, the widespread presence of a range of consumer goods, particularly those associated with diet, makes it likely that common soldiers had access to and used such items, whether through trade, purchase or, perhaps, simply by taking up what others had left behind. 13 Soldiers, then, may have taken into military service tastes and desires that had already been shaped by changes in their civilian experiences. Their buying habits echoed those of working people in Britain and the colonies, with the emphasis on clothing and food-related goods. There were, of course, limits to how much redcoats could indulge their desire for more and different goods. Soldiers, like the lower classes from which they were drawn, faced restrictions on how much they could buy. As part of a mobile society, they were also limited in the sorts of goods they could accumulate: eating utensils or new types of cloth, perhaps, but not the array of furniture, bedding, pictures, and decorative items that began to appear among wealthier and more sedentary folks. Indeed, the goods that redcoats did acquire may not have followed them from place to place; teacups or plates may have been passed on, sold, or traded to incoming garrisons. 14 What, if anything, did soldier consumerism mean for these men, their families, and their superiors? Were redcoats, like growing numbers of civilians, engaged in a “refashioning”: a redefinition of “selfhood?” Did the presence of a teapot or forks on a barrack-room table allow soldiers’ wives to feel a sense of “refinement” akin to that of their social betters? Answers are hard to determine; common soldiers left little beyond transactions to account for their material lives or the behavior associated with the things they bought. It would not be too difficult, however, to imagine Jane Ross at Fort Crown Point or other soldiers’ wives on the frontier taking out teapots and cups, a little Bohea tea, and sugar and talking with comrades or visitors in the barracks. In light of the artifacts, it would take little imagination to see the wooden tables of those barrack rooms holding a variety of ceramics that allowed enlisted men and their families to eat foods on something

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other than a pewter plate or out of a common kettle, taking their meat and vegetables with forks as well as the time-honored spoons. And it would be appropriate to picture women and children, as well as men, dressed in a variety of cloth and colors, their shirts or shifts decorated with a piece of lace or ribbon. 15 It would also not be difficult to conceive of officers and their families being anxious about the appearance of the people and the goings-on inside the barracks. Consumer goods may not have revolutionized soldiers’ lives; given the constraints on their time and circumstances, they could not have routinely indulged in the performances associated with such things as tea sets or porcelain plates. Yet by owning and using such goods they, like middling and lower-class folks throughout the empire, were contributing to the blurring of social lines and the confusion about class and caste that came with consumer goods. This may help explain the comment made by a self-conscious surgeon’s wife at Fort Niagara in the early 1770s. Writing to her parents about life on the frontier, Isabella Graham told them that “we have a regular tea-table”—probably set by her Indian slave girls—since, she insisted, “I am the only wife in the place.” She was not. But she may have been reflecting an insistence on keeping up appearances in the face of other wives who, while not her social equals, were nonetheless able to socialize using the same collection of goods—and in that small way, close the distance between ranks and class. 16 Their ability to acquire a range of material goods placed redcoats squarely within the burgeoning consumer culture of the British Empire. But consumer goods cost money. Soldiers, like farmers, tradesmen, and apprentices in the civilian world, had to find the money for their dishes, forks, and fancy cloth as well as for basic necessities. The search for cash or credit ended, as it did for most of the civilian world, in hard physical labor.

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At the end of May 1762, Maj. William Walters of the Royal American Regiment sat down to prepare his monthly report on the garrison at Fort Niagara. Though the report was a matter of administrative routine, the major’s circumstances, and those of his troops, were anything but ordinary. Almost since the day in July 1760 he had arrived at the fort with four companies of his regiment, Walters and his redcoats had had to confront the unfamiliar and complicated work associated with maintaining an important military post while operating the crucial Niagara portage in order to keep troops farther west supplied with food, clothing, and munitions. The demands of those western garrisons had steadily depleted Walters’s own force: he commanded a mere 237 officers and men—little more than half the number he had taken to Niagara—along with another dozen men of the Royal Artillery. The cold winter and overwork had once again diminished his stock of draft animals. His soldiers would now be forced to carry barrels of supplies up the steep escarpment that marked the beginning of the portage, then along the nine-mile road to the small post of Fort Schlosser above Niagara Falls. This portaging work, more than any other labor, “hurts the men much,” in the words of one officer, and “some of them suffered by it.” Added to these burdens was the fort engineer’s recent bill of particulars: another attempt to re-sod and picket earthen ramparts damaged by winter snow and ice; a new bakehouse and provisions magazine, both to be built of stone; repairs to artillery carriages, the fort’s main gate; and yet another effort to build a breakwater along the Lake Ontario shore to keep the water from undermining the fort’s defenses. Then there was gardening, tailoring, routine repairs to barracks and outbuildings, sweeping chimneys to prevent fires, not to mention the endless round of guards for the fort and its outposts. Indeed, Walters may have felt overwhelmed and all the more anxious to transfer to a regiment bound for home. 1 Walters’s monthly report contains more than the routine list of men fit, sick, or absent. Perhaps as a way of reminding his superiors that the shrinking garrison was overextended, the major also sent in a return of

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the troops “and how they are Employ’d.” He thus provides a rare glimpse into the daily work routines of garrison life. The return also underscores the centrality of hard physical labor in the lives of redcoats on the frontier, work less connected with military training than with the basic needs of food, fuel, and shelter in a region hundreds of miles from the nearest settlements. Readily apparent from Walters’s report is the variety of tasks facing soldiers on any given day. Discounting eighteen men sick and relieved of duty, about half of Walters’s men were engaged in strictly military duties: mounting guard over Fort Niagara and providing small garrisons at the “lower landing” on the portage and at Fort Schlosser; these small garrisons, in turn, would have to perform many of the same tasks the occupied the balance of Niagara’s garrison. Men skilled in the building trades—sawyers, masons, carpenters, and lime burners, along with coopers, were classified as “artificiers” and assigned to Niagara’s engineer for work at the never-ending task of maintaining the fort. Some of these men might also be assigned to the artillery, repairing gun carriages or powder barrels. Still other men, including some of the least skilled, found themselves working as “Wagoneers and Drovers” responsible for hauling supplies or herding livestock over the portage road. During the busy summer season these redcoats might also spend hours or days pulling, pushing, or carrying hogsheads, kegs, and bundles of stores over the road, especially when, as frequently happened, carriages or draft animals gave out. Fourteen Royal Americans had also been sent with bateau loads of provisions to Fort Presque Isle on Lake Erie. More fortunate were the corporal and ten privates assigned to the schooner Mississauga, which made the run between Niagara and Fort Ontario, then on to the post of Oswegatchie on the St. Lawrence River. As deckhands or marines these men enjoyed a change of scenery and the relative freedom that came with service in the Naval Department. Moreover, they would be able to pick up the latest news and gossip so welcome at isolated outposts and may have had the opportunity to buy scarce consumer goods or even trade on their own account with Senecas, Onondagas, or the “mission Indians” of Canada. Still other soldiers, singly or in small working parties, would be set to the many chores necessary to keep their comrades and officers fed. Walters’s report listed men serving as bakers, gardeners, and fishermen, the latter using nets to haul in fish from the nearby lake and river. Finally, there were reminders that work in this small world was shaped as much by class as by military needs. While sergeants and corporals supervised working parties or tasks, officers occupied themselves with the less physical chores of

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[84], (3 18. “A Map of Niagara River” by Lieutenant George Demler. (Reprinted by permission of the British Library, London, ms 57708.)

management: issuing orders, filing reports and inventories, inspecting work sites—all the while looking forward to leisure time, which their soldiers seldom enjoyed. The distinction between leaders and led was reinforced in one other way that found itself into Walters’s report: a half-dozen of the major’s troops were acting as officers’ servants. 2 Manning ships and small boats, herding, baking, and mending: Walters’s report suggests the labor routine that awaited redcoats in the West. Yet the picture is only partly complete. Soldiers also served as messengers or express riders—in all seasons and weather—and repaired roads and bridges. Had the major’s report been filed in late summer, he would have noted the large number of men dedicated to the vital task of cutting and storing next winter’s supply of firewood. Enlisted men also found themselves engaged in what might be called the “hidden” work of garrison life: digging and cleaning latrines, disposing of garbage, sweeping chimneys, airing bedding, washing and mending clothing. The Royal Americans at Fort Niagara were participants in a new world of work that began to appear on both sides of the Atlantic in the eigh-

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——— Normal Pa PgEnds: T teenth century. Along with mariners, cloth workers, and slaves, soldiers were among the first people in the British Empire to experience the regimentation of the workplace and the notion that labor was both a commodity and a form of moral discipline. In fact, some observers were quick to recognize the striking parallels between the rhythms of plantation work and those of the army. And while garrisons may not have resembled factories in the same ways in which naval or merchant ships did, the army was moving in the direction of a more complex division of labor and slowly becoming a more self-contained and efficient institution. 3 Service on the American frontier only magnified these tendencies. The great distances between forts and colonial settlements meant that redcoats in the colonies, far more than comrades in Britain, had to shoulder most, or all, of the burdens associated with building and maintaining fortifications and garrisons. The absence of anything approaching a network of roads or developed waterways meant that soldiers like those at Niagara were compelled to move their own supplies while also maintaining the carriages and livestock and vessels needed for transportation. Regiments in the West had to find the labor and skills to meet these needs from within their own

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-0.17 19. The Niagara River gorge as seen from the west. The portage road ran along the crest of the gorge beyond the tree line. (Photo by author.)


[86], (5 ranks. Without a corps of artisans or neighboring civilian populations from which to hire tradesmen, redcoats and their officers had to draw on their own abilities whether in erecting ramparts, building barracks, or mending broken equipment. The rapid expansion of the army during the Seven Years’ War meant that the ranks were filled with a wide variety of men from both sides of the Atlantic; glutted labor markets, depressed wages, or unsatisfactory apprenticeships prompted men with at least some skills to join the army, though most did so on limited wartime enlistments. Consequently, the wartime army in North America rarely lacked the experienced laborers and tradesmen that it needed. Provincial regiments included hundreds of men with backgrounds in metalworking, carpentry, boatbuilding, and other trades the army valued. The picture after 1763 was considerably different. Wartime enlistees left the ranks, while regiments were reduced in size. Men no longer volunteered for service in the regulars now that war-related bounties and

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20. Soldiers as workers: iron shovel and axe heads. (Courtesy of the Fort Ligonier Association, Ligonier PA.)

limited terms of enlistment had disappeared. Regiments in the West, then, had to cope with fewer men in the ranks and shortages of skilled soldiers as well. Major Walters understood the problem well enough; not only did he have too few men at Fort Niagara, those he did command included “very few” artisans. 4 Similar complaints could be heard throughout the frontier. Detroit’s commander asked Gen. Sir Thomas Gage for artisans in order to make repairs on his large post since “We have got few or no artificiers that belong to the Garrison.” Outpost officers took to borrowing craftsmen from one another; for example, Capt. George Etherington at Fort Michilimackinac asked his superior at Detroit for Private Steele, whose skills as a mason Etherington needed to erect chimneys in his soldiers’ quarters. Finding no artificers at all among the 42nd Foot at Fort Pitt, engineer Harry Gordon asked for carpenters and masons from the Royal American Regiment then quartered in New York. By mid-1766 commanders were hard-pressed to find a dozen skilled men in two full battalions—some 800 men—stationed in Canada. Gen. Frederick Haldimand, trying to improve the wretched condition of fortifications and barracks in West Florida, urged that workmen

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be especially enlisted for regiments in America. Nevertheless, the problem of finding skilled labor in the ranks continued, with Gage observing that while “Soldiers will do very well with Pick-Axe and Spade,” he doubted that many “Artificiers can be found amongst the Troops” under his command. 5 Local commanders tried to make do with whatever skilled labor they could find in the ranks. This seems to have worked well enough for routine tasks, but major construction was another matter; the army was ultimately forced to look to the civilian workforce for craftsmen, though at very high cost. The building of a fortress like Fort Pitt could only be accomplished by bringing to the Ohio Country teams of “Contracted Artificiers” from as far away as Philadelphia, Carlisle, and the settlements of northern Virginia. These men included lime burners, masons, glaziers, joiners, and brick makers who built on the common labor of hundreds of regular and provincial soldiers. The army turned to civilians again after 1767, when Gage ordered that forts in the Great Lakes region be modified so as to be defended by smaller numbers of troops. The result was a period of rebuilding as small “citadels” holding new barracks began to appear at Detroit and Fort Niagara. At the same time, engineers submitted plans to modernize and improve the fortifications at Mobile and Pensacola. Contract workers were thus to be found at work from West Florida to Lake Ontario, raising two stone redoubts at Fort Niagara, a complex of barracks and storehouses at Detroit, and new barracks and hospitals at Pensacola. At St. Augustine, in East Florida, new barracks were erected using frames prefabricated in New Jersey. 6 Civilian artificers could help relieve the army’s shortage of skilled labor; they did nothing to relieve redcoats of the daily and seasonal chores associated with garrison life. Many soldiers, especially cloth workers, had come from work experiences already being transformed by clocks and repetitive tasks, conditions that would become commonplace in the factory system of the next century. Still other men came from more traditional laboring backgrounds: farmhands, especially, knew long, hard days of labor followed by idle periods, the agricultural rhythms set by the seasons. From whatever background they came, however, British soldiers found themselves facing a labor system often radically different from their civilian experiences. On the one hand, frontier garrisons incorporated aspects of the emerging work of factory labor: clock time, task labor, and the synchronization of work, while still relying on gang labor and work schedules often dependent upon the weather and seasons. On the other hand, soldiers confronted types of work, such as woodcutting, hauling supplies, and carrying messages, that in

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Lines: 121 21. One of the two stone redoubts built at Fort Niagara and completed in 1770. (Photo by author.)

Europe or in colonial settlements would have been handed over to civilians. One way or another, redcoats worked hard, under a disciplinary system that relied heavily on coercion to keep men at their jobs. 7 In general, soldiers’ work time was filled with duties that left little room for the slow times or off-seasons known to agricultural laborers. Men assigned to guard forts would expect to be on duty for twenty-four hours at a time; the smaller the garrison, the more frequent these stints of duty became. Drummers, who called men to and from duty, orderlies, and officers’ servants could also expect to put in long days: up before the rest of the garrison and still at work after “the Tattoo” was sounded, marking the end of the day. These and many other chores common in frontier garrisons were increasingly regulated by the clock. Terms like “daybreak” or “sundown” appear less frequently than do references to specific and regular hours. Fort Niagara’s garrison was reminded that with the coming of spring, assembly would for the future be at nine in the morning. Woodcutting parties at the fort were routinely assembled at two in the afternoon, while recruits were to be drilled by their corporals from eight to nine and ten to noon, and from one to three in the afternoon, daily. Moreover, mechanical time was not determined by individual officers; “garrison clocks” began to appear, such as the one purchased for the 21st Foot at Pensacola. 8

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Maintaining and supporting the network of forts in the West accounted for most of the soldiers’ work. Gage’s observation about Pensacola—that the fort seemed to require “almost Annual Repair”—held true of every fort on the frontier. Permanent defenses built of impermanent materials, their repair and maintenance called for constant attention. As a result, redcoats throughout the West shared the work routine witnessed at Fort Pitt by James Kenny. Working parties, wrote Kenny, assembled by “ye Drum” and “hold [to] it until ye Gun fires late after sun Down.” 9 Observers like Kenny would have found redcoats at work on a variety of tasks related to building—and above all maintaining—sometimes complex fortifications. In a report to Amherst in May 1762, Major Walters said that many of his men were busy cutting timber for use on Fort Niagara’s ramparts. Four years later one of Walters’s successors was ordered to collect materials for planned changes in the fort’s defenses. These included 1,665 stockades—each fifteen feet long and at least nine inches in diameter—over 2,500 cubic feet of stone, and 640 bushels of lime. Niagara, like other forts in the West, continued to consume large amounts of building materials and soldier’s labor; as late as 1774 the garrison needed some 25,000 shingles to cover half of the existing barracks. To the south, redcoats moved sand and bricks as well as earth and wood to rebuild Pensacola. In a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, soldiers removed 16,000 bricks from Fort Charlotte at Mobile and shipped them to Pensacola for use in new works there. Soldiers of the 31st Foot were also busy making fascines: six-footlong bundles of saplings used as revetments on sod ramparts. They set to work using specially made fascine knives like those recovered at the sites of Fort Niagara and Fort Stanwix. This was not easy work: fascines, the eighteenth-century equivalent of sandbags, were needed by the hundreds, and each one could weigh over thirty pounds. 10 Such labor seemed never to diminish as soldiers battled weather, perishable building materials—and their own engineers’ ineptitude. Barracks at Fort Pitt were unfit for use after only a year; having been “raised in haste” with green wood and badly fired bricks, there was nothing to do but pull them down and build again. Even at a small post like Fort Michilimackinac the number of construction projects kept growing. Only a year after the fort was reoccupied at the end of the 1763 Indian war, Michilimackinac’s commander submitted a list of necessary construction that included barracks, a guard house, provisions storehouse, ordnance warehouse, a new magazine, a wharf, and some 1,400 new palisades: a tall order for the most distant of

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Britain’s American outposts and one with a garrison that seldom numbered more than eighty officers and men. 11 Evidence of soldiers’ labor can be found everywhere in the West. Engineers prepared detailed inventories of tools and materials needed for each year’s round of repairs and improvements. In addition to the special tools of blacksmiths, coopers, and collar makers, garrison storerooms held scores of felling axes, pickaxes, spades, wheelbarrows, “grubbing axes,” chisels, hammers, and augers. Nails were ordered by the hundredweight, and redcoats found themselves more frequently armed with mason’s trowels or scythes than with muskets. They also worked with pitch, tar, and oakum. 12 In addition to written inventories and reports, material remains also testify to soldiers’ daily labors. Most striking are the buildings still standing at Fort Niagara or the foundations of Fort Pitt’s massive ramparts now exposed for public view at Pittsburgh. Pick and axe heads as well as saw blades, hammers, chisels, and files litter the sites of British garrisons. Heavy chains, iron staples, and other hardware serve as further evidence of the hauling and building that set the pace of garrison life. In every respect, remnants of tools and building materials are reminders that military labor was dependent upon simple technology. The army had precious little machinery to assist men in their work; the “cradles” on the Niagara portage and the simple winches and block and tackle found aboard ships were the only notable exceptions. Muscle power, both human and animal (the latter obvious in the harness leather, buckles, and cow bells recovered at Fort Ligonier), was the mainstay of military labor. Indeed, in this regard military work may not yet have been seen as something requiring special equipment or expertise but rather simply as an extension of civilian laboring. Redcoats were given no special clothing to protect them as they worked, aside from a handful of “watchcoats” in each garrison for use by sentries in foul weather. When on working details, soldiers were simply ordered to “turn their Coats” inside out to lessen wear on facings and lace. Otherwise, men worked in waistcoats and shirtsleeves. 13 Though every man was expected to work, not everyone labored at the same pace or under the same conditions. Military labor was roughly divided into task and gang work. The former was most frequently the province of skilled workers: bakers, coopers, men assigned to make shingles or serving with the Naval Department, the engineers, or the artillery. Gang labor normally involved heavy construction—excavating ditches or building ramparts—and the collecting and transportation of building materials.

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These work gangs were supervised by noncommissioned officers and often worked at a distance from the garrisons. Corporal McGrath of the 16th Foot, for example, was ordered to take six men to an outlying farm near Pensacola, collect timber, and raft it back to the fort. When they were attacked by Ohio Indians in late February 1764, Corporal Berry and his men were loading firewood on Grant’s Hill, nearly two miles from Fort Pitt. Similar gangs found themselves working several miles from Detroit, collecting firewood, making charcoal, or burning lime. On the Gulf Coast gangs of soldiers were also more likely to labor beside black workers. The army either took possession of slaves belonging to French or Spanish garrisons or purchased them from local civilians. Though they occasionally served as interpreters or watermen, most such men were simply designated as “Negroes belonging to His Majesty,” and in all likelihood they performed much the same work as common soldiers. 14 Corporal Berry’s woodcutters are a reminder that small working parties often found themselves at risk from enemies or a hostile environment. Despite the dangers, men may have welcomed assignments that took them away from the confines of fort walls on details like that led by a corporal whose men spent their time cutting hay in a meadow near Niagara Falls. These opportunities often allowed men to get to know their surroundings; Sergeant Shyrock and his dozen Royal Americans saw much of the country west of the Allegheny River when, led by Ohio Indian guides, they drove oxen from Fort Pitt to Detroit. Officers apparently frowned on such detached service. One complained that if his men “remain long” aboard Naval Department vessels, they “will be spoiled for Soldiers.” Some work gangs, however, combined the very worst aspects of military labor: isolation, tedium, and routine. The luckless corporal and six men of the 34th Foot assigned to the pilot serving Mobile Bay must have wished they had been put to any other work. Alone on sandy Dauphin Island, these men spent their time staring at the bleak landscape, unable to reach the society of the Mobile garrison by any means other than rowing up the length of Mobile Bay. 15 While soldiers found their time and work organized according to the tasks before them, no redcoat could expect to work exclusively at a skilled task or as part of a labor gang. The heavy demands of fortification repairs and especially the movement of supplies meant that all enlisted men would sooner or later be assigned to working parties, or “fatigues.” Repairs to Fort Niagara in 1767 so completely occupied the garrison that except for the daily guards, no other work was assigned. Major Walters’s garrison was so “constantly employ’d” during the summer of 1761 in moving troops

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and provisions over the portage that his men seldom had “more than one night in bed for some time past.” When garrisons were shorthanded or, as happened annually on the gulf, ravaged by disease, even ordinary duties could keep men away from their barracks three or four nights a week. At Detroit conditions were such that soldiers were routinely assigned to the fort’s guard every forty-eight hours. 16 The periods of intense work that often kept redcoats out of their beds and at their jobs was tied to the tempo of the seasons in the West. From the opening of the Great Lakes in midspring through the storms of late autumn, garrisons from the St. Lawrence valley to the Straits of Mackinac were busy at logistical and maintenance work that could only be accomplished during the warm months. Commanders were determined to get as much work done as possible while the ground was dry, waterways open, and access to supplies and tools reasonably certain. With the coming of spring, engineers submitted their requests for building materials needed for the long summer campaigns against the ravages of time and weather. As a result the demands on soldiers’ time increased even as the days lengthened. Farther south in the Ohio Country and along the Gulf Coast, the story was much the same: an intensive period of hard labor aimed at taking full advantage of good weather. On the Gulf Coast the working season was longer and the pace faster as officers tried to beat the hurricane season, whose storms could easily knock half-finished fortifications and buildings to pieces. In West Florida the burden of work increased even more; as late summer approached so, too, did the sickly season with its fevers and lengthening sick lists. Those fortunate few who escaped malaria or yellow fever were then forced to take on the work of those who were not so lucky. 17 Spring and summer also saw a great increase in the pace of logistical activities as garrisons throughout the West replenished stores of food and medicine and received their annual shipments of clothing and shoes. On the Gulf Coast this usually meant shifting supplies from ships to barges and lighters at Mobile and Pensacola or the movement of goods along the coast to outposts on the Mississippi and Apalachicola rivers. On the Great Lakes and in the Ohio Country the work of hauling and shipping supplies was complicated by geography as well as weather. Even after the lakes were deemed fit for navigation, there remained the formidable obstacle of the Niagara portage. The Lewiston escarpment ruined men and draft animals alike as they worked through the summer shifting tons of supplies between ships and boats in the Niagara River and Lake Erie. Officers whose troops were assigned portage work frequently complained that the portage left

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their men “quite Spent with fatigue and hunger.” As well as carrying supplies along the portage, soldiers were given axes, spades, and picks and put to work “Shaping up the Bank” at the lower landing to ease the off-loading of stores, a process that was “very difficult to do.” 18 The worst conditions on the Great Lakes existed between 1760 and 1764, when the army was rapidly expanding its number of garrisons and facing concerted resistance from the region’s natives. As troops moved west they quickly outpaced the existing logistical organization, and for several years enlisted men sweated and strained over supply convoys as their officers scrambled to patch together a reliable system of supply. By the mid-1760s this crisis had passed and with it the need for men to be employed long hours over many months to keep themselves and distant comrades fed and clothed. Fewer forts, smaller garrisons, and the Naval Department all made the movement of stores more manageable. In the meantime the strategic Niagara portage was turned over to private operators, who became responsible for moving goods to and from the upper lakes, occasionally aided by small working parties from Fort Niagara. 19 Much the same pattern emerged in the Ohio Country. Officers and men at Fort Pitt had to time their labor on the rivers to coincide with periods of high water. Yet schedules that held on the upper Ohio River and its tributaries were of little use downstream toward Fort Chartres and the Illinois Country; spring floods, in particular, made return trips from the Illinois nearly impossible. Such delays drove officers “almost mad” with frustration; it was far worse on soldiers forced to breast the currents hour after hour in futile attempts to overcome nature. 20 By late summer work routines began to change once more as increasing numbers of men began collecting firewood needed during the coming winter. On the Great Lakes and in the Ohio valley this task often continued into November and December. The work became more difficult, too, as nearby timber was consumed and working parties sometimes had to travel several miles to find suitable wood. Rivers, broken ground, and bad weather only added to the difficulties. Detroit’s soldiers spent part of the winter of 1765 hauling firewood across icebound streams on sleds or on their backs. This work was so hard that redcoats insisted on being paid for the loads they brought in and, at least at Detroit, balked at collecting firewood until additional pay had been granted. Harried officers, faced with too much work and too few hands, found it necessary to negotiate with their soldiers. 21 Redcoats, therefore, could occasionally expect to receive more for their labors than just aches and pains. Enlisted men employed on what were

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generally referred to as the “king’s works”—the building and maintenance of fortifications or roads—traditionally received extra pay according to the skills they possessed and the tasks they performed. The rules governing this system of additional pay were complex. While fort building entitled men to additional compensation, tending livestock and moving and storing supplies for their own use did not. The high extraordinary expenses associated with the army’s American service drove General Amherst to tightly restrict the kinds of work that merited additional pay, on the grounds that redcoats were already receiving a bonus, at least before 1763, by not being required to pay for their rations. Increasingly, however, commanders such as those at Detroit were forced to relent and modify the rules in the face of protests by soldiers, who complained not only about the labor they faced but, more emphatically, the high cost of “necessaries” in the colonies: everything from needles and thread to undergarments, soap, and tobacco, which they were expected to pay for from their own wages. Moreover, given their distance from provincial settlements, common soldiers could not expect to supplement their pay by working in the civilian economy. 22 Before 1763 the system of payment for extra work varied from place to place, as officers attempted to induce men to take on additional work. Some, like Major Walters at Fort Niagara, paid their soldiers in rum rather than in money. By 1763 the imposition of pay stoppages for rations brought on organized resistance on the part of troops from the Maritimes to the Great Lakes, leading to a regular program of additional pay for labor ranging from construction work to boat duty. Rates were fixed at 1s. 3d. per day for “artificiers,” 1s. for semiskilled workers (axemen or mortar makers, for example), and 10d. a day for common labor. This scale compared favorably to the private soldier’s daily wage, after deductions, of 6d. Overseers benefited as well; a subaltern commanding a working party was entitled to 4s. a day, nearly equal to his normal wage. His sergeant could earn 1s. 6d., a corporal 1s. 3d., in both cases again roughly equal to a day’s pay. 23 While the decision to reintroduce the custom of paying men for extraordinary labor was welcome to soldiers, this system only reinforced, perhaps even widened, the social and economic distinctions that already existed within regimental society. This was especially true in the case of the gulf between those few common soldiers who possessed valuable skills and experience and their comrades who had nothing but strong backs and steady legs. This gulf becomes clear in the experiences of soldier-laborers of the 60th Foot at Detroit in 1767 as reflected in pay lists for additional wages. Sgt. Jacob France earned nearly Ł12 as a work supervisor, while Pvt. Alexander

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Beam, identified as an artificier, received just over Ł9. Pvt. George Lammey, a common laborer, had to work a day and a half longer than Beam to earn only Ł5. Soldiers at distant frontier outposts like Detroit seldom saw these additional wages in coin, though accumulating credit clearly gave some an advantage when it came to dealing with sutlers or local merchants. It would be easy to imagine men such as France or Beam extending credit to, or buying on behalf of, less well-off comrades and expecting suitable favors in return. 24 Soldiers working for the king could, then, expect some additional reward for the jobs they performed. At all seasons of the year, however, redcoats’ time in garrison was also taken up by what in the civilian world would have been identified as domestic or household work: tending the sick and injured, raising vegetables and herbs, preparing meals, attending to personal appearance. Hours could be consumed trying to clean uniforms that would “in a very short time” become “a sooty brick colour.” It was in this area of garrison work that the chores of soldiers and those of their wives and daughters most frequently coincided. 25 As well as the daily round of cooking and cleaning the barracks, tasks that occupied both men and women, soldiers were periodically put to work sweeping chimneys and cleaning hearths. In forts build of combustible material and holding large quantities of explosives, fire was an ever-present threat; the garrisons of Forts Niagara, Pitt, and Detroit all battled fires either within the walls or in closely packed civilian settlements close by. With the coming of warm weather, redcoats regularly turned out for this work, and garrison orderly books were punctuated with reminders: “All the Chimneys of the Garrison to be Swept.” Soldiers and their families also spent time working in garrison gardens. Given the size of some gardens there could be considerable labor involved, requiring, as at Fort Pitt, plows as well as rakes or hoes. Yet redcoats appear to have looked forward to tending crops; if officers relaxed by taking guests on strolls through formal gardens, gardening also served as a form of recreation for common soldiers and a welcome release from more regimented and physically demanding labor. Kept too long at other work, soldiers expressed their displeasure, telling officers that they “think it hard to be obliged to quit” what Lieutenant Colonel Campbell of the 17th Foot revealingly called “their farms.” 26 Noncommissioned and commissioned officers were occupied with their own work routines, in some cases facing the same long hours as the men they led. Because of their rank and status, however, their work differed in one important and noticeable respect from that of common soldiers: sub-

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alterns, sergeants, and corporals did not, as a rule, engage in physical labor. Their time was spent supervising the work of others and coordinating the many daily chores of garrison life. Officers, as “fathers” to their enlisted men, had the further responsibilities of looking into the quality of rations being issued, the cleanliness of their men and their rooms, and the state of garrison hospitals. Finally, company-level officers routinely served on courts-martial, investigating irregularities and enforcing order and discipline. In the face of chronic manpower shortages, officers and noncommissioned officers, no less than their men, had to face the burdensome necessity of extra duties. Sgt. Randall McDonald, for example, found himself serving as acting commissary at Fort Erie, responsible for the garrison’s foodstuffs. Sergeants in West Florida also had to take on this duty, often because there were so few officers at Mobile and Pensacola. Absent officers—sick, on leave, or on detached service—meant that remaining subalterns also faced additional duties. Lieutenant Polson of the Royal Americans served as officer of the day every fifth day at Fort Niagara; had more officers been available, he would have enjoyed an additional day off. A decade earlier at the same post, a shortage of officers was so severe that the three remaining subalterns complained directly to their colonel. In the shorthanded garrison they were the only ones available to “go on Commands [i.e., detached service beyond the garrison], Mount Guard,” as well as take care of their company books, take the guards every third day, and drill their troops (the last having to be scheduled for shortly after dawn—the only time available). In other garrisons, high mortality rates among officers meant added burdens for the survivors. Quartermaster Butricke of the 18th Foot, a former sergeant, found himself serving in the important post of regimental adjutant as well as barrack master at Fort Chartres after the officers who normally held these positions died. 27 That officers balked at drilling their troops at the crack of dawn on top of other pressing duties raises the question of just how much military training accompanied the other work assigned to redcoats. With so much time and energy consumed in keeping themselves sheltered and supplied, how capable were western garrisons of demonstrating their fitness for active service, that “steady & obedient” comportment that would enable them to behave in battle “without hurry and Confusion”? There is remarkably little amid the volumes of reports, correspondence, and returns suggesting that military training was given a high priority. The picture that emerges is that of an armed force whose professional skills fell off in the face of the other

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demands of garrison life. In this redcoats in the West reflected the chronic problem of Britain’s army—or any professional army—between wars: as the “friction of peace” took hold, as veterans died or left the ranks, as most waking hours were spent on work not strictly related to training for battle, regiments’ military efficiency declined. 28 Frontier service not only created obstacles to programs of training, it also amplified peacetime problems long familiar to the army. Sickness and death, especially on the Gulf Coast and in the Illinois Country, often meant that garrisons had barely enough men for routine guards and working parties and not enough to practice company or battalion drill even if time permitted. In the north, long winters accompanied by days or weeks of freezing temperatures brought an end to all but the most essential activities. Furthermore, the great distances between army headquarters and western garrisons precluded tours by inspecting officers, which in Britain or Ireland identified deficiencies in drill and tactics. Distance conspired against military proficiency in other ways. American regiments were widely dispersed across the colonies and the West, often in numbers too small for meaningful rehearsals of the tactical formations so vital to success in battle. In Britain troops were posted all along the coasts and inland to combat smuggling and highwaymen; in Ireland similar dispersal also precluded much training, as did the practice of drafting men from Irish regiments to replace those going abroad. In America, though, distances—and the isolation of small detachments—were all the greater. Few regiments suffered the fate of the 1st battalion of the Royal American Regiment at the end of the Seven Years’ War: “divided and scattered,” with men detached “more than 600 miles” from their headquarters at Fort Pitt. Even so, the requirements of outpost duty along hundreds of miles of the Great Lakes basin, or across the lower Mississippi valley, had a corrosive effect on regimental coherence and efficiency. Officers complained that long distances, coupled with deaths or retirements, often meant that “the one half of us will be Strangers to the other.” At a time when battlefield tactics relied on each regiment’s ability to operate smoothly as a unit, frontier service, then, almost guaranteed a marked reduction in military efficiency. 29 Despite these difficulties, some commanders did make an effort to wipe off “the Rust.” Captain Chisholm of the 21st Foot acknowledged receipt of “The Book of Exercise” and promised General Gage that he would begin drilling his men at Mobile “as Soon as Health will permit.” Perhaps more common, though, was the case of the garrison at Fort Chartres. Reports of the soldiers’ lack of military skill and field craft prompted a stern warning

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from army headquarters in New York. The troops, urged Gage, “must be accustomed to . . . Scour [scout] the River and explore the Country” since “by lying in Fort Chartres inactive without stirring out,” the garrisons “will know no more of the Country, than if it had never been there.” 30 Most garrisons did not “stir out” very often, at least on military exercises. Intensive training in musketry and tactics only took place under special circumstances. As long as a threat of war existed, trooped remained active, as did those at Fort Niagara preparing to move against Great Lakes Indians in the spring of 1764. During the long peace that followed, however, troops had little time and less incentive to drill. Training only took place when a regiment in garrison was notified that it would be going home or to a more active area of operations. Beginning in the autumn of 1771, for instance, Fort Niagara and forts on the upper Great Lakes came alive with drill, marksmanship, and other exercises. The reason was the impending departure of the Royal Americans for the Leeward Islands and Jamaica; in the islands the regiment would be likely to face attacks by Carib Indians and would have to guard against slave uprisings. Garrison orders at Fort Niagara were full of references to all men off duty parading for “Exercise every Morning . . . Sundays excepted,” “Target Fiering” and, with the coming of warm weather, “field days.” During the latter exercises, men were instructed in “many parts of the Service,” including crossing defiles, digging field fortifications, and laying ambushes. Only the sick and extraduty men were excused, and officers were specifically ordered to parade with their companies. Corporals and sergeants gave particular attention to new recruits and the hopelessly inept as the redcoats attempted to shrug off the “awkward clownish ways” they had fallen into with garrison life and to recapture the “free and easy Carriage” of a seasoned infantryman. 31 Although their intense course of training may have improved the Royal Americans’ martial skills, on the whole declining skill as field soldiers seems to have epitomized the army in the West. Military life on the frontier placed a premium on efforts to maintain viable garrisons; as the size of the army continued to shrink, those efforts only intensified and became more pressing, especially when declining manpower also meant a proportional decline in skilled workers. Faced with routines that kept them busy in woodlots, pastures, and on portages, redcoats’ military proficiency necessarily declined. Nonetheless, redcoats needed to keep themselves fit enough to maintain the fortified places that underscored British sovereignty in the West. That fitness rested less on military skill than on adequate diet and good health.

