British Army during the American Revolutionary War

[11][a] Impressment, essentially conscription by the "press gang", was a favored recruiting method, though it was unpopular with the public, leading many to enlist in local militias to avoid regular service.

In 1778 the army adopted some non traditional recruiting measures to further augment its strength, a system of private subscription was established, whereby some 12 new regiments totaling 15,000 men were raised by individual towns and nobles.

The recruiting acts of 1778 and 1779 also provided greater incentives for voluntarily joining the regular army, including a bounty of £3 and the entitlement to discharge after three years unless the nation remained at war.

However, his role in advising the government on strategy was limited and Amherst found himself primarily occupied with the organisation of home forces to oppose the threatened invasion in 1779, and suppress the outbreak of severe anti-Catholic rioting in 1780.

After early success, he pushed ahead despite major supply difficulties, and was surrounded and forced to capitulate at Saratoga, an event which precipitated intervention by Britain's European rivals.

On Clinton's orders, he tried to create a fortified enclave on the Chesapeake coast, but was cut off by a French fleet and forced to surrender at the Siege of Yorktown, which signalled the end of effective British attempts to retake America.

The final effective British commander in chief in America was Sir Guy Carleton, who had defended Quebec in 1775, but had been passed over in favour of Burgoyne in 1777 as a result of his perceived over-caution.

[57] Townshend also introduced a new communication method for light infantry officers when in command of loosely deployed, scattered troops; whistle signals rather than drums would indicate movements such as advance, retire, extend or contract.

[49] Howe's system differed in that it focused on development of composite battalions of light infantry more suited to large scale campaigning in North America, rather than individual companies.

One of the most successful of these units was formed by an escaped slave, and veteran of the Ethiopian Regiment known as Colonel Tye, who led the so-called Black Brigade in numerous raids in New York and New Jersey, interrupting supply lines, capturing rebel officers, and killing suspected leaders.

The standard uniform of the British army consisted of the traditional red coat with cocked hats, white breeches and black gaiters with leather knee caps.

However, because of the tactical constraints in conducting the war and the adapted mode of fighting, it is likely that British regiments only used their colours for ceremonial purposes in America,[66] particularly the armies commanded by Howe and Cornwallis.

The distance between the colonies and the British Isles meant logistics were stretched to breaking point, with the army often running out of food and supplies in the field, and forced to live off the land.

[80] One militia officer wrote to his friend in August 1778: "We are frequently marched out in considerable bodies to the heaths or commons adjacent, escorted by the artillery, where we go through various movements, maneuvers and firings of a field of battle.

In these expeditions, let me assure you, there is much fatigue, and no little danger...the grandest and beautiful imitations of action are daily presented to us, and believe me, the army, in general, are becoming greatly enamored by war.

[51][86] British Lieutenant William Hale commented on the tactical limitations of the German tactical methods: "I believe them steady, but their slowness is of the greatest disadvantage in a country almost covered with woods, and against an enemy whose chief qualification is agility in running from fence to fence keeping up an irregular, but galling fire on troops who advance with the same pace as at their exercise... At Brandywine, when the first line formed, the Hessian Grenadiers were close to our rear, and began beating their march at the same time as us.

—General Howe, 5 March 1776After capturing Fort Ticonderoga, American forces under the command of General Richard Montgomery launched an invasion of British controlled Canada.

[89] The navy failed to properly blockade the East River, which opened an escape route for Washington's army,[90] which he used, managing a nighttime retreat through unguarded Manhattan Island.

British forces then fought a series of actions to consolidate control of Manhattan Island, culminating in the Battle of Fort Washington, which resulted in the capture of nearly 3,000 Continental troops.

[91] Following the conquest of Manhattan, Howe ordered Charles Cornwallis to "clear the rebel troops from New Jersey without a major engagement, and to do it quickly before the weather changed.

"I cannot too much commend Lord Cornwallis's good services during this campaign, and particularly the ability and conduct he displayed in the pursuit of the enemy from Fort Lee to Trenton, a distance exceding [sic] eighty miles, in which he was well supported by the ardour of his corps, who cheerfully quitted their tents and heavy baggage as impediments to their march."

