Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War can be thought of as three wars being fought simultaneously. There was the fighting between British and American regular forces (the redcoats and the Continentals), of course, and that is the image that most often comes to mind when people think of the war. There was also the war on the frontier, fought (primarily) between the white settlers and the Indian tribes allied with the British. Additionally, there was the often-brutal civil war that was waged between the Patriots and the Loyalists (who called each other “rebels” and “Tories”).

Historians of the era estimate that about 20% of the American colonial population remained committed Loyalists after the war began. (By comparison, an estimated 40% of Americans were committed Patriots and the remaining 40% of the population was indifferent.) Often circumstances required those Loyalists to conceal their allegiance and remain hidden. Sometimes they took up arms and fought as militia or guerillas. And sometimes they fought in organized units of “Provincials,” under the command of British officers.

Among these Provincial commands were some of the most effective (and notorious) units in the war. Banastre Tarleton’s British Legion and John Graves Simcoe’s Queen’s Rangers, for example, were comprised not of British regulars, but rather of American Loyalists. (As an interesting aside, only British troops per se were allowed to wear red uniforms. The Provincials typically wore green.)

Another of the famous/infamous (depending on one’s perspective) Provincial units were the American Volunteers, commanded by British Lt. Col. Patrick Ferguson. A native of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Ferguson was seriously wounded during the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, while serving as an officer in the British regular army. After returning to duty, he led a British/Loyalist force in the raid remembered as the Little Egg Harbor Massacre, during which 50 Patriot soldiers were bayoneted while they slept. In 1779 Ferguson organized and assumed command of the American Volunteers, a battalion comprised entirely (other than himself) of New York Loyalists.

In 1780 Ferguson and his American Volunteers were transferred to Savannah, Georgia, to participate in the British Southern Campaign, whose aim was to capture and subdue the southern colonies. One of the officers in the American Volunteers was 25-year-old Lieutenant Anthony Allaire, of New Rochelle in Westchester County, New York. Allaire kept a diary during the campaign, and it is an invaluable resource to historians of the era.

In March 1780, a 1500-man force under Ferguson’s command, including his American Volunteers, marched out of Savannah, with orders to proceed overland to Charles Town (now Charleston) South Carolina, while destroying and dispersing any rebels or rebel property they should encounter along the way. Allaire’s diary describes the movement of Ferguson’s army, as it skirmished with Patriot militia, plundered the homesteads and plantations of the rebels, and lived off “the fat of the land.” He also describes a confused friendly-fire fight between the American Volunteers and another Loyalist unit, during which Ferguson was bayoneted in the arm, an incident that occurred after the men discovered a rebel supply depot “hid in a swamp by one John Stafford, a sort of Rebel commissary who lives at Coosawhatchie, and is, by the by, a cursed fool, which alone prevents his being a damned rogue.”

In due course Ferguson’s command reached Charleston and participated in the siege that led to the capture of the American army there—the worst American defeat of the war. Afterwards Ferguson took his men into the South Carolina backcountry to recruit and support Loyalist militia and to suppress the Patriots there. At the Battle of King’s Mountain in October 1780 he was surrounded by Patriot militia (the “Over the Mountain Men”) and his command, including the American Volunteers, was essentially annihilated (a subject for a future Dose). Ferguson was killed in the battle. Anthony Allaire survived, was taken prisoner, escaped, and made his way back to the British army. After the war he moved to New Brunswick Canada, where he became a farmer and died at age 83.

The painting by Don Troiani depicts one of Ferguson’s New York Provincials with an innovative breech-loading rifle invented by Ferguson. The rifle was used on an experimental basis at the Battle of Brandywine but was not used during the Southern Campaign.