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«6» Diet and Foodways

Veteran British officers fully appreciated the relationship between diet and the health and discipline of their soldiers. Indeed, “Nothing,” according to long-serving Bennett Cuthbertson, “contributes more to the health of Soldiers, then a regular and well chosen diet.” Moreover, “their being obliged every day to boil the pot; it corrects drunkenness, and in a great measure prevents gaming and thereby desertion.” He therefore urged regimental officers to establish and enforce “regular and constant messing” among their men. 1 Not only does Cuthbertson’s advice underscore the obvious health benefits of a “regular and well chosen diet,” it also offers some hints as to how redcoats were expected to eat: by “boiling” their food and by sharing mealtimes in “messes” that reinforced bonds within companies and thus contributed to a sense of comradeship—comradeship that could help sustain collective identities even when companies and regiments were widely dispersed. But what, exactly, did British soldiers on the frontier eat? How was food prepared and eaten? To what extent did their diet contribute to or undermine general health? 2 One thing is clear from the surviving records: the army consumed— and wasted—prodigious amounts of foods. Indeed, much of the common soldier’s time in the field or at a place like Fort Niagara or Pensacola would have been taken up in moving and storing mountains of supplies. Eighteenth-century military campaigns were largely shaped by the need to collect and replenish food supplies, for draft animals as well as men. Campaigns necessarily ended when armies either outdistanced their supply magazines or consumed all the food and fodder within reach of their lines; severing an opponent’s lines of supply was a sure—and less bloody—way of forcing him to retreat, perhaps surrendering all the advantages of weeks of campaigning in the process. 3 The need to keep men fed circumscribed warfare in America to an even greater extent than in Europe. Poor or nonexistent roads meant that armies

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had to follow waterways; long winters in the northern colonies meant shorter campaigning seasons and a longer stretch of time during which soldiers depended on stored foods and thus exposed themselves to scurvy. Moreover, much of the normal May to October campaign season was taken up in stockpiling supplies at forward bases, which themselves had to be kept in repair and defended. All of this was accomplished by forces that lacked anything like the logistical “tail” that follows any modern army. Army headquarters included assistant quartermaster generals and their deputies, who were responsible for moving and supplying the troops. Yet there was no regular commissariat, no transportation corps—in both Europe and the colonies the army had to fall back on civilians to fill these roles. But while the army could draw on a corps of experienced civilian contractors at home, such people were harder to find in America. As a result the chain of contracts and agencies that kept the army supplied had to be extended across the Atlantic to embrace Boston, Philadelphia, or New York. 4 Some idea of the magnitude of the task facing quartermasters, commissaries, and contractors during the Seven Years’ War can be gained by looking at the efforts to feed the army of Gen. John Forbes as it made its way across the Appalachians toward Fort Duquesne in 1758. Calculations based on a force of 6,000 men (Forbes’s army in fact numbered more than 7,000) showed the need for 504,000 pounds of flour, 86,400 pounds of pork, 19,650 pounds of beef, and 108,000 pints of rice—enough to feed this force for eighty-four days. In addition the army drove herds of cattle and pigs and flocks of sheep and carried hundreds of gallons of whiskey and rum. So small a force as 100 men, proposed as a garrison at the ruins of Fort Duquesne, would require a ton of pork, 2,800 pounds of flour, and 150 pounds of butter for the first month; the commissary also estimated that an additional 240 pounds of meat and 336 pounds of flour would be wasted from improper carriage and storage. 5 With the conquest of New France the need to support large field armies rapidly diminished. Nevertheless, the growing number of new garrisons in the West meant that the army still had to collect large quantities of foodstuffs along with other supplies and munitions. Not only did troops stationed at various forts need to be fed, but many posts served as entrepôts for other garrisons. Beginning in the early 1760s, Fort Niagara was expected to supply the new garrisons in the Great Lakes region. In 1761 the fort’s garrison helped move across difficult terrain over 200 barrels of flour, 222

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barrels of pork, and casks of butter, peas, and rice to Detroit and its outposts: all told, more than 80,000 pounds of provisions. Maj. William Walters kept on hand nearly a year’s worth of flour, pork, and rice for his own garrison. 6 Fort Pitt served as a provisions magazine for smaller forts in the upper Ohio valley. The wooden storehouses and vaulted casemates in the fortress held thousands of pounds of bulk flour, salt pork, rice, and salt. Outposts along Forbes’s Road were also used as way stations for bulk supplies; the storehouses at Fort Ligonier held no fewer than 143,578 pounds of flour at the end of 1761. In the absence of reliable water carriage, officers had to make precise calculations of the numbers of wagons and drivers, draft animals, packhorses, forage, and food consumed in order to move these supplies along the Road or up-country toward Lake Erie. 7 Even after the Indian war of 1763, when the number and size of British garrisons diminished, keeping troops supplied remained a monumental task. In the autumn of 1765 Detroit’s storehouses held nearly 10,000 pounds of rice, over 570 barrels of flour, and over 300 barrels of pork needed to feed garrisons on the upper lakes that numbered fewer than 500 men. Inspecting officers found an additional 107 barrels of flour and 447 barrels of pork damaged. Two years later the Great Lakes forts held over 133,000 pounds of pork, nearly 200,000 pounds of flour, and some 10,000 pounds of butter, supplies calculated to support the same number of men for eighteen months. 8 These quantities of food were intended to meet the soldier’s basic ration. And as the inventories suggest, a redcoat’s food was heavy in bread products and meat: a weekly ration for a common soldier consisted of seven pounds of bread, seven pounds of salt beef or four of salt pork, three pints of peas, and either a pound of cheese or six ounces of butter. Though this may be considered the norm, rations did vary depending on circumstances. On the Gulf Coast, for example, soldiers at Mobile enjoyed a larger amount of flour, which gave them nine pounds of bread a week along with their seven pounds of beef, a ration that allowed their commander to judge them “well fed.” Officers were also permitted to make substitutions, governed by availability. In West Florida, three pounds of rice was deemed equal to a pound of flour. 9 Just as they enjoyed more private space within western forts, officers also enjoyed a larger share of food, as befitted their rank and station. Subalterns could claim two basic rations per day, captains three, and field officers as many as six. Moreover, officers enjoyed the privilege of selling their issued rations back to the commissaries, then using the cash to buy food in the

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local economy. Common soldiers had no such opportunity, though during the Seven Years’ War they received their rations free since the cost of food in the colonies was deemed more than the customary stoppage of 4d. per day for a private soldier. The attempt to reimpose this stoppage at the end of the war threatened a real hardship for troops anywhere in America but especially on the frontiers, where transportation costs alone made foodstuffs prohibitively expensive. 10 The quality of these rations often left much to be desired. Meat and flour were packed in large barrels and stored, sometimes for months, before shipment to garrisons—where they might sit months longer before being issued. Despite regular inspections and inventories by officers, poor storage, civilians who lightened their loads by draining off the preserving brine in meat barrels, or dishonest contractors meant that soldiers could never know with certainty that their rations were wholesome. An extreme example was the quality of sixty barrels of flour from Fort Niagara delivered to Fort Presque Isle in 1760—they were found “much Spoiled,” since they had “served for Breast work last Winter at Oswego.” 11 The deterioration of western posts also contributed to the problem. Capt. Lewis Ourry discovered upon his arrival at Fort Bedford “all the Barrells cover’d with mould, and everything very Damp” from the leaky storerooms. Ourry also found that “our Stock here” was “diminished daily by the Vermin”—the rats that swarmed around his post. Inspections at Fort Pitt found a hard crust on the top of bulk flour, again caused by the damp, except in this case the commander hoped that the crust would help preserve the flour beneath. In other cases the flour was so “Sour” that it was “not fitt to be Issued to the Troops.” Indeed, the flour supplies at Fort Pitt were so consistently bad that the grenadier company of the 60th Foot—a troublesome lot at the best of times—“refused to Eat of it.” 12 Meat also spoiled, though less often from storage than from deliberate tampering. In a typical case the commissary for provisions at Fort Niagara issued a report explaining the large quantity of spoiled food at the post. An inspection of pork barrels found that “the bungs of all most all . . . has been knocked out, and the Pickle lost.” Additional barrels were found full of meat but without any salt. Merely because food was damaged or tainted did not mean that it was discarded, however. Gage suggested that meat and flour that would otherwise be condemned and destroyed might, instead, prove “good Enough for Savages.” Sir Jeffery Amherst ordered officers to throw away the outer layers of damaged flour and continue to issue what was left to the troops. 13

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Redcoats on the frontier were never entirely at the mercy of commissary stores, however. Indeed, the villagelike appearance of so many western forts reflected the extent to which soldiers turned to stock raising and gardening to supplement, or supplant, issued rations. Garrisons kept livestock both for food and for the labor they provided; Fort Niagara’s men tended to oxen used on the portage, while civilian contractors, such as Robert Callender or the firm of Plumstead and Franks, were hired to drive herds to distant outposts. Soldiers may also have kept stock on their own account. Ens. Jeremy Lister of the 10th Foot, for example, made a point of buying a milk cow at Montreal before his regiment set out of the Great Lakes in 1772. 14 The number of cattle and other livestock at western forts is hard to determine, though at larger posts they appear to have been quite numerous; at Fort Pitt, James Kenny counted 238 oxen, 76 sheep, 7 hogs, and 4 milk cows. At places like Detroit or Forts Michilimackinac and Chartres, garrison herds supplemented those of local French and métis families. 15 Despite their sometimes-large numbers—238 oxen at Fort Pitt, 100 sheep sent to Allegheny River outposts—these animals seem to have provided little meat. For example, Adam Stephen, who supplied cattle to Fort Pitt from Winchester, Virginia, reported that steers arriving at the fort weighed less than 500 pounds and predicted that an 800-pound oxen would provide only 500 pounds of meat. Officers often found that their stock would provide much less; Ensign Christie at Fort Presque Isle had a cow killed and reported that it weighed only 140 pounds. (The oxen at his post were not thought to be much bigger.) Another officer found that cattle estimated as weighing 350 pounds actually came in at 250 pounds, while his sheep weighed in at between 19 and 25 pounds—little bigger than the dogs that might have tended them. Three steers slaughtered at Fort Sandusky produced 969 pounds of meat, while 58 head of cattle killed at Detroit each provided roughly 470 pounds of meat for the salting troughs. 16 In addition to livestock, gardens could be found at virtually every western fort. The army actively encouraged soldiers to plant roots crops and greens to supplement their rations, so garrison gardens ran the gamut from small unkempt patches of potatoes and turnips to several acres of land planted in a wide variety of crops and fodder. At Fort Pitt vegetable gardens were joined by fields of barley and other grains; during the summer of 1763 the fort’s commander ordered the garrison women “to turn out to cut the spelts.” Nor did gardening stop with a cleared piece of ground. Lieutenant Colonel Campbell at Detroit ordered his engineer to erect a greenhouse so that his troops could preserve vegetables during the coming winter. 17

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Indeed, it seems that one of the first things troops did upon establishing or relieving a garrison was to assess the ground and set out gardens. One visitor to Fort Michilimackinac found fault with the site, claiming the soil was not suitable. Nevertheless, soldiers and civilians succeeded in raising a variety of food, including potatoes, beans, squash, spinach, and cucumbers. Fort Ligonier’s garrison was out in early April 1759 preparing ground for “Gardens and Turnip Fields,” while two years later redcoats at Fort Presque Isle could be found busily at work clearing ground near their small stockade for gardens. 18 Work in garrison gardens may have been seen by soldiers less as an onerous duty than as an escape from deadening military routines. The commanding officer at Detroit had all he could do to get his men to work cutting firewood and collecting forage for livestock, since the redcoats “Think it very hard to be obliged to quit their Farms.” Yet officers, too, seem to have found a measure of escape in gardening and in creating English-style landscapes. They thus joined their soldiers in transforming the appearance of the West. At Fort Pitt Captain Woodward of the Virginia Regiment might have looked forward to his new role as the “Superintendency of the Publick Gardens,” the extensive size of which entitled him to a full-time staff drawn from the drummers of the Royal American Regiment. Stopping at Fort Ligonier, Quaker merchant James Kenny dined with the commander, Ens. Archibald Blane, and then was invited to “spend ye Evening in ye Garden,” a part of what Kenny approvingly called Blane’s “Moderate” life at the fort. A decade later Jabez Fisher took tea with Fort Niagara’s chaplain at a “Summer house in his Garden” located inside one of the fort’s earthen bastions. 19 Garrison gardens provided a wide variety of foods and stimulated a lively correspondence between local officers and their superiors. Some idea of what soldiers expected to harvest can be gathered from their occasional disappointments when arriving at new posts. Capt. Gavin Cochrane of the Royal Americans, upon arrival at Fort Presque Isle, was upset to discover that there were “neither cabbage seed, carrots, parsnips, leek’s, oignon’s, parsley nor turnips.” But a fellow officer down at Fort Pitt could boast of fields of oats and “Indian Corn” as well as “Carots & Parsnips” grown “in the New Husbandry way”; Captain Barnsley was proud enough of what his men had accomplished to give James Kenny a tour of the lettuce and cabbage patches. Kenny himself enjoyed “Sallad” consisting of red beets and cabbage. Other garrisons were busy raising potatoes. On the Gulf Coast the story was much the same, with troops able to enjoy “Plenty” of vegetables,

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as well as maize, barley, and oats. Redcoats at Pensacola and Mobile also enjoyed another treat that comrades up north would have envied: their garrison grounds included a few apple, orange, and peach trees. 20 Officers, recognizing the health value of fresh vegetables, were frequently in touch with superiors on matters pertaining to seeds and garden supplies. William Eyre, whose Fort Niagara garrison was so terribly sick from scurvy during the winter of 1759–60, was pleased with the arrival of a cask of seeds that would allow his men to plant gardens. Capt. Joseph Schlosser submitted a request for seeds and bulbs to his colonel, Henry Bouquet: a list that included “Cabush seed,” “Beeds [beets],” “Time,” and “Oignons.” He “prayed” that Bouquet would send the supplies and told him that “I am willing with all my Heart to pay for [them],” since “other weis” his garrison would be “reducet to eat Pork alone, . . . as we do now.” 21 Redcoats also collected local plants as a way to supplement their diets; indeed, soldiers quickly became practiced foragers and took advantage of every opportunity. During the Seven Years’ War Capt. John Knox reported that his men “filled bags, haversacks, baskets, and even their pockets” with apples taken from abandoned Acadian farms while on patrols. Soldiers on the frontier may also have joined local French and métis in collecting and refining maple sap at “sugaries” in the woods at places like Fort Michilimackinac. Apples or maple sugar were one thing, the unfamiliar roots and berries of North America quite another. Although soldiers at Detroit enjoyed a pea-sized berry whose taste “resemble[s] nearly the essence of Lemons” and whose pit, when crushed, “is quite aromatic” with a “heat greater than pepper,” redcoats driven by hunger or just curiosity could easily mistake a local plant for something edible, often with fatal results. Fort Niagara’s troops seemed particularly prone to this. In 1762 George Cross died “immediately after eating some poisonous herbs in the Woods,” an episode that prompted the fort’s surgeon to “make the cause known amongst the men” to prevent further incidents. An even more spectacular case of poisoning occurred at Niagara five years later when a soldier went out to the woods to collect what he thought were “Indian Potatoes” for his messmates. Of the seven men who ate the roots two died before the surgeon could begin to treat them. A third man died some time later; their comrades stayed alive only by being made to vomit repeatedly for nearly seven hours, “when they were entirely worn out with Fatigue.” Local Senecas were obliging enough to tell the surgeon that his men had ingested “the Deadly Carrot” allegedly used by the natives as a poison. 22

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Soldiers added to their diet in other ways as well. Encouraged to hunt and fish, redcoats quickly brought whitefish, salmon, venison, and other game to their tables. Fresh venison proved so popular that men began to “quarrel with our Salt provisions” when promised game was not available. Fort Niagara’s garrison was ideally placed to take advantage of spring fish runs, a fact that probably saved its malnourished and scurvy-ridden garrison in the spring of 1760. Col. William Eyre reported that his troops were taking upwards of 1,400 to 1,500 fish a day in April and could have taken more had it not been for ice floes in the Niagara River. Indeed, so important did fishing become to the garrison there that correspondence was frequently punctuated with requests for more or better nets when the few that were available wore out from overuse. Not everyone was pleased with the abundance of fish; surgeon James Stevenson admitted that the local salmon was “very good,” but complained that “I am tired of Fish” and “should be glad to shift my quarters.” 23 Soldiers also bartered with local natives for food, especially maize and venison. In the Ohio Country before 1763, what began as small-scale exchange quickly turned into a thriving business as Delawares, Shawnees, and Iroquois discovered that the army would pay handsomely for food. Officers readily acknowledged that thanks to native hunters, supplies could be “readily attained,” often in impressive quantities. Troops at Fort Pitt obtained nearly 6,000 pounds of venison and 1,200 pounds of bear meat in December 1759, over 8,000 pounds of venison in December of the following year, and another 4,300 pounds of venison in late January 1761. Indians there were “daily” bringing in “large quantity’s” of meat, while civilians at Pittsburgh also spoke of “plenty of meat” from neighboring Delawares. Officers were encouraged to supplement their stores with fresh and dry venison as well as maize; in one case Fort Venango’s garrison sent 127 bushels of maize down to Fort Pitt. Native sources of supply became so important to local garrisons that those forts lacking interpreters found themselves at a decided disadvantage in the trade, while redcoats throughout the Ohio Country soon grasped the distinctive seasonal rhythms of native life and learned that poor weather or a bad planting season could suddenly curtail the flow of venison and maize into their forts. 24 As soldiers moved into the West, so did civilians bent on making profits on the army’s diverse needs, including food. In addition to serving as contractors for beef, pork, flour, and other basic commodities, civilian traders and merchants also kept redcoats in touch with “groceries”: exotic food items that would otherwise be missing in the military diet. Sutlers cus-

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tomarily offered a range of goods to the regiments they served, including such things as pepper, fruit, and sugar. Colonial merchants also found ready customers among western garrisons. The store operated by Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan at Fort Pitt stocked Bohea tea, loaf and muscovado sugar, chocolate, and coffee, along with wines and distilled liquor; the company’s store at Fort Chartres provided the same range of foodstuffs and condiments. While not every soldier at these posts or elsewhere could indulge in a taste for tea or refined sugar, such goods were clearly within reach and, along with garden produce, may have helped make otherwise bland and monotonous diets more palatable. 25 Soldiers on the frontier, then, consumed a wide range of foods, from simple salt rations to sugar and chocolate, with fruits, vegetables, and wild game in season. Preparation of these foods offers further insight into redcoats’ dietary regimen. A common image of this or any other army is of small groups of soldiers— messmates—crowding around open fires or hearths preparing their daily rations; Cuthbertson’s comment about redcoats “boil[ing] the pot” suggests just such a scene. Indeed, boiling food seems to have been the most common means of preparing meats, vegetables, and legumes, and the cast-iron camp kettle was an essential item of military gear, without which regiments were not deemed fit to take the field. And, judging from references, “pork and pease” was something approaching the canonical dish of the common British soldier. Boiled foods such as this were well suited to barracks life, where men as well as women and children would be coming and going all day and into the night; anyone could easily ladle out a helping from the common pot. Moreover, pork and peas was a simple dish, one that soldiers could easily prepare for themselves, though in many garrisons wives and daughters took charge of cooking. At Fort Crown Point in the Champlain valley, Jane Ross, a soldier’s wife, told of how she cooked dinner in a “Mess Room”—probably a converted barrack room—usually for her husband and his messmates, nine men in all. The preparation was far from simple; the heavily salted pork had to be steeped in fresh water for at least twenty-four hours and the excess salt scraped off before it could be cooked. 26 Pork and peas should be considered the basic meal, however. Soldiers and civilians at western forts could also enjoy a meal of “Potatoes, Sallad & Milk,” while Fort Niagara’s commander reported that his men were eating vegetables every other day into October. Potatoes and root vegetables may have been boiled, though there is evidence for other sorts of preparation. Materials recovered from the site of Fort Stanwix, in the Mohawk valley,

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include broilers and handles for griddles, suggesting alternative ways of preparing meats. Venison would have been consumed fresh or dried, since soldiers discovered that they could not preserve it in brine. Fish could have been served boiled in stews or broiled. 27 At smaller forts bread was probably baked in the barracks, though at larger posts and at places like Pittsburgh, Detroit, or Pensacola, ovens run by soldier-bakers could turn out bread rations for whole garrisons. Field armies carried portable iron ovens with them in the field; garrison ovens were normally made of brick and stone like those that have survived at Fort Niagara, dating from 1762, and at Fort Ste. Frederic, whose French-built ovens continued to serve British troops at nearby Fort Crown Point. 28 Larger garrisons frequently built breweries for making spruce beer. This concoction, made from the tips of spruce boiled with molasses and yeast, was mildly alcoholic but, more important, served as an anti-scorbutic. First introduced to soldiers during the Seven Years’ War, by the mid-1760s spruce beer had become a routine part of soldiers’ diets at posts in the Great Lakes. To offset costs of production, the beer was sold to redcoats by the gallon. Col. William Eyre fancied himself something of an expert on spruce beer, boasting that “Our Brewery” at Fort Niagara produced beer that “grows

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better and better every Week” due, he believed, to the local pine, which gave the beer “an Agreeable Accid” that made it better than cider. Not only were his scurvy-prone troops “very fond of it,” but Eyre claimed that it “helped to put Many of them upon their Legs.” At far-off Fort Michilimackinac, one visitor in 1767 found that “Within these two years the beer is become the most usual table drink” and claimed that the local variety could only be equaled for taste by that brewed at the fishing stations in Newfoundland. 29 At a time when diet and the ways foods were presented at table served as markers of social class in the British world, evidence suggests that—as was the case with lodging, material goods, and health—social distinctions tended to blur on the frontier. Officers liked to discuss “their” gardens, but fresh vegetables and fruits were easily available to all ranks. Although garrison commanders were urged to acquire fresh meat for the officers’ table instead of the salt rations issued to the barracks, trade with natives, as well as hunting and fishing, guaranteed that enlisted men could enjoy the same diet. Even those “groceries” whose consumption was once associated with elites were within reach of common soldiers, though not in the same quantities or with the same frequency as for officers, who enjoyed lines of credit not available to enlisted men. Officers did, of course, eat more— army custom saw to that—and often adorned their tables with stemmed glasses and porcelain in place of stoneware mugs and pewter. Yet in isolated western garrisons whose supplies were at the mercy of weather and long lines of supply, all ranks made do with salt pork, peas, and hard bread when nothing else was available. 30 Dietary differences are more readily apparent between the army and neighboring peoples. Archaeological evidence, in particular, suggests that British soldiers made a conscious effort to replicate their foodways on the frontier. Venison and maize in the Ohio Country, for instance, were a vital source of nutrition for early garrisons; yet by the mid-1760s this trade in local foodstuffs fell off considerably as soldiers relied more and more on their own labors and the army’s commissariat. Elsewhere, such as at Fort Michilimackinac, redcoats continued to maintain a diet heavy in wheaten bread, pork, and beef, a diet very unlike that of local French, métis, and Indians. 31 Bennett Cuthbertson reminded fellow officers that a “regular” diet would improve soldiers’ health as well as discipline and morale. The redcoat’s normal ration alone would have supplied between 2,000 and 3,000 calories

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a day, and one modern study concludes that this in itself would have been adequate for men on garrison duty. Whether standard rations alone could have sustained men subjected to extremes of weather and the hard physical labor of building, portaging, or managing vessels is less clear, especially since this diet was particularly lacking in complex vitamins and minerals such as zinc and folic acid. The army’s one chronic dietary problem remained the deficiency disease scurvy. “Scorbutic Complaints” came from every corner of the frontier, though the outbreaks tended to appear in early spring when long winters of meat and bread without fresh vegetables had begun to take their toll. 32 The soldiers’ diet was also lacking in at least one other notable area: dairy products. While there are occasional references to soldiers having access to milk, this does not appear to have been widespread. Neither does the consumption of cheese, though a quarter of an ounce of butter was provided as part of the daily ration. A lack of calcium may help explain the poorly healed fractures noted in medical records or the incidence of broken bones among common soldiers. Nevertheless, western garrisons were rarely threatened by serious malnutrition. Fort Niagara’s first garrison may have faced severe food shortages by the spring of 1760, but their replacements fared much better. “Refreshment of fresh fish,” according to surgeon Stevenson, along with garden vegetables, kept the fort’s garrison at least “tolerably” healthy in succeeding years. Droughts, such as Fort Pitt’s garrison faced in 1765, or the supply problems encountered by Detroit’s troops in the early 1760s threatened food supplies only briefly. A greater difficulty emerged on the Gulf Coast, where a combination of poor harvests and high prices at Pensacola did create hardships for officers and soldiers alike in the mid-1760s. 33 Compared to many British civilians, in fact, soldiers, like white colonial civilians, may have fared particularly well. At anywhere from a half pound to a pound per day, depending on whether the ration was pork or beef, redcoats were eating more meat than many of their relatives in Britain. If fresh fish, occasional game, and fresh meat from livestock are added, in addition to vegetables and wheat bread, then soldiers on the frontier would have eaten well. Moreover, enlisted men and officers alike added considerably to their caloric intake through their use of distilled liquor such as rum. 34 This picture of soldiers’ diet, however, needs to be qualified in two important ways. First, it did not necessarily extend to dependents; women carried on a regiment’s ration strength were entitled to no more than a half ration

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of meat, bread, and pease, while children were issued nothing at all. This meant that soldiers with additional mouths to feed would need to divide whatever foods they received among wives and children; wives who earned extra money as laundresses, cooks, or servants for officers would have been in a position to add to their families’—and messmates’—store of food, but only insofar as such paying jobs were available, something more likely at large forts than at small outposts. Children would have been particularly vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies, of course, as would pregnant women, who required, among other things, increased amounts of iron and calcium. At times when garrisons were forced onto short rations, women and children were the first to feel the impact. Second, while soldiers and their dependents never starved, they, along with working-class civilians on both sides of the Atlantic, may have felt what has been called a “continual longing” for more food, better-quality rations, and more of the luxury foods like chocolate or sugar, for which redcoated consumers were developing a taste. This may have been especially true among the occupants of frontier garrisons where soldiers performed work that frequently required more energy than they obtained from their food supplies. 35 One hint of this can be found in courts-martial records indicating that theft of stores was common. Soldiers such as Thomas Johnstone attempted to steal sugar and liquor or, like Richard Harris, domestic fowl belonging to local civilians. At Fort Pitt officers finally caught an unnamed “robber of flour.” In all cases soldiers risked severe punishment; both Johnstone and the soldier at Fort Pitt received 500 lashes. At other times the supply or availability of food became a major point of contention between soldiers and their superiors. Threatened with an additional stoppage of their pay for rations, redcoats worried that they would not be able to afford additional foods or other “necessaries” on their reduced wages. Indeed, this stoppage for rations was a source of the widespread discontent that swept through the army in America in 1763. Common soldiers were not the only ones expressing anxiety about the level and quality of their rations. Subalterns at Fort Niagara submitted a strong complaint against their commander, who allegedly commandeered the best foods available, leaving his juniors discards from his cellar, “unfit for use.” 36 The picture that emerges, then, is of soldiers who enjoyed a wide range of foods, though perhaps not in the quantity—or quality—sufficient for their and their dependents’ needs. In terms of the variety of foods available,

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redcoats and their families were somewhat better off than working people in Britain. Scurvy appears to have been the only clear dietary disorder present among troops in the West, and it only appeared seasonally. As in other aspects of garrison life, social boundaries also tended to blur in the area of foods, with common soldiers having access to luxury consumables, while officers found themselves having to make do with little more than the salt meat and bread rations issued to their men. How far soldiers’ diets were able to sustain them under the working conditions they faced is unclear. On the Gulf Coast, at least, the poor quality or inadequacy of provisions may only have aggravated chronic sickness from malaria and other fevers. And soldiers everywhere had little access to dairy products and foods rich in complex vitamins, making it likely that injuries and wounds, however slight, would take longer to heal. Diet, then, no less than weather and work, influenced redcoats’ ability to keep body and soul together. Indeed, health became yet another constant preoccupation of soldiers on the frontier.

