In 1786, the ranks of the 23rd Regiment of Foot,
the Royal Welch Fusiliers, included a sixteen-year-old drummer named
Ludwig Rose. He was born in Hanover, Germany, and the Germanic
pronunciation of his name resulted in it being recorded on the muster
rolls as "Rosie." In spite of his youth, this young man had already seen
considerable service; he had been a drummer for five years.
While
not all drummers started as young as Ludwig Rose, many did, usually
because their fathers' were in this army. Such was the case with Rose.
His father, Johann Rose, was a soldier in Hanover and was recruited for
British service in early 1776. He was one of some 2000 men recruited in
Europe to serve in the ranks of British regiments in America, part of
the ambitious recruiting efforts required to support the new war in the
colonies. Johann Rose, born in the city of Paderborn, was thirty-four
years old when he enlisted, and brought his wife and three children with
him into the army. Ludwig was six years old when his family embarked at
Stade on the Elbe River in May 1776.
Unlike
British soldiers who were recruited by individual regiments, the German
recruits were assigned to regiments after enlisting. Rose and
thirty-four others were put into the 23rd Regiment of Foot, a corps that
had been in America since 1773. The recruits arrived in New York in
late October and joined up with their new regiments some time after
that.
We
don't know whether Mrs. Rose and the children stayed in the garrison in
New York or followed the 23rd Regiment into the field during the
campaigns of the next five years. They may have done both, depending on
the campaign. The 23rd was involved in the campaigns around New York in
1776 and in New Jersey in 1777, and on the campaigns to Philadelphia and
back in 1777 and 1778. 1779 saw a variety of movement in the New York
area. When the regiment moved south for the campaign that took
Charleston, South Carolina in 1780, some of its soldiers and dependents
remained behind in New York.
The
rigorous southern campaign that culminated in the British defeat at
Yorktown in October 1781 saw the 23rd fragmented; while a substantial
portion of it surrendered with Cornwallis's army at Yorktown, there were
some soldiers still in the garrisons of New York and Charleston. There
is no evidence that Johann Rose was among the Yorktown prisoners, but
his actual whereabouts are not known, nor is the action at which he was wounded during the war.
Ludwig
Rose appears on the rolls as a drummer beginning in 1781. With no
evidence that he became a prisoner, we can assume that he was in either
New York or Charleston, working with recruits for the regiment who had
arrived in early 1781 who were unable to join the regiment on campaign.
Ludwig's brother John (probably anglicized from Johann) also joined the
regiment around this time as a private soldier; this suggests that John
was older than Ludwig.
Having
no rolls that tell us which women and children were with British
regiments, only their numbers, we don't know whether Mrs. Rose or all of
the children survived the war. The muster rolls show us that Johann
Rose and his children John and Ludwig returned to Great Britain with the
regiment, among the last British troops to leave New York in 1783 and
arriving in Europe in early 1784. In February, Johann Rose took his
discharge, having served eight years with the British army and fifteen years in Hanover before that. He was awarded a British pension for his long service and his wound.
But
his children, John and Ludwig, soldiered on. How long John remained in
the British army has not been determined. Ludwig was still in the
regiment in 1786, but his subsequent career has not been traced. He may
be the Ludwig Rose from Hanover who was discharged from the 60th
Regiment of Foot in 1818 at the age of 48.
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