Revolutionary Wars 1775–c.1815

By Amber Books Ltd

The period of the Revolutionary Wars was a transformative age in human history. Not only did the conflicts change the nature of Western politics, but they also brought the power of mass citizenry to the battlefield, and further refined the use of gunpowder weaponry. The Revolutionary Wars 1775–c.1815 – the fourth volume in the Encyclopedia of Warfare Series – charts the great upheavals that took place in a relatively short amount of time between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A chronological guide to conflict on every continent, especially the American War of Independence (1775–83) and the French Revolution (1792–1815), this volume tells the complex story of how the old orders were overthrown by giving a comprehensive guide to each stage in the global battles of the era. Featuring full colour maps illustrating the formations and strategies used, plus narrative descriptions of the circumstances behind each battle, this is a comprehensive guide to the conflicts that wracked the world for some 40 years. The Encyclopedia of Warfare Series is an authoritative compendium of almost five millennia of conflict, from the ancient world to the Arab Spring. Written in a style accessible to both the student and the general enthusiast, it reflects the latest thinking among military historians, and will prove to be an indispensible reference guide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amber Books Ltd
• Release date: Sep 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781782741237

Book preview

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WARFARE

REVOLUTIONARY WARS

1775–c.1815

This digital edition first published in 2013

Published by

Amber Books Ltd

74–77 White Lion Street

London N1 9PF

United Kingdom

Website: www.amberbooks.co.uk

Appstore: itunes.com/apps/amberbooksltd

Facebook: www.facebook.com/amberbooks

Twitter: @amberbooks

Publishing Manager: Charles Catton

Project Editors: Sarah Uttridge and Michael Spilling

Design Manager: Mark Batley

Design: Colin Hawes, Andrew Easton and Rick Fawcett

Cartographer: Alexander Swanston at Red Lion Media

Consulting Editors: Marcus Cowper and Chris McNab

Proofreader: Alison Worthington and David Worthington

Indexers: Malcolm Henley, Michael Forder and Penny Brown

With thanks to Patrick Mulrey, Ben Way and Martin Dougherty

for their assistance

Copyright © 2013 Amber Books Ltd

ISBN: 978-1-78274-123-7

All rights reserved. With the exception of quoting brief passages for the purpose of review no part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher. The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without any guarantee on the part of the author or publisher, who also disclaim any liability incurred in connection with the use of this data or specific details.

www.amberbooks.co.uk

Titles available in the Encyclopedia of Warfare series:

Ancient Wars

c.2500BCE–500CE

Medieval Wars

500–1500

Early Modern Wars

1500–1775

Revolutionary Wars

1775–c.1815

Imperial Wars

1815–1914

World Wars

1914–1945

Modern Wars

1945–Present

CONTENTS

AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 1775–83

NATIVE AMERICAN WARS 1763–1814

Peoria War 1812–13

Creek War 1813–14

OTTOMAN/TURKISH WARS 1770–1829

Ottoman Invasions of Mani 1770–1826

Austro-Turkish War 1788–91

Russo-Turkish Wars 1790–91

Persian Expedition 1796

Russo-Persian War 1804–13

Ottoman-Saudi War 1811–18

MARATHA-BRITISH WARS 1776–1818

MYSORE-BRITISH WARS 1780–99

HAWAIIAN UNIFICATION 1781–95

TÂY-SON–SIAM WAR 1785

WARS IN INDIA 1790–1837

HAITIAN REVOLUTION 1791–1805

RUSSO-POLISH WAR 1792

WARS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION/NAPOLEONIC WARS 1792–1815