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«7» Physical and Mental Health

Early modern European armies were notoriously unhealthy. During the chronic warfare of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, far more soldiers died of sickness than in battle. Taken together, disease and exposure could cripple an army faster and more completely than a pitched battle. 1 Little had changed by the eighteenth century. Dr. John Pringle, senior medical officer for the British army during the War of the Austrian Succession, found that about one in ten soldiers in Flanders were usually sick, suffering colds, respiratory illnesses, typhus, and fevers; at the height of the campaigning season and during the wet winters in the Low Countries, up to a quarter of the army might be sick or hospitalized. 2 Explanations for the illness that characterized armies are not hard to find. Crowded conditions in camp and fortress were ideal breeding grounds for a variety of illnesses; typhus was known as “jail fever” and also as “camp fever.” Respiratory diseases flourished in army camps; filth from unwashed bodies, discarded foods, and human and animal wastes supported bacteria and parasites that easily found their way into digestive systems. 3 Equally important was the composition of the armies themselves. The coming together of country folk and city-dwellers meant a collision of disease environments, while the presence of children provided a non-immune host for smallpox and other “childhood” diseases. These folks were often poorly housed against the elements; purpose-built barracks were few in Britain and always crowded and poorly maintained. At the same time, soldiers were not issued seasonal clothing: the heavy woolens and linens of the basic uniform served summer and winter, fair weather and foul. 4 As European armies and their colonial allies gathered in America, oldworld experiences were repeated in the new. In one notorious example, an Anglo-American expedition raised in 1740 to seize the Spanish American port of Cartagena was virtually destroyed by disease without ever coming to grips with the enemy. By 1742 over three-quarters of the troops, many of them raised in the colonies, had died. Two decades later a much larger

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army, poised to attack Havana, suffered a sick rate of 10 percent before ever departing for the heat, swamps, and yellow fever of Cuba. 5 While service in the mainland colonies never posed the same threat to British soldiers, illness stalked the army from New York and Pennsylvania to Nova Scotia and Canada during the Seven Years’ War. 6 One estimate suggests that the army lost between 15 and 30 percent of its strength annually from all causes, including deaths, desertion, and men discharged as unfit for service. 7 As it neared its objective of Fort Duquesne in early November 1758, Gen. John Forbes’s army suffered an 11 percent rate of sickness; among his provincials the number shot up to nearly one man in four. 8 The experience of Forbes’s army suggests that if redcoats continued to suffer from camp diseases, seasonal malnutrition, and exposure, their provincial allies fared even worse. Camps at places like Albany, Halifax, or Carlisle, Pennsylvania, were unprecedented phenomena in the colonies: thousands of men, women, and children thrown together for weeks or months in numbers that easily rivaled those of the largest cities in British America. American soldiers, most from rural backgrounds, found the experience at once strange, exhilarating, and dangerous. Farms boys knew little about the basics of camp sanitation and had to be warned repeatedly that they would be “severely punish’d” if they relieved themselves anywhere but in “the House of Office.” 9 Poor hygiene leading to typhus or typhoid fever only added to the woes of young men never exposed to the crowd diseases common in Europe or in colonial port towns. Smallpox was a particular danger and certainly killed more provincial soldiers than did French bullets. British soldiers were far more likely to have been exposed to the disease as children than their colonial camp mates, and smallpox remained a characteristic of provincial military forces throughout the war. The mere rumor of smallpox was enough to panic colonial troops; when the disease appeared among Virginia troops in Forbes’s army in 1758, regular officers tried to keep the outbreak “as much a secret as possible.” 10 Men lost through sickness, deaths from disease or accidents, and discharges for lameness or infirmity as well as losses from battle sapped the army’s strength throughout the Seven Years’ War. In 1759, for example, the army was short nearly 4,500 men—the equivalent of four full-strength regiments or 21 percent of its American manpower; the story was much the same in the years that followed. By 1764 roughly one in every nine soldiers was

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116 Table 1.

physical and mental health Army manpower losses and gains in North America, 1766–67, 1770

Year

Avg. enlisted strength

Dead

Deserted

Discharged

Total

1766

5,256

278

365

279

922

364

⫺558

1767

5,556

191

361

259

811

1,112

⫹301

1770

5,536

364

157

189

710

258

⫺452

Recruited

Net

Source: wo 17/1491, 1492, 1493.

sick or hospitalized, and total losses came to 14 percent of the army. Yet the problems continued beyond the end of the war against the French and the shorter but equally destructive war with trans-Appalachian Indians in 1763–64. 11 Though redcoats were no longer exposed to the dangers of battle, peacetime American service, especially in the West, continued to take its toll. By the late 1760s, for example, a much smaller force—some 5,406 enlisted men on average—suffered rates of illness and injury of some 8 percent annually, while another 5 percent of common soldiers died. These facts, together with the chronic shortage of recruits and high rates of desertion, meant that the army in the colonies continued to shrink in size, placing an increasing burden of duties and labor—and a correspondingly greater risk of sickness or death—on those who remained in the ranks (see table 1). To commanders in chief inspecting the periodic returns of the army from their New York headquarters, it might indeed have seemed that “this Country wears out men very fast.” 12 Before looking more closely at the physical and mental health of common soldiers and officers in frontier garrisons, it is useful to put American conditions into their proper context. Redcoats in America were part of a far-flung network of forces that encompassed both Britain and its colonial possessions. Indeed, if these territories were part of an “English Atlantic” world, so, too, was the army. The army’s Atlantic world was very much a product of the Seven Years’ War; Britain’s victory required troops throughout eastern North America, the West Indies and, eventually, West Africa, as well as in the older garrisons of Gibraltar, Minorca, Ireland, and Britain itself. How did the health of soldiers in America compare to redcoats stationed elsewhere? By the mid-1760s the rapid movement of troops around the Atlantic to cope with wartime demands had given way to peacetime routine. Regular annual returns for the army outside Ireland from 1768 through the outbreak

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Health of British forces overseas, 1768–75

Sick Total enlisted strength % Sick

Gibraltar

Minorca

West Indies

West Africa

America

142 2,438 6%

153 1,827 8%

227 1,826 12%

8 77 10%

363 5,905 6%

Source: bl Add ms 29,256 a–k, 29,257 a–m, 29,258 a–k, 29,259 c–l. Note: These returns cover forty-three months from November 1768 to September 1775.

of the American rebellion provide a general picture of the health of this peacetime army. By 1768 the British army maintained forces ranging in size from the roughly 12,000 men stationed in Britain to the token force of fewer than 100 troops in West Africa. These forces were routinely rotated around the Atlantic until the rising crisis in America made such reliefs impossible. 13 Healthiest of all were those redcoats stationed at home; an annual average of just 5 percent of troops in Britain was listed as sick between 1768 and 1775. Of the overseas posts, the Gibraltar garrison in 1769 enjoyed comparable rates of health, as did soldiers in North America, with an annual average of 6 percent. Troops at Port Mahon on the island of Minorca in the Mediterranean suffered an 8 percent rate of sickness, while the tiny force in West Africa reported an annual rate of illness of 10 percent. Worst of all were the West Indian garrisons in Jamaica and the Lesser Antilles, where redcoats routinely suffered sickness at a level of 12 percent annually, double that in North America and twice the rates for comrades at home (see table 2). The differences revealed by the returns were explained at the time by what military leaders like Gen. Sir Thomas Gage called “seasoning to the Climate”: the characteristic increase in illness and death that inevitably came with any movement of troops into a new environment. This phenomenon, more recently referred to as the “relocation cost” of empire, affected civilian immigrants as well as soldiers. Indeed, the notion of “seasoning” has long been an explanation of why early Atlantic colonies such as Virginia suffered such high rates of death and disease. 14 For soldiers moving to the ecologically “neo-Europe” North America, adjustments were generally less severe than elsewhere. Redcoats at Gibraltar could expect to face bouts of “Bilious and putrid disorders,” while those on Minorca had to cope with endemic malaria; the handful of men clinging to coastal West Africa had to face the numerous disorders originating there.

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With its combination of malaria, yellow fever, heat, and humidity, the West Indies continued to play havoc with British soldiers year after year, making the Caribbean perhaps the most dangerous place in the British Atlantic for soldiers. 15 There were marked regional differences, then, in the health of soldiers stationed throughout the army’s greater Atlantic. The same was also true within North America. While no part of the army in the mainland colonies escaped sickness and death, experiences differed widely between seacoast garrisons and those in the West and within the army’s frontier itself. Again, something of the general patterns emerge from the strength returns of the army in America, a detailed accounting that extends, with interruptions, from the end of the Seven Years’ War to the outbreak of the American Revolution. The conquest of Canada did not bring an end to the challenges of service in America. The need to occupy New France meant the shifting around of regiments, while the unanticipated Indian war of 1763 forced Sir Jeffery Amherst to rush whatever troops he could spare to the Great Lakes and the Ohio Country. Moreover, as the army was reorganized at the end of the war, regiments in America were either disbanded or reduced in strength. Only the return of peace in 1765 allowed the army to begin what would be a decade-long routine of garrison life. This transformation from war to peace is reflected in the army’s strength returns. 16 During 1763 an average of 11 percent of common soldiers were either sick in the ranks or in hospitals, though less than 1 percent died. There were wide variations, however. The 45th Foot, stationed in Nova Scotia, saw only 3 percent of its men sick that year; at the other extreme was the 42nd Foot, the Royal Highland Regiment. Returning to New York from Havana, scores of men were down with tropical fevers; fully one-third of the regiment was sick at any one time, a fact that greatly impaired its ability to serve when sent to face the Ohio Indians in late summer. Most regiments, however, regardless of where they served, experienced low death rates. The notable exceptions were the two regiments most heavily engaged in the Indian war: the Royal Americans and the 80th Light Infantry. Each suffered heavy losses, including a 4 percent mortality rate. 17 Such differences in rates of sickness and death characterized the army’s American experience until the outbreak of the American Revolution. In 1763 the explanation lies in frontier warfare as well as the consequences of

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tropical campaigning and the general condition of a long-serving wartime army. By 1765, however, regional patterns began to emerge, with states of health increasingly shaped by the effects of local conditions on ever more sedentary troops. During the late 1760s regiments stationed in Canada, the older British colonies, and East Florida experienced rates of sickness that averaged 7 percent annually and deaths below 1 percent a year. Soldiers in the West, however, continued to face higher levels of both illness and death: nearly 9 and 3 percent respectively. Some parts of Britain’s new American frontier posed a greater threat to redcoats than others. West Florida was particularly dangerous for troops in the early years of the garrisons there; 5 percent died in 1766, while sickness averaged 6 percent throughout the period. Even more dangerous to redcoats was the Illinois Country; not only did rates of sickness consistently top 10 percent a year, the death rate rose to a high of 9 percent by 1770. If American service exacted a higher cost in soldiers’ lives than service in Britain, the evidence also suggests that service in the West was frequently much more hazardous than duty elsewhere in the colonies (see table 3). 18 Regimental returns, of course, offer only a generalized picture of military health in the West, revealing nothing about the particular experiences of common soldiers and their officers. The physical and emotional costs of frontier soldiering in America are most often made clear in routine correspondence, the observations of visitors, and the occasional physical evidence. Redcoats moving into the West for the first time after 1758 were frequently vulnerable to new disease environments and unfamiliar surroundings as well as shortages of food and clothing arising from distance and weather. Moreover, troops who occupied such places as Fort Niagara or Pensacola were already suffering the effects of several wartime campaigns. When its new garrison arrived in the summer of 1760, a year after the fort had been taken from the French, Fort Niagara was little more than a charnel house. Roughly one-fourth of the original garrison, the 44th Foot, had died over the winter. The survivors were so sick that they could not even clean up after themselves. Their replacements, having made the hard journey from Fort Pitt, had to camp in the fort’s ditch since the barracks were “so dirty and odorous” that, in the opinion of one officer, “it is inconceivable they did not all die from filth and stench.” This, and the scores of fresh graves,

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8.221 23. Health and hygiene: chamber pot, toothbrush, fragments of medicine bottles, and pill tile. (Courtesy of the Fort Ligonier Association, Ligonier pa.)

must have added to the gloom of men who looked upon duty on the wild shores of Lake Ontario as “our exile.” 19 Malnutrition appears to have been the single greatest killer. The fort, at the mouth of the Niagara River, was effectively isolated during the winter. The troops lived on salt pork and bread and were eventually reduced to short rations as supplies dwindled. Only the spring fish runs saved the troops from outright starvation. The 44th’s experience was not lost on their replacements; Maj. William Walters of the Royal Americans quickly understood the formula for health in this corner of the West: ample good food and regular work for his troops. 20 Three years later and half a continent away to the south, other redcoats were beginning occupation duties along the Gulf Coast. Instead of being able to recuperate after months of exposure to tropical fevers in the Caribbean, however, these troops entered a world where a century and more of contact between natives, Europeans, and Africans had produced a disease environment similar to the one the redcoats had just left. From the outset, therefore, British soldiers continued to face malaria and yellow


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Table 3. Rates of sickness & death in the army in North America, 1766–67, 1770 1766 Region East Florida West Florida Illinois Country Ohio Country Great Lakes Quebec Maritimes Colonies

1767

1770

Sick (%)

Dead (%)

Sick (%)

Dead (%)

Sick (%)

Dead (%)

7 7 14 5 9 10 5 11

⬍1 5 2 ⬍1 ⬍1 ⬍1 ⬍1 ⬍1

6 5 13 5 9 9 4 10

⬍1 1 1 ⬍1 ⬍1 ⬍1 ⬍1 ⬍1

8 7 11

⬍1 1 9

9 5 4 6

⬍1 ⬍1 ⬍1 ⬍1

Source: wo 17/1491, 1492, 1493. Note: East Florida, 1766–67: 9th Foot, 1770: 16th Foot; West Florida, 1766–70: 21st, 31st Foot; Illionis Country, 1766–67: 34th Foot, 1770: 18th Foot; Ohio Country, 1766–67: 42nd Foot; Great Lakes, 1766–70: 2/60th Foot; Quebec, 1766: 15th, 27th, 52nd Foot, 1767: 10th, 15th, 52nd Foot, 1770: 8th, 10th, 26th, 52nd Foot; Maritimes, 1766–67: 14th, 29th, 59th, 65th Foot, 1770: 59th, 65th Foot; Colonies, 1766: 17th, 28th, 46th, 1/60th Foot, 1767: 16th, 26th, 1/60th Foot, 1770: 14th, 29th, 64th, 1/60th Foot.

fever as well as sickness brought on by poor food and by the stifling summer heat and humidity. By the autumn of 1764 troops were experiencing what would become a familiar—and deadly—annual cycle of fevers, scurvy, typhus, and fluxes. Among the consequences were garrisons so much reduced as to be wholly ineffective; by October 1764 the 35th Foot, for example, had only 150 officers and men in its ranks—only one-third of its authorized strength. 21 Similar experiences awaited the troops occupying the Illinois Country late in 1765. Life here, amid the swampy lowlands of the Mississippi River valley, alternated between hot and humid summers and sometimes frigid winters, producing yet another distinctive environment that proved especially dangerous to British soldiers as they struggled to adapt to new surroundings. Set against conditions elsewhere in the West, the Ohio Country was a comparatively healthy place for soldiers. Tied to the settlements by Forbes’s Road, troops west of the Alleghenies rarely faced the threat of starvation; likewise, tropical diseases could not flourish here, though redcoats already stricken with malaria, for example, continued to suffer its effects. However, epidemics hardly troubled these garrisons; only in 1763 did smallpox appear at Fort Pitt, largely due to the crowds of infected civilian refugees fleeing

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Indian raids that summer. The proximity of civilians may also help explain the several cases of “pox” or “clap” among troops in the Ohio Country. Among the five cases of venereal disease reported was that of one officer who got “the itch” from a local “Dulcinea.” Along Forbes’s Road and on the upper Allegheny River the weather frequently posed the biggest threat to soldiers: flash floods that could upset boats and take out flimsy bridges or the stinging winter cold that exposed men to frostbite. 22 West Florida and the Illinois Country continued to pose threats to soldiers’ health throughout the 1760s and early 1770s. Known to its earlier Spanish garrisons as the “land galley,” Pensacola as well as neighboring Mobile took a heavy toll of redcoats. Men succumbed to “putrid bilious fever,” the flux, and “Jail or Hospital fever” (typhus), illnesses that killed “some few men” and sent scores to the dilapidated quarters that served as hospitals. Such buildings, leaky in the rain and offering no shelter from the heat, only added to soldiers’ poor health and general misery, as did the “stagnated ditch” that surrounded Pensacola. Mobile soon became identified with particularly dangerous “Quotitian Agues,” and “Mobile Fever” soon entered the army’s vocabulary. 23 Widespread sickness and high death rates persisted in West Florida as new regiments arrived in 1765 to replace what was left of the original garrison. A “terrible Disorder” struck the 31st Foot soon after it landed at Pensacola. The 21st, newly arrived at Mobile, was sickly as well, and senior officers learned that, based on earlier experiences at this place, illness would persist for a long time. Among the victims of this new round of sickness was Col. Henry Bouquet. Promoted to brigadier general in America and sent to take command of forces in the Floridas, Bouquet left Philadelphia in good health. By the time his ship reached Florida, however, he was already suffering from the excessive heat and mosquito-borne illness. Arriving at Pensacola on August 24, “Poor Brigadier Bouquet did not enjoy his Command above ten days,” dying on September 3. 24 The army was aware of the peculiar circumstances on the gulf that cost so many lives. Authorities in New York and Whitehall understood that “fluxes, yellow fevers, black vomits,” and sunstroke could quickly destroy whole regiments—officers as well as common soldiers, women and children as well as men. The “loose burning Sand” and bad water left survivors “languid and dispirited.” Moreover, experience demonstrated that both Pensacola and Mobile were poorly located to ensure the health of their garrisons; officers at Mobile pointed to the perpetual dampness of the site and the

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fort’s location “near the Conflux of the fresh and Salt Waters” that made obtaining wholesome drinking water difficult. 25 Faced with the dismal news from West Florida, including the near destruction of the 31st Foot in 1765 as well as accumulating information about the dangers of the Gulf Coast and other parts of Britain’s new American frontier, army officials took steps to cope with the high rates of death and sickness among regiments newly arrived in the colonies. The solution drew on a commonly accepted explanation for these losses as well as previous experience, including recent campaigns in the tropics. Officers shared the assumption expressed by Gage that the problems on the Gulf Coast would “only prove a Seasoning to the Climate” and that losses from this “seasoning” could be reduced by moving troops into the region to avoid the peak seasons for fevers and other ills. One result was a return to the system of rotating regiments through overseas garrisons, which had been introduced in the late 1740s but interrupted by the Seven Years’ War. By 1767 the Secretary at War had collected information from British garrisons in the Mediterranean, West Indies, and North America and produced a schedule whereby troops could be moved regularly from region to region before the onset of dangerous weather, thus allowing the soldiers to grow accustomed to their new surroundings. 26 While the army never succeeded in overcoming the relocation costs that came with moving men across widely different climatic and ecological regions, evidence from the gulf suggests that the troops learned to cope with new surroundings. The annual death rate in West Florida dropped markedly, from some 5 to only 1 percent of the garrison; the sick rate remained around 7 percent annually in the late 1760s but never rose above that level. The explanation lies in a number of developments. The army built new barracks and hospitals at Pensacola, often placing these works on high ground away from the bay. At the same time, Mobile’s garrison was severely reduced during the “sickly season” there, with most men going back to comparatively healthy Pensacola. Finally, as garrisons settled into their new homes—both the 21st and 31st Foot remained in West Florida from 1765 to 1773—they routinely planted gardens and raised livestock that supplemented rations and provided a hedge against scurvy and other forms of malnutrition. As early as 1766 Gage was satisfied that the West Florida regiments “continued healthy” into the onset of autumn, when fevers and fluxes began to increase. Two years later he was pleased to report that the troops were “remarkably healthy,” even though, in the words of Brig. Gen. William Taylor, Mobile “continue[d] to be the Dread of the Troops.” 27

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24. “A Plan of Croft-Town” by Elias Durnford, lieutenant governor of West Florida, in 1770. The encampment was intended “for the Troops of Mobile during the unhealthy Season.” (Courtesy of the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.)

Local conditions continued to take a toll of redcoats stationed at Fort Chartres in the Illinois Country. The 34th Foot, which arrived at the end of 1765 after an exhausting trip up the Mississippi River from Mobile, suffered chronic ill health at the fort, located on low ground where hot, humid summers gave way to cold, damp winters. During the height of the late summer season in 1766, more than forty-five men were sick at any one time, and the regiment continued to have an average of between fifteen and twenty-five men sick through 1767. At the same time, however, the death rate dropped by more than half as soldiers and their surgeons learned to cope with the annual outbreaks of ague and fevers. 28 The 18th Foot arrived in the Illinois Country in the summer of 1768 to relieve the 34th. Almost immediately the regiment began to sicken, attacked by “Hott Fitts” and intermittent fevers and fluxes. By the following January some forty-two officers and men were dead, along with twentyseven women and children; the survivors, once a “sett of fine stout hearty Young men,” were now, according to their quartermaster, “weak, feable, emaciated poor Souls.” These survivors could only hope that, after nearly

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a year, “the seasoning (as they call it here) is now almost over.” Such hopes proved premature. During the winter of 1768–69 the regiment suffered a “dreadful Sickness” that struck soldiers and local French and Indians alike. So bad was this epidemic that the garrison was reduced to nineteen men fit for duty out of four companies—roughly 200 troops—at the fort. That autumn fevers struck again; according to one witness, twenty men a day were falling sick by the end of September. So few men were available for duty that the fort’s gates were kept locked day and night while regimental surgeons struggled to cope, despite their apparent “want of Experience.” By 1770 the 18th Foot had suffered by far the highest mortality of any American regiment during the postwar period. 29 In the northern reaches of the army’s frontier, soldiers’ experiences were different. The colder weather, sharper seasonal transitions, and the absence of low-lying, swampy surroundings meant that garrisons in the Ohio Country and Great Lakes never faced the nightmares suffered by men at Pensacola or Fort Chartres; the calamity that befell the 44th Foot at Fort Niagara was the exception rather than the rule. Yet illnesses stalked redcoats here as elsewhere. Soldiers breaking ground for Fort Pitt in the spring of 1759 found themselves battling measles, introduced by Virginia civilians coming west to sell food to the army. Men and officers like Capt. Harry Gordon found their lungs “very much out of order” from the cold weather while struggling with outbreaks of the flux. Meanwhile, Fort Ligonier’s commander reported cases of scurvy, jaundice, rheumatism, and “putrid distempers” among his troops. 30 Complaints of a wide variety of illnesses remained common in the Ohio Country, but although Fort Pitt’s garrison in 1760 could “dayly” count its “Sick in Generally 26, 28 or 30,” there were no major epidemics. Subsequent years also brought attacks of “Epidemical Cold[s]” and “Pleurizy” as well as coughs and severe colds that may have been symptoms of influenza. Bouts of the flux, fever, and ague occurred among the smaller garrisons established along Forbes’s Road and north from Fort Pitt to Lake Erie. 31 Similar complaints arose throughout the Great Lakes. Lt. Elias Meyer’s small garrison at Fort Sandusky, for example, suffered from fevers, colds, and dysentery during the autumn of 1761. A year later soldiers at Detroit also came down with colds and well as other pulmonary disorders; “illlodged,” according to Maj. Henry Gladwin, the men sickened from being constantly wet when it rained. New Jersey provincials at Fort Niagara in 1762 counted nearly 40 of their 282 men sick. At the shipyard on Navy Island in the Niagara River, soldiers and civilians alike battled fevers through much

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of the summer and autumn of the same year; soldiers at Detroit years later were still vulnerable to this disorder. 32 The evidence concerning diseases among the troops in the West makes it clear that no corner of the army’s frontier was immune to bouts of illness triggered by climate, weather, or infection. Nevertheless, it is possible to detect noticeable regional patterns in the rhythms of disease. Along the gulf the dreaded “sickly season” began in July and August, reaching a climax in the autumn, when troops throughout the region were usually down with fevers, ague, and a variety of unidentified complaints. 33 In the Ohio Country sickness was a year-round problem; colds and coughs occurred in spring, summer, and fall, while generalized complaints of fevers and “sickness” appear from autumn to midspring. Only fluxes and scurvy seem concentrated in the early months of the year, a reflection of garrisons forced to live on salted rations during the winter. To the north, throughout the Great Lakes basin, the incidence of poor health paralleled that of the gulf in that sickness was most often associated with the period from July through October. Officers looked forward to the onset of cold weather and with it a return to health. Indeed, the bitter cold of winter meant that garrisons were largely free of contagious diseases, though problems associated with malnutrition began earlier and lasted longer in a region with a short growing season. Smallpox was a rarity, while most complaints from Michilimackinac to Niagara were of agues and fevers. Even so, illness could render garrisons here as helpless as those at Pensacola and Mobile. In the autumn of 1766, for example, Lt. Frederick Spiesmacher’s Royal Americans at Fort Michilimackinac were so riddled with sickness that he was forced to hire local traders to cut firewood for his troops. 34 It is clear that officers in American service suffered along with their men, in stark contrast to service in Europe, where gentlemen could seek medical help beyond that offered by regimental surgeons and could, if need arose, obtain leaves of absence to restore damaged constitutions. Capt. Richard Mather, in command of the isolated outpost at Fort Venango in 1761, complained that he was “now reduced so Low as scarce to be able to Crawl the Length of my Room” and requested permission to seek treatment at Fort Pitt, where he eventually died. Being stationed at this large fortress with a medical officer did fellow Royal American officer Lt. Townshend Guy little good when he contracted smallpox during the Ohio Indian siege in 1763. At Pensacola in the spring of 1765, Captain Mackinen of the 31st Foot died of “Yellow Jandys,” preceded by lieutenants Ormsby and Farquharson. Later that same year at least two other officers died, along with five of six

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officers’ wives at the fort, ninety-four soldiers, and more than forty of their women and children. Officers and men who survived epidemics were by no means assured of good health. Ensign Howard of the 18th Foot was found by his regiment’s newly arrived quartermaster to be “on the decline of life,” while other officers suffered from “asthmatick and hectick” complaints. 35 If new surroundings, oppressive weather, and new disease environments help explain redcoats’ repeated bouts with contagious disease, so, too, does the general condition of soldiers in the West. Indeed, the picture that emerges of these men is one dominated by chronic ill health, and the army’s ranks were filled with men suffering from a range of health problems that could only have made them more vulnerable to the colds, fluxes, and fevers that came with service on the frontiers of America. Surviving evidence from the colonies suggests that soldiers rarely reflected the recruiter’s ideal of men who were “broad shoulder’d, well limb’d, and without infirmities.” Rather, in recruiting from the lower classes of society, standards tended to be quite elastic as the army took what it could get, frequently turning a blind eye to “infirmities.” Among the most revealing sources are the many newspaper advertisements for deserters, which very often provided detailed physical descriptions of runaways. Aside from many described as “pock marked,” indicating that they had already contracted smallpox, men were characterized as “Stoops his Shoulders” or “Stooped.” Others were knock-kneed, duck-toed, or bowlegged. Daniel Porter of the 48th Foot had an “Impediment in his Speech; Paul Griffiths, who ran from the 17th Foot in 1760, “Slobbers very much when Speaking”—perhaps a reference to a dental or muscular disorder. John Guest from the same regiment was said to squint with both eyes. Another deserter, Thomas Thettson of the Royal Regiment, was described as “short-sighted.” Much less frequent are comments such as “very Strong made” (applied to Joseph Lambert of the 18th Foot) or “well made” (used to describe Thomas Haywood of the same regiment). 36 Many men brought to their military service injuries and maladies associated with civilian life. Most common soldiers came from either the lowest of the trades or supported themselves as best they could through hard physical labor. Tailors and shoemakers, particularly vulnerable to economic cycles and thus prone to see military service as an alternative to penury, frequently suffered from poor eyesight: the “short-sighted” quality characteristic of some deserters. Weavers, another heavily represented group in the ranks,

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suffered pulmonary disorders from inhaling lint; potters faced the same problems from the dust of the kilns. Miners could be prematurely stooped from their labor, while working people of all stripes were vulnerable to malnutrition, consumption, poorly set fractures, and crippling arthritis. Some men suffered from health problems that were either unknown to them or ignored by those who enlisted them; one soldier at Fort Niagara was “troubled with the Epilepsy” and, though a young man, was “quite unfit” for service. Another man, George Zimmerman, appears to have died of a stroke while on duty at Fort Sandusky. 37 Widespread—sometimes chronic—ill health was only part of the picture. Garrison duty posed hazards of its own, as soldiers undertook duties and chores that in more settled parts of the empire would be left to civilians. Even routine work could result in injury or death—a soldier died after being hit by a falling tree outside Fort Michilimackinac. The vast distances over which supplies and men had to be transported, the absence of civilian populations that could be hired or compelled to supply labor, and the dramatic seasonal variations in weather all meant that redcoats stood an excellent chance of dying, being “lamed” or crippled, or at least suffering painful wounds that might take weeks or months to heal. 38 “Lamed” could, of course, mean many things. It could include men suffering from dislocated shoulders or those who had “lost the use of hand” through unspecified injuries. A soldier may have “spraind his Back” or suffered a “Straind Ancle.” Still other men limped from bruises. 39 Yet the written evidence, in the form of letters or official reports, often masks more than it reveals about the physical condition of redcoats. Far more suggestive are the remains of common soldiers, such as those recovered from burials at Fort Erie, Ontario, dating from the War of 1812. Conditions of life and soldiering would not have been the same in all respects; indeed, the experiences of redcoats at Fort Pitt or Mobile in 1764 were likely worse than those of American troops at Fort Erie fifty years later. Nevertheless, the later skeletons can offer some insight into the stresses and strains of military life. The thirty-one American soldiers from Fort Erie ranged in age from the midteens to forty. Most experienced injuries that would not have been immediately evident to observers but that would have been severely painful, even debilitating. For example, eight men suffered from herniated or displaced spinal discs associated with weight-bearing stress of the sort common among soldiers charged with hauling bulk supplies or moving construction materials such as stone or logs. Still others exhibited “biomechanical strain”:

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lesions at the points where muscles had pulled away from the bones, as well as compression fractures and osteoarthritis. Added to these afflictions were dental abscesses, broken teeth, and cavities. In addition, at least two individuals suffered from abnormally high lead levels, perhaps the result of lead spigots in kegs or the lead in pewter spoons, plates, and cups. 40 The portrait of common soldiers that emerges from Fort Erie is a grim one: men plagued by the chronic pain of injuries that, over time, could prove crippling or life threatening. The problems did not stop there. Cold weather in the Great Lakes and the Ohio Country produced its share of injuries. Couriers unfortunate enough to get caught in blizzards arrived at their destinations “frost bitt,” while soldiers forced to work in flimsy shoes or without mittens or warm hats ended up with their “feet frozen”—in the worst cases, frostbitten fingers and toes had to be amputated. Still other men, novices at navigating the ice and snow of their new homes, suffered the excruciating pain of the “snow shoe evil”; at Fort Michilimackinac the sovereign remedy was to burn the affected areas of the legs “to the nerve.” And a few redcoats, miscalculating the severity of the cold or snowfalls, simply died of exposure when they ventured too far from their garrisons. The baker at Fort Pitt, for example, went out to hunt in late December; a search party found him frozen to death just two miles from the fort. Two men from Fort Niagara met a similar end. Officers occasionally shared this fate as well. Ensign Gladow of the 34th Foot decided to leave a working party returning to Fort Chartres in midwinter in order to do some hunting; he never returned, nor was his body recovered. 41 Of all the various threats to soldiers’ lives in the West, drowning was the most prevalent. The army depended heavily on waterborne transport for men and supplies, which meant that redcoats spent much of their time navigating the Great Lakes or the coastal waters of the gulf, often in flimsy or poorly built craft. Land-bound garrisons could only be reached by following or crossing rivers like the Juniata and the Ohio. The Great Lakes claimed by far the greatest number of men. The winter season was the most dangerous, but accidental deaths on the lakes came at all times of the year and for many reasons. Drummer Duncan Grey of the Royal American Regiment drowned after falling out of his bateau while on a fishing expedition on Lake Erie near Fort Presque Isle. He was last seen struggling toward shore, but “a sudden gust rising & the waves being against him he could not master them.” Other men, like two soldiers from Fort Niagara, drowned “by accident” while out on an unspecified working party. While many of these victims died miles from their garrisons, others

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were lost literally in sight of comrades and officers. Two soldiers in a canoe were evidently swept by a strong current out into Lake Ontario, past Fort Niagara. Maj. James Wilkins “saw them in their distress” and quickly sent a boat to the rescue but, “night coming on . . . we lost sight of the canoe,” which was driven ashore—minus the two men—three days later. Bateaux loaded with bulk freight could be easily swamped in a sudden squall or high wind, taking whole crews down with them. 42 The worst case of deaths from drowning on the Great Lakes, however, came in the autumn of 1763, at the height of the Anglo-Indian war. A force of over 600 men in bateaux and whaleboats, collected by Maj. James Wilkins at Fort Niagara, was ordered to relieve the beleaguered garrison of Detroit. Many of the troops under Wilkins’s command were veterans of the siege of Havana. Were it not for the emergency created by the Indian war, these fever-ridden men would have been discharged from service. Few had any experience on the treacherous waters of Lake Erie. Having battled the Niagara portage and survived one Seneca ambush at the head of Lake Erie, the expedition, coasting the dangerous north shore of the lake, was struck by a storm after dark on November 9. Exhausted officers and men in heavily laden boats were pitched into the frigid waters; some seventy men drowned; except for an officer and six men, “Little or none” of the dead were recovered. Whole detachments were lost; in one group of fifteen men of the 55th Foot only the officer, Lieutenant Paynter, made it to shore. Among the other soaked and terrified survivors was the improbably named Noah Flood. 43 In the Ohio Country the danger came when soldiers tried to cross swollen rivers and creeks; three soldiers died when their flatboat was swamped crossing the Juniata River. Ensign Howard of the 18th Foot drowned in Chartier’s Creek, while Lieutenant Perkins of the same regiment fell into the Ohio River and died while “on a Jaunt of Pleasure on the Water.” To the south, redcoats along the Gulf Coast routinely moved by boat along the inland waterways and through Mobile Bay, where several men from the 21st Foot drowned in 1772. More terrifying were those occasions when men in small craft found themselves adrift in tropical storms. A detachment of soldiers sent aboard a schooner to relieve sick men at Mobile was blown out to sea in a hurricane. The men survived but were tossed around the Gulf of Mexico for fifteen days before returning to shore. 44 Drowning, exposure, and work accidents accounted for most deaths and injuries among soldiers in the West. By contrast, hostile encounters with native peoples after 1765 were few and tended to be concentrated in the

