Benjamin Noble, 14th Regiment, three times wounded

Benjamin Noble had not learned a trade in his teen years, putting him into the broad category of "laborers" who worked England’s farms and fields, or at whatever other work they could find. He'd had enough of that by the time he was twenty years old, and joined the army. He enlisted in 1765 in the 14th Regiment of Foot, on service at Windsor, west of London and about 45 miles south of his native Bedford; whether he enlisted with a recruiting officer in his home town or elsewhere is not known.

If he enlisted out of a thirst for change, he didn't have to wait long. In 1766 the 14th Regiment left England for Halifax Nova Scotia. By 1769 they had moved to Boston, where soldiers of the regiment, as well as men of the 29th Regiment, were involved in some of the unrest that led to the Boston Massacre the following year. Following that incident, the 14th stayed at Castle William in Boston harbor until 1772, when a new crisis required them.

On the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean, Carib tribesmen inhabiting the island had been fighting British attempts to survey and acquire land since 1769. The British government decided to try a big military push, and sent the 14th and several other regiments to the island in late 1772. The ensuing fighting led only to a stalemate, and a peace treaty was signed in 1773. Benjamin Noble was wounded in the campaign.

The ten companies were sent to other places, some to St. Augustine in Florida and others to the Bahamas. As tensions rose in the colonies, in 1775 part of the 14th Regiment was sent to Virginia to serve under Lord Dunmore. Benjamin Noble was now thirty years old, a combat veteran in the regiment's grenadier company. He saw combat again on 9 December when the grenadiers attempted to drive rebellious colonists from a strategic position overlooking a critical bridge in Virginia's tidewater region. The battle of Great Bridge was short, and disastrous for the 14th's grenadiers. All of their officers were dead or wounded. Fourteen other ranks were also killed, and most of the rest wounded, including Noble; unlike fifteen of his wounded comrades, he avoided capture and was able to rejoin Dunmore's little army.

British military efforts in Virginia soon collapsed, and the 14th Regiment, severely under strength after ten years and two wars in North America, sailed to New York to join the British army there. At the end of 1776, they were drafted - that is, the private soldiers who were fit for service were put into other regiments, the unfit soldiers were discharged, and the officers, non-commissioned officers and drummers returned to Great Britain. Benjamin Noble, despite having received two wounds, was still deemed fit for service and drafted into the grenadier company of the 44th Regiment of Foot.

The 44th's grenadier company was detached from the regiment, serving as part of the 2nd Battalion of Grenadiers in New Jersey. This battalion was among the troops involved in the battle of Princeton on 3 January 1777. Benjamin Noble had wasted no time getting to his new company, for he was in this battle - and for the third time, he was wounded. And for the third time, his wound did not prevent him from continuing in the ranks. He remained in the 44th Regiment during its service in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and then sailed with it to Quebec in 1779.

The 44th Regiment stayed in Canada for over five years, finally returning to Great Britain in 1786. Benjamin Noble and many others in its ranks had been in North America for twenty years. Noble nonetheless continued to serve until 1790, finally taking his discharge on 25 November after 25 years as a private soldier. He went before the examining board at Chelsea and was awarded a well-deserved pension in recognition of his wounds and being "worn out with long service."

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Unimpressed by the Press Acts: the Number of Pressed Men sent to America in 1779

A recent post on another blog discussed the British government's 1778 decision to allow men to be impressed into the British army. Prior to this, the army had been an all-volunteer force. The unidentified blogger accurately recounts some of the basic aspects of the press acts, but, like many other authors, runs afoul of assumptions and generalities that overstate both the reach of the press acts and their impact on the army.

It is true that, in 1778, a law was passed allowing justices of the peace and tax commissioners to force enlistment of “able-bodied idle and disorderly Persons” who did not “exercise and industriously follow some lawful Trade or Employment” or have some other way to sustain themselves. But the law applied only to the London area and clearly stated that pressed men must be fit for military service.  In 1779 a revised law was passed with broader scope but still with strict limitations. Details are given in Chapter 6 of my book British Soldiers, American War. The incorrect assumption is that, because it was now legal to impress men, that's how most recruiting was done for the remainder of the war. In reality, the press acts were unpopular with the army as well as with the population, and ultimately provided only a small portion of the recruits raised in 1778, 1779 and 1780, the only years that the laws were in effect. Of the small number of men raised by impressment, only a few were sent to America.

My book presents quantitative information illustrating the overall limited impact of the press acts, but since writing it a piece of information has come to light that very clearly quantifies the number of pressed men sent to America. Historian Paul Pace discovered a document in the Sir Henry Clinton Papers at the William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan, listing recruits sent to America in 1779. By this stage of the war, recruits were sent to America once a year in large convoys to protect the transport ships from marauding privateers and foreign navies.