War of the First Coalition 1792–1800

War in the Pyrenees 1793–96

War in the Vendée 1793–96

Kosciuszko Uprising 1794

Anglo-Spanish War 1796–1808

Franco-AmericanWar 1798–1800

War of the Second Coalition 1798–1800

Steklikrieg 1802

War of the Third/Fourth Coalition 1803–08

Java Campaign 1806–07

Gunboat War 1807–14

The Peninsular War 1808–14

Spanish Reconquest of Santo Domingo 1808

War of the Fifth Coalition 1809–12

Napoleonic Wars outside the Peninsular Theatre 1809–12

Napoleon’s Russian Campaign 1812

War of the Sixth Coalition 1812–14

Six Days’ Campaign February 1814

Hundred Days Campaign June 1815

Neapolitan War, 1815

SOUTH AMERICAN WARS 1800–14

MISCELLANEOUS AFRICAN WARS 1800–1900

FIRST BARBARY WAR 1801–05

RUSSIA IN THE AMERICAS 1804

FULANI JIHAD 1804–08

FIRST SERBIAN REVOLUTION 1804–13

RUSSO-TURKISH WAR 1806–12

FINNISH WAR 1808–09

PRE-WAR OF 1812

WAR OF 1812 (1812–15)

AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

HOW TO USE THE MAPS

KEY TO THE MAP SYMBOLS

BATTLES AND SIEGES INDEX

GENERAL INDEX

MAPS

White Plains, 1776

Fort Washington, 1776

Trenton, 1776

Princeton, 1777

Fort Ticonderoga, 1777

Brandywine Creek, 1777

Saratoga, 1777

Monmouth, 1778

Rhode Island, 1778

Stony Point, 1779

Paulus Hook, 1779

Devastation of the Iroquois, 1779

King’s Mountain, 1780

Guilford Courthouse, 1781

Minorca, 1781

Chesapeake Bay, 1781

Yorktown, 1781

Ushant, 1781

Horseshoe Bend, 1814

Karánsebes, 1788

Assaye, 1803

Maratha Wars, 1756–1805

Seringapatam, 1799

Zieleñce, 1792

Valmy, 1792

Revolutionary France

Jemappes, 1792

Glorious First of June, 1794

Fleurus, 1794

Napoleon’s Entry Into Italy, 1796

Arcola, 1796

Rivoli, 1797

Praga, 1794

Cape St. Vincent, 1797

Algeciras Bay, 1801

Trafalgar, 1805

Nile, 1798

Trebbia, 1799

Copenhagen, 1801

Austerlitz, 1805

Maida, 1806

Auerstädt, 1806

Eylau, 1807

Friedland, 1807

Wagram, 1809

Grand Port, 1810

Lissa, 1811

Invasion of Russia, 1812

Borodino, 1812

Vyazma, 1812

Peninsula War, 1808–14

Vimiero, 1808

Somosierra, 1808

Corunna, 1809

Talavera, 1809

Albuera, 1811

Badajoz, 1812

Salamanca, 1812

Vitoria, 1813

Toulouse, 1814

Martinique, 1809

Raszyn, 1809

Capture of Guadaloupe, 1810

Lützen, 1813

Leipzig, 1813

Arcis-sur-Aube, 1814

Montmirail, 1814

Quatre Bras, 1815

Waterloo, 1815

Neapolitan War, 1815

Tucumán, 1812

Tripoli, 1804

Revolax, 1808

War of 1812

Queenston Heights, 1812

Lake Erie, 1813

Bladensburg, 1814

FOREWORD TO THE SERIES

by Dennis Showalter

The Encyclopedia of Warfare offers five characteristics justifying its possession. First, it is chronological. Its entries reflect a fundamental characteristic of history. History is linear. It starts somewhere in time. It goes somewhere in time. Its events interact in a temporal context. And the encyclopedia’s chronological perspective enables making connections that otherwise might remain obscure. It contextualizes, for example, the 1147 siege of Lisbon with the Crusader-Turkish wars of the same period – and in the process demonstrating the comprehensive aspect of Christian–Muslim rivalry. Lisbon was far from Jerusalem only in terms of miles.