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Great Lakes basin, the center of Indian resistance to British expansion during the years from 1760 to 1765. At least eight soldiers fell victim to Indian attacks; these men were usually alone or members of small working parties and were rarely able to defend themselves. Most of those lost died at the hands of Potawatomies from the village of St. Joseph who in 1765 and 1768 made a habit of picking off stray redcoats from Detroit. Despite a treaty in 1765 that gave the British nominal control of the Niagara River, local Senecas continued to assert their ownership by harassing parties of troops working on the river or the portage. On one occasion in 1770, Senecas shot and mortally wounded a soldier working in a bateau. A variety of causes triggered such incidents. The Potawatomies were especially reluctant to reopen relations with the British after the 1763–65 Indian war, and their attacks seem to have been in the form of traditional “mourning war” raids: assaults meant to retaliate for earlier losses at the hands of enemies. An incident at the naval yard near Detroit in 1767 involved local Ottawas, at least one of whom was thought to be drunk. Still other incidents may have been retaliatory in nature, in response to attacks like that of a slave belonging to Detroit merchant James Sterling who killed two native women during an attempted rape. 45 Soldiers faced one other everyday threat to their health: alcohol. The army’s position regarding the use and abuse of liquor by its troops was decidedly ambivalent. One the one hand, officers abhorred the ill discipline that drinking bred and condemned its use as detrimental to their men’s health. On the other hand, the army frequently paid soldiers with beer or rum for additional duties, and officers issued strong drink to their men in efforts to ward off sickness. During the Seven Years’ War the army tried to have it both ways, issuing the mildly alcoholic spruce beer as a substitute for the ale that soldiers were accustomed to, hoping to satisfy the soldiers’ taste for strong drink while avoiding the associated disciplinary problems. The contradictions are reflected in two comments from the frontier. In West Florida, officers appear to have routinely issued rum during the “great sickness” that ravaged garrisons there in 1766; four years earlier, General Amherst complained about the deaths of men caused “thro’ the Effects of Liquor.” 46 Drinking in the army was so widespread simply because it was a longstanding feature of life among the agricultural laborers, mariners, and urban workmen who filled the ranks. The alehouse was a center of community activity, while drink was an expected portion of wages during harvests, just as grog was a feature of life aboard ship. In urban neighborhoods as well as

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rural villages, drinking was an integral part of hospitality and the sociability so highly valued by neighbors and kin as well as by politicians. Liquor was also a part of rituals ranging from christenings to marriages to funerals. Irishmen drank to St. Patrick just as Scots did to St. Andrew and Englishmen to St. George. And in the face of the considerable insecurities facing working people in Britain and the colonies, drink became solace and escape as well as stimulant. 47 Much of this popular culture of drink inevitably found its way into the army. Officer-gentlemen reinforced a sense of regimental “family” through long drinking bouts and toasts; common soldiers strengthened their own barrack-room bonds with beer or liquor, while regiments routinely drank to the monarch’s birthday and at other notable occasions. Ethnic rites also reappeared in barracks and encampments. St. Andrew’s, St. George’s, and St. Patrick’s days were all routinely marked by “great cheerfulness and good humour” by officers and enlisted men alike. Soldiers also enjoyed reduced duties on their saint’s day, with Scots, English, and Irish relieving their comrades in turn. 48 Alcohol was readily available to soldiers in a variety of forms: cider, beer, ale, wine, rum, and spirits could be had from licensed army sutlers, local merchants, passing civilians, or Indian traders. Whatever the source, the amounts consumed by officers and enlisted men alike were impressive. The store operated by the firm of Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan at Fort Pitt in the mid-1760s did a lively business. On September 9, 1765, for example, the storekeeper sold ten gallons of Madeira alone. Enlisted men like Corporal McCloud (or MacLeod) of the Royal Highland Regiment sometimes bought rum or other drink on their own account; others had liquor purchased for them by accommodating officers like Lieutenant McKay. By far the most enthusiastic buyers, however, were the regiment’s officers. On one visit, Ensign Hall walked away with two barrels of spirits and four gallons of rum, while Lt. Charles Grant purchased three gallons of spirits and a gallon of rum over three days; the helpful McKay looked to his own needs as well, and like his fellow officers he made regular purchases of rum, wine, and spirits. Lieutenant McIntosh bought thirty gallons of spirits and paid to have it delivered to his quarters, while the regiment’s commanding officer, Maj. Thomas Murray, stocked up on West Indian rum. 49 Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan did an equally lively business at Fort Chartres, where they set up store soon after the arrival of troops in 1765. Officers ran up accounts for rum owed to soldiers working on the fortifications as well as for their own companies. Enlisted men also bought on their

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own accounts: a half-gallon of spirits by Corporal Whitehouse and a gallon of rum by Corporal Liddy and Michael Henry Daniel “of the Musick”—the regimental band of the 18th Foot—are just three examples among many from this post. The story was the same throughout the Great Lakes, where thirsty soldiers could buy liquor from traders and local merchants. 50 Not all of these purchases were for personal consumption, though many of them undoubtedly were. Officers buying large quantities of rum were maintaining a supply for their companies, while an entry in the Fort Pitt store accounts to Madeira for the “Officers’ Mess” or a bill against Maj. John Smallman “for your club on St. Patrick’s Day” suggest specific reasons, particularly socializing, behind the sales. 51 The direct effect of alcohol on soldiers’ health is not altogether clear. Unlike the West Indian garrisons, whose soldiers consumed (and sometimes died from) large quantities of potent “new rum”—often tainted with lead— redcoats in North America were more likely to die from the effects of drinking rather than from the drink itself. Two soldiers from Fort Niagara, for example, evidently left the fort to drink in the woods; overtaken by a sudden snowstorm, they died of exposure. Alcohol may also have been a factor in the numerous work-related injuries suffered by soldiers. 52 Drinking was certainly a source of disciplinary problems. Pvt. Thomas Johnstone of the Royal Americans was found guilty of stealing wine, shrub, and sugar from the sutler’s store at Fort Ligonier and received 500 lashes for his trouble. At nearby Fort Pitt, officers had to confront noncommissioned officers too drunk to perform their duties. Such was the case of Sergeant Kemp who, “being Drunk upon Guard,” so angered his officer, Lieutenant Potts, that the latter pushed Kemp—the sergeant claimed Potts “pushed him down on his face.” Even if they did not consume liquor, enlisted men could still occasionally run afoul of regulations when, like Lewis Crouse of the Royal Artillery at Pensacola, they sold drink to fellow soldiers in defiance of orders. 53 Officers, whether serving on courts-martial or merely exercising the prerogatives of rank, could hand out brutal punishments to common soldiers found drunk or stealing liquor. Yet officers themselves frequently set poor examples of sobriety. One case in point is that of Ens. Robert Johnstone of the Royal Americans. While stationed at Fort Michilimackinac in the mid1760s, Johnstone appears to have been a one-man drunken riot, attacking his noncommissioned officers, civilians, and even dogs while under the influence. According to the fort surgeon, who came in for a large share of Johnstone’s abuse, “drinking was the principal amusement” of many at the

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fort, though Johnstone, with his ability to drink “wine all the night over” carried this recreation to an extreme. According to the surgeon, Daniel Morison, Johnstone’s abusive behavior was occasionally directed at peers as well as social and military inferiors. In one case he challenged a brother officer, Lieutenant Christie, to a duel, later begging pardon in the hope of avoiding a court-martial himself. 54 Johnstone may have been emotionally unstable or an alcoholic or both. The extent to which alcoholism was a problem in the ranks is difficult to determine, as is the connection between military service and alcohol abuse; a number of officers and men were probably heavy or abusive drinkers even before they entered the army. Descriptions of deserters only hint at the problem. Runaways such as Robert Hamilton and John Smith were described as “much given to talking and liquor”; when drunk, they were “very talkative and quarrelsome.” Other men were assumed to have deserted for no other reason than drunkenness. At least one officer, Lieutenant Dan of the 34th Foot, agreed to sell his commission and leave the regiment, much to the relief of his superiors who condemned his “Drunkenness” and keeping “Low Company.” 55 The clearest example of alcoholism is that of Ens. William Hay of the Royal Americans. His excessive drinking ruined his military career and seems to have killed him. Hay’s service was marked by misfortune. He began service as a lieutenant in his regiment but then lost a substantial sum of money belonging to the recruiting fund. Hay sold his commission to pay back the money and took another at the reduced rank of ensign, in the process compromising the integrity and personal honor that all officers held dear. 56 Soon after Hay began a downhill slide that led to further humiliation and court-martial. By early 1760 his superiors were already alarmed by his behavior. While serving at Fort Bedford on Forbes’s Road, Hay was “getting Drunk, Morning, Noon, & Night” and “doing a great many things which,” according to Lt. Alexander Baillie, “cou’d not be put up with.” Indeed, his riotous actions seemed “quite out of Character.” Sent to Fort Pitt, he was eventually ordered on to Fort Niagara. There, by late summer, he was under arrest for forcing himself into Maj. William Walters’s room with loaded pistols, claiming that Walters “had done him a great injustice.” Moving from extremes of violent aggression to self-abnegation—he subsequently sent his own version of events to Col. Henry Bouquet, saying “I know you will pity me”—Hay could only excuse himself by claiming that “unluckily for me . . . I got in Liquor.” 57

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Such apologies carried little weight with Walters. He placed Hay under close arrest and preferred charges, bringing the affair to the attention of Sir Jeffery Amherst. In the meantime, Hay continued to plead with Bouquet for help, referring to the colonel as his “friend.” All that Bouquet (and doubtless others acquainted with Hay) could do was conclude that “he was not right in his senses.” Yet Hay managed to obtain an acquittal at his courtmartial, in no small part due to brother officers who were not willing to offer evidence against him, expressing the hope that the matter would be forgotten. We hear little about him from his acquittal in 1761 until early in 1763; perhaps the experience compelled him, temporarily, to mend his ways. If so, he never had the opportunity to reestablish his reputation in the eyes of his fellow officers: a “long illness” coupled with what his commander called simply “an inward decay” killed him in early February 1763, and he was buried at Fort Niagara. 58 Ensign Hay’s downward spiral, which prompted those around him to wonder if was in his right mind, alerts us to another dimension of soldiers’ health in far-off frontier garrisons: their emotional state. Further reminders come from Captain Charteris, two surgeons—Miller and a man identified as “Dr. S.,”—and Lt. Archibald Dow, all of whom committed suicide. At this distance an accurate diagnosis of what troubled them is impossible given the fragmentary nature of the records and the fact that they lived in an age that was only just beginning to acknowledge “mental health.” Nonetheless, the circumstances surrounding these men, indeed all soldiers on the frontier, might allow some informed speculation about motives for suicide. By the middle of the eighteenth century, suicide was being redefined in the British world, both legally and socially. Once conceived of as “selfmurder” that exposed the victim’s family to loss of estate as a result of mandated legal sanctions, suicide was increasingly being viewed as the result of an unsound state of mind. In the cases cited above, for examples, each victim was described as in a “mad fit,” “Lunatick,” the victim of “Melancolly Accident” or, in a surgeon’s case, drunk. In none of these cases is there any indication that extensive inquiries were made as to the precise motive; those associated with these men could only speculate based on their own observations or the reports of others. 59 Comments from outsiders only hint at the worries and concerns that consumed not just these few men but the frontier army’s officer corps in general. Gentlemen officers were constantly having to guard their “interests”: connections with influential patrons who could facilitate promotions and transfers to more prestigious corps as well as marriages and family matters.

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Such issues would have occupied officers’ time no matter where they were; what made life in America worse—for some, unbearable—was the isolation. Capt. Lewis Ourry, for example, feeling out of touch at Fort Bedford, wrote his friend Bouquet and asked for his “compassion” by sending newspapers. A fellow officer in the Royal Americans also wrote Bouquet, commenting on his exile at Fort Niagara. Exile, in fact, seems to have summed up American service for many officers. From distant Fort Michilimackinac Lieutenant Leslie complained of “this disagreable Station,” a comment echoed by Ensign Schlosser at the even more isolated Fort St. Joseph. Schlosser’s irritation was only magnified by the “want of Company of the Fair Sex.” A regimental quartermaster at Fort Chartres wrote in December 1769 of his “melancholy situation” arising from not having had “the Least Accounts from any Quarter since the first of June.” The wife of the regimental surgeon at Fort Niagara may have reflected her husband’s feelings as well as her own when she told family in Scotland about being “shut up in this distant corner,” while Ens. Jeremy Lister was crestfallen to learn that his regiment was bound for the Great Lakes, wondering about the prospects of “my three years banishment” there. The commander in chief was no less glad for a respite from his long stay in his New York City headquarters. Reaching London in 1773, General Gage told a subordinate that he had “been in a hurry ever since My arrival” in London, “which has so changed Since I left” in 1754. 60 Compounding officers’ profound sense of distance from friends, family, and home was their isolation within frontier garrisons. Surgeon James Stevenson at Fort Niagara spoke for many when he complained that “the want of Society” forced him to “pass out time, so miserably uniform,” that he—and fellow officers—could only “hope for better days.” Stevenson’s commander, Maj. William Walters, was fairly champing at the bit when finally relieved from such an oppressive posting; his replacement wrote that Walters “is very pressing” to depart and was reluctant to remain long enough to ensure a proper change of command. 61 Duty at frontier outposts was all the worse for officers since they were few in number at most forts and in some cases virtually alone amid enlisted men and local natives. Lacking the society of the mess, awaiting news that came infrequently at best, separated by an unbridgeable social gulf from most of those around them, it is understandable why these men felt so alone—indeed, forgotten. Small wonder, then, that they used every stratagem and argument they could to save themselves from exile. Like Major Walters, they pled personal

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problems in asking for furloughs or transfers. Walters, a widower, made no secret of his desire to return to his young children in Ireland. CaptainLieutenant Rogers of the 60th Foot begged leave from his post at Detroit on the grounds that he had to return immediately to Ireland to attend his sick wife. Captain Harris was particularly blunt in making his case. He admitted to Gage that he was worn out from years of service; suffering from a rupture, he asked to be relieved of the command of Fort Appalache in West Florida. Yet he, too, underscored the “welfare of a wife & an only Child” as well as his “natural desire of recovering my former [health].” A similar tack was taken by Captain Howard of the 17th Foot, who asked to be relieved only months after he had reoccupied Fort Michilimackinac at the end of the Indian war. Few could argue with his reason: thirty-two years of continuous service in his regiment. Officers became so insistent that General Amherst had to issue orders suspending all grants of leave unless personally authorized by army headquarters; his successor, Gage, took a somewhat softer tone but had to council “a little patience” among officers anxious to leave the frontier. 62 Little wonder, too, that for some officers the combined weight of isolation and personal problems simply proved too much to bear; the challenge lies in trying to identify specific motives. Ensign Hay simply took to the bottle and slowly drank himself to death. Surgeon Miller seems to have internalized much of what was bothering him; his suicide came as an even greater shock to those around him since he was “one of ye most reserv’d men in appearance amongst the officers.” Lieutenant Dow, unlike Miller or, evidently, Stevenson and Charteris, did talk to some extent about the problems that finally overwhelmed him. Heavily in debt (“more than the Value of his Commission”), in part from the expense of supporting two children, he faced not only financial distress but also a blow to his personal honor. If this were not enough, there were also hints that Dow might have been the victim of extortion. Dow’s colonel wrote to Gage about an “abandoned artful Woman,” who with her soldier-husband “combined together in a base and cruel Manner against the unfortunate Man who is now dead.” Beyond this, however, Dow’s story, like those of the other officer-suicides, is frustratingly incomplete. 63 While officers are known to have committed suicide, there is no conclusive evidence that enlisted men followed the same path. This is not to say that they might not have contemplated such an end, or even made the attempt. When Fort Pitt’s baker walked out into the cold and snow alone to hunt, did he carry any self-destructive thoughts with him? When those two

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soldiers from Fort Niagara went out into the winter woods to drink, did they do so from a sense of lively comradeship or deep despair? Soldiers did kill themselves, probably for reasons similar to the officer-suicides’. Yet, at least among regiments on the America frontier, overt suicides among common soldiers appear to have been nonexistent. 64 An explanation may lie in the different conditions under which officers and soldiers lived in the West. Better-built officers’ quarters and the rigidly enforced social distance between the regimental “family” and those they led have most frequently been taken as indications of how the British social system was reflected in the military, usually to the benefit of officers. Nevertheless, as men like Lister or Schlosser soon discovered, better quarters and, perhaps, better diet were poor compensations for the absence of genteel peers and the social refinements that were so important in the self-definition of the aristocracy and gentry. In the smallest outposts, like the ones occupied by Ensign Lister, officers were quite alone, socially and sometimes culturally isolated from the men they commanded. Barrack rooms, whether at small Fort Erie or the much larger Fort Pitt, were often crowded, noisy, and noisome places where privacy was at a premium, not unlike the homes of the British working people from whose ranks soldiers were drawn. Moreover, with women and children frequently close at hand, common soldiers enjoyed a degree of domestic life that officers might have envied. Given starkly differing standards of living within the walls of frontier forts, soldiers may have been more, rather than less, at ease, more secure and, consequently, better able than their officers to cope with the Spartan conditions, strange peoples, and deadening routines of military life in the West. In the face of emotional distress, the army could offer no help at all. It did, however, support a medical system that offered soldiers of all ranks at least rudimentary treatment for injuries and disease. This system developed during a century that was marked by gradual improvements in medical care. Physicians and surgeons began to make systematic observations of illness and injury while moving beyond simple diagnosis to treatments that some considered radical. By midcentury, for example, inoculating soldiers against smallpox was growing more common. Bennett Cuthbertson went so far as to advocate the practice, calling the procedure “a certain means for saving many lives.” Pioneering work in the emerging field of military medicine was led by physician John Pringle, whose Diseases of the Army was based on his own experiences as director of the army’s hospital in Flanders during

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the War of the Austrian Succession (1744–48). Pringle made a particular study of the relationship between environment and disease as well as ways to combat illness through better hygiene and treatment. 65 The foundation of medical care, as was true for most other services to soldiers, was the regiment, specifically the surgeon and surgeon’s mate. The title surgeon did not limit these practitioners to treating injuries alone; most regimental surgeons were trained physicians or men with at least some experience in medicine. The average regiment was entitled to one surgeon and one assistant, or surgeon’s mate. On the frontiers of North America, this meant that these two men assumed responsibility for more than 400 officers and men as well as any dependents. Despite the continuing efforts of civilian administrators like the Secretary at War, regimental surgeons and mates could, like serving officers, purchase their appointments, subject only to the approval of the regimental colonel. No examinations were required. The medical men were supported by stoppages from each soldier’s pay. Together, the surgeon, his mate, their instruments, and their medicine chest constituted their regiment’s “hospital.” 66 Beyond the regiments, there was no other level of medical care for soldiers in peacetime. Wars, however, led to the organization of general hospitals within field armies. The general hospital was an organization of medical personnel as well as a facility. Such a hospital first appeared in America when a small staff led by a director, Dr. James Napier, arrived with Braddock’s army in 1755. Eventually based in New York City, by the end of the Seven Years’ War the hospital had grown into an organization of forty-three full-time staff, including Charlotte Brown, hospital matron, who supervised nurses drawn from women within the regiments. Brown, who had come out with Braddock, was a seasoned campaigner by late 1760, having followed the army from the Ohio Country to the upper Hudson valley. She and her nurses worked alongside physicians, surgeons, mates, apothecaries, and clerks to maintain facilities for the sick and injured as well as to keep a steady flow of medical supplies to regiments in the field. 67 Campaigning in America placed unusual demands on the medical system. As the war continued, separate armies were formed over much of eastern North America; by 1758 some 40,000 men were in the field from Pennsylvania to Cape Breton Island. To cope with the needs of these widely dispersed forces, the army created “flying hospitals” organized to support each army or expedition. Temporary formations, they drew their personnel from the General Hospital. Such a flying hospital was organized to serve Gen. John Forbes’s army as it marched against Fort Duquesne in 1758. By the time

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Forbes’s army reached its objective, a field hospital was operating at Fort Bedford, with advance facilities run by regular and provincial surgeons at Fort Ligonier. By 1760 flying hospitals could be found at Fort Pitt, Albany, Halifax, and Quebec. 68 At war’s end this network of hospitals and staffs was greatly reduced, reflecting both the declining number of troops kept in America and the pressing need to limit military expenses. Amherst contemplated closing the New York hospital in 1763, thinking it best “to get Rid of such part of that Expence as the Service does not Require.” The war against transAppalachian Indians and Amherst’s own recall postponed this plan until the following year. By then the hospital in North America had already been reduced, with a director and six others at New York and ten surgeons and mates scattered through the garrisons from Halifax to Mobile; by the end of 1764 Gage had discharged the New York surgeons and mates. Only a token staff remained at Quebec and in East Florida, Gage having recommended that the government establish a hospital in Bermuda to treat men from the West Indies who had previously been sent to North America. 69 Thus just as the army was moving into the West, regiments once again found themselves, in Gage’s words, “taking care of their own Sick,” under conditions that saw soldiers frequently stationed at great distances from a surgeon. In response, officers took particular care to ensure the health of their men. In West Florida, Dauphin Island at the mouth of Mobile Bay became the site of an isolation ward for soldiers stricken with fevers. Also in Florida, an engineer designed an “Invention to let in Air” into otherwise stifling barracks. Officers also applied commonsense rules of hygiene, such as requiring barrack rooms and cooking utensils to be cleaned regularly so that both could be kept “sweet and healthy” and installing towel racks on each barrack-room door “to prevent them [soldiers] from wiping their hands in the sheets.” 70 Chronic manpower shortages within the American army also meant that soldiers who suffered injuries or illness and sought medical discharges could not always expect sympathy from superiors whose primary interest lay in keeping the ranks full. The tone was set early by Amherst, who believed work was the best preventative medicine, going so far as to recommend to Fort Niagara’s commander that, since he could not use horses on the difficult portage for lack of forage, “You will have a Double advantage in not Suffering Your men to be Idle.” Amherst later criticized this same officer for discharging eleven men as invalids. Reminding Major Walters that

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“Men who are Ruptured are not deemed Incapable of Service in England,” he pointed out that “much less must We think them so here, where the Difficulties are so great in Recruiting any to Replace them.” Assuming that Walters would not have discharged any men “unless there were Entirely Encapable of Service,” Amherst ordered that the sick and lame remain in the ranks. 71 Soldiers on the frontier experienced widely differing levels of medical care. Those fortunate enough to be stationed at a post with a surgeon or mate could expect, at the least, swift treatment from someone armed with a full battery of instruments and medicines. At Fort Niagara surgeon John Graham, for example, seems to have made daily rounds of the officers’ quarters and barracks. At less well-staffed forts, anything was possible. Lieutenant Kirkman, commander of the small garrison at Fort Bute on the Mississippi River, was under the necessity of hiring a local Spanish doctor until his own surgeon’s mate could arrive from Mobile. Corporal Caffy from Fort Bedford had to settle for something less than that. Badly mauled by a bear while serving as an express rider, Caffy’s “Lip was cut thro’ to his Nostrils” and his tongue badly lacerated. Puzzled as to how to treat the man, his commander was fortunate that Lieutenant Mitchelson of the Royal Artillery was at the fort: “he Stood Surgeon” well enough that “I hope in a few Days our Patient will be out of Pain” and “out of Danger.” 72 Yet even with a trained physician, treatment was not always easy, as Pennsylvania colonel Hugh Mercer learned. Complaining of a bad tooth, Mercer went to “A Gentleman of the physical Trade” who, attempting to pull it, not only broke the tooth but Mercer’s jaw as well. This along with the inevitable bleedings, plasters, and potions laid on by surgeons made medical care as uncomfortable as the complaint itself. Small wonder, then, that officers saw in their men a marked reluctance to seek treatment and a fear of hospitals. “Many Soldiers,” warned Bennett Cuthbertson, “have such a dislike to the confinement of an Hospital” that they “endeavour to secrete [sic] their disorders.” Under these circumstances, officers were encouraged to be particularly diligent in looking into the health of their men and making sure that they received proper treatment. 73 Even the most conscientious officers on the frontier could do little for men sick or badly injured. At smaller outposts in particular, soldiers often had to call on their own strength or the help of comrades to fight an illness or overcome a fracture or sprain. In more serious cases, injured men were faced with the prospect of long, frequently agonizing journeys to the nearest surgeon. A soldier named Tooson, for example, “had the misfortune to get

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his Collar Bone Dislocated” while on duty at Fort Venango in 1761. The best his officer could do was to send him overland under escort to Fort Pitt. At nearby Fort Le Boeuf, another soldier, with a finger so badly infected that Ensign Price thought it would require amputation, was also forced to make the long trek down the Allegheny valley in late autumn to seek medical attention. 74 Even when medical care at the hands of a surgeon was available, it often proved to be of little help—or a greater hindrance. A doctor’s skill would not have helped a soldier like Private Torrel of the 60th Foot, “who had the tendons of his legs cut by the Indians”; after nearly a year in the hospital at Fort Niagara, he was finally discharged. To cure frostbite doctors could only fall back on folk remedies, such as sitting the victim before an open fire and rubbing the affected area with snow. In other cases surgeons only compounded soldiers’ problems. John Whitney of the 17th Foot, for instance, was discharged as unfit for being “lame from a broken legg—it being shorter than other,” most likely from being improperly set. 75 In a military world otherwise rigidly defined by rank and class, medical care often proved to be the great equalizer on the frontier. When officers like Maj. John Tulleken suffered from inflammations of old wounds, they had to suffer under the same medical regime as their soldiers. At least one officer in Mobile’s garrison died from treatment by a surgeon who was forced to compensate for a lack of medicines by conjuring up substitutes— with fatal results. Capt. George Harris asked for leave by pointing out that his chronic rupture required a better truss. Capt. Gavin Cochrane at the small outpost at Presque Isle injured a testicle in a fall, and the fort surgeon could do little more than bleed him while recommending that he make the trip to Fort Oswego, where another doctor was better equipped to treat the complaint. The loutish Ensign Johnstone at Fort Michilimackinac was forced to make the trip across the lakes to Detroit in late autumn to seek help for a “much shattered left hand” resulting from a burst musket. 76 British military health in the West was complicated by one other phenomenon: during the long peace between the end of the Seven Years’ War and the outbreak of the American rebellion, the army grew older as well as more infirm. Early in the Seven Years’ War, regiments absorbed thousands of men from all corners of the British Atlantic world as the government raced to convert a garrison force into a battle-ready army. Impressment, bounties, enlistment for limited terms—usually three years or the duration of the

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war—and, perhaps, a sense of adventure brought more men to the colors. As a result the rank and file as well as officers became younger, reversing the tendency of peacetime service, when recruits were harder to get and enlistees normally served for life. Braddock’s regiments, taken out of the Irish garrisons in 1754, had a large number of veteran soldiers—“old standers”— in the ranks but continued to absorb numbers of younger recruits both before and after their defeat near Fort Duquesne. 77 As the war began the average age of enlisted men began to decline as the percentage of raw recruits increased in old and new regiments alike. In one battalion of the newly raised Royal American Regiment, which drew many of its men from the colonies, nearly 80 percent of the rank and file were under the age of thirty; nearly 40 percent were twenty or younger. 78 Yet while youth and inexperience were characteristic of the army at the beginning of the war, by 1763 the trend was already reversing itself. When the government began to reduce the size of the army in 1761, men on limited enlistments were the first to go; further reductions at the end of the war accelerated this tendency. At the same time, however, regiments slated to return home also provided drafts for undermanned units remaining in the colonies; these drafts were usually made up of the least desirable elements, including the aged. This drafting process guaranteed that regiments in America would begin to age quickly. One case in point is that of the 46th Foot. Decimated from service in Cuba, the regiment received a large intake of drafts before it went to Fort Niagara in late 1763. The average age of the 154 drafts was thirty-six, with an average of eight years’ service, a very different profile from that of wartime regiments. 79 This aging of the army in America continued through the 1760s and early 1770s, since declining enlistments meant that officers kept men in the ranks whose years and ailments might otherwise have earned them release from service. Those redcoats who were discharged were frequently deemed too aged for further useful service. Among the thirty men discharged from the Royal American Regiment in 1766 were men described as “very old,” “old,” “weak”; others were “blind and very old.” Still others were classified as “Ideot,” a catchall term that embraced men simply unfit for no specific reason; it might also refer to those whose age and condition were reflected by reduced mental capacity. 80 Officers, no less than their men, showed the effects of age and long service. Men like Captain Howard of the 17th Regiment with his thirty-two years’ of service were not unusual in an army where advancement depended on seniority and the means to purchase higher rank. Wartime casualties

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along with the rapid expansion of the army meant commissions for younger men and advancement for many others. With the peace, however, promotion in a smaller army slowed considerably as subalterns like Ensign Hay and captains like Howard found themselves unable to move up. By the mid1760s, for example, captains had generally served fifteen years from the date of their first commission, and “junior” officers ten. These men could also expect to remain at their present rank for nearly six years before having an opportunity for promotion; regimental field officers served corresponding longer terms in rank. The result was that “old” soldiers were being led by equally aged officers: men like Captain Lieutenant Campbell of the 34th (whose twenty-six years of service included time as an enlisted man), Captain Vignoles of the 31st Foot (who, with twenty-two years of active service, found West Florida more than he could take), or Capt. David Hope of the 21st Foot (who had put in twenty-four years and survived two wars). Still others, like Major Smallman of the 18th Foot (suffering from rheumatism), were, like many common soldiers, prematurely aged by hard field service. 81 The impression that emerges of the army on the frontier, then, is one of lives dominated by chronic sickness and injury, of common soldiers and their officers worn down physically and emotionally by carrying out the demands of garrison life lived at great distances from civilian societies, in climates and local environments that were frequently dangerous if not fatal. The western edge of Britain’s American empire was patrolled by aging redcoats who faced tasks that might have discouraged much younger men, soldiers less and less able to present the martial appearance upon which governmental authority on the American frontier depended.

