"Rape, Murder and Pillage"
The Crimes of Britain's Foreign Companies in Virginia, 1813
by Gareth Newfield

  
British burning and plundering Havre de Grace on the 1st of June, 1813 (published 1814)

      The Independent Companies of Foreigners are one of the most notorious British units of the War of 1812.  Recruited from an “appalling collection of ex-French prisoners,” they have long been vilified as the worst variety of foreign mercenaries utilised by the British Army during the Napoleonic period as a result of their outrageous and brutal behaviour during the 1813 Chesapeake Bay Campaign and subsequently.[1]  While their atrocities, particularly their sacking of the town of Hampton, Virginia on 26 June 1813 are justly regarded as some of the most vicious crimes committed by either side during the War of 1812, they were not without cause.  Rather, they were the direct outcome of an unfortunate combination of poor troops and even worse command decisions.  This article examines the psychological, command and operational factors that led to their infamous conduct.

Formation & Recruitment

Private, Glengarry Light Infantry Fencibles circa 1813 (Painting by Gerry Embleton)
.  The Independent Companies of Foreigners wore an approximately similar uniform based on that of the 95^th Rifles, and were also armed with muskets.

      The United States’ declaration of war against Great Britain in June 1812 created an immediate dilemma for the British Army, which was now faced with having to fight two separate wars on either side of the Atlantic Ocean.  Of primary importance was its longstanding engagement against French troops in the Iberian Peninsula, Britain’s main theatre of intervention against Napoleonic France on the European continent, from whence few troops could be spared for its North American colonies.  At the same time, Wellington’s victories placed thousands of French soldiers in British custody through their capture or desertion.  Presented with this considerable reserve of potential manpower, the British Government chose to form hundreds of amenable French prisoners into independent companies to garrison overseas posts threatened by the North American war, thought to be “the best means of applying these people to the public service in the most eligible manner.”.[2]  Of four companies ultimately raised, the first two saw service in North America.  

     The fundamental drawback of these companies was the fractious and undependable nature of their soldiers.  Of 862 men enlisted, approximately 89 per cent were recruited from enemy deserters and prisoners collected in the Iberian Peninsula, a fact that had serious psychological and behavioural repercussions for their personnel.  Since 1807 French forces had been involved in a vicious war against Portuguese and Spanish partisans as a result of Napoleon’s attempt to extend his economic blockade of British commercial interests (the “Continental System) across the breadth of Europe.  While initially welcomed as liberators, French troops (who were accustomed to living off the land) quickly began to commit atrocities, looting churches, destroying villages and putting Spanish and Portuguese women to forced prostitution in French camps..[3]   In response the Iberian peoples (whose regular military forces were dispersed) took up a spontaneous insurgent resistance, drawing inspiration from “the most profound and powerful feelings, both patriotic and religious, of a people convinced that their vocation and historic mission was to rid their native land of the infidel.”.[4]   A vicious guerrilla war of religious proportions quickly ensued, within which a violent cycle of atrocities became the established norm.  For their part the guerrillas enjoyed inflicting elaborate, protracted torture upon their captives.  During one typical episode, 20 French soldiers and a female sutleress were captured; the woman was roasted, mutilated and left to die of exposure, while the soldiers were buried to their necks and used as pins for a festive bowling match..[5]   Even when French soldiers were granted quarter, prospects were often still grim, many being dispatched to the prison island of Cabrera or prison hulks at Cadiz, where squalor, starvation and death awaited them..[6]   In turn, French forces engaged in prohibitive or punitive operations of comparable scope and ferocity with great frequency; one French general at Pamplona, for example, took civilians as hostages and promised a dozen executions for every Frenchman murdered by guerrillas.[7]   Thus thousands of French soldiers learned their trade under the barbarity and prospect of a grisly end that defined French operations in the Peninsula.