The encyclopedia is also comprehensive. It eschews a Western-centric perspective that too often sacrifices understanding for familiarity. The chronological chapters are subdivided by time and place. Thus they integrate the ancient wars of China and of South and South-East Asia, the battles of early Rome and those of Ireland in the twenty-fifth century BCE (a single entry, to be sure, but meriting consideration!) Cross-referencing cannot be easier. And that cross referencing enables not merely juxtaposition, but comparison on a global scale of war’s methods and war’s consequences.

The encyclopedia is concise. Its entries honour a time-tested formula. They address ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’, and thereby offer frameworks for further investigation of taproots and ramifications. But that does not mean a ‘one size fits all’ template. Events recognized as important – Hattin, Gettysburg, the Somme – are more fully developed without distorting the essentially economical format. Nor are the entries mere narratives. They incorporate analytical dimensions relative to their length and insightful whether phrases, sentences or paragraphs – like the comment that Crusader Jerusalem’s 1187 surrender to Saladin involved ransoming most of the population ‘at reasonable rates’!

The encyclopedia is user-friendly and clearly written. Not only are its more than five thousand entries individually intelligible. The graphics synergise with the text, enhancing rather than challenging or submerging it. The maps in particular are models of their kind, both accurate and informative.

Finally the encyclopedia is concentrated on warmaking. It eschews military history’s framing concepts, whether economic, cultural or gender, in favour of presenting war at its sharp end. That enables covering the full spectrum: wars and revolutions, campaigns and counter-insurgencies, battle and sieges. And in turn the encyclopedia’s format facilitates integrating, rather than compartmentalising, war’s levels and war’s aspects. In these pages Marathon and Hastings, the rise of the Roman Empire and the British Empire, become subjects for comparison and contrast.

The Encyclopedia of Warfare, in short, admirably fulfills the definition of a work that provides information on many elements of one subject. Its value, however, is also in context. This work makes broader contributions to military history’s reference apparatus, and to its reference mentality, on two levels. The encyclopedia complements the electronic era’s meme of ‘six degrees of separation’. The idea that everything is no more than six steps away from everything else is a natural byproduct of websurfing, where a half-dozen mouse clicks can lead far away indeed from the original reference point. It also encourages diffusion: engagement on peripheries at the expense of the centre.

The Encyclopedia of Warfare encourages and facilitates refocusing on war’s essential elements: the planning, conduct and result of using armed force. Diffusion is a natural aspect of the currently dominant approach to military history as an academic discipline. The concept of pivotal events has been overshadowed by an emphasis on underlying structures: reaching out from the operational towards the institutional, the political and the social dimensions. War’s sharp end at best jostles for place. It can lose out to an intellectual disdain that is also aesthetic and moral. Warfare, in the sense of making war, is arguably to the twenty-first century what sex allegedly was to the Victorians. It involves emotions nice people do not feel and actions nice people do not perform. Writing about it becomes the new pornography, pandering to appetites best left neither nurtured nor acknowledged.

The encyclopedia contributes balance and perspective to this discourse. Its contents reinforce the specific, unique nature and function of armed forces compared to any other institutions. Its entries demonstrate that warmaking has had a direct, significant impact on human affairs; that combat has fundamentally altered history’s course in both short and long terms. To understand this is to understand the world in which we live. And The Encyclopedia of Warfare enables that understanding in an impressive fashion.

DENNIS SHOWALTER

June 2013

Revolutionary Wars 1775–c.1815

The period of the Revolutionary Wars was a transformative age in human history. Not only did the conflicts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries change the nature of Western politics, but they also brought the power of mass citizenry to the battlefield, and further refined the use of gunpowder weaponry.

American War of Independence 1775–83

■ BOSTON, APRIL 1775–MAY 1776

With cannon captured from Ticonderoga posed on the surrounding heights, the British under Gen Thomas Gage made the rational decision to evacuate by sea, the Americans sparing the British and the city by withholding bombardment.