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“As there is a ship to embark from here some time next week . . . therefore [I] take this opportunity of enclosing a few lines to you . . . of my safe arrival at Quebec.” Thus did eighteen-year-old Jeremy Lister, newly commissioned ensign in the 10th Foot, inform his father in July 1771 that he had reached America. Despite the matter-of-fact style, young Lister must have been overcome with the mixture of excitement and anxiety experienced by new soldiers before and since: how would he be received by the regiment— especially his fellow officers? What would his duties be? Would he be able to carry himself honorably and professionally? On the first matter, at least, Lister was relieved to discover “all my Brother Officers very agreeable, sober gentlemen”; he counted himself “very lucky in coming into this Regiment.” 1 Had Lister been more candid, he would have conceded that luck had much less to do with his posting than did family connections and the networks of patronage and clientage that ran through the army as well as British society at large. Lister, like many sons of Britain’s gentry, chose the army as a path to preferment and place in society. And like many of his peers, Lister may have seen the army less as a career than as an investment: by purchasing his commission he could look forward to promotions as far as lieutenant colonel, with each step in rank offering opportunities to enhance the initial investment through perquisites allowed by the crown. Indeed, Lister’s choice of regiment seems to have been made with such a scheme in mind: the 10th was an “old” regiment, a prestigious corps in which commissions were expensive but where opportunities for profit were equally great. 2 When Lister joined it, the 10th had been in Quebec since 1767. It had come out from Britain as part of the regular scheme of troop rotations designed to avoid long overseas duty. Such rotations were also planned to ensure that troops entering the colonies had sufficient time to adjust to new climates and conditions. Lister’s own “seasoning” began soon after his arrival. While Canada was “very fine” and a land of great agricultural potential, he soon found the society sterile and Quebec City “nothing extraordinary.” Faced with



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few duties and much leisure time, Lister found few productive diversions. Disappointed to discover that books were hard to come by, he finally decided to pass his time learning the flute and socializing with his equally bored brother officers. A Canadian winter did nothing to change Lister’s opinion of a colony isolated for months by ice and snow. Unused to the sudden change from “immense heat” of summer to the arctic cold of winter, Lister endured subzero temperatures that froze the standing water in his quarters and forced him into layers of woolens and furs for even the briefest excursion outdoors. Only the weekly “public assembly” organized by Governor Sir Guy Carleton relieved the routine and boredom of garrison life until the news came that with the coming of spring, the 10th would move west to relieve the regiment holding a line of forts along the Great Lakes. 3 For the soldiers of the 10th Foot, the move to the lakes marked their first encounter with the western margins of British America. Certainly, Lister and his comrades knew their destinations: Oswegatchie, Niagara, Detroit, and Michilimackinac. Nevertheless, as they slowly made their way up the St. Lawrence River to Lake Ontario, these redcoats, like hundreds before them, would have to begin making adjustments to a world vastly different from the one they knew at home, or the one they left behind in Quebec: a world measured in exotic peoples and vast expanses of rugged country. That Lister began to sense what he was about to face is reflected in a letter home in which he referred to his impending “banishment”; even though he was to be stationed at Fort Niagara with the regiment’s commander, Lt. Col. Francis Smith, Lister was certain that “it will be like living in a wilderness.” 4 Though the men of the 10th Foot may not have appreciated the fact, the army’s West was much smaller than it had been a decade and more earlier. Instead of the vast networks of forts, defended portages, and roads created by redcoats in the early 1760s, the 10th entered a region where British garrisons were few and far between. Aside from the regiment along the Great Lakes, only a single company of infantry remained in the Illinois Country, while soldiers stood guard only at Mobile and Pensacola in British West Florida. Costs, the bitter lessons of an unwanted Indian war and, more recently, unrest in the older settlements had convinced the commander in chief and his superiors that the few troops in America needed to be concentrated on the Atlantic coast, nearer the seat of incipient rebellion. Indeed, Lister’s “exile” proved to be short; just two years after moving up-country, the 10th Foot was ordered to Boston where it, its colonel, and Ensign Lister would have a rendezvous with angry provincials at Lexington and Concord. 5

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It is impossible to know at this distance exactly what Jeremy Lister expected as he took up active service in America. That he anticipated leading men in martial exercises is clear from the fact that before leaving Britain, he “got a sergeant of the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards to teach me my exercises.” Along with the piles of personal gear he collected would likely have been copies of Cuthbertson’s and Simes’s popular handbooks on drill and regimental management. If he did envision himself on the parade field, barking commands or watching over the evolutions of rank and file, he was quickly disappointed. No sooner had the new garrison arrived at run-down Fort Niagara than redcoats “set to work to lay in sufficient stock of wood” against the next Canadian winter. Other men began to tend the garrison gardens left them by the departing Royal Americans; wives of both old and new garrison may have spent time bargaining over dishes, bedding, or other creature comforts. Livestock also needed tending, as did dilapidated barrack rooms and storehouses. 6 Whatever his expectations, Lister soon conformed to the new rhythms of garrison life in the West. As commander of the important outpost of Fort Erie, Lister not only set his small garrison to work “at our own garden,” he also purchased livestock. Nearly a year later, after buying a second cow and additional sheep, he could boast “pretty tolerable stock.” Indeed, his letters home reflect the satisfactions of a gentleman-farmer as much as those of a professional soldier. 7

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[148], ( Posted at great distances from the centers of colonial population, regiments in the West had to look after themselves to an extent that could not have been imagined in Scotland, Ireland, or even the West Indies. Musketry and close-order drill were most often set aside in favor of nonmilitary chores. Soldiers found themselves employed as drovers, watermen, chimney — sweeps, and woodcutters; they also spent much time gardening, fishing, hunting, and foraging. Their officers, sergeants, and corporals took on the roles of foremen and work supervisors that would have made them at home on urban waterfronts or in the budding factories of the British countryside, calculating loads, distances, and man-days. 8 In some respects, of course, soldiers in the West shared experiences in common with redcoats elsewhere in the empire. The transition from a wartime to a peacetime establishment meant both reduced manpower and less money; the result, everywhere, was an increase in work and inevitable shortages. Peacetime soldiering meant not just the deadening routines of garrison life but duties that conspired against military efficiency. In the

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8.06047 25. “A View of Fort Erie” by Capt. Henry DeBerniere of the 10th Foot in 1773. The painting depicts the fort as DeBerniere’s fellow officer Ensign Jeremy Lister would have known it. A Naval Department vessel is in the foreground. (Courtesy of the director of the National Army Museum, London.)

American West, simply keeping body and soul together were enough to occupy redcoats’ waking hours. Elsewhere, in Ireland or Britain, for example, soldiers worked in small, sometimes isolated detachments watching over the Catholic Irish or searching out smugglers and highwaymen; in cramped garrisons like Gibraltar or the wretched West Indies posts, life was little better. Taken together, then, British forces in the West suffered the myriad “frictions of peace” as did regiments scattered elsewhere in the British Atlantic world. Yet the peculiar circumstances of frontier service only aggravated this problem. The most visible example is the state of the fortified garrisons themselves; it would be difficult to conclude that by the mid-1760s any fort in the West could have provided defensive security equal to the costs of maintaining it. 9 Western garrisons in America came to bear a striking resemblance to the civilian world in the colonies or Britain. In short, perhaps the most


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striking thing about the army in the West is how thoroughly domesticated it became, less a network of armed garrisons than a collection of frontier settlements. The parallel goes beyond work routines. Some garrisons— Detroit, Michilimackinac, and Pensacola, for example—were settlements, with redcoats adding one more dimension to these small civilian worlds. Others, like Forts Pitt and Niagara, became magnets that drew in settlers, tradesmen, and merchants. In all cases the physical appearance of forts surrounded by gardens, cattle pens, and wood yards reflected this domestication of the army in the West. The presence of women, children, servants and, occasionally, slaves only added to this domesticity. Garrisons sometimes supported schools, while barrack rooms were alive with the sorts of activities—children playing, wives cooking and sewing—that would have been found in any civilian community. Military wives like Mrs. Cummings of the 31st Foot, who had somehow managed to keep husband and four children together, may have traveled long distances to assist soldiers’ or civilians’ wives in childbirth. 10 In one other way British frontier garrisons reflected developments in the civilian world. The consumer revolution of the mid-eighteenth century found its way into distant outposts of empire just as surely as it did in colonial port towns or inland British hamlets. Redcoats, already familiar with this new world of goods, were able to indulge their taste for cotton, tea, coffee, or chocolate and set their crude barrack tables with a variety of ceramics and flatware. Consumerism helped to blur material distinctions of class and rank within the army just as it did in the wider British Atlantic world. This, along with living conditions that threw officers and common soldiers more closely together, where leaders and followers shared the same rations and amenities, seems to have bothered these military elites more than enlisted men. However much the garrisons in the West shared the appearance and activities of the civilian world, they were markedly distinct in at least one respect. In a civilian world dominated by youth, the army was growing older. Fully four-fifths of the rank and file was between twenty-one and thirty-five years of age; roughly one in six redcoats was over the age of thirty. The contrast with a youthful Britain or a white colonial population, for example (over half of the latter was under twenty-one) could not have been more striking. With recruitment reduced to a trickle in the years after 1763, the army could not hope to replace men growing old in the service; hard frontier service with its exposure to accidents, chronic illness, and

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extremes of weather and climate rendered many redcoats prematurely old and infirm. 11 The picture that emerges of Britain’s army in the American West, then, is a complex one. More than military formations, regiments and garrisons were small societies and communities bound together by the order and discipline of the army as well as by shared traditions and long service. At the same time, these forces, by virtue of their service on the frontier, came to resemble the civilian world, especially in terms of work and access to an expanding consumer economy that weakened distinctions between officers and common soldiers. The resemblance was made more striking by the numbers of women and children who routinely made up a part—sometimes a substantial portion—of regimental societies. Long service under the peculiar conditions of the frontier had a corrosive effect on military training as troops devoted most of their time to keeping themselves fed and sheltered; the “friction of peace” was never so manifest as it was on the western margins of the empire. This friction of peace was also a reflection of the limits of empire in the British Atlantic world. The quality of frontier fortifications, soldiers, and their lives within the walls are all reminders that Britain’s imperial power grew weak on the margins and never more so than in the West, where redcoats found themselves increasingly bound by and absorbed by the frontiers they were ordered to defend.

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Introduction 1. Guy, Œconomy and Discipline, 2, 24, 27–28, 74–80, 130. Contemporaries understood the muster to be “a review of the troops under arms, to see if they be complete, and in good order; to take an account of their numbers, the condition they are in, viewing their arms, accoutrements, etc.” Smith, Military Dictionary, 192. Glimpses of Pitcher’s American career can be found in a number of sources, including Pargellis, Military Affairs, 34, 158–59, 201–3, 249–51, 268; Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 1:309; 2:57; 5:604, 624, 814; 6:19, 104–5; Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 1:435, 670, 693. 2. Pitcher’s assistant commissaries were William Porter and James Stewart (Steward). Both are identified in the returns for 1766 in Returns, 1491. 3. Mileage is derived from account book 4, entry for April 15, 1765, and “Estimates of Expences for Commissary of Musters,” 1766, account book 6, Gage Papers. 4. “Garrison government” comes from Webb, “Army and Empire.” 5. Any consideration of the British army in America must begin with the pathbreaking studies Shy, Toward Lexington, and Frey, British Soldier in America. Notable recent work includes Anderson, A People’s Army, and the same author’s stunning narrative on the Seven Years’ War, Crucible of War; Brumwell, Redcoats, “Rank and File,” “Home from the Wars,” and “ ‘A Service Truly Critical’ ”; Way, “The Cutting Edge of Culture” and “Rebellion of the Regulars.” The literature on the “new military history” is considerable. Keegan’s Face of Battle is perhaps the classic example of this type of work. Discussion of the literature and the meaning of the new military history can be found in Chambers, “The New Military History”; Lynn, “The Embattled Future of Academic Military History”; Shy, “The Cultural Approach to the History of War”; Carp, “Early American Military History”; Higginbothem, “The Early American Way of War.” See also the review essay by Selesky, “Imperial Wars.” 1. British Occupation of the West 1. Sir Jeffrey Amherst to William Pitt, January 7, 1761, Kimball, Correspondence of William Pitt, 1:383; Amherst to Pitt, 27 February, 1761, ibid., 1:404; Rogers, Journals.



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2. “Journal of Captain Charles Lee,” Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:184; Rogers, Journals, 202–3. 3. William Eyre to Amherst, July 3, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21; “Journal of Captain Charles Lee,” Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:184 (Niagara portage); William Walters to Amherst, November 1760, Amherst Papers, 21 (rangers on the portage); Rogers, Journals, 208 (quote); Kent, Iroquois Indians, 2:69, 110. 4. This and the preceding paragraph are based on Rogers, Journals, 209–12. 5. Rogers, Journals, 214–28. The last of the rangers did not arrive back at Fort Pitt until December 27, after a journey of twenty-four days. See Walters to Henry Bouquet, January 3, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:232. Rogers’s attempt to send garrisons farther to the west was stymied by bad weather; it would be another year before British troops completed the occupation of the Great Lakes region. 6. Thomas Stirling to Thomas Gage, October 18, 1765, Gage Papers, 44; John Reed to Gage, May 4, 1768, Gage Papers, 76; Jennings, “Jennings Journal from Fort Pitt to Fort Chartres”; “Gordon’s Journal, Mar 8, 1766-Dec 6, 1766,” Alvord and Carter, New Regime, 290–98. 7. Jennings, “Jennings Journal at Fort Chartres and Trip to New Orleans”; “Gordon’s Journal,” Alvord and Carter, New Regime, 301–6; Haffner, “Major Arthur Loftus’ Journal”; on French assistance see “Report from Robertson,” March 8, 1764, and Pierre Joseph Neyon De Villiers to Arthur Loftus, April 20, 1764, Alvord and Carter, Critical Period, 217, 244–45; Robert Farmar to Gage, December 16–19, 1765, Alvord and Carter, New Regime, 131–32. Speculation on the destinations of Loftus’s deserters is based on information on deserters from this and other areas. See, for example, Gage to Shelburne, April 24, 1768, on negotiations between British and Spanish officers over deserters in West Florida—the British, according to Gage, expected to get back a hundred of their men, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:168; “Journal and Report of Thomas Hutchins,” April 4-September 24, 1762, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 10:522 (deserters living among Indians in the Ohio Country). 8. Porteous, “Schenectady to Michilimackinac” (1765 trip); Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 13:234, 237–48 (Johnson); Montresor, “Expedition to Detroit”; James Wilkins to Amherst, September 9, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22 (British convoys go from Niagara to Detroit in twenty-two days). 9. Reece, “Eyre’s Journal”; Klett, Journals of Charles Beatty, 44–54; on the Potomac–Braddock Road route see Jones, Journal of Two Visits, 13–20. 10. For the distribution of the army in Britain see Houlding, Fit for Service, 24–98. 11. On the development of Forbes’s Road see Anderson, “The General Chooses a Road.” The course of Forbes’s Road as it existed in 1763–64 is traced in detail in Williams, Bouquet’s March to the Ohio.

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12. Wallace, Travels of John Heckewelder, 40; Reece, “Eyre’s Journal,” 42–45; William Byrd to Robert Monckton [?], June 18, 1760, Monckton Papers, 37. 13. For examples of traffic on the road see Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:155–60; “Gordon’s Journal,” Alvord and Carter, New Regime, 290. 14. John Forbes to Henry Bouquet, January 8, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:21. See also Wainwright, “George Croghan’s Journal,” 314–16; Harry Gordon to Byrd, July 29, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:463 (poor wagons); Lewis Ourry to Bouquet, February 17, 1759, ibid., 3:128 (swollen creeks); Ourry to Bouquet, February 26, 1759, ibid., 3:151 (cold, hardships, loss of horses); Bouquet to Gage, January 5, 1765, ibid., 6:744 (snow and isolation); Bouquet to Patrick Work, August 13, 1759, ibid., 3:550 (teamsters); John Armstrong to Bouquet, September 10, 1759, ibid., 4:66 (Allegheny Mountain); and Wallace, Travels of John Heckewelder, 39. On horses see also Tuckniss to Bouquet, January 27, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:87–88; Callender and Hughes, accounts of packhorses, [1759], ibid., 4:398–99;and Callender and Hughes, return of horses, [1760], ibid., 4:638. 15. Wallace, Travels of John Heckewelder, 38; Klett, Journals of Charles Beatty, 50– 52; Pennsylvania Gazette, March 17, 1768 (two soldiers robbed by civilians while carrying mail to Lancaster). 16. Harry Gordon to Bouquet, August 20, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:590; on the Washington-Byrd affair see Forbes to Bouquet, August 9, 1758, James, Writings of General Forbes, 180 (quote); Forbes to James Abercrombie, August 11, 1758, ibid., 173; Forbes to Bouquet, September 23, 1758, ibid., 219; Bouquet to John Stanwix, April 26, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:541. On travel along Braddock’s Road see Jones, Journal of Two Visits, 14–20. 17. On French difficulties with this route see Kent, French Invasion, 53–68; Bouquet to Monckton, March 20, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:352– 56 (on the general condition of the Allegheny route). It is worth noting that local Indians—Munsees, Delawares, and Senecas—clearly understood the difficulties of movement through the Allegheny corridor, even as the army was struggling to learn the same lesson. Unlike other Natives who put distance between themselves and the army after 1758 by moving west into Ohio, those living at and above Venango simply stayed where they were. 18. Monckton to Amherst, July 30, 1760, Amherst Papers, 43; Monckton to Amherst, November 20, 1760, Monckton Papers, 43; Robert Stewart to Horatio Gates, August 9, 1760, ibid., 38; Stewart to Monckton, August 9, 1760, ibid.; Stewart to Gates, August 18, 1760, ibid. (joy at river rising); Stewart to Gates, August 22, 1760, ibid. (near drowning); Stewart to Monckton, September 16, 1760, ibid.; Stewart to Bouquet, November 16, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:110 (winter conditions); Bouquet to Monckton, February 24, 1761, ibid., 5:305 (winter conditions). 19. Benson, America of 1750, 1:333. On French bateau see ibid., 1:381; Crisman,

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Of Sailing Ships and Sidewheelers, 8–9; see also “Underwater Archaeological Investigations.” 20. Crisman, Of Sailing Ships and Sidewheelers, 8–9; “Estimate for Building Batteaus,” [September 20, 1758], Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 2:529; Benson, America of 1750, 1:333; Bouquet to William Walters, September 1, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:10 (capacity of bateau); Bouquet to Gage, May 27, 1764, ibid., 6:548 (capacity of large bateau). 21. This paragraph and the one following draw heavily upon Dunnigan, “British Naval Vessels.” On the number and type of ships available see [Loring], “A List of Vessels on the Different Lakes in North America,” [November 1762], Amherst Papers, 65. 22. Joshua Loring to Amherst, July 24, 1761 Amherst Papers, 65 (use of soldiers at Navy Island). Details of the Navy Island facility can be found in Bernard Ratzer, “Plan of the Road and River between Niagara and Fort Schlosser,” [June] 1764, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; on the Naval Department establishment see Haldimand Papers, 21678, March 19, 1766. 23. Loring to Amherst, October 17, 1762, Amherst Papers, 65. The size of ships’ crews can be found in Haldimand Papers, 21678, March 19, 1766. On expenses see account book 6, [1766], Gage Papers. On the Michigan see Dunnigan, “British Naval Vessels,” 93. See also [Loring], “A List of Vessels on the Different Lakes in North America, [November 1762], Amherst Papers, 65. 24. Loring to Amherst, September 3, 1763, Amherst Papers, 65 (sloop lost); Hugh Arnot to Gage, October 16, 1765, Gage Papers, 44 (Mississauga); Arnot to Gage, November 9, 1765, ibid., 45 (Charlotte); George Turnbull to Gage, September 28, 1768, ibid., 81 (Charlotte); John Brown to Gage, October 5, 1768, ibid. (Boston); Patrick Sinclair to Gage, June 15, 1766, ibid., 52 (Fort Erie). A summary of vessels lost is in Dunnigan, “British Naval Vessels,” 93–96. 25. Donald Campbell to Amherst, January 23, 1761, Amherst Papers, 49; Campbell to Amherst, November 8, 1761, ibid.; Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 3:502. 26. James Stevenson to Bouquet, June 30, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:604; Ourry to Bouquet, August 24, 1760, ibid., 4:704. See also Pouchot, Memoirs, 432–33. 27. See Bernard Ratzer, “Plan of Niagara River between the Lakes Ontario and Erie,” [1764], and “Plan of the Road and River between Niagara and Fort Schlosser,” [June 1764], William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Smith, Military Dictionary, 73. 28. William Eyre to Amherst, July 3, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21; Amherst to Walters, July 25, 1760, ibid., 22 (wagons); Walters to Amherst, November 1760, ibid., 21 (horses); Walters to Amherst, April 5, 1761, ibid. (horses); Walters to Amherst, June 29, 1761, ibid. (horses); Walters to Bouquet, July 30, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:675 (Gladwin); Walters to Amherst, July 13, 1761,

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Amherst Papers, 21 (wagons and harnesses); Gavin Cochrane to Bouquet (Presque Isle), May 6, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:465–66 (state of portage and soldier-laborers). 29. Walters to Amherst, July 13, 1761, Amherst Papers, 21 (harnesses); George Demler to Amherst, March 23, 1761, ibid.; Walters to Amherst, April 5, 1762, ibid., 22 (oxen). Walters may have exaggerated his plight, hoping that Amherst would approve the Ł70 spent on the oxen. Walters to Amherst, May 21, 1762, ibid. (oxen and horses); Wilkins to Amherst, March 5, 1763, ibid. (sleighs). 30. Walters to Amherst, August 25, 1761, Amherst Papers, 21; William Browning to Gage, January 31, 1764, Gage Papers, 13; Lees, Journal of J. L., 26; Ratzer, “Plan of the Road and River between Niagara and Fort Schlosser,” [June 1764], William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (details of fortifications). 31. Wilkins to Amherst, September 20, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22; Wilkins to Amherst, October 26, 1762, ibid.; Browning to Gage, January 31, 1764, Gage Papers, 13; Gage to Browning, September 2, 1767, Haldimand Papers, 21678; Porteous, “From Fort Niagara to Mackinac,” 89 (machines); Lees, Journal of J. L., 26; Gage to Francis Smith, September 10, 1772, Haldimand Papers, 21678; Fisher Diaries, July 16, 1773. On the development of the portage under British rule see Dunnigan, “Portaging Niagara.” My thanks to Brian Dunnigan for providing a copy of this essay. See also Ratzer, “Plan of the Road between Niagara and Fort Schlosser,” [June 1764], William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 32. Rogers, Journals, 233–36. 33. Brehm report, February 23, 1761, Amherst Papers, 49; Campbell to Bouquet, December 11, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:171. 34. Gage to George Montagu Dunk, Earl of Halifax, March 10, 1764, “America and the West Indies,” 83 (Robertson report). 35. John Joseph Schlosser to Bouquet, July 28, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:664. 36. Campbell to Bouquet, December 2, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:141. 37. Brehm report, February 23, 1761, Amherst Papers, 49; Stirling to Gage, December 15, 1765, “America and the West Indies,” 84; Gage to William Johnson, May 28, 1764, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 4:433; Farmar to Welbore Ellis, January 24, 1764, Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 13. 38. Rogers, Journals, 230–31; Brehm report, February 23, 1761, Amherst Papers, 49. 39. On the Gladwin-Balfour expedition see Amherst to Campbell, June 18, 1761, Amherst Papers, 49; Amherst to Henry Gladwin, June 22, 1761, ibid.; Henry Balfour to Amherst, September 9, 1761, ibid.; Balfour to Amherst, November 24, 1761, ibid. The expedition maps have recently been brought to light by Widder in “The 1761 Balfour Expedition Maps” and “Mapping the Great Lakes.”

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40. Hutchins’s journal appears in Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 10:521–29. 41. On subsequent work on the lakes see Scull, “The Montresor Journals,” 322. On the Iberville River see George Johnstone to Thomas Pownall, February 19, 1765, Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 271–73; Harley, Petchenik, and Towner, Mapping the American Revolutionary War, 28. 42. On the Gordon-Hutchins trip see Alvord and Carter, New Regime, 290–311; Hutchins, Courses of the Ohio River; Gordon, “Map of the Ohio River”; Ross, Course of the River Mississippi; Pittman, European Settlements on Mississippi. Hutchins’s data on the Ohio River were of immediate use to the army. In 1767, Lieutenant—later Captain—Philip Pittman was given a copy of Hutchins’s work in order to chart a safe route for supply convoys to and from Fort Chartres. See Gage to Reed, July 15, 1767, Gage Papers, 67. 43. On fortifications as a reflection of weakness and instability, see Keegan, History of Warfare, 142. 44. Amherst to Pitt, May 15, 1761, “America and the West Indies,” 61. Amherst complained that he had only one regiment left for duty outside of Canada and the western frontier. 45. Amherst to Charles Wyndham, Earl of Egremont, September 23, 1762, “America and the West Indies,” 62. Even those regiments left in the colonies were well below their authorized strength. See, for example, “State of Forces under the Command of Major General Thomas Gage,” [Montreal, March 1, 1762], in Gage to Amherst, March 20, 1762, “America and the West Indies,” 62. 46. Hayter, Eighteenth-Century Secretary, 59–60; Amherst to Bouquet, March 20, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:357–58; Amherst to Monckton, March 22, 1761, Amherst Papers, 43; Royal orders for the reduction of the army, May 18, 1763, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:186–89. For the army’s changing manpower, compare returns for December 24, 1761, June 24, 1762, and February 24, 1763, in Returns, 1489. On the debates and policies leading to the army’s reorganization in America, see Shy, Toward Lexington, 84–102. 47. Walters to Bouquet, May 15, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:484 (soldiers “very Troublesome”); Walters to Bouquet, June 30, 1761, ibid., 5:604 (orders from Amherst to keep men in ranks); Schlosser to Bouquet, August 22, 1761, ibid., 5:710 (soldiers held more than a year beyond enlistments); Bouquet to Amherst, May 24, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21653, 133–34 (“Insolent Letters”); William Harris (soldier) to Bouquet, November 23, 1762, ibid., 21648, 160–61 (petition for discharge); Soldiers at Fort Niagara to Amherst, April 5, 1762, Amherst Papers, 21 (petition for discharges); Amherst to Bouquet, October 24, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21634, 106 (fear of mass desertion). 48. On the Royal Americans see “A General Return of His Majesty’s Forces,” [Pittsburgh, July 11, 1760], Monckton Papers, 37. On the posting of troops else-

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where in the West see Walters to Bouquet, July 30, 1761 (troops sent from Niagara); Gorrell, “Lieutenant James Gorrell’s Journal,” 25–26 (La Baye); Campbell to Amherst, November 8, 1761 (Ouiatenon); Monckton to Amherst, July 6, 1761, Amherst Papers, 43 (Sandusky); Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:691 (Sandusky); Bouquet to Amherst, December 2, 1761, Amherst Papers, 40 (Sandusky). 49. Return of Detroit and its outposts, [c. February–March 1763], Amherst Papers, 49. On the state of other garrisons see Gordon to Bouquet, September 19, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21648, 88–89 (Fort Venango); Bouquet to Walters, April 10, 1762, ibid., 70–72 (Ohio Country); garrison returns, Fort Pitt, June 24, 1763, Amherst Papers, 40 (Fort Pitt); Christopher Pauli to Bouquet, February 19, 1762, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:46 (Sandusky); Walters to Amherst, February 12, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22 (Niagara); Simeon Ecuyer to Bouquet, June 26, 1763, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:259–60 (Fort Pitt); Monckton to Bouquet, June 28, 1761, ibid., 5:587 (Royal Artillery). The fourteen forts were: Niagara, Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, Venango, Ligonier, Pitt, Bedford, Sandusky, Detroit, St. Joseph, Miamis, Ouiatenon, Michilimackinac, and Edward Augustus. 50. The regiments arrived in October 1763. Farmar to Ellis, January 24, 1764, Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 9, 12, 17; monthly returns of the 22nd, 34th, and 35th Foots, November 1763-February 1764, Returns, 1490; Gage to Halifax, March 10, 1764, “America and the West Indies,” 83. 51. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 41 (Michilimackinac); Marshall, “Colonial Protest.” On the need to concentrate troops in the East, see Gage to Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough, April 2, 1771, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:295. See also Eyre to Johnson, January 7, 1764, in Pargellis, Military Affairs, 455–58. 52. Amherst to Johnson, September 10, 1763, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 4:202; Gage to Halifax, April 13, 1764, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:22; Gage to Thomas Penn, March 30, 1765, Gage Papers, 33; Gage to Johnson, December 25, 1765, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 11:987; Gage to Johnson, February 3, 1766, ibid. 5:30. 53. Hillsborough to Francis Fauquier, April 15, 1768, Reese, Official Papers of Fauquier, 3:1544–46; Gage to Johnson, August 7, 1768, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 6:313; Gage to Hillsborough, August 18, 1768, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:187; Marshall, “Sir William Johnson and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix”; Shy, Toward Lexington, chap. 6. 54. Gage to Henry Seymour Conway, March 28, 1766, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:87; Gage to Conway, May 6, 1766, ibid., 1:90; “List of Officers,” December 25, 1765-December 24, 1766, Gage Papers, 139 (Ligonier abandoned April 7, 1766, Bedford abandoned April 11, 1766); cabinet minutes, March 18, 1768, Alvord and Carter, Trade and Politics, 219–20; Gage to Frederick Haldimand, December 18, 1767, Haldimand Papers, 21663 (Tombecbe); Gage to Montfort Brown, June 27, 1768, Gage Papers, 78 (Natchez and Fort Bute).

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55. Gage to Johnson, May 28, 1764, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 4:432–33 (Loftus expedition); Haffner, “Major Arthur Loftus’ Journal,”; Stirling to Gage, October 18, 1765, Alvord and Carter, New Regime, 107– 11; George Croghan to Benjamin Franklin, December 12, 1765, ibid., 60 (Farmar expedition); Farmar to John Stuart, December 16, 1765, ibid., 127. 56. Gage to Johnson, March 9, 1772, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 8:417; Gage to Haldimand, March 16, 1772, Haldimand Papers, 21665; Richard Winston to John Finley, May 6, 1772, Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan Papers, reel 6: miscellaneous correspondence. 57. On the system of troop rotations see Houlding, Fit for Service, 4–23, and appendix B. 58. Ellis to Gage, June 8, 1764, Gage Papers, 2; Reed to Gage, December 20, 1767, ibid., 73; Gage to Wilkins, May 5, 1768, ibid. 76. On occasion plans could go awry. Gage sent a note of apology to Col. John Vaughan of the 46th Foot at Fort Niagara for his inability to relieve the regiment as he had hoped and fully recognized that the 46th “has no Doubt had it’s Share of Labour.” See Gage to Vaughan, January 18, 1765, ibid., 30. 59. Gage to Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond, September 13, 1766, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:108; Gage to William Petty, Earl of Shelburne, August 24, 1767, ibid., 1:145–46; Gage to Guy Carleton, April 20, 1767, Gage Papers, 64. 2. Frontier Fortresses 1. For the size of the fort see Stotz, “Defense in the Wilderness,” 160, 162. This and Stotz’s Outposts offer the best technical and structural histories of the forts in the Ohio Country. 2. Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 27. On the weaponry see Bouquet to Amherst, December 2, 1761, Amherst Papers, 40. 3. Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 27; Gordon to Monckton, December 24, 1761, Monckton Papers 38 (barracks); Stotz, “Defense in the Wilderness,” 160 (size of parade ground). 4. Parker, Military Revolution, chap. 1; on the development of fortifications and siege warfare see Duffy, Siege Warfare; Pepper and Adams, Firearms and Fortifications. 5. Keegan, Fields of Battle, 102–3. 6. On Ouiatenon: Noble, “Ouiatenon on the Ouabache”; on Venango: Harry Gordon to Robert Monckton, December 24, 1760, Monckton Papers, 38; Stotz, Outposts, 141–43. 7. Reece, “Eyre’s Journal,” 44. On the design of Fort Ligonier see Martin West, personal communication to author, July 1996. 8. Grant, “Journal from New York to Canada,” 191–93; Porteous, “Schenectady to Michilimackinac,” 88–89, 92–93 (Detroit); Lees, Journal of J. L., 37–38 (Detroit). The development of Detroit and its defenses are covered in Dunnigan, Frontier Metropolis, chaps. 2–3.

