Fusiliers Read Online Free PDF Page B

unusual in Gage’s army, but definitely motivated some. One Irish soldier who subsequently deserted the 49th, wrote that he had tried to abscond as soon as he got to Boston, ‘finding they were striving to throw off the yoke under which my native country – sunk for many years – induced me to share the same freedom that America strive for’. Irish soldiers were to prove particularly susceptible to the appeals of American Whigs, but fortunately for the 23rd the number in its ranks formed a small minority. The more common reasons for desertion were the entreatiesof a woman, arguments with messmates or a feeling of injustice resulting from some punishment.
    When a private of the 52nd had been caught trying to desert on 3 March, he had been sentenced to death by general court martial – the means of dealing with serious offences among soldiers, including all capital ones – on the 9th but pardoned five days later. Despite the draconian statutes embodied in the Articles of War and Mutiny Act, General Gage rarely allowed executions. The commander-in-chief’s apparent unwillingness to use capital punishment worried many officers. ‘The lenity shown’, wrote Mackenzie in his journal, ‘has not had the effect the General expected, as some soldiers have deserted since that event.’
    As the rebellion gathered pace in America, harsh punishment was out of fashion in the British army. Gage’s judge advocate, the officer who ran his courts martial, stated, ‘I disapprove of making capital punishments too familiar … when great punishments are inflicted only for great crimes, it will be the more easy to reform abuses.’ Too frequent a use of the gallows, he argued, would lead to officers concealing crimes in order to save both lives and regimental reputation. The judge advocate also thought that the lash should be ‘sparingly made use of’. The alternative for drunkenness, insolence and other non-capital offences could be fines, extra duty, spells in the ‘black hole’ and reduction to the ranks for serjeants or corporals.
    Lieutenant Colonel Bernard’s instincts were similar to those of General Gage and his judge advocate; he was known to believe in showing mercy towards miscreant Fusiliers. The frequent floggings with hundreds of lashes known in his father’s time of service were a rarity in Boston. Apart from anything else, those in command on the American station knew that it was all too easy for a man who considered himself hard done by to desert.
    For many officers, Gage’s softness towards the army’s criminals was all of a part with his treatment of the rebels; they thought their commander-in-chief lax and ineffectual. They wanted to be able to punish their men properly in order to strengthen discipline; there was a need for forthright leadership from General Gage; most of all they wanted to show toughness to the colonists. On previous marches into the countryside the militia had run away upon the appearance of the King’s troops, convincing many that the rebellion could be nipped in the bud. These illusions were exploded at Lexington and Concord on 19 April.

 
    THREE
     

The Fight at Lexington and Concord
     
    Or Adjutant Mackenzie’s Observations on American Warfare
    The march of Earl Percy’s brigade had barely begun as redcoats of Major John Pitcairn’s battalion deployed at the trot on Lexington Green. The late departure of that relief force meant that the 700 men of the British flank battalions sent out from Boston the previous night would have to face that morning’s crisis on their own. In their path were American militia of Captain Parker’s company. Like many of the country people of Massachusetts they had talked for months of confronting the government.
    Faced that morning with the sight of picked troops moving swiftly into battle order, many of the Americans were no longer quite so sure. The odds were not good either; more than 300 British soldiers facing 130 local volunteers, men who had