■ LEXINGTON AND CONCORD, 10 APRIL 1775

With both sides already poised on the brink of hostilities, Gen Thomas Gage sought to arrest colonial leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams and to seize an American depot of weapons and ammunition at Concord, outside of Boston. Previous British forays had prompted the Americans to establish an early-warning system that alerted the surrounding countryside to the departure by sea of LCol Francis Smith of the 10th Regiment and Maj John Pitcairn of the Royal Marines with 700 men from Boston. At Lexington Common Capt John Parker with 130 ‘Minute Men’ stood in line before the British column. An exchange of fire there began hostilities, with the British meeting much fiercer resistance at Concord Bridge and retreating under continuous attack with losses by land back to Boston. The American leaders escaped and the British failed to find the sought-for cannon.

■ FORT TICONDEROGA, 10 MAY 1775

Left useless since the French surrender in 1763, this post still contained 90 cannon and stores. At the commencement of hostilities, Ethan Allen and his Vermont militia surprised the garrison of 42 men. As George Washington and the Continental Army surrounded the British in Boston, Washington dispatched bookseller-turned-artillerist Henry Knox to Fort Ticonderoga to move the cannon south. Knox’s brilliant improvisations in transporting the guns forced the British to withdraw.

■ CHELSEA CREEK, 27–28 MAY 1775

Hostilities commenced and the British raided islands in Boston harbour for livestock. Around 600 colonials sought to remove the animals across this creek, while 400 British regulars and the schooner Diana engaged the Americans, suffering casualties, including Diana, which was destroyed.

■ MACHIAS, 11–12 JUNE 1775

HMS Margaretta escorted two sloops loading timber for barracks at this Maine town as hostilities commenced. Patriots seized a sloop, sailing out and engaging Margaretta, taking her after a short pursuit and a sharp fight.

■ BUNKER (BREED’S) HILL, 17 JUNE 1775

At the commencement of open warfare, 20,000 New England militia mustered under Gen Artemis Ward and surrounded Boston. The Americans learned through spies that British governor and Gen Thomas Gage intended to occupy the Charlestown peninsula and strategic heights overlooking Boston. Two days before Gage’s move, by the advice of Gen Israel Putnam, 1000 colonials under William Prescott and Richard Gridley with two small cannon constructed at night a redoubt on Breed’s Hill. The position north of Boston lay in the line of the planned British advance and directly under British observation, the covert and necessarily hasty establishment of the position limiting the amount of food and ammunition the Americans had on hand. British ships commenced an ineffective bombardment at daylight, Gage and his generals deciding upon an immediate attack before the Americans could link the new fortification with their others. Tides, wind, shallows and the heights elevation hampered the British Royal Navy’s efforts to assist the army’s attack. The first British difficulty in launching an infantry assault upon the position was in securing enough water transport to land Gage’s allotted force of 2600 men, the first British wave of 1000 troops digging in and prompting Ward to reinforce the American position to 1400 men, while Prescott frantically tried to firm up the resolution of his green troops and anchor his line on the Mystic river. The British failed to scout the line of their planned attack, which was crossed with stony ridges, long grass and fences. Gen Putnam did his best to solidify the American defenders, who wavered in some cases between fleeing before the attack or attacking outside of the defences.

Additional British forces landing in Charlestown came under American fire and retaliated by burning the town. The British plan, followed repeatedly in the course of the ensuing war, was to flank the Americans out of their position; in this case the British right found fences and a well-designed American position pouring an effective fire into their advance despite the British artillery bombardment. With the flanking movement failing, Charlestown in conflagration and evening approaching, Gage ordered his entire force into a headlong attack uphill.

The celebrated American order was, ‘Don’t fire ’til you see the whites of their eyes’ and, with breastworks, walls and fences to steady them, the Americans obeyed it, maximizing the effectiveness of their minimal ammunition supplies. As the British force drew back with casualties, Gen Henry Clinton moved through burning Charlestown and launched another attack upon the American left, victorious so far, but now searching the fallen for ammunition.