After winning a hard fought battle at Freeman's Farm, bought with heavy casualties, Burgoyne complained at the inexperience of his soldiers,[98] that his men were too impetuous and uncertain in their aim, and that his troops remained in position to exchange volleys too long, rather than switch to the bayonet.

—General Henry Clinton, July 1777[103]While Burgoyne invaded from the North, Howe led an army of 15,000 men, including 3,500 Hessians, by sea to attack the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia.

The capture of Philadelphia did not turn the war in Britain's favour, and Burgoyne's army was left isolated with only limited support from Sir Henry Clinton, who was responsible for defending New York.

After probing Washington's fortifications at the Battle of White Marsh, Howe returned to the British winter quarters and resigned his command shortly thereafter, complaining that he had been inadequately supported.

Command was subsequently given to Clinton who, after the French entered the war in support of American independence, carried out orders to evacuate the British army from Philadelphia in the south to New York in the north.

During this period the British army carried out a series of successful raiding operations, taking supplies, destroying military defences, outposts, stores, munitions, barracks, shops and houses.

"Whenever the Rebel Army is said to have been cut to pieces it would be more consonant with truth to say that they have been dispersed, determined to join again... in the meantime they take oaths of allegiance, and live comfortably among us, to drain us of our monies, get acquainted with our numbers and learn our intentions."

Beginning in 1779, the governor of Spanish Louisiana Bernardo de Gálvez led a successful offensive to conquer British West Florida, which culminated in the Siege of Pensacola in 1781.

In mid-August 1783, General Guy Carleton began the evacuation of New York, informing the president of the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, that he was proceeding with the withdrawal of refugees, freed slaves and military personnel.

A caricature of men being arrested for British military service by a press gang. In the center middle ground is an agent with a bat raised to hit his recruits, behind him is an alarmed woman; immediately to the left are two standing men in tattered lower class dress, and another kneeling and pleading; to the far left foreground two gentlemen look on; to the right is an agent with sword, another with a bat over his shoulder, and between them a man half their height with a distended belly calmly questioning his detention.
The British Army's press gang at work in British ports, depicted in a 1780 British illustration
Field Marshal Jeffery Amherst , Commander-in-Chief of the Forces from 1778 to 1782
Military governors and staff officers in British America and the West Indies in 1778 and 1784
Portrait of the British commander-in-chief, Sir William Howe in dress uniform.
Sir William Howe , British Commander from 1775 to 1778
Portrait of the British commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Clinton in dress uniform.
Sir Henry Clinton , British Commander from 1778 to 1782
A grenadier of the 40th Regiment of Foot in 1767
The artist's imagined collage of four scenes from the Battle of Princeton. In the left foreground a British soldier closing with a US officer in a bayonet charge; in the center foreground the same; in the center middle ground, Washington on horseback arriving on the battlefield; in the right middle ground, a British officer struck down by an American sniper.
The British Army's bayonet charge during the Battle of Princeton depicted in a portrait by John Trumbull
Joseph Brant , who led Native Americans and Loyalists in the north.
Flagellation was used as punishment in both the British Army and British Navy, as depicted in this illustration on board a British naval ship
Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton , who commanded the British Legion in the Southern Colonies
Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen , who commanded Hessian forces during the American Revolutionary War
A portrait depicting the British attack at Battle of Bunker Hill
A painting of British regulars and Canadian militia repulsing the American revolutionary militia in the invasion of Canada
In September 1777, fearing a British Army attack on the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia in the Philadelphia campaign , American patriots moved the Liberty Bell to Zion United Church of Christ on present-day Hamilton Street in Allentown, Pennsylvania , where the Liberty Bell was successfully hidden under the church's floor boards for nine months until the British departed Philadelphia in June 1778
The October 1777 surrender of General John Burgoyne 's army at Saratoga
The death of General Johann de Kalb at the Battle of Camden in present-day Camden, South Carolina
The surrender of General Cornwallis's army following the Siege of Yorktown
The defeat of the floating batteries at the Great Siege of Gibraltar