French troops executing Spanish citizens in 1808 by Francisco Goya

     Napoleonic armies were nonetheless largely ignorant of the psychological and behavioural impact of the post-traumatic stresses that can occur as a result of such vicious warfare.  A century later, at the beginning of the First World War, military understanding of and attitudes towards mental and behavioural problems produced by combat were still rudimentary or altogether dismissive.[8]   Symptoms including aberrant behaviour had yet to be linked to psychological trauma in 1813, and it was not until the very early twentieth century that causes such as nervous tension were tentatively identified.[9]  Therein, British officers were presumably ignorant, unperceptive or complacent towards the Peninsular War’s mental impact upon their French recruits.  Nevertheless, signs that many were deeply affected were evident at the time, such as sardonic, fatalistic graffiti describing the war as the “General’s fortune, Officer’s ruin, Soldier’s death” scrawled by French soldiers on countless walls throughout the Iberian Peninsula.[10] 

     Further compounding these issues was the individual character of many of the Foreigners’ recruits.  Most were disillusioned former conscripts who had sought to escape the rigours of service in Napoleon’s army and the horrors of the Peninsular War by desertion by the British, thereby demonstrating proven unreliability.[11]  Yet while most were motivated by hardship, there also existed among them a class of professional deserters who leapfrogged between armies in search of personal gain.  Regardless, this general species of soldier proved to be a constant headache once they had joined the British Army; men of the Chasseurs Brittanniques for example (another foreign regiment in British pay that also recruited enemy deserters) absconded with such frequent regularity in Spain that Wellington himself forbade them to perform outpost duties.[12]   Moreover, if they did not decamp, such personnel were seldom highly motivated to serve the British.  When recruiting captured personnel from the French-allied German contingents in the Iberian Peninsula, British authorities were forced to extend exceptionally generous enticements solely to give them “an interest in the Military Service of Great Britain, which they might not otherwise feel.”[13]   The Foreigners were, as a body, therefore inherently untrustworthy.

Colonel Sidney Beckwith. Major General Sir John Moore described him as "not an intelligent officer"*

      While such a motley assortment of undisciplined personnel seemingly required strong guidance, British military authorities failed to provide sufficiently firm leadership.  In order to render the Foreigners malleable, they were placed under the command of officers who were “their own countrymen” and who had “come over from the enemy,” i.e. men who were deserters themselves.[14]   These officers soon proved to be no more reliable than the men they commanded and were often unable to exert their authority.  Indeed, Colonel Sir Sidney Beckwith (later the military commander of Chesapeake Bay expedition) was particularly critical of the officers of the 2^nd Independent Company in this respect, summarising this dynamic succinctly: “the Officers seem to know nothing of their Men; & speak ill of them – the Men on their side hint … that the Officers have made away with their pay.”[15]   This dysfunctional relationship was later cited as one of several excuses for the Foreigners’ unrestrained conduct at Hampton.[16]  

     Many historians have thus considered the Foreigners to have been “troublemakers from the outset.”[17]   Certainly, having learned to soldier in a brutal war of atrocity and reprisal, and comprised of the dregs of Napoleon’s army, they constituted an unpromising, volatile collection of personnel.  Yet notwithstanding these points, it was not until the Foreigners were deployed overseas that the first signs of serious indiscipline first arose.

Deployment to Bermuda

     On 28 January 1813 the 1^st Independent Company departed England to undertake garrison duty in Bermuda in order to free British troops on the island for employment against the United States.  For the Foreigners, this posting was particularly contentious.  Despite its actual Atlantic location and far healthier climate, Bermuda was erroneously associated in the popular mind of the day with the fever-ravaged islands of the West Indies.  Between 1793 and 1815 70 per cent of all British soldiers sent to the region died from tropical diseases, leading to a policy of garrisoning the islands with segregated corps of acclimatised Blacks and expendable foreign regiments, while the French followed similar policies as a result of comparable experiences.[18]   In 1802, for example, Napoleon dispatched a large force (consisting of the scrapings of the French Army and disposable foreign mercenaries) to the Caribbean to reassert French control over colonies lost during the Revolution, the majority of whom swiftly succumbed to tropical diseases.[19]   The reputation of the Caribbean as the graveyard of European troops was therefore well known to both the British and French soldiers, and for the Frenchmen escaping Spain, a posting there represented a case (albeit misinformed) of passing from the frying pan into the fire.  Shortly after their arrival the 1^st Company began to rebel, while discontent was reported among the 2^nd Company while en route.[20]   Despite the authorities’ attempts to placate them by paying “every attention” to their comfort and pay, these efforts failed to address their primary grievance, and widespread insubordination ensued.[21]  Matters came to a head in March 1813, when the 1^st Company mutinied on parade while witnessing a comrade’s flogging, leading to additional punishments and the execution of the instigators.[22]