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9. Pittman, European Settlements on Mississippi, 45–46; Jennings, “Jennings Journal from Fort Pitt to Fort Chartres,” 155. Current archaeological work at Fort Chartres is summarized in Keene, “Fort de Chartres.” 10. [Robert Farmar], “Report on the State of Fort Charlotte,” November 30, 1763, Haldimand Papers, 21677 (Mobile); Pittman, European Settlements on Mississippi, vi–vii (Pensacola); Gage to Hillsborough, May 14, 1770, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:257 (Pensacola). 11. Demler plan: British Library, Add ms 57708/9. 12. On Niagara: Demler plan, [1760]; Porteous, “Schenectady to Michilimackinac,” 88–89; Fisher Diaries, July 19, 1773; Fort Pitt: Thomas Barnseley to Bouquet, June 10, 1762, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:90–91 (deer park); Bouquet to Thomas Lloyd, April 13, 1759, ibid., 3:239 (gardens and turnips at Fort Ligonier); Townshend Guy to Bouquet, April 26, 1761, ibid., 5:446 (gardens at Fort Le Boeuf). See also Perkins Magra, “Sketch of the Fort at Michilimackinac,” [1768], William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. One of the first things Ensign Lister did upon arrival at Fort Erie in 1773 was to put his men “to work in the gardens,” Innes, “Jeremy Lister,” 38–39; Elias Meyer, plan of Fort Pitt, [1761], reproduced in Stotz, Outposts, 132 (kilns, quarry, and pastures); George Demler, plan of Fort Niagara, [1761], William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (brickyard); Magra, “Sketch of the Fort at Michilimackinac,” (stables); Elias Meyer, plan of Fort Pitt, [1762], reproduced in James and Stotz, Drums in the Forest, between 160–61 (coal pits); Francis Pfister, plan of Fort Niagara, [1772], William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (“Burrying Place”); John Wilkins to Amherst, October 26, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22 (brewery); John Armstrong to Bouquet, September 28, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:153 (bullock pens at Fort Ligonier). 13. Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 28–29 (Pittsburgh); Porteous, “Schenectady to Michilimackinac,” 88–89 (the “Bottoms”); Grant, “Journal from New York to Canada,” 192 (Niagara); Lees, Journal of J. L., 25 (Niagara traders); Gage to John Vaughan, March 18, 1765, Haldimand Papers, 21678 (Niagara’s “Lower Town”); Stanwix to Pitt, November 20, 1759, Kimball, Correspondence of William Pitt, 2:211 (Pittsburgh as “thriving”); Porteous, “Schenectady to Michilimackinac,” 92–93 (Detroit); Donald Campbell to Bouquet, December 11, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:171 (Detroit). 14. On quarters see Houlding, Fit for Service, 24–45. 15. Gordon to Monckton, December 24, 1760, Monckton Papers, 38 (Fort Pitt); Pittman, European Settlements on Mississippi, 45–46 (Fort Chartres). 16. Beamsley Glazier to Gage, November 20, 1769, Gage Papers, 88 (Fort Michilimackinac). 17. John Campbell to Gage, January 18, 1765, Gage Papers, 30 (Detroit); Campbell to Gage, October 31, 1765, Gage Papers, 45 (Detroit); Heldman, Excavations at Fort Michilimackinac (remains of housing at Michilimackinac); Evans, House D of

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the Southeast Row House (soldier housing at Michilimackinac); Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 77–79 (Mobile); Gordon Forbes to [?], January 30, 1764, ibid., 112–14 (Pensacola); Grimm, Archaeological Investigation, 42 [Ligonier]. An elevation drawing of the “Principal Barracks for officers” at Detroit is in Dunnigan, Frontier Metropolis, 84. 18. Furness and Titus, Master Plan, 42 (Crown Point); Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 97- 100; (Tombecbe); Stone, Fort Michilimackinac, 321 (Michilimackinac); Gordon to Monckton, December 24, 1760, Monckton Papers, 38 (Presque Isle). The best study of army barracks in the West is Dunnigan, Quartering Soldiers. 19. Alvord and Carter, New Regime, 96–97 (Fort Chartres); “State of the Barracks,” October 16, 1764, Gage Papers, 33 (Apalachee); Halchin, Excavations, 86–87 (Michilimackinac). 20. These orders appear in Gage to Welbore Ellis, August 10, 1765, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 2:299; “Necessaries to be provided for the Soldiers to be quartered at Fort No. 4,” Amherst Papers, 79 (barrack furniture); Ralph Burton to Gage, October 11, 1765, Gage Papers, 43 (barrack furniture). See also Douet, British Barracks, 25, 26, 28. 21. Michilimackinac’s garrison estimate is drawn from monthly returns in Returns, 1489 (17th Foot, October 1764); Dunnigan, Quartering Soldiers, 43, 44; George Turnbull to Gage, July 31, 1770, Gage Papers, 94; Magra, “Sketch of the Fort at Michilimackinac,” [1768], William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 22. Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 2:299. 23. Philip Pittman, “Plan of Mobile,” [1770], William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Gordon to Monckton, December 24, 1760, Monckton Papers, 38 (Fort Pitt); Feister, “Building Materials.” The officers’ quarters at Detroit were also plastered. See Turnbull to Gage, May 29, 1767, Gage Papers, 65. 24. Gordon to Gage, August 27, 1765, Gage Papers, 41. A blurring of distinctions did occur at Niagara; new officers’ quarters built after 1768 were also wood framed and rested on simple stone piers indistinguishable from those of common soldiers. Brian Leigh Dunnigan, personal communication to author, July 1995. 25. Francis Pfister, Plan of Fort Niagara, [1764], National Archives of Canada (Fort Erie). 26. Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 27; Dexter, Diary of David McClure, 45. 27. Lt. Williams to Gage, November 23, 1771, Gage Papers, 107; Edmonstone to Gage, November 1, 1767, ibid., 71 (quote). Lest he be accused of hyperbole, Edmonstone insisted in his letter that he was not exaggerating. 28. Pouchot, Memoirs, 224–25; Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 19–22, 65–69 (Mobile); ibid., 123–24 (Pensacola). 29. Pitt to Fauquier, January 22, 1759, Reese, Official Papers of Fauquier, 1:160.

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The summary of Fort Pitt’s construction is based on Bouquet to Hugh Mercer, May 8, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet 3:273; Bouquet to Gordon, August 2, 1759, ibid., 3:482 (sawmill); Gordon to Bouquet, August 12, 1759, ibid., 3:541–42 (bad water, brick makers, carpenters); Gordon to Bouquet, August 20, 1759, ibid., 3:590; Gordon to Bouquet, September 3, 1759, ibid., 4:29 (fort begun); Stanwix to Bouquet, September 8, 1759, ibid., 4:58 (covering parties, escorts, labor shortage); Gordon to Bouquet, September 12, 1759, ibid., 4:85 (tool shortages). 30. Monckton to Amherst, June 23, 1760, Amherst Papers, 43 (quotes); Bouquet to Ourry, November 4, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:295; Amherst to Pitt, January 7, 1761, “America and the West Indies,” 60 (fort not finished). 31. Bouquet to Monckton, June 20, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:603 (quotes); Bouquet to Monckton, May 4, 1761, ibid., 5:460; Bouquet to Monckton, June 30, 1761, ibid., 5:598 (threat of attack). 32. Mercer to Bouquet, April 24, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:251. 33. Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 35–37; Bouquet to Amherst, January 12, 1762, Amherst Papers, 40. Sally ports were tunnels through the ramparts that permitted the garrison to “sally” out against attackers. Kenny estimated that the rivers rose thirty-eight feet in thirty-two hours. 34. Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 37. 35. Bouquet to Amherst, January 12, 1762, Amherst Papers, 40; Bouquet to Amherst, March 7, 1762, ibid. 36. Bouquet to Amherst, January 12, 1762, Amherst Papers, 40; Bouquet to Amherst, March 7, 1762, ibid.; Reece, “Eyre’s Journal,” 49; Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 35–37. 37. Reece, “Eyre’s Journal,” 43 (Bedford), 44 (Ligonier), 45–49 (Fort Pitt). See also Eyre’s official report to Amherst, Eyre to Amherst, April 28, 1762, “America and the West Indies,” 62. 38. Amherst conceded the poor location of the fort but refused to take action without specific orders from Whitehall. See Amherst to Bouquet, April 3, 1763, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:173. On the 1763 flood see: Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 190–91; Ecuyer to Bouquet, March 11, 1763, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:167–68. Capt. Simeon Ecuyer cited his regimental sergeant major, John Burent, as “invaluable” in saving stores and organizing the garrison during the crisis. Fort Pitt was plagued by flooding until its final days; it was threatened in early 1765 and again in 1771. See William Murray to Bouquet, February 15, 1765, ibid., 6:700; Edmonstone to Gage, April 3, 1771, Gage Papers, 101. 39. Ecuyer to Bouquet, March 11, 1763, Darlington, Fort Pitt, 116; Bouquet to Gage, 27 December, 1763, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:486 (ramparts collapsed); ibid., 6:492 (animals on ramparts); Edmonstone to Gage, January 27, 1768, Gage Papers, 73; George Butricke to Thomas Barnsley, September 15, 1768, Butricke, Affairs at Fort Chartres, 5 (condition of fort); Williams to Gage, November

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23, 1771, Gage Papers, 107 (vestige of fort); Gage to Hillsborough, March 4, 1772, and October 6, 1772, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:319, 335 (fort abandoned). In the 1950s archaeologists found remains of pickets inside the ramparts along the vulnerable riverfronts. These could represent attempts to shore up the collapsing walls or to close off an area no longer defensible. See Swauger and Hayes, “Historic Archaeology at Fort Pitt.” 40. William Farquhar to Amherst, September 24, 1759, Amherst Papers, 21; Eyre to Amherst, April 15, 1760, ibid.; Eyre to Amherst, April 20, 1760, ibid.; Eyre to Amherst, April 28, 1760, ibid.; Eyre to Amherst, May 8, 1760, ibid.; Amherst to Farquhar, September 11, 1759, ibid., 23 (Amherst quote); Amherst to Eyre, June 16, 1760, ibid. 41. Walters to Bouquet, September 15, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:43; Walters to Amherst, February 12, 1761, Amherst Papers, 22; Wilkins to Amherst, December 25, 1762, ibid.; Vaughan to Gage, January 3, 1765, Gage Papers, 29. 42. Grant, “Journal from New York to Canada,” 191–92; Gage to Shelburne, October 10, 1767, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:153; Arnot to Gage, July 24, 1765, Gage Papers, 39; Gordon to Gage, August 27, 1765, ibid.; John Brown to Gage, September 1, 1766, ibid., 56. 43. Forbes to Ellis, January 30, 1764, Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 112–15. 44. James Robertson to Secretary of War, September 7, 1763, ibid., 136; Robertson to Robert MacKinen, October 25, 1764, ibid., 123–24; Forbes to Ellis [?], January 30, 1764, ibid., 112–15; Pittman, European Settlements on Mississippi, vi, vii. 45. Gage to Ellis, April 27, 1765, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 2:284 (good progress); Elias Durnford to Gage, March 8, 1765, Gage Papers, 31; William Taylor to Gage, September 18, 1766, ibid., 57 (heat); Gage to Hillsborough, July 2, 1771, “America and the West Indies,” 89; Gage to Hillsborough, June 4, 1771, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:300; Gage to Shelburne, January 23, 1768, ibid., 1:159 (storms); Gage to William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, November 4, 1772, ibid., 1:337 (hurricane); Haldimand to Thomas Sowers, May 12, 1772, Haldimand Papers, 21677 (quote). 46. Gage to Hillsborough, June 16, 1768, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:177; Gage to Hillsborough, January 6, 1770, ibid., 1:244–45; Gage to Hillsborough, December 7, 1770, ibid., 1:286; Reed to Gage, October 28, 1767, Gage Papers, 71. 47. Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 19–20; “Survey of West Florida, 1768,” Calder, Colonial Captivities, 228–29; Gage to Hillsborough, July 7, 1770, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:263. 48. Gage to Halifax, October 12, 1764, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:39; Henry, Travels and Adventures, 40–41; Porteous, “From Niagara to Mackinac,” 95; Campbell to Gage, February 25, 1765, Gage Papers, 31. 49. Gage to William Johnson, December 25, 1765, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton,

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Papers of William Johnson 11:987; Gage to Henry Seymour Conway, March 28, 1766, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:87; Gage to Penn, March 30, 1765, Gage Papers, 33. See also Shy, Toward Lexington, 223–31, 269–90 for the political context of Gage’s decision. 50. For the details of this pullback see chapter 1. 51. Gage to Vaughan, March 18, 1765, Gage Papers, 32; Gage to Vaughan, April 18, 1765, ibid., 34; Gage to Brown, December 1, 1766, ibid., 60; Gage to Shelburne, December 23, 1766, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:116; Gage to Brown, June 21, 1768, Gage Papers, 78; Brown to Gage, August 2, 1768, ibid.; Gage to Shelburne, October 10, 1767, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:153 (Detroit); Gage to Hillsborough, March 4, 1769, ibid., 1:219 (Michilimackinac). The transformation of Detroit can be followed in plans from 1765 through the 1770s, reproduced in Dunnigan, Frontier Metropolis, 61, 90, 104. 52. Gage to Andrew Simpson, May 16, 1765, Gage Papers, 36; Gage to Hillsborough, April 25, 1770, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:257; Gage to Hillsborough, July 2, 1771, ibid., 1:303; Gage to Hillsborough, July 1, 1772, ibid., 1:329; report on works at Pensacola, January 25, 1772, Haldimand Papers, 21677. See also Coker, “Pensacola,” 23–24; Bense, “Archaeology of Late Colonial Pensacola,” 160–70. 3. Military Society on the Frontier 1. Hale, War and Society, 159 (“walking city”) and chap. 6; Frey, British Soldier in America, chap. 6; Keegan, History of Warfare, 226–34. The best study of an army and its followers is Mayer, Belonging to the Army, esp. chap. 1. On the evolution of clothing and other distinguishing features of British military identity in the eighteenth century, see Lawson, History of Uniforms, vol. 3, esp. 109–21. 2. On armies as communities see Corvisier, Armies and Societies in Europe, 176. 3. Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, xxxviii, 155, 180, 192–93; Hay, “Property, Authority,” 24–25. 4. Keegan, Face of Battle, 186–89; Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 37, 180–84; Frey, British Soldier in America, 118–19. 5. On the role of noncommissioned officers see Steppler, “Common Soldier,” 140; Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 4, 10, 152. 6. Kopperman, “Medical Service”; Barnsley, “Life of an Army Surgeon.” For the sufferings of one surgeon’s mate at the hands of officers, see Morison Doctor’s Secret Journal, 14, 16, 26–27. 7. Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 189 (servants) and 192–94 (marriages). 8. On the ethnic composition of the army during the Seven Years’ War see Brumwell, Redcoats, 73–77. On the Irish see Guy, “Army of the Georges,” 94, 103; Colley, Britons, 326; Pennsylvania Chronicle, September 30, 1771 (Potts); New York Mercury, June 18, 1764 (Brewin); ibid., June 3, 1765 (O’Donnel); Knox, Campaigns in North America, 1:141–42 (St. Patrick’s Day).

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9. New York Mercury, March 10, 1760 (McIntosh); Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 24, 1769 (Gordon); New York Gazette, June 9, 1766 (McDonald); Colley, Britons, 120, 326. 10. Pennsylvania Chronicle, September 30, 1771 (Kloss); Bouquet to Monckton, December 29, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:217 (Germans from French garrison at Detroit willing to enlist); Wilkins to Amherst, January 17, 1763, Amherst Papers, 22 (Swiss and French); New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, October 12, 1772 (Mull); New York Mercury, March 5, 1759 (Horton); ibid., August 23, 1762 (Kieff); ibid., June 8, 1761 (Howey); Walters to Bouquet, January 30, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:605n11 (Wedge); New York Journal, September 13, 1770 (Simpson). See also “A Return of the Number of Volunteers Inlisted out of the . . . New York Regiments . . . to Serve in His Majesty’s Regular Troops during the Continuance of the Present War,” September 21, 1762, Amherst Papers, 19. On blacks serving in the army see Sumner, “Army Inspection Returns,” 115. The inspection of the 29th Foot in 1774 notes that “10 Dummers are negroes.” It should be noted that drummers were paid as noncommissioned officers and were considered soldiers of the line—not musicians, who were civilians paid by the regiment’s officers. On the general issue of army recruitment, especially in the colonies, see Anderson, A People’s Army, 39–40; Brumwell, Redcoats, 74–76. 11. Hayes, “Scottish Officers”; Knox, Campaigns in North America, 1:294. 12. Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 1:vi (foreign officers); Quattrocchi, “Thomas Hutchins”; Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:138n1 (Holmes); Bouquet to Monckton, March 20, 1761, ibid., 5:252–56 (Price); Bouquet to Gage, May 27, 1764, ibid., 6:547 (Burent); Butricke, Affairs at Fort Chartres, 4, 8; Wilkins to Gage, November 25, 1767, Gage Papers, 72 (Butricke). 13. Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 68–69; Bouquet to William Shrubsole, July 15, 1757, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 1:144–45 (recruiting orders for regular troops in South Carolina). 14. “Return of Drafts Received by the 46th Foot,” October 5, 1763, Amherst Papers, 22; Brumwell, “Rank and File.” Brumwell expands on this work in Redcoats, chaps. 2–3. 15. On recruiting skilled men see Brumwell, Redcoats, 79–80. 16. Steppler, “Common Soldier,” 30–40. On general economic conditions in Britain see Sharpe, Early Modern England, esp. 199–213; Porter, English Society; Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, pt. 3. On conditions in the colonies see Nash, Urban Crucible. On the civilian occupations of soldiers see, for example, Pennsylvania Gazette, December 12, 1771 (jockey); New York Mercury, November 17, 1760 (barber); ibid., November 10, 1760 (printer); ibid., May 16, 1763 (wig maker); Glazier, Orderly Book (butcher); New York Journal, March 16, 1969 (gardener); Pennsylvania Chronicle, September 9, 1771 (carver); ibid., June 14, 1773 (fencing master). See also “A Return of the Artificiers, of the Forces,” July 8, 1757, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 1:135 (lists of trades among men of the first battalion, 60th Foot).

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17. In this brief discussion of soldier literacy I have followed such studies as Stone, “Literacy and Education in England,” and Lockridge, Literacy in Colonial New England. On Cuthbertson see Compleat Interior Management, 6–10 (schools and literacy and noncommissioned officers). On rising levels of literacy in Britain see Cressy, “Levels of Literacy in England”; Porter, English Society, 167–68; Colley, Britons, 226. Soldier signatures can be found in Warrants, boxes 69–73, Gage Papers (Detroit and Fort Chartres, 1767–69); signatures can also be found in court-martial records. See, for example, “Deposition Taken at Michilimackinac,” July 31, 1773, Haldimand Papers, 21678. On letters see Ourry to Bouquet, August 27, 1763, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:373 (quote); New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, April 11, 1768 (Galbraith); Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 27, 1767 (Hacking). 18. Innes, “Jeremy Lister,” 32 (hires a sergeant of the Guards “to teach me my exercises”), 33 (costs of instruction). 19. Houlding, Fit for Service, 104, 107–8, 109–10, 113–15. On Gorrell see James Gorrell to Bouquet, December 23, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:199n2. On Glazier see War Office Records 65/1, 16 (half-pay lists); Dictionary of Canadian Biography, s.v. “Glasier, Beamsley Perkins.” 20. Haldimand to Gage, February 28, 1768, Gage Papers, 74 (Hamilton); Gage to Haldimand, December 18, 1767, Haldimand Papers, 21663; Gage to Vaughan, April 29, 1765, Gage Papers, 35 (Bowden); Houlding, Fit for Service, 99–116 (officers, professionalism, and length of service). 21. Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 128–34. Cuthbertson recommended that any man found not adhering to proper standards of appearance be condemned to two days of bread and water in the “Black Hole” (133). 22. Guy, Œconomy and Discipline, 148–49; Lawson, History of Uniforms, 3:109–21. 23. See Lawson, History of Uniforms, 3:115–17, on regimental distinctions. 24. Entry for January 8, 1769, Glazier Orderly Book (orders to tailors regarding maintenance of clothing); ibid., June 17, 1772 (black balls); Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 87, 91, 119. 25. Walters to Bouquet, November 21, 1761, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21647, Bouquet to Walters, April 10, 1762, ibid., 21648; Bouquet to Gordon, August 24, 1762, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:109–10; “Distribution of a Year’s Pay,” Haldimand Papers, 21677; Wright to Haldimand, July 9, 1767, ibid.; Bouquet to Amherst, December 2, 1761, Amherst Papers, 40. 26. Cochrane to Bouquet, June 30, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:601–2; Gordon to Bouquet, May 13, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21648, 108–9; Bouquet to Amherst, February 3, 1762, Amherst Papers, 40; Hopkins to Amherst, October 24, 1762, ibid., 49. 27. John Tulleken to Bouquet, March 5, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:177 (leggings and garters); John Montresor to Henry Bassett, November 2, 1763, Alvord and Carter, New Regime, 536 (moccasins); Armstrong to Bouquet, January 6, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:16 (under jackets); entry

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for November 6, 1771, Glazier Orderly Book (winter dress). On different uniforms due to drafting: James Bryan deserted the Royal American Regiment wearing his old uniform of the 47th Foot (New York Mercury, January 2, 2764), while James Burgess, wearing the red and yellow regimentals of the 9th Foot, attempted to desert his new home in the 18th Royal Irish Regiment (Pennsylvania Chronicle, June 19, 1770). 28. Hacker, “Women and Military Institutions”; Kopperman, “British High Command.” 29. “Halkett’s Orderly Book,” in Hamilton, Braddock’s Defeat, 89, 90, 98, 102 (women with Braddock’s army); Knox, Campaigns in North America, 1:355, 460 (women and work); ibid., 2:338, 353 (Quebec); orders (concerning women), June 1, 1760, Haldimand Papers, 21678; orders, June 30, 1769, ibid., 21683 (number of women per regiment); Frey, British Soldier in America, 57; Hunter, “Thomas Barton and the Forbes Expedition,” 450, 452. 30. Gladwin to Amherst, February 21, 1763, Amherst Papers, 49; return of Detroit and its dependencies, n.d., ibid.; “Embarkation Return,” August 1773, Haldimand Papers, 21693 (Hay’s company); Gordon to Bouquet, August 18, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Wilderness Chronicles, 240 (Rocherey); “Return of the Number of Women & Children,” September 2, 1768, Haldimand Papers, 21663 (31st Foot); monthly return, 31st Foot, November 1767, Returns, 1492 (31st Foot). Mute evidence of the children can be found in the material remains of Pensacola, which include glass marbles and a metal whizzer. See Bense, “Archaeology of Late Colonial Pensacola,” 133, 136, 182. Pittsburgh figures are abstracted from “List of Houses and Inhabitants at Fort Pitt,” April 14, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:408–11. 31. Barnsley, “Life of an Army Surgeon,” 134; Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 192–94; Kopperman, “British High Command.” 32. Orderly book, entry for August 31, 1759, Gates Papers (Pittsburgh: women to receive two pounds less bread and one pound less meat per week than troops); Knox, Campaigns in North America, 2:270 (women’s rations reduced); orders, September 22, 1763, Haldimand Papers, 21678 (women not allowed rations); Farmar to Gage, March 18, 1766, Gage Papers, 49. 33. Warrant for money issued to the widow of Lt. Joyce Johnson, representing the difference between his half pay and full pay for time served during the 1763 Indian war, account book 3, Gage Papers; Tulleken to Bouquet, March 5, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:176 (method of settling officers’ affairs). For problems facing officers’ widows see the case of Mary Billings’s attempts to clear her late husband’s accounts and gain relief for herself and three children: Billings to Bouquet, February 19, 1759, ibid., 3:134–35; Mary Billings to Ralph Jocelyn, February 17, 1759, ibid., 3:135; Billings to Deborah Franklin, February 19, 1759, ibid., 3:136. 34. Robert Bayard to Gage, June 30, 1766, Gage Papers, 53 (McDonald); Gage to Bayard, July 7, 1766, Gage Papers, 54 (McDonald); Dexter, Diary of David Mc-

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Clure, 104; Graham to parents, November 23, 1769, Marshall Papers (Indian girls); Graham to parents, February 3, 1771, Graham, Unpublished Letters, 50 (tea and suppers). 35. Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 44 (women to be paid for laundry services), 53; Knox, Campaigns in North America, 1:460 (women threatened with loss of rations for not serving in the hospitals). 36. “Account of Cash Paid,” October 11, 1760, Monckton Papers, 39 (Fort Bedford); Knox, Campaigns in North America, 2:410 (women paid for work); Wallace, “Regimental Routine and Army Administration,” 9–10 (women as cooks); Alvord and Carter, New Regime, 434 (sergeant in debt to soldier’s wife); Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:224. 37. Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 44. 38. Ibid., 10, 14. Lead pencils recovered at Pensacola from the site of barracks and storehouses may suggest the sort of barrack-room schooling Cuthbertson had in mind. See Bense, “Archaeology of Late Colonial Pensacola,” 182. On childhood see Plumb, “New World of Children,” 64–95. 39. Smith to Gage, March 24, 1772, Gage Papers, 122; Stewart to Bouquet, September 4, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:19. 40. Petition of Susannah Robertson, June 30, 1763, Amherst Papers, 94. 41. Martha May to Bouquet, June 4, 1758, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 2:30 (emphasis added). 4. Material Lives of Frontier Soldiers 1. “An Inventory, of ye Officers & Soldiers Effects,” September 20, 1758, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 2:531–32. 2. Hesse’s effects are listed in ibid., 4:469–71; his death is noted in James Allaz to Bouquet, February 23, 1759, ibid., 3:142; Innes, “Jeremy Lister,” 33–34. See also Simes, Military Medley, 195–96. 3. Guy, Œconomy and Discipline, 148; “Distribution of One Years Pay of a Private Soldier,” Haldimand Papers, 21677; return of camp equipage, March 18, 1757, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 1:57–58. On soldiers’ “necessaries” see also John Knox, Campaigns in North America, 1:137. 4. “Necessaries to be provided for the Soldiers to be Quartered at No. 4,” Amherst Papers, 79; “Return of Barrack Stores Fort Pitt,” October 24, 1761, Bouquet to Amherst, December 2, 1761, ibid., 40; Burton to Gage, October 10, 1765, Gage Papers, 43 (estimate of barrack stores for posts in Canada). See also Dunnigan, Quartering Soldiers, 30–34, 51–52. For an example of the goods requested by Isabella Graham, see Graham to parents, November 3, 1770, Graham Letters. A sample of drawings depicting British military life at the end of the eighteenth century can be found in Neuburg, Gone for a Soldier, 59–60, 86, 88–89, 93. 5. Capt. John Vattas, “Deposition Taken at Michilimackinac,” July 31, 1771, Haldimand Papers, 21678. Archaeologist Lois Feister correctly notes that the lives

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and culture of common soldiers in the eighteenth century represents a “poorly understood subculture” within the colonies. Feister, “Material Culture,” 125. 6. The literature on consumerism in the British Atlantic world is quite large and continues to grow. My interpretation draws upon the following studies: Breen, “An Empire of Goods”; Shammas, Pre-Industrial Consumer; McKendrick, Brewer, and Plumb, Birth of a Consumer Society; Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour; Brewer and Porter, Consumption and World of Goods; Carson, Hoffman, and Albert, Of Consuming Interest; Wrightson, Earthly Necessities. On the social implications of tea drinking see Roth, “Tea-Drinking in Eighteenth-Century America.” 7. Pargellis, Lord Loudoun, 281 (soldiers’ wages); Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, 289–90 (“stout midriff” quoted on 289); Smith, “Lower Sort,” 109, 113 (wages for laborers and seamen in eighteenth-century Philadelphia); Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour, 188, table 8.4 (incidence of household-goods ownership for lower-class occupations); Porter, English Society, 219 (inventory of artisan’s estate). 8. It should be noted here that the archaeological record referred to here is biased in favor of the larger and more accessible forts: Forts Michilimackinac, Niagara, Ligonier, and Chartres, for example, have been more closely studied than smaller places whose remains have not survived or which were occupied for only short periods of time. 9. Fort Pitt Daybooks, 1765–67, entries for June 14, 1765 (items paid for by store), August 18, 1765 (Powers), August 26, 1765 (Green); remaining references to purchases span the period from August 26, 1765, to September 15, 1767. For civilian purchases see, for example, ibid., entries for August 1 and 7, 1765, and January 8, 1766; “Journal B: Fort Chartres, 1768–1771,” Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan Papers, reel 9: entries for November 24, 1768 (William Davis buys pudding pans), November 1768 (William Davis buys coffee), and February 1769 (James Rumsey buys a dozen silver teaspoons). See also Graydon journal, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:157, entry for March 6, 1759 (horses loaded with “Dry Goods” moving up Forbes’s Road to Pittsburgh); ibid., 3:526 (reference to wagons carrying “porcelaine” [ceramics?]). Additional references to civilian material culture in the West can be found in Heldman, French Farm Lake, esp. 43–57; Richardson and Wilson, “Hannas Town and Charles Foreman”; Peterson, Gentlemen on the Frontier. 10. “Journal B: Fort Chartres, 1768–1771,” Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan Papers, reel 9: entries for July 1769 and December 1770 (Eddy), September 1770 (Harbieson), November 1768 (washerwoman), December 1768 and May 1769 (sergeants); Bense, “Archaeology of Late Colonial Pensacola,” 178–82. 11. De Angelo, “Eighteenth-Century Ceramics”; Starbuck, Great Warpath, chap 3; Grimm, Archaeological Investigation; Shirley Iscrupe, curator of collections, Fort Ligonier, Ligonier, Pennsylvania, personal communication to author (chamber pot). Other Seven Years’ War sites have similar materials. See, for example, Hanson and Hsu, Casemates and Cannonballs, 114–28, 133–35. 12. My thanks to Brian Dunnigan, then-director of the Old Fort Niagara Mu-

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seum, for access to the museum’s archaeological collections and files regarding Fort Niagara. The Niagara portage site is summarized in S. Scott et al., Archaeological Survey of Artpark; on Fort Michilimackinac see Stone, Fort Michilimackinac, 321; Heldman, Excavations at Fort Michilimackinac; Hanson and Hsu, Casemates and Cannonballs, 133–35, 145 (grill, colander, forks); Shirley Iscrupe, curator of collections, Fort Ligonier, personal communication to author (forks). 13. Shirley Iscrupe, curator of collections, personal communication to author (Fort Ligonier); Old Fort Niagara Museum collections and files (Fort Niagara); Feister, “Material Culture,” 129–30. Little has been done to place British soldiers’ material culture within the larger context of the British Atlantic and of other contemporary military societies. French artifacts recovered from Fort Chambly, located south of Montreal, are suggestive. The assemblage consists of the same range of ceramics and personal items as those recovered from British sites. The notable exception is the absence of forks at Fort Chambly. See Miville-Deschenes, The Soldier Off Duty. 14. Shammas, Pre-Industrial Consumer, 172–73, 181. 15. Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, 299 (“refashioning”), 186–87 (sociability and women); Bushman, Refinement of America, xii–xiii. 16. Carson, “Consumer Revolution,” 518–22; Graham to mother, February 3, 1771, Graham, Unpublished Letters, 49–50. 5. The World of Work 1. These paragraphs are based on: Walters to Amherst, May 30, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22; Schlosser to Bouquet, July 28, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:664; Walters to Amherst, February 12, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22; Walters to Amherst, May 21, 1762, ibid.; Cochrane to Bouquet, May 6, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:456–66; [George Demler], “A Report on the Present State . . . Fort Niagara,” July 26, 1762, Monckton Papers, 37; Walters to Amherst, August 25, 1761, Amherst Papers, 21; Walters to Amherst, May 10, 1762, ibid., 22. 2. Walters to Amherst, May 30, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22; on the Mississauga see [Joshua Loring], “A List of Vessels on the Different Lakes in North America,” November 1762, Gage Papers, 44. 3. Gaspar, “Sugar Cultivation,” 113 (plantations and army regiments). On ships as factories see Rediker, Between Devil and Deep Blue Sea, 5, 8, 200, and chap. 3; Rodger, Wooden World, 29, 39–41. On efforts to improve army administration and efficiency see Guy, Œconomy and Discipline, 53, 162–65. 4. On the composition of the wartime British army see Way, “Rebellion of the Regulars”; Brumwell, Redcoats, chap. 2; Steppler, “Common Soldier,” 30–40, 140. For similar analyses of colonial soldiers see Ferling, “Soldiers for Virginia”; Ward, “Army of Servants”; Stephenson, “Pennsylvania Provincial Soldiers”; Anderson, A People’s Army, esp. chap. 2; Walters to Bouquet, September 15, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:43.

