American readers usually approach the Revolutionary War/War of Independence through American eyes. A Very Fine Regiment is an opportunity to read about it from the perspective of a British Regiment.  The 47^th Foot that was involved in many of the Revolution’s campaigns and battles.  Author Paul Knight offers insights into organization and operations of the British Army that endeavored to suppress the rebellion as well as fairly in-depth accounts of particular battles in which the 47^th was engaged.

Knight devotes almost the first half of this work to the eighteenth century “British” Army that really consisted of two distinct and different arms, the British and Irish Establishments.  The Irish Establishment was the larger of the two, perhaps less to be available to respond to Irish uprisings but more due to facilities for training and housing lands available in Ireland.  Knight answers questions such as “Who were the 47^th Foot?” with details to their nationality, heights, uniforms, weapons, training, organizational structure and garrisons, among others.  He describes the evolution of tactical operations, including the challenges of morphing from a peacetime to a combat army.

The 47^th had participated in the Siege of Louisbourg in 1758 and wintered in New Jersey before rejoining Wolfe for his advance up the St. Lawrence culminating in the Battle of Quebec.  By 1774 the Regiment was back in New Jersey, as the political situation was drifting toward rebellion.  Knight encourages readers to appreciate steps by which The 47^th’s transitioned from a peace-time army in a colony where the citizens looked like, and to some degree were, Englishmen to a combatant regiment.  While European armies were used to engaging foreign enemies against whom war was declared, the 47^th’s transition was complicated by the gradual slide from peace to sporadic unrest to outright warfare.

This very fine Regiment participated in many engagements, both famous and obscure.  Its involvement in the raid on Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill shed light on those encounters.  The Regiment’s transfer to Canada focuses attention on the American march to Quebec that was not limited to the December 31, 1775 exchange commemorated by a plaque in the lower city of Quebec, but involved of a series of engagements along the St. Lawrence.  The 47^th’s Canadian deployment removed it from some of the later operations in the nascent United States but did result in its attachment onto Burgoyne’s disastrous 1777 march into New York down Lake Champlain that ended with the British surrender at Saratoga.

The terms of surrender at Saratoga were defined in the Articles of Convention between General Burgoyne (British) and General Gates (Rebels) providing that the surrendering Army was to march to Massachusetts to await transportation home.  The terms were not complied with as the “Convention Army” was shuttled around Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania until repatriation at war’s end in 1783.

Units of the 47^th not a part of Burgoyne’s march were involved in operations around the Great Lakes as for as Fort Michilimackinac and Detroit in 1779-1782.

Drawing on diaries, letters and Regiment reports, Knight has crafted a compact but informative work viewing the Revolutionary War from the British side.  The portraits, landscapes and photos of contemporary reenactors add faces and sights to the text.  The aerial photo of star-shaped Charles Fort in Kinsale, Ireland, suggests the international sharing of fortress architecture.   The bibliography is good, but an index would be helpful. 

Knight’s defense of the British forces flows through his narrative.  He takes issue with the traditional American myth of a British Army composed of lower-class men deterred from desertion by draconian discipline who brutally treat their opponents and civilians.  He persuasively cites desertion figures and accounts of interaction with colonials to counter the prevailing impressions.  Interestingly he

I recommend “A Very Fine Regiment” to World History Network members seeking to delve more deeply into the history of the American War of Independence.

I did receive a free copy of this book without an obligation to post a review.