John Kerr, 82nd Regiment, speaks out

The 82nd Regiment of Foot was one of several authorized soon after France declared war on Great Britain in 1778. The British army needed to expand rapidly; it accomplished this by raising new regiments, but those regiments were not composed entirely of new men. Their officers included experienced men brought onto active service from half-pay (a sort of retirement that allowed officers to return to service if needed), officers in existing regiments aspiring to higher ranks, and newly-commissioned young officers. Similarly, the soldiery consisted of a mix of men with prior experience who reenlisted, and new recruits.

We don't know which of these categories included John Kerr. We do know that when the regiment was ready for service it sailed for Halifax, Nova Scotia early in 1779 with Kerr in its ranks. From Halifax, part of the regiment went to the British post at Penobscott, Maine, and the remainder sailed for New York in April. Kerr did not make it to either place. The transport he was on board, the Mermaid, ran aground and sank off of Egg Harbor, New Jersey. Many perished. Those who made it to shore were taken prisoner, John Kerr among them. They were sent to Philadelphia jail.

Whether he was a new soldier or not, Kerr had spirit. He escaped, as many British soldiers did, and made his way to his regiment in New York. By September 1780 he was in the ranks again with his comrades.

But there came a day when he had too much to drink, and then his company was ordered to form for a march from one garrison location to another. Kerr formed up with the rest of his fellows, and listened as a young officer gave them orders. They were told not to break ranks during the march without permission - nothing unusual about that. But a soldier protested that he must go out of ranks for water on the march. The officer told the soldier that he would be punished for speaking out, but the soldier insisted that he could not live without water. The exasperated officer used a switch to strike the soldier a few times.

The company was then ordered to "pile" their arms, that is, to interlock the ramrods of their muskets so that the weapons stood in teepee-like fashion. Having done so, the soldier approached the officer again and informed him that being beaten with a switch was not the way that a soldier should be punished - which was correct, according to the articles of war. Nonetheless, the young officer struck the soldier several times more, this time breaking the switch.

After this, John Kerr and three other soldiers approached the officer; Kerr asserted that soldiers should not be beaten in such a manner, and that the officer might as well confine them all. The officer went to a superior, who ordered that the soldiers immediately be tried by a court martial.

We have no details on that regimental trial, but after it was over John Kerr was led away under guard. As he passed by the young officer, he said that if he was punished on the officer's account, he would shoot him before long. He also mentioned that the officer ought to be run through with a bayonet as a bougre. The young officer reported this remark to his superior, who ordered Kerr pinioned.

John Kerr was charged with mutiny and tried by a general court martial. The officer stated his case for the prosecution, relating the events and the remarks Kerr had made. Two serjeants corroborated the information, down to the expressions Kerr had used.

But they also pointed out that Kerr was "worse for liquor" when he was acting out, and that he had always behaved as a good and obedient soldier before this. The officer also mentioned that Kerr had escaped from imprisonment, apparently so that the court would be sympathetic.

The court was not sympathetic. They found John Kerr guilty and sentenced him to receive 800 lashes. Considering the gravity of the charges, this was not a particularly harsh punishment; mutiny could result in a death sentence.

We don't know the extent to which the punishment was carried out. It was not unusual for part or all of a sentence like this to be commuted, and given the generally favorable impression of Kerr he may well have been pardoned.

As a soldier who'd enlisted after the war began, John Kerr would be allowed to take his discharge after hostilities ended. He'd have the choice of remaining in America, taking a land grant in Nova Scotia, or returning to Great Britain. But it didn't matter. Shortly before he could make that choice, he died, on 18 November 1783, just days before the last British troops left the newly-established United States.

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James Gilmour, 82nd Regiment, survives a shipwreck

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James Gilmour enlisted in the 82nd Regiment of Foot. It was a new regiment, raised in 1778 because there was a war on. The war in America had been going on for three years, and now France had declared war on Great Britain, necessitating a massive military buildup. Throughout the spring and summer of 1778 the 82nd Regiment was recruited; for a year the new corps, consisting of a mix of men previously discharged from the army and men new to military service, trained in Great Britain. Early in 1779 they were ready for deployment overseas, and boarded transports for America.