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5. Campbell to Gage, January 18, 1765, Gage Papers, 30; George Etherington to Gladwin, January 20, 1763, Amherst Papers, 49; Gordon to Gage, April 26, 1766, Gage Papers, 51; Eyre Massey to Gage, May 9, 1766, ibid. (artificiers in the 15th and 27th regiments); Gage to Haldimand, June 4, 1767, ibid. 65; Gage to Hillsborough, December 5, 1770, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:283. 6. “General Abstract of Disbursments at Fort Pitt,” 1761, Monckton Papers, 40; Gage to Haldimand, June 6, 1767, Haldimand Papers, 21663. Haldimand wished to recruit a corps of workmen for Pensacola but was overruled by Gage, who insisted that such men could only be hired annually by the job with approval from London. Gage to Brown, September 18, 1770, ibid., 21678 (Niagara); details of the Niagara work can be found in Dunnigan, Forts within Fort, 14–31; Gage to Campbell, April 20, 1765, Gage Papers, 34 (Detroit); Gage to Haldimand, September 30, 1769, Haldimand Papers, 21664 (St. Augustine). The use of prefabrication by the military was not new: barracks were built in Massachusetts, taken apart, and then shipped to Louisbourg for use by the garrison there in 1746–47; see Swauger and Lang, “Fortress of Louisbourg,” 31–32 and figs. 69 and 70. 7. Thompson, “Time, Work Discipline,” 359, 361, 370, 373, 389. 8. Innes, “John Smith’s Vision,” 21, 41–42; Porter, English Society, 326–27; entries for November 24, 1771 (woodcutting), November 17, 1771 (recruits), Glazier Orderly Book, 57; garrison clock mentioned in Warrants, box 25, item 78, Gage Papers. 9. Gage to Hillsborough, June 4, 1771, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:300; Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 14. 10. Walters to Amherst, May 10, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22; Gage to Brown, December 1, 1766, Gage Papers, 60; John Caldwell to Gage, November 15, 1774, ibid., 124; “Account of Bricks Taken from Mobile to Pensacola,” January 25, 1772, Haldimand Papers, 21677; Gage to Hillsborough, June 4, 1771, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:300 (fascines). For illustrations of fascine knives see Hanson and Hsu, Casemates and Cannonballs, 104–5; Dunnigan, Siege, 1759, 138. My thanks also to Martin West, Fort Ligonier Association, for sharing his knowledge of fort building and repair, especially the making of fascines. 11. Bouquet to Monckton, June 20, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:603; Campbell to Gage, October 31, 1765, Gage Papers, 45. 12. The foregoing is based on engineer George Demler’s report on Fort Niagara, March 25, 1761, in Walters to Amherst, March 27, 1761, Amherst Papers, 21. 13. Swauger and Hayes, “Historic Archaeology at Fort Pitt”; Swauger and Lang, “Excavations at Music Bastion”; Grimm, Archaeological Investigation, 47–169; Hanson and Hsu, Casemates and Cannonballs, 48–109. 14. My analysis of military labor draws upon Philip D. Morgan’s studies of slave labor systems in early America. Morgan sees gang and task labor as poles along a work continuum, identifying a “hybrid” of task and gang labor that included small, loosely supervised work gangs. This organization accurately reflects the army’s labor

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system in the West. However, Morgan’s picture of generally flexible task labor as opposed to regimented gang labor appears to have been inverted in military garrisons, where task workers labored under closer supervision than did gang laborers. See Morgan, “Task and Gang Systems,” esp. 190–91, 199, 201, 204. Walters to Amherst, July 23, 1761, Amherst Papers, 21; garrison court-martial, Pensacola, January 7, 1772, Haldimand Papers, 21682 (McGrath); “Deposition of Corporal James Berry & Five Rank & File of the 42d and 60th Regiments,” February 22, 1764, ibid.; Campbell to Gage, August 6, 1765, Gage Papers, 40; Turnbull to Johnson, September 9, 1769, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 7:159; “Return of the 21st Foot,” July 24, 1766, Haldimand Papers, 21677 (reference to “a Black Man Interpreter” who had died the previous year); provisions abstract, Pensacola, February 24-April 24, 1771 (“Negroes”). 15. Gage to Dartmouth, November 4, 1772, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:337 (schooner); Walters to Amherst, August 25, 1761, Amherst Papers, 21 (hay making); Bouquet to Henry Shyrock, March 17, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:347; Campbell to Gage, April 27, 1765, Gage Papers, 35 (quote); Farmar to Secretary of State for War, January 24, 1764, Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 17 (Dauphin Island); Farmar to Ellis, January 24, 1764, ibid. 16. Brown to Gage, September 8, 1767, Gage Papers, 69; Walters to Amherst, August 25, 1761, Amherst Papers, 21; Taylor to Gage, October 15, 1766, Gage Papers, 58 (Pensacola); Turnbull to Gage, October 19, 1766, ibid. (Detroit). 17. Report of engineer George Demler, Walters to Amherst, May 27, 1761, Amherst Papers, 21; Wilkins to Amherst, October 26, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22 (work undertaken at Fort Niagara); Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 14 (Fort Pitt); Potts to Bouquet, July 28, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:661 (Fort Pitt); Turnbull to Gage, August 28, 1767, Gage Papers, 69 (digging wells, Detroit); Gov. James Grant to Thomas Moncrieff, July 7, 1767, Haldimand Papers, 21677 (road building in Florida); Edward Maxwell to Gage, November 16, 1765, Gage Papers, 45 (clearing Iberville River in West Florida). 18. Monckton to Amherst, November 20, 1760, Amherst Papers, 43; Lees, Journal of J. L., 26 (height of Niagara escarpment); Cochrane to Bouquet, May 6, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:465–66; Wilkins to Amherst, September 20, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22; Wilkins to Amherst, October 26, 1762, ibid.; Arnot to Gage, April 28, 1765, Gage Papers, 35. Something of the magnitude of the work involved in transporting foodstuffs can be gathered from provisions returns. Fort Pitt’s garrison in 1766, some 170 men, was expected to consume 59,670 pounds of flour, 53,040 pounds of beef, and 33,150 pounds of pork during the period from October 1, 1766, to June 30, 1767. See “Return of Provisions, October 1, 1766–30 June 1767,” Gage Papers, 56. 19. Gage to Johnson, March 17, 1766, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 12:44.

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20. Croghan to Gage, January 12, 1767, ibid., 12:253–55; Reed to Gage, April 3, 1767, Gage Papers, 63; Butricke, Affairs at Fort Chartres, 6 (quote). 21. Campbell to Gage, August 6, 1765, Gage Papers, 40 (Detroit); entries for November 10, 1771, November 17, 1771, November 24, 1771, December 1, 1771, Glazier Orderly Book (woodcutting at Fort Niagara); Campbell to Gage, June 30, 1765, Gage Papers, 39 (soldiers wanting additional pay); Gage to Haldimand, June 4, 1767 (quote); regulations governing the collection of firewood required that each cord of wood consist of pieces four feet long. See barrack master’s instructions, April 1, 1765, Haldimand Papers, 21677. 22. Monckton to Bouquet, May 17, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:487; Bouquet to St. Stair Campbell Carre, May 20, 1761, ibid., 5:488; Bouquet to Monckton, June 10, 1761, ibid., 5:543. 23. Walters to Amherst, February 12,1762, Amherst Papers, 22; rates of pay for extra work are listed in Glazier Orderly Book; pay scales for officers and common soldiers can be found in Guy, Œconomy and Discipline, 93, 172; “Account of the Pay Due the Men,” January 10, 1761, Monckton Papers, 40; on stoppages and soldier resistance see Way, “Rebellion of the Regulars.” 24. Warrants, box 22, items 69–74, Gage Papers (Detroit, May 1 to October 31, 1767). See also Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 67–68 (contingent expenses at Mobile, 1763). 25. Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 87 (quotes). 26. Amherst to Walters, July 8,1761, Amherst Papers, 23 (Niagara); Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 43, 44 (Fort Pitt); Turnbull to Gage, February 23, 1768, Gage Papers, 74 (Detroit); entries for November 24, 1770, December 15, 1770, January 1, 1771, January 12, 1771, March 19, 1771, April 19, 1771, May 13, 1771, Glazier Orderly Book; court-martial, Fort Pitt, August 13, 1761, Haldimand Papers 21682 (plow); James Grant to Gage, April 2, 1764, Gage Papers, 16 (soldiers plowing at Fort Pitt); Campbell to Gage, July 15, 1765, ibid., 39 (quote). 27. Account of the commissary department, December 25, 1768, Warrants, box 17, item 88, Gage Papers (McDonald); Glazier Orderly Book (Polson); Jenkins, McDonald, and Christie to Bouquet, August 24, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:701–2; Butricke to Barnsley, February 12, 1769, Butricke, Affairs at Fort Chartres, 10. 28. Houlding, Fit for Service, chap. 1. On the aging of the army in America see the example of the 8th Regiment during the American Revolution in Frey, British Soldier in America, 24. 29. Bouquet to [Stephen Gually], October 18, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:827; Archibald Blane to Bouquet, c. May 31, 1761, ibid., 5:515; Houlding, Fit for Service, 98. On Ireland see Guy, “ ‘A Whole Army Absolutely Ruined.’ ” Conditions may have been different in the West Indies, where regiments served together in the islands and where slaves did much of the labor done by soldiers in the American West, though disease and desertion may have contributed

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to declining military efficiency here, too. See Guy, “Army of the Georges,” 97; Buckley, British Army in the West Indies, 129, 326–27. 30. Thomas Mather to Bouquet, August 23, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:699–700; James Chisholm to Gage, November 10, 1766, Gage Papers, 58; Gage to commanding officer, Fort Chartres, April 2, 1768, ibid., 75. 31. Gage to John Bradstreet, March 15, 1764, Gage Papers, 15; entries for November 1771 through June 1772, Glazier Orderly Book (on garrison training); Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 199 (“free and easy Carriage”), 202 (“clownish ways”), 206 (field days). 6. Diet and Foodways 1. Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 31. 2. Holmes, Redcoat, 281 (cooking in barracks and unit cohesion). Roger Buckley makes the point about messing and solidarity for the West Indian garrisons and also argues that messing may have contributed to a better diet as soldiers pooled their money and rations. See British Army in the West Indies, 334. 3. The most influential work on military logistics is Van Crefeld, Supplying War, but discussion of early modern military logistics has broadened in response to this work. See especially Lynn, “The History of Logistics”; Shy, “Logistical Crisis”; Tallett, War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 50–68. A valuable case study is offered in Kennett, French Armies in Seven Years’ War, chaps. 9, 10. 4. On the British forces in America see Pargellis, Lord Loudoun, 279–98; Brumwell, Redcoats, 140–45. The operation of the British logistical system and its limitations is the subject of Bowler, Logistics and Failure. Some idea of the challenges facing army quartermasters in America can be gained in John St. Clair to Robert Napier, February 10, 1755, and St. Clair to Napier, June 13, 1755, Pargellis, Military Affairs, 58–66, 93–95. 5. Adam Hoops, “Calculation of Provisions,” [July 1758], Headquarters Papers of John Forbes, reel 2; “A Calculation Showing the Expence of Supplying an Army of 100 Men at Pittsboro for 28 Days,” [n.d.], ibid. 6. Walters to Amherst, August 25, 1761, Amherst Papers, 21 (supplies to Detroit and other posts); Walters to Amherst, January 3, 1761, ibid. (provisions for Niagara garrison). The estimated weights are based on the size of provision barrels received at Detroit: flour at 178 pounds per barrel and pork at 180 pounds per barrel. See Campbell to Amherst, July 8, 1761, Amherst Papers, 49. For quantities of food in store at six forts west of Detroit, see Campbell to Amherst, August 4, 1762, ibid. 7. Bouquet to Amherst, December 2, 1761, Amherst Papers, 40 (Fort Pitt, Fort Ligonier); [Bouquet], calculation for carriage of supplies, May 15, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:287–88; Stewart to Monckton, September 28, 1760, Monckton Papers, 38 (packhorses). 8. Campbell to Gage, October 31, 1765, Gage Papers, 45 (Detroit); Gage to Carleton, January 5, 1767, ibid., 61 (Great Lakes). See also Jehu Hay to Gage,

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January 9, 1775, ibid., 125 (provisions estimates for the Great Lakes for 1775); and provisions accounts for Fort Presque Isle, July 18, August 6 and 16, and September 1, 1760, Monckton Papers, 39; inventory of provisions at Detroit, September 16, 1761, Campbell to Amherst, September 18, 1761, Amherst Papers, 49. 9. Simes, Military Medley, 272 (weekly ration in America); report on Fort Charlotte (Mobile), November 30, 1763, Haldimand Papers, 21677 (basic rations); David Wedderburn to Gage, July 15, 1765, Gage Papers, 39. See also Bouquet to Guy, January 14, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:243 (rations at Fort Pitt). 10. Pargellis, Lord Loudoun, 293 (officers’ rations). The threat of stoppages and an end to “customary” usage in the colonies was a contributing factor in a continentwide mutiny in 1763. On the stoppages and their consequences see the excellent study by Way, “Rebellion of the Regulars.” 11. Court of inquiry, Fort Pitt, April 19, 1762, Haldimand Papers, 21682 (officers test quality of food); Bouquet to Monckton, September 15, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:38. 12. Ourry to Bouquet, May 22, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:498; Ourry to Gates, September 3, 1761, Monckton Papers, 39; Bouquet to Monckton, March 20, 1761, ibid., 352–56; Murray to Gage, May 12, 1766, Gage Papers, 36; Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 165 (entry for August 12, 1762). 13. Allan McLean to Amherst, April 25, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22; Walters to Amherst, February 12, 1762, ibid; Gage to Arnot, March 1, 1766, Haldimand Papers, 21678; Amherst to Campbell, August 7, 1761, Amherst Papers, 49. 14. Gordon to Bouquet, August 18, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Wilderness Chronicles, 238 (Gordon receives letter from Bouquet by way of the sergeant “with 100 Sheep”); Gage to Bouquet, February 6, 1765, Gage Papers, 30 (Plumstead and Franks); Innes, “Jeremy Lister,” 38 (cow). 15. Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 164–65 (entry for August 11, 1762). 16. Adam Stephen to Bouquet, April 1, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:386; weights of Adam Stephen’s cattle, Fort Pitt, April 12, 1761, ibid., 5:404; Guy Christie to Bouquet, February 24, 1761, ibid., 5:308 (Presque Isle); Stewart to Monckton, September 21, 1760, Monckton Papers, 38 (size of cattle and sheep); Meyer to Bouquet, December 9, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:34 (Sandusky); Gladwin to Amherst, November 23, 1762, Amherst Papers, 49 (weight of cattle at Detroit). 17. In Britain and Europe noncommissioned officers would have purchased produce and other foodstuffs at local markets. See Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 33; Darlington, Fort Pitt, 152; Campbell to Gage, May 21, 1765, Gage Papers, 36; see also Gates, “Narrative of Peter Pond,” 32 (soldiers at Fort Michilimackinac cutting hay for livestock). 18. Porteous, “Schenectady to Michilimackinac,” 96; Quaife, John Askin Papers, 2:50–51 (crops at Michilimackinac); Bouquet to Lloyd, April 13, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:239 (Ligonier); Christie to Bouquet, April 8, 1761,

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ibid., v:398 (Presque Isle); see also Capt. James Grant to Gage, April 2, 1764, Gage Papers, 16 (Fort Pitt); Innes, “Jeremy Lister,” 38–39. 19. Campbell to Gage, July 15, 1765, Gage Papers, 39 (Detroit); orderly book, entry for July 9, 1760, Gates Papers (Woodward); Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 41 (Blane); Fisher Diaries, July 1773 (Niagara). 20. Cochrane to Bouquet, May 14, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:480; Barnsley to Bouquet, June 10, 1762, ibid., 6:90–91; Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 152 (Barnsley), 46 (“Sallad”); Francis Gordon to Bouquet, August 18, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Wilderness Chronicles, 240–41 (potatoes); Thomas Ford to Farmar, November 24, 1763, Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 23–25 (gulf forts), 31 (fruit); Dayton, “Papers,” 177 (gardens planted at Fort Erie). 21. Eyre to Amherst, April 28, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21; Schlosser to Bouquet, December 24, 1761, Stevens and Kent, Wilderness Chronicles, 231; see also Blane to Bouquet, April 29, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21648, 90. 22. Knox, Campaigns in North America, 1:103; Porteous, “Schenectady to Michilimackinac,” 96 (sugaring), 93 (berry); Wilkins to Amherst, September 9, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22 (Cross); New York Journal, November 19, 1767, citing a letter from a soldier at Niagara, September 29, 1767; Brown to Gage, October 25, 1767, Gage Papers, 71; Gage to Brown, February 22, 1768, Haldimand Papers, 21678. 23. Orders of September 9, 1763, Haldimand Papers, 21678 (soldiers encouraged to hunt and fish); Huey, “Animal Husbandry,” 47 (“quarrel”); Eyre to Amherst, April 15, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21 On fish nets see Walters to Amherst, May 21, 1762, ibid., 22, Wilkins to Amherst, August 4, 1762, ibid., Wilkins to Amherst, September 20, 1762, ibid.; Dr. James Stevenson to Bouquet, April 17, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:430. See also “The Journal of Captain Robert Cholmley’s Batman,” Hamilton, Braddock’s Defeat, 19 (soldiers eating bear and rattlesnake); Romeo, “Military Foodways.” 24. Mercer to Bouquet, July 16, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:420; account of provisions, Pittsburgh, December 17, 1759, ibid., 4:366; certificate of pay to Thomas Hutchins, December 22, 1760, Monckton Papers, 40; receipt for venison at Venango, January 26, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:269; Hutchins to Adam Hoops (in Hoops to Bouquet, January 23, 1759), ibid., 3:78; Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 31; Bouquet to Guy, May 18, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21653, 129–30; Carre to Bouquet, August 30, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:721–22 (maize); Meyer to Bouquet, October 22, 1761, ibid., 5:836 (lack of interpreter); Carre to Bouquet, December 24, 1761, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21647, 241 (bad weather); Carre to Bouquet, March 29, 1762, ibid., 21648, 59 (seasonal cycle). On Indian eagerness to supply food for money, see Richard Mathers to Bouquet, January 29, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:273. 25. “Groceries” is taken from Shammas, Pre-Industrial Consumer, 3. On sutlers’

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goods see, for example, list of prices sold at Forts Bedford and Ligonier in Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 2:352–53; on goods sold at Fort Pitt see Fort Pitt Daybooks, entries for August 30, 1765 (Bohea tea), November 17, 1765 (loaf and muscovado sugar), November 26, 1765 (coffee), August 20, 1765 (chocolate). For foods sold at Fort Chartres see John Campbell to Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan, October 18, 1767, Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan Papers, reel 3; see also the account of Duncan, Phyn and Company, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 5:298–99. One trade-off resulting from an increased consumption of sugar would have been a high incidence of tooth decay among soldiers. 26. Campbell to Gage, July 15, 1765, Gage Papers, 39 (lack of kettles at Detroit); Crown Point Court of Inquiry, November 5, 1773, “America and the West Indies,” 91, 64 (Jane Ross); Knox, Campaigns in North America, 2:355 (pork preparation). Remnants of kettles and other cooking equipment have been recovered from Fort Michilimackinac: see Stone, Fort Michilimackinac, 88–91. 27. Fisher Diaries, July 26, 1773; Wilkins to Amherst, October 26, 1760, Amherst Papers, 22 (vegetables); Hanson and Hsu, Casemates and Cannonballs, 135. 28. Dunnigan, Siege, 1759, 165; Hastings, Orderly Book of John Hawks, 59–61 (ovens at Fort Ste. Frederic). 29. Eyre to Amherst, April 15, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21; Eyre continued to experiment with his soldiers’ diet, brewing sassafras beer as well, ibid. See also Amherst to Walters, August 2, 1760, ibid., 23; Porteous, “Schenectady to Michilimackinac,” 96. At Fort Niagara soldiers were charged “one Copper” for a quarter of beer. See Wilkins to Amherst, October 16, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22. 30. Bouquet to Mercer, October 28, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:271 (fresh venison for officers at Pittsburgh); Scott, “ ‘Such Diet as befitted his Station,’ ” 117–19; Feister, “Material Culture,” 127, 129–30; Jones and Smith, Glass of the British Military (on table glass used by British officers). Several glass seals from “Pyrmont” (Germany) bottled water have been recovered at Fort Ligonier. 31. Scott, “Such Diet as befitted his Station,” 144, 203; Cleland, “Comparison of the Faunal Remains”; Huey, “Animal Husbandry”; Balkwill and Cumbaa, “Salt Pork and Beef Again?” The shift from Native to European sources of meat reflected in the Ohio Country garrisons follows a pattern seen in some parts of the colonies as well. See Miller, “An Archaeological Perspective.” 32. This material is drawn from Anderson, A People’s Army, 84–86. On the matter of nutrition Carole Shammas cites sources suggesting that something between 3,000 and 4,000 calories per day would be needed by men doing heavy labor, see Shammas, Pre-Industrial Consumer, 134–35. On scurvy see Wedderburn to Gage, April 9, 1765, Gage Papers, 33 (“Scorbutic Complaints”); Eyre to Amherst, January 2, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21; Eyre to Amherst, February 6, 1760, ibid.; MacKinnen to Secretary at War, October 30, 1764, Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 123; Grant to Gage, April 2, 1764, Gage Papers, 16; Wedderburn to Gage, May 7, 1765, ibid., 35; Farmar to Frederick Cavendish, May 9, 1766, ibid., 51. Potatoes, a source

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of vitamin C and raised by garrisons throughout the Great Lakes, would have helped reduce the threat of scurvy. 33. Stevenson to Bouquet, April 17, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:430; John Reid to Gage, August 11, 1765, Gage Papers, 41 (Fort Pitt); Angus MacDonald to Bouquet, September 18, 1761, ibid., 763–64 (Detroit); Ralph Walsh to Gage, November 24, 1766, Gage Papers, 59 (Pensacola). 34. Shammas, Pre-Industrial Consumer, 134–44 and table 5.8; Smith, “Lower Sort,” 95–99. 35. Shammas, Pre-Industrial Consumer, 147–48. 36. Garrison court-martial, Fort Ligonier, November 19, 1763, Haldimand Papers, 21682 (Johnstone); garrison court-martial, Pensacola, December 1, 1766, ibid. (Harris); Ecuyer to Bouquet, February 8, 1763, Darlington, Fort Pitt, 113 (flour); petition of the detachment of the 55th Foot at Albany, October 20, 1763, Amherst Papers, 95 (stoppages). On the larger issue of soldier discontent see Way, “Rebellion of the Regulars”; officers at Niagara to Bouquet, August 20, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:701–2. 7. Physical and Mental Health 1. Tallett, War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 106–7; Childs, The British Army of William III, 158; Black, European Warfare, 35. 2. Pringle, Diseases of the Army, 10–14, 18–24. 3. Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America, 229. 4. Douet, British Barracks, 27–28 (barrack space). 5. McNeill, “The Ecological Basis of Warfare in the Caribbean,” 35; Leach, “The Cartagena Expedition”; Syrett, The Siege and Capture of Havana, 126. 6. Pargellis, Lord Loudoun, 327–28. 7. Ibid., 108. 8. “Effective return . . . Loyal Hannon,” November 4, 1758, Forbes Headquarters Papers, reel 3. 9. Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 2:669. 10. Anderson, A People’s Army, chap. 3 offers the best treatment of colonial soldiers’ health. On smallpox see Loudoun to Cumberland, November 22–December 26, 1756, Pargellis, Military Affairs, 280; John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun to William, Duke of Cumberland, April 25–June 3, 1757, ibid., 361. Experienced officers also advocated inoculating new recruits against smallpox which, along with natural exposure, may have lessened the threat of the disease to British soldiers. See Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 64; Bouquet to Forbes, July 21, 1758, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 2:293. 11. “Account of the Number of Forces,” 1758–62, Returns, 1489. 12. Returns, 1490 (1764), 1491 (1766); Amherst to Napier, January 6, 1761, ibid., 74. 13. The data upon which this discussion is based come from the series of annual

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returns for the army from 1768 to 1775, found in Returns of His Majesty’s Forces, 29256 a–k, 29257 a–m, 29258 a–k, and 29259 c–l. The returns list only troops fit for duty and aggregate numbers of sick. The land forces in Ireland are not included in these returns since these troops were on a separate legal and financial establishment; the records of the Irish garrisons for the eighteenth century appear to have been lost. On troops rotations see Houlding, Fit for Service, appendix B. 14. Gage to James Chisholm, October 30, 1765, Gage Papers, 45. On the broader subject of “seasoning” see Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America, 218; Crosby, Ecological Imperialism, 64–65; Horn, Adapting to a New World, 138–39; Kulikoff, Tobacco and Slaves, 33, 69; Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, esp. chaps. 8–9; Kupperman, “Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown”; idem, “Fear of Hot Climates”; Curtin, Death by Migration, 6. (“relocation cost”). 15. Hayter, Eighteenth-Century Secretary, 352–53 (Gibraltar and the West Indies); “neo-Europe” is taken from Crosby, Ecological Imperialism, 2–7; Gage to William Wildman, Viscount Barrington, December 2, 1772, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 2:627 (West Indies). 16. These returns are found in Returns, 1489–94 and cover the years 1758–64, 1766–67, 1770, and 1775–76. Only eleven returns survive for the North American regiments for the period 1760–64. Though incomplete, these returns cover the entire North American army and include information on numbers of men present, sick, or in hospitals as well as numbers of dead, desertions, and discharges. As a result a much more precise picture emerges of military health than from the more general returns of the entire British army cited above. 17. Returns, 1489. 18. The data presented here are drawn from ibid., 1491, 1492, 1493, covering the years 1766, 1767, 1770. 19. Eyre to Amherst, May 8, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21; Schlosser to Bouquet, July 28, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:664. 20. Eyre to Amherst, April 15, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21; Eyre to Amherst, April 20, 1760, ibid.; Eyre to Amherst, May 22, 1760, ibid.; Walters to Amherst, August 19, 1760, ibid. 21. On the condition of troops entering West Florida see Syrett, The Siege and Capture of Havana, 126; Georgia Gazette, December 1, 1763; Alvord and Carter, Critical Period, 220; Gage to Halifax, February 11, 1764, Gage Papers, 1; John Harris to Gage, December 14, 1763, ibid., 10 (fluxes, scurvy); Harris to Gage, February 25, 1764, ibid., 15; Gage to Halifax, November 9, 1764, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:43; Rowland, Mississippi Provincial Archives, 154–55 (35th Foot). For health and disease in early French Louisiana see Usner, Indians, Settlers, and Slaves, 34–41. 22. On venereal disease see Alexander Baillie to Bouquet, April 12, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:406; Elias Meyer to Bouquet, November 29, 1761, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21647, 213–14; Ecuyer to Bouquet, April 23, 1763, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:179 (quotes). Venereal

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disease does not appear to have been rampant among soldiers, though the surviving evidence is, at best, impressionistic; only three of fifty-six men listed as sick in the 42nd and 77th regiments in 1763 were infected, four of twenty-five men on another hospital list from the same year, and none among the thirty soldiers discharged as unfit from the Royal American Regiment in 1766. See “A Return of the Sick of the Royal Highland Regiment,” June 21, 1763, and “A Return of the Sick of Colonel Montgomery’s Regiment,” June 21, 1763, Amherst Papers, 94; “Report of Men in Hospital in New York,” July 27, 1763, ibid., 64; “Mens Names of 6 Companies of the 1st Battalion, 60th Regiment, Unfit for Service,” November 21, 1766, Carleton to Gage, November 29, 1766, Gage Papers, 59. 23. Gage to Conway, November 9, 1765, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:74; Gage to Conway, December 21, 1765, ibid., 1:76; George Johnstone to Gage, September 21, 1765, Gage Papers, 42; Wedderburn to Gage, September 3, 1765, ibid. 24. Gage to Conway, December 21, 1765, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:76; Gage to Bouquet, May 25, 1765, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:789–93; Bouquet to Margaret Oswald, July 2, 1765, ibid., 6:799–800; Campbell to Gage, September 7, 1765, Gage Papers, 42. 25. Barrington to James Adolphus Oughton, December 9, 1765, Hayter, Eighteenth-Century Secretary, 355; Gage to Conway, December 21, 1765, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:76. On the health implications of salt water–fresh water transitional zones see Earle, “Environment, Disease, and Mortality in Early Virginia.” 26. Gage to Chisholm, October 30, 1765, Gage Papers, 45; Hayter, EighteenthCentury Secretary, 352–54. On the history of troops rotations to America in the eighteenth century see Houlding, Fit for Service, 4–23 and appendix B. For efforts to improve the health of soldiers stationed elsewhere in the empire, see Alsop, “The Health Care of Army Recruits for the Eighteenth-Century Mediterranean.” 27. Gage to Shelburne, October 10, 1766, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:111; Gage to Shelburne, January 23, 1768, ibid., 1:160; Taylor to Gage, August 11, 1766, Gage Papers, 55. See also Pennsylvania Chronicle, November 30, 1767 (Pensacola); Gage to Hillsborough, November 8, 1768, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:208; Gage to Haldimand, November 28, 1770, Haldimand Papers, 21664 (Mobile); Gage to Halidmand, June 10, 1772, ibid., 21665 (Mobile). 28. George Croghan to Campbell, August 30, 1766, Gage Papers, 60. Figures are taken from returns for 1766–67 in Returns, 1491, 1492. 29. Butricke, Affairs at Fort Chartres, 6–10; Gage to Hillsborough, February 3, 1769, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:215; George Morgan to John Baynton and Samuel Wharton, October 30, 1768, Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan Papers, reel 5: general correspondence. 30. Mercer to Bouquet, March 18, 1759, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:211 (measles and its source); Mercer to Bouquet, April 4, 1759, ibid., 3:233 (measles); Gordon to Bouquet, January 4, 1759, ibid., 3:12–13 (fluxes and lungs);

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Lloyd to Bouquet, March 2, 1759, ibid., 3:168–69 (scurvy, jaundice, rheumatism, putrid distempers); Jordan, “James Kenny’s ‘Journal to ye Westward,’ ” 404 (smallpox). 31. John Potts to Bouquet, October 17, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:71 (numbers of sick); Bouquet to Monckton, January 14, 1761, ibid., 5:246 (“Epidemical Cold” and “Pleurizy”); Monckton to Amherst, June 15, 1761, Amherst Papers, 43 (colds); Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 153 (coughs and colds); Schlosser to Bouquet, March 24, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21648, 55–56 (fluxes at Presque Isle); Christie to Bouquet, August 24, 1762, ibid., 73 (fever and ague at Presque Isle); Guy to Bouquet, September 26, 1762, ibid., 104 (sickness at Fort Le Boeuf). 32. Meyer to Bouquet, October 22, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:836; Meyer to Bouquet, November 8, 1761, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21647, 188–89; Gladwin to Amherst, October 26, 1762, Amherst Papers, 49; George Hunt to Amherst, August 12, 1762, 22 (New Jersey troops); Joshua Loring to Amherst, July 28, 1762, 65 (Navy Island); James Sterling to Duncan & Co., October 2, 1762, Sterling Letterbooks (ague and fever); Turnbull to Gage, August 18, 1767, Gage Papers, 68. 33. This discussion is based on data drawn from correspondence from western posts as well as from monthly returns found in Returns, 1489–94. 34. Campbell to Gage, August 25, 1765, Gage Papers, 41; Turnbull to Gage, October 19, 1766, ibid., 58 (Spiesmacher). 35. Mather to Bouquet, March 11, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:343; Bouquet to Monckton, April 18, 1761, ibid., 5:430; ibid., 6:414 (Townshend Guy); Farmar to Gage, January 17, 1765, Gage Papers, 30 (officers and leaves); Edward Maxwell to Gage, October 2, 1765, ibid., 43 (conditions at Mobile); Andrew Simpson to Gage, March 8, 1765, ibid., 31 (Mackinen, Ormsby, Farquharson); Barrington to Oughton, December 9, 1765, Hayter, Eighteenth-Century Secretary, 355 (31st Foot); Butricke to Barnsley, February 12, 1769, Butricke, Affairs at Fort Chartres, 8 (Howard); Taylor to Gage, January 6, 1767, Gage Papers, 61 (“asthmatick and hectick” complaints). 36. Pennsylvania Gazette, July 31, 1760 (“Stoops his Shoulders”); ibid., November 7, 1771 (stooped); ibid., February 14, 1760 (in-kneed); ibid., December 18, 1760 (bowlegged); New York Mercury, August 30, 1762 (knock-kneed); Pennsylvania Gazette, February 15, 1759 (Daniel Porter); New York Mercury, November 17, 1760 (Paul Griffiths); Pennsylvania Gazette, November 20, 1760 (John Guest); ibid., November 27, 1760 (Thomas Thettson); Pennsylvania Chronicle, August 20, 1770 (Joseph Lambert); ibid., July 24, 1769 (Thomas Haywood). 37. Cochrane to Bouquet, June 1, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:550 (epilepsy); Meyer to Bouquet, September 1, 1761, ibid., 5:526 (Zimmerman); Smith, “Lower Sort,” 54; idem, “The Vicissitudes of Fortune,” 237–38; Thompson, Making of English Working Class, 283, 325–26; Carleton to Gage, November

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29, 1766, Gage Papers, 59 (soldiers consumptive, asthmatic, blind). References to consumptive soldiers can also be found in “A Return of the Sick of the Royal Highlanders,” June 21, 1763, and “A Return of the Sick and Convalescents of the 77th Regt,” June 15, 1763, both in Amherst Papers, 94. On the laboring classes in the army see Way, “Rebellion of the Regulars,” 764–72; Steppler, “Common Soldier.” 38. Etherington to Gladwin, January 20, 1763, Amherst Papers, 49; Wilkins to Amherst, October 26, 1762, ibid., 22 (deaths on portage); Walters to Bouquet, October 8, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:59 (quote). 39. “Return of 6 men discharged from the 64th Regiment,” January 1, 1772, Gage Papers, 89 (dislocated shoulder); “Mens Names of 6 Companies of the 1st Battalion, 60th Regiment, Unfit for Service,” November 21, 1766, Carleton to Gage, November 29, 1766, ibid., 59 (lost use of hand); return of invalids at Albany, November 9, 1759, Amherst Papers, 64 (back); “A Return of the Sick of Colonel Montgomery’s Regiment,” June 21, 1763, ibid., 94 (ankle, bruises). 40. Pfeiffer and Williamson, Snake Hill, chaps. 8–9 and p. 166. A brief summary of the Snake Hill excavations can be found in Litt, Williamson, and Whitehorne, Death at Snake Hill. 41. On frostbite and its effects see Bouquet to Amherst, December 28, 1761, Amherst Papers, 40; court of inquiry, Fort Pitt, January 3, 1764, Haldimand Papers, 21682; Mather to Bouquet, February 13, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:294; Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 34; return of invalids at Albany, November 9, 1759, Amherst Papers, 64; “Mens Names of 6 Companies of the 1st Battalion, 60th Regiment, Unfit for Service,” November 21, 1766, Carleton to Gage, November 29, 1766, Gage Papers, 59; Henry, Travels and Adventures, 69 (“snow shoe evil”); McDonald to Bouquet, March 29, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:379 (dead courier); Murray to Bouquet, December 24, 1764, ibid., 6:742 (baker); Walters to Amherst, May 21, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22 (deaths at Fort Niagara); John Reed to Gage, December 14, 1766, Gage Papers, 60 (Gladow). 42. Cochrane to Bouquet, June 1, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:518–19 (Grey); Walters to Amherst, April 27, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22; Wilkins to Amherst, September 6, 1762, ibid. (quotes); Gladwin to Amherst, November 23, 1762, ibid., 49 (drownings at Michilimackinac); Campbell to Gage, October 24, 1764, Gage Papers, 26 (drownings at Detroit); Christie to Sir William Johnson, December 7, 1766, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 5:441 (drowning at Detroit). 43. On the Wilkins expedition see Gorrell, “Lieut. Gorrell’s Journal,” 185–87 (quote on 186); Pennsylvania Gazette, December 8, 1763; ibid., December 29, 1763; “Return of His Majesty’s Troops Encamped on the Portage of Niagara,” October 12, 1763, Amherst Papers, 95; lists of the dead are in Warrants, boxes 6–7, Gage Papers. 44. John Tulleken to Bouquet, March 1, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:479; Pennsylvania Chronicle, June 3, 1771 (Howard); Wilkins to Gage, June

