Howe joined the army as an ensign of the 1st Foot Guards in 1745 and saw service during the Flanders campaign of the War of the Austrian Succession.

The men's hair was cut short, Dr. Richard Huck wrote; "we are an army of round heads."

In the fall of 1757, Lord Howe had accompanied the famous ranger Major Robert Rogers on a scouting expedition.

He began instructing the troops in Abercrombie's army in the manner of marching, forming, and fighting in the woods.

At the Siege of Louisbourg, General Jeffery Amherst ordered his regiments to create light infantry companies.

In 1758 he and the regiment were part of General James Abercrombie's failed attack, the Battle of Carillon at Fort Ticonderoga.

Howe led one of these columns, with the 55th regiment accompanied by a unit of Connecticut militia, with Major Israel Putnam as a scout and guide.

The Massachusetts Assembly (or general court) later voted £250 to place a monument in Westminster Abbey by the sculptor Peter Scheemakers, which was erected in 1759.