The "Embarkation Return of the Additional Companies Embarked from Chatham Barracks to compleat the Regiments in North America 26th March 1779" enumerates the men sent to each of fifteen regiments serving in the New York area. It also denotes the numbers of those who were "impressed men". 1329 recruits were embarked (distributed on eleven transports); among them were only 70 impressed men. These impressed men were allotted to only six of the fifteen regiments; specifically:

7th Regiment: 92 recruits, including 9 impressed men
23rd Regiment: 49 recruits, including 13 impressed men
37th Regiment: 89 recruits, including 15 impressed men
42nd Regiment: 45 recruits, including 6 impressed men
44th Regiment: 147 recruits, including 16 impressed men
63rd Regiment: 133 recruits, including 11 impressed men

Other regiments received similar numbers of recruits, but no impressed men at all. The established strength of regiments in America was, at this time, 700 private soldiers. Clearly, impressed men formed only a minuscule portion of the soldiers in America that year. Unfortunately no return has yet been found identifying the impressed men by name and therefore allowing us to trace their careers.

As discussed here before, there was another issue with the 1779 recruits: disease broke out among them, perhaps scurvy brought on from an unusually long time on board the transports. Many of the recruits died within their first year in America; for example, a third of those sent to the 22nd Regiment were dead within 12 months of disembarkation. The presence of impressed men and the outbreak of disease among the recruits was probably just a coincidence, but the two have nonetheless been linked in some literature, further adding to the stigma of impressment and its impact on the British army in America.

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Samuel and William Tuffie, 44th Regiment of Foot

British soldiers were, for the most part, volunteers; there was no compulsory service, and pressing men was legalized for only a brief period during the war and was not particularly successful. There was, nonetheless, a particular group of men who were explicitly termed 'volunteers' in the army. These were young men who had reasonable expectations of becoming officers, and served without commissions while waiting for a commission to become vacant. A vacancy did not insure commission; the commander of the regiment and ultimately the King himself had to approve commissions, and this required a measure of influence. It was also often necessary to purchase the commission. The purchase system is often criticized as a poor system for choosing officers, but this criticism is overblown and often out of context. The cost of the commission was a surety against poor performance. When he retired from the service, an officer could recoup his investment in commissions and have a tidy sum for his retirement, while an officer who failed to do his duty could be punished by being cashiered, that is, being discharged from service and forfeiting his commission. Men who had the money still had to obtain approval for purchase, which provided a safeguard against money being the sole qualification. Young men seeking to enter the army seldom had their own funds but instead had to get the sponsorship of a wealthy individual whose investment they were obliged to protect by serving well. Although there are instances of unqualified men becoming officers by purchase, for the most part the system worked well.

It meant that not all volunteers obtained commissions quickly, and some never did. A confusing aspect of the service of volunteers is that they sometimes, but not always, appear on the muster rolls among the ranks of private soldiers. There is no way to distinguish them unless other information is available. This makes it challenging to discern whether the occasional private soldier who rose through the ranks and obtained a commission was an outstanding commoner who had impressed his superiors or a young gentleman who had volunteered and eventually obtained a rank to which he'd always had legitimate aspirations.

A case in point is Samuel Tuffie. His father, John Tuffie, had been a serjeant in the regiment before being appointed Quarter Master in 1776 at the age of 32. This was a fairly common career path, and often represented the highest rank that such a man achieved; John Tuffie remained quarter master of the 44th Regiment until his death "after a short illness" 1794.

As a career soldier, John Tuffie had a family with him in the regiment including two sons, Samuel and William. Samuel appears among the private soldiers in the regiment on the first muster rolls that we have on hand from January 1775. At this time he was only about 11 years old; he certainly was not doing duty as a soldier, but there is nothing on the rolls to distinguish him as a volunteer. He was appointed drummer in February 1776, a roll more consistent with his age (although many drummers were adult men who served long careers in that capacity). Only because he wrote a memorial in 1782 seeking a commission, supported by a memorial from the commanding officer of the 44th, do we know that he was born in the army and son of John Tuffie.

Samuel Tuffie did not get the ensigncy in the 44th Regiment that the commanding officer had petitioned for because his father was "a very deserving man, has been a number of years in the Service with a Character unblemish’d & esteem’d by all the Officers of the Regt." Instead, he received a similar rank in a Loyalist regiment, Butler's Rangers. This regiment was disbanded the following year when the war ended, but Samuel's commission earned him a place on the half-pay list, a sort of reserve status that offered greater hopes of re-entering the army when an opportunity arose. That opportunity came in 1787 when he finally became an Ensign in the 44th Regiment.

William Tuffie was four years younger than Samuel, having been born in 1768. He too appears on the muster rolls of the 44th; he 'enlisted' in May 1775, and like his brother was appointed Drummer in February 1776. He was, however, discharged in April 1778 and does not appear again on the muster rolls during the war years. He nonetheless received an ensign's commission in the 44th 1791.

By 1796 the 44th Regiment was serving in the lethal climate of the West Indies. William Tuffie, by this time a Captain, was wounded in battle on St. Lucia in April. His older brother Samuel, having advanced only to Lieutenant, died of illness that same year.