The regiment went first to Halifax, Nova Scotia. From there, most of the companies went on to Penobscot, Maine, where they would fight in a great siege. But the Grenadier company and the Light Infantry company, the latter including James Gilmour, were sent to join the British army in New York. Most of the 82nd's men were on the transport Mermaid. The ship rounded Cape Cod and made for New York, but instead of getting safely past Sandy Hook and into New York harbor, she ran aground off the New Jersey coast. What happened next is described in a newspaper article published in Philadelphia on 7 April 1779:

Since our last came to this city sundry prisoners saved from the Mermaid, stranded near Egg-harbour. From them we learn, that the said ship sailed from Halifax, in company with six other transports, having on board all the flank and light companies of that garrison; on board the Mermaid was the flank company and half the light company of the 82d regiment. That on the 22d, at five o’clock in the morning, the Mermaid ran ashore, when she soon bulged, and the people on board were obliged to take to the tops and shrouds, where, for 35 hours, those who were saved bore the severest cold, snow, &c. and while they had light, the survivors were almost every minute shocked with the falling of some of their unhappy ship-mates, who died with the cold, from the tops and other parts of the rigging, where they had endeavoured to secure themselves from the sea, which continually rolled over the ships deck. After having been in this miserable situation from five o’clock on Monday morning till noon on Tuesday, a boat came off to their relief, and saved about 42 of them, many of which are much frost bitten in their feet, and some of them were not able to help themselves on board the boat that came to their relief so that a few hours more must, in all probability, have finished the whole of them.

List of persons on board the ship Mermaid, Capt. Snowball, from Halifax to New-York: Perished, Capt. Snowball, master of the ship; Lieut. Snodgrass, of 82d light company; 112 serjeants, drums and privates; 13 women, seven children, 11 sailors. Total 145. Saved, five serjeants, 25 privates, seven sailors, and five officers, viz. Capt. Thomas Pitcairn, Lieuts. Andrew Rutherford, James Dunlap, of grenadiers, James Maxwell, and Robert Anderson, of light infantry of the 82d regiment. Total 42.

Among the 25 privates who survived the ordeal was James Gilmour. He got out of the water, but was also now effectively out of the war; he and the other survivors were brought ashore by their adversaries; the officers were put on parole in the interior of Pennsylvania while the private soldiers went into prison in Philadelphia.

A few months later one of the officers, Captain Thomas Pitcairn, made a plea to the American officer responsible for prisoners of war; he asked for Gilmour to be released, but for rather self-serving reasons. He wrote, 

   The Servant you was so good as to give us has taken the Oaths to the States, leaves us without any body to clean our Shoes and any other trifle we may want. I Should therefor be exceedingly obliged to you if you would allows us James Gillmour one of our own men now in Jail who having been always one of our Servants will be of greater use to us.

Cleaning shoes and attending to trifles doesn't sound like a glamorous life, but being an officer's servant could be a good life for a private soldier. The job paid well, sometimes officers provided additional clothing, servants obtained a measure of freedom and responsibility by being sent on errands for their officers - and in Gilmour's case, it was an alternative to jail.

It seems to have gone well for James Gilmour. He was released from captivity when the war ended, returned to Great Britain, and was discharged from the army on June 1784.

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James Hamilton, child in the 82nd Regiment of Foot

James Hamilton was a forward-thinking young man. He had come to America as a child, son of a serjeant in the 82nd Regiment of Foot. When his father, "a well-behaved soldier," was reported killed, his mother remarried. At the close of hostilities, young James went with his mother and step-father to Nova Scotia along with hundreds of other discharged soldiers and displaced loyalists.

We don't know his age, but by April 1788 James Hamilton was old enough, and well-enough educated, to write a well-worded memorial to the governor of Nova Scotia explaining that, although he was under the "tuition" of his mother's new husband, that man had a large family dependent upon him; it is not clear whether these dependents were James's sisters, children that his step-father had brought to the marriage, or a combination thereof. Regardless, James saw that he'd need to plan for his future and could not expect to be supported by his family indefinitely.

He petitioned the governor for 100 acres of land, the amount given to private soldiers with no wives or families. James Hamilton reasoned that, as his father's only surviving son, he might be granted this amount of land; his father, had he survived, would have received substantially more than that based on the size of his family. James had even identified a likely tract of land, a plot among lands allocated for soldiers discharged from the 82nd Regiment that remained unoccupied.

In January 1789 James Hamilton was granted the land. His name is a quite common one, to the extent that we've been unable, with a cursory search, to determine whether he settled and thrived on his tract. There is, however, an interesting twist to the story.

The muster rolls of the 82nd Regiment, although incomplete, reveal that Serjeant James Hamilton was not, in fact, killed. He was taken prisoner, and spent much of the war in captivity. At the close of hostilities he was repatriated; he returned to Great Britain with his regiment and was discharged when that temporary corps was disbanded in June 1784. We know nothing of whether he learned of his wife's remarriage, whether their paths crossed in New York in 1783 when freed prisoners were pouring in and displaced refugees pouring out. It is certainly not the only case of a woman remarrying when she believed her soldier-husband was dead, victims of the limits of communication in their age. The younger James Hamilton's good sense and initiative, on the other hand, is a timeless example of a positive response to adversity.

Learn more about British soldiers in America!