Executions for mutiny were performed by firing squad.

     British officers were well aware of the geographic basis of the Foreigners’ discontent.  Having become acquainted with the 2^nd Company prior to the voyage to Bermuda, Colonel Beckwith devised a plan to rename them “Canadian Chasseurs,” in the belief that the prospect of service in the healthier Canadian colonies would mollify them somewhat.  In a letter written to Lord Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Beckwith expressed this rationale:

I am indeed persuaded, if they are not made to believe, they shall not return to this Island, or indeed any other Island in the West Indies, not a man of them, who may be landed on the Continent of America will ever re-embark.  But I am equally persuaded, if I am permitted to style them the Canadian Independent Companies, or give them any other Canadian appellation, they will keep together.[23]

Though entirely without authorisation to do so, Beckwith continued to utilise the “Canadian” designation for the duration of their service under his command to keep up this pretext.  For their part, the Foreigners regarded such gratuitous attempts to secure their obedience with scepticism; at least 25 men were entirely unconvinced, and deserted at the first opportunity when the companies reached the American Coast.[24]          

Deployment with Beckwith’s “Flying Corps”

Craney Island and Hampton, Virginia in 1813

     Along with the 2^nd Company, orders arrived at Bermuda in May to embark in support of British amphibious operations along the eastern seaboard of the United States.  As the War of 1812 progressed, British naval and military forces had engaged in a series of raids along the coast, particularly in the Chesapeake Bay region.  Rather than embodying a decisive campaign in its own right, this was simply a diversionary component of the naval blockade intended to strangle the United States’ economy and render the war prohibitively costly for the Americans to continue, thereby easing pressure upon the Canadian colonies. Nor was it service upon which the brightest and best were sent.  Many of the units attached to Beckwith’s “Flying Corps”, particularly the 102^nd Regiment and two provisional battalions of Royal Marines were repeatedly noted as inexperienced, skittish, and prone to desertion.[25] Moreover, operations had grown increasingly savage over the spring of 1813.  Under orders from Admiral Sir John Warren (the British naval Commander-in-Chief in North America) to carry the war to the American coast, Rear-Admiral George Cockburn, the local commander (and a man with a personal dislike of Americans) had indulged in a series of raids between April and June.  Therein, any settlements whose inhabitants took the opportunity to turn their communities into a “place of arms” to “get a mischievous shot” at British personnel were put to the torch, most notably Havre de Grace, Maryland in May.[26]  Eye-for-an-eye warfare, a philosophy with which the Foreigners were amply familiar from their service in Spain, thus became de rigueur in the theatre before the Frenchmen set foot ashore. 

      Under the circumstances Beckwith was extremely apprehensive of including the Foreigners in his command.  In light of their recent behaviour at Bermuda he did not “think it prudent to put both Companies of Foreigners together,” and furthermore regarded their reliability in combat (particularly under the conditions prevalent in Chesapeake Bay) with hesitancy, noting there was an onus for them to “prove steady beyond [his] expectations.”[27] Beckwith, however, was equally concerned by the small size of his command, having only 2,000 British troops at his disposal at Bermuda with which to conduct operations along the American coast.  Therein, the 300 men of the two companies of Foreigners represented a considerable addition to his force.  Ultimately the need for troops outweighed Beckwith’s misgivings, and the two Independent Companies were attached to his command as a necessary evil.    His decision to employ them in the campaign in spite of his misgivings was to prove pivotal, as it placed the Foreigners in circumstances that exacerbated their fractiousness and potential for violence.