British artillery finally cleared the American defenders and the British finally rolled up the American flank. Both sides resorted to the bayonet as the Americans slowly withdrew, suffering 310 casualties and 30 prisoners, having inflicted 1053 British casualties. Despite the efforts of the British light infantry to exploit the Americans’ withdrawal, sufficient resistance and reinforcements remained to halt further advance, leading to stalemate on the peninsula upon which the battle had been fought.

Both sides considered the engagement a classic ‘Pyrrhic’ victory, one not worth the costs to the victorious British side. The Americans found a battle cry and a sense of confidence from the clash, in which untried numbers had faced, fought and blooded the finest army in the world. The stage was set for more long years of sanguinary struggle.

■ FORT JOHNSON, JULY 1775

As revolution erupted, 100 patriots in Charleston launched an attack across the harbour and surrounding mudflats to seize this fort at the mouth of the harbour. The surrendering British had already removed the fort’s cannon.

■ GLOUCESTER, AUGUST 1775

HMS Falcon under John Linzee seized a schooner returning to this port from the West Indies. A ‘cutting out’ expedition failed, Americans retook the prize, and Falcon withdrew after a desultory bombardment.

■ SAINT JOHNS, 17 SEP–3 NOV 1775

Anticipating the American invasion, British, Canadian and allied Indian land and water forces collected at this post, with about 1000 defenders wearing down Gen Richard Montgomery’s 2000. The starving British surrendered after lengthy fierce fighting.

■ LONGUE POINTE, 25 SEPTEMBER 1775

Rapid action having secured him Fort Ticonderoga, Col Ethan Allen of the Vermont militia pressed swiftly up into Canada with 110 men, hoping to take Quebec unprepared. Surrounded here by some 250 defenders, Allen surrendered.

■ FALMOUTH, 18 OCTOBER 1775

Adm Samuel Graves made an example of this Maine town, retaliating for patriot attacks along the New England seaboard. After a warning, Capt Henry Mowat and a small squadron burned the town, infuriating the colonies.

■ KEMP’S LANDING, 15 NOVEMBER 1775

Moving out of Norfolk, Virginia governor Lord Dunmore led a series of raids against patriot storehouses and posts. At this location, Dunmore’s regulars routed 170 green militia, seizing the town and proclaiming Virginia in revolt.

■ GREAT BRIDGE, 9 DECEMBER 1775

Virginia governor Lord Dunmore tried to seize the militia’s stores of arms and ammunition as revolt loomed. Retreating to Norfolk, he offered freedom to slaves supporting the crown and raised the first loyalist forces, which defended Norfolk at this bridge with a wooden stockade. Col William Woodford took 900 men and established a position at the Virginia side of the bridge. The loyalists and regulars attacked, retreating with casualties.

■ QUEBEC, 31 DECEMBER 1775

With the British withdrawing from Boston and the Americans hoping for a Continental revolution, a force moved northward under Gen Philip Schuyler and Col Benedict Arnold to drive the British out of their last stronghold of Quebec. Gen Richard Montgomery’s 3000 men were to converge with Arnold’s 1050 at Quebec after Montgomery reduced intervening British forts and captured Montreal. Matters progressed slowly, Arnold’s depleted column rendezvousing with Montgomery’s as winter started. The British and Canadians spotted Arnold’s column and put the city into a state of defence. Arnold crossed the river and sought in vain to lure the British from the defences as Montgomery’s force moved up and began a formal siege. Disease and cold weather reduced the Americans to 1700 against a 1200-strong British and Canadian garrison and a complicated American assault collapsed disastrously.

■ NORFOLK, 1 JANUARY 1776

Great Bridge convinced Lord Dunmore and loyalist families in Norfolk to withdraw to the crowded British ships in the roadstead. As the Americans occupied the town, the British ships opened fire and the city burned.