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2, 1768, Gage Papers, 77 (Perkins); Gage to Haldimand, June 10, 1772, Haldimand Papers, 21665 (drownings at Mobile); Gage to Dartmouth, November 4, 1772, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:337 (hurricane). 45. On Potawatomies see Campbell to Johnson, February 20, 1765, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 11:587; Campbell to Gage, April 10, 1766, ibid., 5:159; Campbell to Gage, January 18, 1768, Gage Papers, 30; Gage to Brown, January 21, 1770, Haldimand Papers, 21678 (Niagara); Turnbull to Gage, May 20, 1767, Gage Papers, 65 (incident at Detroit naval yard); Campbell to Gage, May 10, 1766, Sullivan, Flick, and Hamilton, Papers of William Johnson, 5:160–61 (Indian women). 46. The best study of drinking and the Georgian army is Kopperman, “ ‘The Cheapest Pay.’ ” On the use of rum as a prophylactic see Gage to Haldimand, May 1, 1767, Haldimand Papers, 21663; Amherst to Walters, March 21, 1762, Amherst Papers, 23. On spruce beer see Demler to Eyre, October 24, 1762, Wilkins to Amherst, October 26, 1762, ibid., 22; Porteous, “Schenectady to Michilimackinac,” 96; see also Buckley, British Army in the West Indies, 240. 47. Works that address the subject of drinking in British and colonial society include Sharpe, Early Modern England, esp. 281–83; Porter, English Society, 19–20, 217; Conroy, In Public Houses, 4, 6, 40, 43–44, 75–78; Brewer, “Commercialism and Politics,” 243–44 (drinking and popular politics); Rodger, Wooden World, 72–74. 48. Kopperman, “ ‘The Cheapest Pay,’ ” 465; Anderson, A People’s Army, 115–16 (saints’ days). Knox, Campaigns in North America, 1:110, 2:292 (St. Andrew’s Day), 1:141, 294 (St. Patrick’s Day), 1:305 (St. George’s Day). 49. References come from the Fort Pitt Daybooks. See also Frey, British Soldier in America, 63–64. 50. The Fort Chartres examples are drawn from Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan Papers, reel 7: “Accounts with Officers at Fort Chartres, 1767–68” (payment for work, purchases for troops); ibid., reel 9: “Journal B: Fort Chartres, 1768–1771” (Whitehouse, Liddy, Daniel). 51. Both references are from Fort Pitt Daybooks. 52. Walters to Amherst, February 12, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22; Amherst to Walters, March 21, 1762, ibid., 23; Buckley, British Army in the West Indies, 291–94. 53. Garrison court-martial, Fort Ligonier, November 19, 1763, Haldimand Papers, 21682 (Johnstone); regimental court-martial, Fort Pitt, July 29, 1761, ibid. (Kemp); garrison court-martial, Pensacola, December 29, 1766, ibid. (Crouse). 54. Morison, Doctor’s Secret Journal, 13 (wine drinking), 24 (dog), 36–37 (assaults on soldiers), 36 (challenge to Christie). Buckley, British Army in the West Indies, 281–83, looks at drinking by officers in the West Indian garrisons. 55. Pennsylvania Gazette, February 10, 1763 (Hamilton); ibid., April 16, 1761 (Smith, alias Philip Cantlen); Wilkins to Amherst, December 7, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22 (drunkenness as motive for desertion); Reed to Gage, April 3, 1767, Gage Papers, 63 (Dan). On the question of alcoholism in the army see Buckley,

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British Army in the West Indies, 196–97 and the observations by Kopperman in “ ‘The Cheapest Pay,’ ” 449. 56. Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:488n5. 57. Ourry to Bouquet, March 6, 1760, ibid., 4:488–89; Baillie to Bouquet, May 13, 1760, ibid., 4:563; Walters to Amherst, August 19, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21; Walters to Bouquet, September 8, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:25; William Hay to Bouquet, September 7, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:20–21; Walters to Bouquet, September 8, 1760, ibid., 5:25–26. 58. Amherst to Walters, September 12, 1760, Amherst Papers, 23; Walters to Bouquet, October 8, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:60; Bouquet to Walters, September 22, 1760, ibid., 5:49; Hay to Bouquet, May 14, 1761, ibid., 5:481. On the court-martial see Walters to Amherst, July 30, 1761, Amherst Papers, 21; Hay to Bouquet, July 28, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:670; Hay to Bouquet, September 10, 1761, ibid., 5:745; Amherst to Walters, August 9, 1761, Amherst Papers, 23 (approval of acquittal). On Hay’s promise to correct his behavior see Hay to Bouquet, July 1, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:610–11. On Hay’s death see Wilkins to Amherst, March 5, 1763, Amherst Papers, 22. 59. MacDonald, Sleepless Souls, 5–7, 109–10, 112, 122, 145 on changing attitudes toward suicide in England; Amherst to Pitt, August 13, 1761, “America and the West Indies,” 61 (Charteris, “mad fit”); Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 20 (surgeon Miller, “Lunatick”); Graham, Unpublished Letters, 14 (“Dr. S.,” drunk)[this individual may be Dr. James Stevenson, surgeon in the 60th Foot, cited below]; John Reid to Gage, August 17, 1765, Gage Papers, 41 (Lieutenant Dow, “Melancolly Accident”). 60. Schlosser to Bouquet, July 28, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:664; Ourry to Bouquet, January 25, 1759, ibid., 3:81. Bouquet found himself in Ourry’s situation while in command at Fort Pitt and likewise requested newspapers. See Dow to Bouquet, September 24, 1761, ibid., 5:774–75; Leslie to Bouquet, September 30, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21648, 108; Butricke to Barnsley, December 29, 1769, Butricke, Affairs at Fort Chartres, 11; Isabella Graham to Marshalls, November 3, 1770, Graham Letters; Innes, “Jeremy Lister,” 36; Gage to Haldimand, August 3, 1773, Haldimand Papers, 21665. See also Sterling to Ensign Schlosser, June 12, 1762, Sterling Letterbooks. 61. Stevenson to Bouquet, June 30, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:603–4; Wilkins to Amherst, July 21, 1762, Amherst Papers, 22 (Walters). See also Ourry to Bouquet, March 10, 1762, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 6:59, where he sympathizes with Bouquet for the latter’s “insufferably distasteful” residence at Fort Pitt with its “morally insipid” company.” 62. Walters to Amherst, July 23, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21; Campbell to Gage, April 27, 1765, Gage Papers, 35 (Rogers); Harris to Gage, February 25, 1764, ibid., 14; Campbell to Gage, October 31, 1765, ibid., 45 (Howard); orders, October 12, 1761, Haldimand Papers, 21678; Gage to Wilkins, July 15, 1767, Gage Papers, 67.

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63. Jordan, “Journal of James Kenny,” 20 (Miller); Reid to Gage, August 17, 1765, Gage Papers, 41 (Dow). 64. MacDonald cites an example of a soldier who killed himself out of selfloathing. See Sleepless Souls, 284. 65. For a brief discussion of army medical treatment at the beginning of the eighteenth century, see Childs, The British Army of William III, 157–59; Scouller, Armies of Queen Anne, 235–47; Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 64; Pringle, Diseases of the Army. My discussion on army medical facilities and practices also draws heavily on Kopperman, “Medical Service”; Frey, British Soldier in America, chap. 2. 66. Kopperman, “Medical Service”; Pargellis, Lord Loudoun, 327; Barrington to Robert Hay Drummond, Archbishop of York, November 2, 1766, Hayter, Eighteenth-Century Secretary, 334–35. 67. Kopperman, “Medical Service”; Pargellis, Lord Loudoun, 325. On the hospital establishment see “List of the Officers of His Majesty’s Hospitals in North America, from the 23d of June 1760 to the 24th December following,” Amherst Papers, 74. Charlotte Brown’s experiences during her early years in America can be followed in “The Journal of Charlotte Brown, Matron of the General Hospital with the English Forces in America, 1754–1756,” Calder, Colonial Captivities, 169–98. During the Seven Years’ War a General Hospital Board was convened for the purpose of supervising and maintaining army hospitals in America, Germany, and the West Indies. See “Directions to the Hospital Board,” [August 1757], Hayter, EighteenthCentury Secretary, 336–37. 68. Pargellis, Lord Loudoun, 326; Forbes to Bouquet, May 25, 1758, James, Writings of General Forbes, 97; “Abstract of Warrants,” ibid., 294 (hospital staff); Bouquet to James Burd, c. August 23, 1758, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 2:407; Hunter, “Thomas Barton and the Forbes Expedition,” 466, 473; Abbot and Twohig, The Papers of George Washington, 6:121. On flying hospitals elsewhere see Loudoun to Cumberland, April 25-June 3, 1757, Pargellis, Military Affairs, 45 (Will’s Creek), 346 (Albany); “The Moneypenny Orderly Book,” Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum 12 (1969): 328 (Albany); Knox, Campaigns in North America, 1:210 (Halifax), 500 (Oswego); return of general hospital stores, October 24, 1761, Bouquet to Amherst, December 2, 1761, Amherst Papers, 40 (Fort Pitt). 69. Amherst to Gage, November 17, 1763, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 2:213; Gage to Ellis, February 13, 1764, ibid., 2:223 (hospital staff); the fate of the American hospital can be followed in ibid., 2:225, 227, 243, 259, 270, 314, 412, 481, 492. 70. Gage to Haldimand, June 3, 1773, Haldimand Papers, 21665; Schlosser to Bouquet, July 28, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:664; Walters to Amherst, August 4, 1760, Amherst Papers, 21; Maxwell to Gage, June 28, 1765, Gage Papers, 53 (Dauphin Island); Gage to Haldimand, March 16, 1772, Haldimand Papers, 21665 (invention); Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 43, 46–47 (barrack sanitation).

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71. Amherst to Walters, March 2, 1761, Amherst Papers, 23; Amherst to Walters, June 22, 1761, ibid. Amherst’s insistence that soldiers work constantly in order to maintain their health clearly had the opposite effect—at least at Fort Niagara, where soldiers routinely suffered injuries while working on the portage. 72. Graham to Marshalls, February 3, 1771, Graham, Unpublished Letters, 49 (Graham); on the necessity of surgeons making regular visits to the soldiers see Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 57; Lt. Kirkman to Haldimand, July 18, 1768, Haldimand Papers, 21677; Ourry to Bouquet, July 10, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:628 (Caffy). 73. Cuthbertson, Compleat Interior Management, 60; Mercer to Bouquet, January 25, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:438. Useful discussions of medical treatment can be found in Porter and Porter, Patient’s Progress, chap. 9; Porter, Disease, Medicine, and Society, chaps. 2–3. 74. Carre to Bouquet, August 15, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:698 (Tooson); George Price to Bouquet, October 31, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Wilderness Chronicles, 243. For additional examples of sick and injured soldiers being sent from Fort Pitt to the settlements for treatment, see “Journal Kept at Fort Lyttleton,” Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 3:156, 157, 354. 75. Schlosser to Bouquet, October 15, 1762, Stevens and Kent, Papers of Colonel Henry Bouquet, 21648, 120–22 (Torrel); Knox, Campaigns in North America, 2:295 (frostbite); “Report of Men Belonging to His Majesty’s 17th Regt. Who from Their Infirmities Are Unfit for Service,” April 23, 1765, Gage Papers, 35 (Whitney). 76. Tulleken to Bouquet, March 1, 1760, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 4:478; Maxwell to Gage, October 2, 1765, Gage Papers, 43 (Mobile); Harris to Gage, December 14, 1763, ibid., 10; Cochrane to Bouquet, September 8, 1761, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 5:737–38; Turnbull to Gage, November 11, 1767, Gage Papers, 71 (Johnstone). 77. See Houlding, Fit for Service, 116–37 on characteristics of the rank and file; ibid., 110, table 3 on the declining number of years in rank by officers during wartime; Brumwell, “Rank and File,” 7–8; “The Journal of a British Officer,” Hamilton, Braddock’s Defeat, 42 (“old standers”). 78. “A Report of the Service, Size, Age, and Country . . . of Five Companys of the First Battalion . . . Royal American Regiment of Foot,” July 24, 1757, Stevens et al., Papers of Henry Bouquet, 1:152; Brumwell, “Rank and File,” 11–13. On the basis of detailed records for one regiment, Brumwell estimates that enlistees were on average twenty-three years old. 79. “Return of Drafts Received by the 46th Foot,” October 5, 1763, Amherst Papers, 22. By war’s end even volunteers from provincial regiments tended to be older. See “A Return of the Number of Volunteers Inlisted out of the . . . New York Regiments . . . to Serve in His Majesty’s Regular Troops during the Continuance of the Present War,” September 21, 1762, ibid., 19, where the average age of fifty-three

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volunteers is twenty-seven. On the army’s manpower problem as the war ended see Shy, Toward Lexington, 95–109. 80. Shy, Toward Lexington, 371–72. For the years 1766, 1767, and 1770 the army faced a net deficit of 709 men as losses outstripped recruiting, see Returns, 1491, 1492, 1493; “Mens Names of 6 Companies of the 1st Battalion, 60th Regiment, Unfit for Service,” November 21, 1766, Carleton to Gage, November 29, 1766, Gage Papers, 59. This same process occurred at the end of the American Revolution as well. One regiment in particular, the 8th Foot, had remained in the West from 1774 until its relief a decade later; an inspection return from 1787 remarked that “Full half the regiment are old soldiers who have been in the back settlements of Canada 11 years,” Sumner, “Army Inspection Returns,” 37. See also Frey, British Soldier in America, 24. 81. Houlding, Fit for Service, 109 (officers’ terms of service); Campbell to Gage, 31 October 1765, Gage Papers, 45 (Howard); Farmar to Gage, March 28, 1766, ibid., 50 (Campbell); Francis Vignoles to Haldimand, January 29, 1767, ibid., 73; “Memorial of David Hope,” Haldimand to Gage, December 5, 1767, ibid., 72. Conclusion 1. Innes, “Jeremy Lister,” 34–35. 2. Guy, Colonel Samuel Bagshawe, 11–14. For a full discussion of the opportunities for investment and profit in the army, see Guy, Œconomy and Discipline, chap. 4. 3. On the 10th’s arrival in America: Gage to Shelburne, August 31, 1767, Carter, Correspondence of Gage, 1:151; Innes, “Jeremy Lister,” 35–36. 4. Innes, “Jeremy Lister,” 36. 5. Ibid., 63–68. For Lister’s, Smith’s, and the 10th Regiment’s subsequent experiences in Boston, see Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride. 6. Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 38. 7. Ibid. 8. On labor regimes see chapter 5 above as well as Rediker, “Anglo-American Seaman”; Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen, chaps. 4–6. 9. On the “friction of peace” see Houlding, Fit for Service, vii–viii, 2–4; Guy, “ ‘A Whole Army Absolutely Ruined.’ ” 10. Ulrich, Midwife’s Tale. 11. The age averages for deserters is taken from a sample of 173 men identified in colonial newspapers. On the English population see Wrigley and Schofield, Population History of England, 216, 448, 528. The figures for the colonial population are taken from Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, 130.

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Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations Allegheny Valley: not suitable as route for army, 11, 155n17 Amherst, Sir Jeffery, xx, 16, 20, 23, 95, 103, 140–41, 187n71 Army: aging of, 142–44, 188n80; composition of, 86–87; domestication of, xvi–xvii, 96, 138, 148–50; ethnic composition of, 57–58, 132, 166n10; and frontier service, 98, 99, 144, 147–51; and military training, 97–99, 174n29; occupation of West by, xiii, xv–xvii, 3–7, 18–22, 24, 27–28, 29–30, 146; size of, 22–23, 24–26, 115–16, 154n5, 154n7, 158n45; as society, 53–54, 55–56, 71–72 Baillie, Alexander, 134 Balfour, Henry, 20 barracks, 40, 74, 123; class differences exhibited in, 41–43, 162n24; condition of, 40–41, 47, 49, 114; prefabrication of, 88, 172n6; size of, 41–42 Barton, Thomas, Rev.: baptizes soldiers’ children, 66 bateau: described, 12–13, 83 Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan (business firm): stores at Fort Pitt and Fort Chartres, 77, 108 Beam, Alexander, 95–96 Beatty, Charles, 10 Berry, Corporal, 92 Blane, Archibald, 105 Board of Ordnance, 61 Bouquet, Henry, 11, 24, 39, 45, 71, 134; death of, 122

Bowden, Ensign, 62 Braddock, Edward, 10 Braddock’s Road, 10–11 Bradstreet, John, 17 Brehm, Dietrich: explores and maps upper Great Lakes, 1, 4, 18, 19, 20 Brewin, George, 57 Brown, Charlotte (hospital matron), 139 Brown, John, 49 Burent, John, 163n38 Butricke, George, 97 Caffy, Corporal, 141 Callender, Robert, 104 Campbell, Captain-lieutenant, 144 Campbell, Donald, 3, 18, 24 Campbell, John, 96; builds greenhouse, 104 Carleton, Guy, 147 Charteris, Captain: suicide of, 135 children, 53, 54, 56, 65–67, 68, 69, 70, 111–12, 127, 169n38 Chisholm, James, 98 Christie, Guy, 104, 134 civilians: hired by army, 88; and settlement at forts, 39–40 clocks: used at forts, 89 Cochrane, Gavin, 105, 142 Cross, George, 106 Cummings, Mrs., 150 Cuthbertson, Bennett, 55, 56, 60, 70, 100, 108, 110, 138, 141 Dagg, Sergeant, 75 Dan, Lieutenant, 134 Daniel, Henry, 133



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Dauphin Island: detachment at, 92; Mobile sick sent to, 140 deaths: accidental, 128; by drowning, 129– 30; from exposure, 129; from food poisoning, 106; from Indian hostilities, 118, 130–31; from malnutrition, 119– 20; numbers of, 116, 118, 121, 124 Demler, George, 37; and Niagara portage, 16–17 diet, 108–9, 110, 112, 178n30; and alcohol, 131–33; of food obtained from Indians, 107; and food, quality of, 103–4, 112–13, 176n17; and food, quantities consumed, 100, 101–2, 107, 175n6; and gardens, 105–6; and “groceries,” 107– 8; and livestock production, 104; and rations, 102; and spruce beer, 109–10 diseases, 23, 114–15, 117, 119, 122, 125, 126, 127, 143, 180n22; causes of, 115; efforts to combat, 123,140; environment and, 120–21, 124–25, 126; seasonal cycles of, 19 Dobson, Joseph, 77 Dow, Archibald: suicide of, 137 drinking: problems associated with, 133– 35. See also Hay, William; Johnstone, Robert Durnford, Elias, 50 Eddy, George, 77 Edmonstone, George, 43, 68 Etherington, George, 87 Eyre, William, 5, 8, 16, 48, 106, 107, 109– 10 Farmer, Robert, 5, 68 Farquhar, William, 48 Fisher, Jabez, 105 Flood, Noah, 130 foodways, 68, 74, 76, 78, 79, 80, 108, 109, 110, 150 Forbes, John, 8 Forbes’s Road, 5, 7–10, 11, 122; sketch of, 9

fortifications: appearance of, xvi, 33–34, 37, 38, 39; maintenance of, 90–91; size of, 32, 34 forts: Appalachee, 137; Bedford, 10, 24, 25, 46, 69, 103; Bute, 25; Chartres (Cavendish), 4, 40, 41, 124; Crown Point, 41, 42, 80, 108, 109; Detroit, 3, 35, 36, 52, 94, 95, 102, 104, 131; Edward, 78; Edward Augustus (La Baye), 24; Erie, 14, 128–29, 148, 149; Le Boeuf, 11; Ligonier, 25, 34, 35, 46, 102, 105; Michilimackinac, 35, 37, 50, 52, 78, 79, 90, 126, 136; Mobile (Fort Charlotte, Fort Conde), 24, 35, 37, 38, 39–40, 50, 90, 102, 122; Natchez, 25; Niagara, 2, 34, 36, 37–38, 39, 47–49, 82–84, 88, 92, 99, 103, 105, 108, 109, 112, 119–20, 125, 141, 147, 162n27; Ouiatenon, 34, 41; Pensacola, 24, 39, 40, 49, 122, 126; Pitt, 2, 32, 33, 39, 43–47, 69, 88, 90, 102–4, 107, 163n33, 163n39; Presque Isle, 11, 40, 41, 105; Sandusky, 40, 125; Stanwix, 109; St. Joseph, 136; Tombeckbe, 25; Venango, 11, 40 France, Jacob, 95 Gage, Sir Thomas, 2, 18, 25, 27, 48, 51– 52, 62, 87, 88, 90, 98–99, 117, 123, 136, 140 Galbraith, James, 61 George III, 26 Gladow, Ensign, 129 Gladwin, Henry, 16, 20, 22, 125 Glazier, Beamsley, 62 Gordon, Alexander, 57 Gordon, Harry, 4, 44, 87, 125 Gorrell, James, 24, 62 Graham, Isabella, 68, 74, 81 Graham, John, 141 Grant, Alexander, 13 Grant, Charles, 132 Grant, James, 73 Green, Patrick, 77 Grey, Duncan, 129

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index Griffiths, Paul, 127 Guest, John, 127 Guy, Townshend, 126 Haldimand, Frederick, 87 Hall, Ensign, 132 Hamilton, Archibald, 62 Hamilton, Lieutenant, 75 Hamilton, Robert, 134 Harbieson, Corporal, 77 Harris, George, 142, 143 Hay, David, 66 Hay, William, 134–35 Haywood, Thomas, 127 health: climate and, 123; efforts to maintain, 120, 123, 140, 187n71; and regional patterns of disease, 115–19, 120– 23, 124, 125–27, 179n13, 180n16; and “seasoning,” 117, 119 Heckewelder, John, 8, 10 Hesse, Emanuel, 73 Holmes, Robert, 58 Hope, David, 144 Hopkins, Joseph, 64 Howard, Ensign, 127 Howard, William, 137 Howey, Robert, 58 Hudless, John, 60 Hutchins, Thomas, 20–21, 58, 158n42 Indians: and attacks on soldiers, 118, 130– 31; as guides to soldiers, 92; and selling food to army, 107 injuries, 128–29, 141–42 Jennings, John, 4 Johnson, Sir William, 5, 15–16, 24 Johnstone, Robert, 133–34, 142 Johnstone, Thomas, 112, 133 Kemp, Sergeant, 133 Kenny, James, 32–33, 43, 45–46, 90, 104 Kieff, Daniel, 58 Kloss, Christopher, 57, 59 Knox, John, 106

209

labor, manual, 82–84, 87, 89, 90–92, 96– 98, 173n18; compensation for, 95–96; and labor discipline, 84–85, 88–89, 91– 92; problems regarding, 86–88, 101; seasonal rhythms of, 89, 93–94 Lambert, Joseph, 127 Lammey, George, 96 Liddy, Corporal, 133 Lister, Jeremy, 62, 73, 136, 145–48 literacy, 60–61, 70 Loftus, Arthur, 4–5, 19 Lord, Hugh, 26 Loring, Joshua, 13 MacKinen, Captain, 126 McCloud (MacLeod), Corporal, 132 McClure, David, 10, 43, 68 McDonald, Angus, 68 McDonald, Neil, 57 McDonald, Randall, 97 McGrath, Corporal, 92 McIntosh, Lieutenant, 132 McKay, Lieutenant, 132 McLane, Archibald, 59 Mather, Richard, 126 May, Martha, 71 medical services, 138–42 Mercer, Hugh, 45, 141 Meyer, Elias, 125 Miller, Surgeon, 135 Mitchelson, Walter, 141 Monckton, Robert, 2, 11, 44 Montresor, John, 5, 17 Mull, John, 58 Murray, Thomas, 132 musters, xv, 173n1 Napier, James, 139 Naval Department, 13–14 Naval Department ships: Boston (schooner), 14; Charlotte (sloop), 14; Huron (schooner), 14; Michigan (sloop), 14; Mississauga (sloop), 14, 83 Navy Island, 14 Niagara Falls, 15

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Niagara portage, 2, 16–17, 26, 78, 83, 84, 86, 94, 157n29 O’Daniel, Hugh, 57 officers: families of, 68; frontier service by, 19, 136–37, 147; material culture of, 73, 74, 75; origins of, 58–59; professionalism of, 61–62; as “regimental family,” 55; and sense of isolation, 135–37, 185n61; and views of common soldiers, 55, 57; work done by, 82–83, 95, 96–97 Ourry, Lewis, 10, 15, 103 Paynter, Lieutenant, 130 Perkins, Lieutenant, 130 Pfister, Francis, 26 Pitcher, James, xv, 153n2 Pittman, Philip, 21; map of Mississippi River drawn by, 6, 158n42 Plumsted and Franks (business firm), 104 Plunket, Robert, 59 Porter, Daniel, 127 Potts, John, 59, 133 Potts, Robert, 57 Powers, Giles, 77 Price, George, 58, 142 Prideaux, John, 15 Pringle, John, 114, 138–39 Quebec, 145–47 Ratzer, Bernard, 4 Reed, John, 27 regiments: characteristics of, 53, 54–57, 63, 87 regiments: 3rd Foot Guards, 148; 8th, 27; 10th, 27, 70, 73, 75, 145, 146; 16th, 27, 92; 17th, 27, 96, 127, 137, 142, 143; 18th, 27, 43, 59, 77, 97, 124, 127, 130, 133; 21st, 62, 98, 122, 130, 144; 22nd, 5, 24; 26th, 27; 28th, 27; 31st, 62, 66, 90, 122, 123, 126, 144, 150; 34th, 4, 24, 26, 27, 68, 77, 92, 124, 129, 144; 35th, 24, 49, 121; 42nd (Royal Highland Regiment), 4, 27, 77, 87, 118, 132;

44th, 48, 119–20, 125; 45th, 118; 46th, 27, 62, 143, 160n58; 48th, 127; 55th, 71, 130; 60th (Royal American Regiment), 62; 60th, 1st battalion, 3, 16, 59, 66, 70, 71, 73, 82–84, 90, 92, 98, 118, 129, 133, 134, 143; 60th, 2nd battalion, 95–96, 99, 126, 133, 137; 77th (Montgomery’s Highlanders), 13, 73; 80th (Light Infantry), 16, 20, 22, 118; Queen’s American Rangers, 64; Rogers’s Rangers, 1–2, 58; Royal Artillery, 60, 61, 66, 141; size of, 23–24; and troop rotation in America, 26–27 Robertson, James, 18–19 Robertson, Susannah, 71 Rogers, George, 137 Rogers, Robert, 1–2, 3, 5 Ross, Jane, 80, 108 Ross, John, 21 Schlosser, Francis, 136 Schlosser, John Joseph, 19, 106 Shyrock, Henry, 92 Simpson, William, 58 Sinclair, Patrick, 14 Smallman, Thomas, 133, 144 Smith, Francis, 70, 147 Smith, John, 134 soldiers: as consumers, 75, 76–79, 80–81; discontent of, 23, 94, 96; families of, 65–67, 70, 71, 112; and material culture, 69, 73, 74, 76–79, 170n8, 171n13; origins of, 57–58, 127–28; physical characteristics of, 59, 127–28, 142–43; skills of, 60, 86–88; visual appearance of, 62–65, 91, 96, 167n71; wages of, 76, 95–96 Sowers, Thomas, 49 Spiesmacher, Frederick, 126 Stedman, John, 26 Steele, Private, 87 Stephen, Adam, 104 Stevenson, James, 107, 111, 136 Stewart, Robert, 11 Stirling, Thomas, 19

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211

uniforms. See soldiers, visual appearance of

Walters, William, 48, 82, 83, 84, 120, 136 Wedge, Henry, 58 whaleboats, 1, 12 Whitehouse, Corporal, 133 Whitney, John, 142 Wilkins, James, 130 Williams, John, 43 women, 53, 54, 56–57, 65–71, 80–81, 96, 108, 111–12, 139, 150; petitions by, 71 Woodward, Henry, 105

Vignoles, Francis, 144

Zimmerman, George, 128

Taylor, William, 123 Tooson, Joseph, 141–42 Torrel, Private, 142 travel: difficulties encountered in, 1, 2, 10; and distances, xv, 4–5, 8; seasonal pace of, 2, 12, 15 Tulleken, John, 142 Turnbull, George, 42

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In the Studies in War, Society, and the Military series

Military Migration and State Formation The British Military Community in Seventeenth-Century Sweden Mary Elizabeth Ailes The Rise of the National Guard The Evolution of the American Militia, 1865–1920 Jerry Cooper In the Service of the Emperor Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army Edward J. Drea You Can’t Fight Tanks with Bayonets Psychological Warfare against the Japanese Army in the Southwest Pacific Allison B. Gilmore Civilians in the Path of War Edited by Mark Grimsley and Clifford J. Rogers I Die with My Country Perspectives on the Paraguayan War, 1864–1870 Edited by Hendrik Kraay and Thomas L. Whigham Soldiers as Citizens Former German Officers in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945–1955 Jay Lockenour Army and Empire British Soldiers on the American Frontier, 1758–1775 Michael N. McConnell The Militarization of Culture in the Dominican Republic, from the Captains General to General Trujillo Valentina Peguero Arabs at War Military Effectiveness, 1948–1991 Kenneth M. Pollack The Politics of Air Power From Confrontation to Cooperation in Army Aviation Civil-Military Relations Rondall R. Rice

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The Grand Illusion The Prussianization of the Chilean Army William F. Sater and Holger H. Herwig The Paraguayan War: Volume 1, Causes and Early Conduct Thomas L. Whigham The Challenge of Change Military Institutions and New Realities, 1918–1941 Edited by Harold R. Winton and David R. Mets

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Army and empire: British soldiers on the American frontier, 1758-1775

Army wives on the American frontier: living by the bugles

Soldiers of the Empire

Ireland and the British Empire

Slavery and the British Empire

Media and the British Empire

The Barmy British Empire

British Army Vehicles and Equipment

Mapping and Empire: Soldier-Engineers on the Southwestern Frontier

Citizen Soldiers The U.S. Army from the

The British Army 1914-18

The British Army 1914-18

The British Army in India

British Army 1660-1704

British Army 1965-80

Frontier Profit and Loss: The British Army and the Fur Traders, 1760-1764

On the Frontier

Empire: A History of the British Empire

Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 1848-1861

On the Frontier

On the Frontier

On The Frontier

The British Atlantic Empire Before the American Revolution

White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier

On the Frontier

The British Army on the Western Front 1916

the british army on the western front 1916

British Empire and the Second World War

The Frontier in American History

The British Empire and Tibet 1900-1922

The British Empire and Tibet 1900-1922

Army and empire: British soldiers on the American frontier, 1758-1775

Army wives on the American frontier: living by the bugles

Soldiers of the Empire

Ireland and the British Empire

Slavery and the British Empire

Media and the British Empire

The Barmy British Empire

British Army Vehicles and Equipment

Mapping and Empire: Soldier-Engineers on the Southwestern Frontier

Citizen Soldiers The U.S. Army from the

The British Army 1914-18

The British Army 1914-18

The British Army in India

British Army 1660-1704

British Army 1965-80

Frontier Profit and Loss: The British Army and the Fur Traders, 1760-1764

On the Frontier

Empire: A History of the British Empire

Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 1848-1861

On the Frontier

On the Frontier

On The Frontier

The British Atlantic Empire Before the American Revolution

White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier

On the Frontier

The British Army on the Western Front 1916

the british army on the western front 1916

British Empire and the Second World War

The Frontier in American History

The British Empire and Tibet 1900-1922

The British Empire and Tibet 1900-1922

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