Atrocities in Chesapeake Bay

  Since the spring of 1813 Admiral Warren had planned an attack upon the American naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, which sheltered the American heavy frigate USS Constellation.  Warren’s objectives for the enterprise were twofold: “the destruction of the Naval Yards and Public Stores of provisions,” and to spread havoc in the surrounding area by creating “an alarm among the White population for the insurrection of the Slaves….”[28]  Having arrived on station from Bermuda on 19 June, Beckwith’s troops now afforded the necessary strength to carry out the operation, and were placed under Cockburn’s direct command.  In order to attack Norfolk it was first necessary to reduce Craney’s Island, an island at the mouth of the James River upon which a battery of guns were mounted to control the seaward approaches to the port.  Cockburn therefore drew up plans to attack Craney’s Island on 22 June, the assault to be carried out principally by the 102^nd Regiment and the two Independent Companies under Beckwith.

  From Benson J. Lossing’s The Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1812.

  In the early hours of 22 June a platoon of Foreigners was landed to conduct a reconnaissance of Craney’s Island from on shore, but promptly deserted as a body to the enemy.  This would seem to suggest that the Frenchmen were not initially ill disposed towards the Americans.  Shortly thereafter, however, the main force transported by ship’s boats (including the remainder of the Foreigners) began its assault upon the island’s batteries.  Perhaps forewarned by the desertions, the American gunners opened a withering fire upon the British boats.  Unbeknownst to the attackers, the landing beach was screened by a shoal that proved impassable to the British craft, which grounded 70 yards short of the shore.[29]

USS Constellation, built in 1797 (Painting by John W Schmidt)

 During the ensuing withdrawal, three of the Foreigners’ boats were holed by American fire and partly sunk upon the shoal, stranding many of the Frenchmen, and rendering them incapable of either resistance or escape.[30]  Meanwhile, the Americans continued to direct a merciless fusillade of artillery and small arms fire upon the British boats.  At this point sailors from the USS Constellation waded into the water ostensibly to capture the boats and accept the surrender of the stranded Foreigners.  Their leader, Midshipman (later Commodore) Josiah Tatnall recalled the event in the following manner:

We waded out to the Centipede [a British barge], and found a Frenchman in her with both legs shot off.  Several others were in her, wounded in the legs and feet by the passage of the ball.  We carried the Frenchman ashore in a Hammock, and he died soon afterward.[31]

Lieutenant-Colonel Napier of the British 102^nd Regiment, however, recalled matters differently, claiming that “One boat with thirty of the foreigners stranded with a shot through her, and the Americans, wading to it, deliberately massacred the poor men!”[32]

Whether the “massacre” occurred is ultimately debateable.  After the action the British claims led to an immediate enquiry by Brigadier-General Taylor, the local American commander, which while not denying the firing upon the boats out of general necessity during the action, conveniently noted that the stranded Frenchmen were not deliberately targeted, and found that only one was shot by Tatnall’s men while attempting to escape.[33]  At least 22 survivors were taken prisoner, lending some credence to the Americans’ claims.[34]  However, in light of the malicious and vindictive tone of the campaign leading up to the attack, the opportunistic humanity of Tatnall and his men may seem somewhat aggrandized.  Regardless, the rumours of cold-blooded American brutality enraged the British forces, Napier noting that his own men and the Foreigners took the news particularly badly.[35]  The implications of this action for the latter ought to have been immediately apparent to Beckwith, a recent veteran of the Peninsular War familiar with the conditions of the guerrilla conflict against the French.  Yet the British commanders somehow remained oblivious to the French troops’ simmering desire for revenge, and instead decided to utilise them to conduct a secondary attack against the American camp on the north bank of the James River guarding the nearby town of Hampton. 