■ MOORE’S CREEK BRIDGE, 27 FEBRUARY 1776

Americans who remained loyal to the crown, ‘Tories’ to the patriots’ ‘Whigs’, sought to support royal control of North Carolina. British Gen Donald MacDonald organized 1600 loyalists into a force of ‘Highlanders’, which encountered Col James Moore with 1100 patriot militia at this location. Charging across the defended bridge with bagpipes and broadswords, the loyalists collapsed under withering fire, losing 30 dead and 850 captured, along with vital military stores.

■ RICE BOATS, 2–3 MARCH 1776

Under threat of the city’s destruction, a British fleet landed at this Georgia port to collect supplies for the war in the north while patriot forces mustered in response. Roughly 500 patriot militia moved the sought-for supplies on rice boats upriver to Hutchinson’s Island. A British landing party of 300 secured 10 boats before the patriots ignited two with fire ships and forced the British to retreat with their haul.

■ NASSAU, 3–4 MARCH 1776

Capt Esek Hopkins with two ships, two brigs and a sloop led the Continental navy’s first overseas descent upon this island city in the Bahamas, where the islanders turned over British cannon and stores bloodlessly.

■ SAINT-PIERRE, 25 MARCH 1776

French Canadians joined both patriot and British armies during the American invasion of Canada and siege of Quebec. Alerted patriots, numbering 230, surprised and captured 46 loyalists here near Quebec after the American invasion faltered.

■ THE CEDARS, 18–27 MAY 1776

As the patriot invasion of Canada collapsed, the British counter-attack under Gens Carleton and Burgoyne, armed with 13,000 troops, followed up on the Americans’ retreat from the areas around Quebec and Montreal. Indians allied to the British located a party of 400 patriots in this location west of Montreal, the British capturing both these troops and another 100 sent in a relief column before Gen Benedict Arnold arrived with the main patriot force.

■ TROIS-RIVIERES, 8 JUNE 1776

Gen William Thompson reconnoitered this region with 2000 men as the Americans withdrew from Canada. Led into a swamp, the Americans took fire from British vessels and infantry, losing Thompson, 235 prisoners and 40 dead.

■ CHARLESTON I, 28 JUNE 1776

A British fleet from Ireland combined with troops from New York to attack the southern port. Patriot defences and a botched landing on a tidal island produced a British debacle and retreat to New York.

■ FORT MOULTRIE (SULLIVAN), 28 JUNE 1776

William Moultrie commanded Fort Sullivan (walled with logs) with 435 men and 31 cannon protecting the mouth of Charleston harbour when a British fleet and landing force assailed the vital port. Supported by 750 infantry on Sullivan’s island, the garrison survived a ten-hour bombardment by the British fleet, the soft logs and sand of their palisade absorbing British shot, while their own careful gunnery killed 225 British before the attackers withdrew.

■ LONG ISLAND, 27 AUGUST 1776

The Howes’ coordinated invasion of New York began with a fleet-supported landing here opposite Manhattan. A total of 15,000 British troops repeatedly outflanked 9000 patriots, who, by stubborn fighting, kept their retreating army intact and escaped to Manhattan.

■ HARLEM HEIGHTS, 16 SEPTEMBER 1776

As the British Army and Royal Navy advanced out of lower Manhattan, Washington made his first stand, allowing his force of 2000 to collect their numbers and supplies. The Americans withdrew after bloodying the British advance guard.

■ FORT HILL/LOOKOUT PLACE, 1776

Gen William and Adm Richard Howe established this bastion on Staten Island, where arriving fleets collected 30,000 men including loyalists and supplies for the British assault upon New York City and the 23,000 patriot defenders.

■ VALCOUR ISLAND/BAY, 11 OCTOBER 1776

Gen Benedict Arnold fought and lost this three-day fleet action on Lake Champlain with 15 small vessels against 23 heavier British craft. Despite the loss of his flotilla, Arnold successfully delayed Gen John Burgoyne’s invasion.

■ PELL’S POINT/PELHAM, 18 OCTOBER 1776

British and Hessian troops, numbering 4000, landed here against a strong delaying action fought by Col John Glover and 750 Continentals, who by retreating