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William Whitlow, Musician, 44th Regiment of Foot

Among the soldiers serving in the 44th Regiment of Foot in late 1779 was a private named William Whitlow. He was in many ways typical of career soldiers in the British army: he had been in the regiment for at least 14 years (and may in fact have been born in the regiment); he was married, his wife was with him in the regiment, and they had a child; he played a musical instrument, and performed in the regimental band in addition to his usual duties as a private soldier. Unfortunately we do not know his age, but evidence suggests that he was younger than 25. He may have started his career both in the army and in music by playing the fife at a young age.

Whitlow was described as 'a Mild, discreet and Well behaved Man'; as for his marriage, 'there was not a happier Couple in the Regiment.' Usually. But William Whitlow had a problem. As a child he had fallen from a wall in Kinsale, Ireland, and hit his head. This caused him pain sometimes, and worse than that it subjected him to occasional bouts of irrational behavior. The problem was compounded by drinking. It was well known in the regiment that excessive drinking deprived Whitlow of his senses. The commander of his company had more than once confined him when he was drunk 'to prevent him doing his Wife & Child an Injury.'

During the time the 44th Regiment was in America, beginning in 1775, these bouts of insanity had gotten worse. The serjeant who was master of the 44th's band related that 'when they went to practice, he has frequently known the Prisoner get up, flourish his Instrument about, and indeed would not obey any Order that was given him; and in fact he has always been obliged in those Cases to let him have his Frenzy out.' When out of his sense he would express delusions that his wife was cheating on him with other soldiers, and wish her away from him. Soldiers who had known Whitlow all his life discerned that these events could occur when he was completely sober, although others might attribute the behavior to intoxication. No one had any reason to suspect anything of his wife.

In September 1779 Whitlow, his wife and other of the 44th Regiment were on a transport ship that was being tossed by heavy seas. Perhaps it was the erratic motion of the ship, or perhaps it was just the progression of his malady, but William Whitlow was exhibiting strange behavior. He was seen running around the deck like a madman. On one occasion he left his wife and child in their berth, went to a group of sailors in steerage and accused them of having his wife with them. For nearly an hour he ranted and no one could convince him that his family was right where he'd left them. When he did return to his wife he claimed that he knew where she'd been and told her that he had been 'talking to three little Devils upon Deck.' Soon after a non-commissioned officer found him beating his wife; when asked why, he replied 'Why should not I beat her, when I this Moment saw her in the Steerage with a Sailor on top of her.' One night when he was standing sentry at a hatchway on the ship, he approached the serjeant-major and insisted that he had been with his wife and had her hidden behind him in his watchcoat.

The next morning other soldiers observed Whitlow and his wife sitting on a berth at breakfast. They could not hear their conversation, but observed Whitlow repeatedly hold his fist to her face between draughts from a quart mug. Whitlow got up and asked another soldier 'if it was true what they said of him?' The soldier responded that he did not know what was said of him. Whitlow considered this for a few seconds then returned muttering to his wife. Moments later, Whitlow picked up a rusty bayonet from the deck and thrust it towards his wife. She cried out and a soldier ran up and grabbed the bayonet, but not before it had penetrated about an inch and a half into her upper chest. Soldiers wrenched the bayonet from him, wrestled him to the deck and tied him up. Whitlow seemed crazy like madman and ranted that he meant to kill his wife, his child and then himself. He continued to rave as he was carried up to the main deck and was confined.

Soldiers attended to Mrs. Whitlow, and the master of the transport advised putting lint on the wound. As she recovered she frequently said that she forgave her husband, telling one of the band members that she believed he wounded her because he had too much love for her. The wound became putrid; two days after the stabbing the master of the transport examined it and found it full of vermin. He washed it with rum and applied some medication. After two more dressings and two more days it appeared to have healed, but she still complained of pain.

The storm continued to rage, and so did William Whitlow. He managed to escape confinement and jumped overboard; in spite of the weather, sailors managed to recover him. He said that the rest of the regiment had gone to another ship and he was determined to go there too, which was the reason for his leap into the sea. The masts of the ship were carried away by the storm. The heaving of the ship left Mrs. Whitlow in a weak state, and although her would appeared healed she suddenly developed a yellow pale. Within a week after receiving the wound, she died.

The following month William Whitlow was put on trial in New York for the murder of his wife. Witnesses related the various vignettes described here, from events of his childhood to the details and aftermath of the stabbing. Whitlow remembered none of it. Soldiers who'd known him their entire lives testified to his bouts of insanity, while others less intimate described his insensibility when intoxicated. He had no recollection of the stabbing, of having jumped overboard, or of having been tied down for several days afterward. He made a final declaration to the court that he never had the least reason to be jealous of his wife, and was convinced that she was always faithful to him.

The court found him guilty of causing his wife's death, but acquitted him of murder because 'he was in a State of Lunacy at the time.' He was not punished.

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