The raid on Hampton, Virginia, 26 June 1813. From Benson J. Lossing’s The Pictorian Field Book of the War of 1812.

      On the night of 25/26 June Beckwith’s troops landed near Hampton.  The 400 local militiamen gathered to oppose them put up a tough but brief resistance before being beaten back and compelled to flee through a nearby wood.  In the immediate aftermath of the engagement Beckwith described the conduct of the “Canadian Chasseurs” as “highly conspicuous and praiseworthy,” yet it was at this point that trouble among the Frenchmen began.[36]  While rounding up prisoners, one captured American officer was relieved of his epaulettes by several Foreigners and murdered, while another militiaman was robbed, led into a false sense of security and then deliberately executed in cold blood.[37]  Such brutal behaviour by French troops was not unheard of, particularly after a vicious fight.  Indeed, Lieutenant Edmund Wheatley of the King’s German Legion recalled witnessing similar conduct following his own capture at the Battle of Waterloo, and narrowly avoided execution himself after his valuables were taken.[38]  This was, however, but a glimpse at what was to come.  Hard on the heels of the retreating militia, the British troops quickly moved into Hampton (whose inhabitants had mostly fled) to establish a base to observe Norfolk, while the Foreigners proceeded to treat the town like a Spanish village.  “Dispersing to plunder in every direction,” they inflicted “brutal treatment [upon] several peaceable Inhabitants whose age or infirmities rendered them unable to get out of their way.”[39]  Therein, the Frenchmen committed “every horror … with impunity, rape, murder and pillage….”[40]  In fairness they were not alone; naval boat crews also indulged somewhat, and Napier admitted his own men chafed to be allowed to participate.[41]  Still, the Frenchmen acted with singular malice; Napier believed they “murdered without an object but the pleasure of murdering.”[42]  Their murder of an “old bedridden Man, and his Aged Wife,” which Beckwith found to be “but too true” upon investigation, was especially infamous.[43]  In the meantime, those who sought to check them were threatened with violence.  Unable to discipline his men, Captain Smith of the 1^st Company (a foreigner, despite his name) labelled them “a desperate banditti, whom it is impossible to control.”[44]

Pillaging of Hampton, 1813

     Over the next few days the Foreigners were deployed on outpost duties around Hampton. Thus dispersed, marauding occurred, and desertion continued unabated; during this period, for example, the 1^st Company’s quartermaster-sergeant certainly decamped to the enemy after surreptitiously robbing his officers.[45]  It was only when the full extent of their crimes became apparent to authorities that the two companies were herded once more back aboard their ships.  Under the impression they were to be returned to the dreaded West Indies as a result of their misconduct, the Foreigners remained hostile.  Beckwith himself reported “their conduct has been uniformly the same … they have set their own officers at defiance, and … have not hesitated to say, that when next landed, they would choose a Service for themselves.[46]  Meanwhile responsibility for the sack of Hampton circulated among the senior British officers.  After protesting to Warren, General Taylor was rebuffed by a reply from Beckwith insinuating blame lay upon the Americans for their alleged “infringement of the established usages of war” at Craney’s Island.[47] Napier, however, railed against Beckwith, complaining that  “several villains at Little Hampton” should have been hung immediately, and while Beckwith vacillated, “not a man was punished!”[48]  Modern scholars have speculated that Beckwith’s apparent inaction stemmed from a callous outlook towards the brutality of war bolstered by Cockburn’s vindictive policies.[49]  Beckwith, on the other hand, confessed to having been slow to learn about the atrocities, by which time little could be done to intervene or punish individual perpetrators.[50]  Ultimately the British acknowledged the consequences of their mismanagement of the Foreigners only after it was already too late.  Belatedly, Beckwith realised “they could not be employed with safety” in the theatre, while Admiral Warren concurred, and ordered them removed from his command.[51]

Reassignment to Nova Scotia and Disbandment

     Demonstrating hitherto unseen forethought, Warren opted to send the Foreigners to garrison Nova Scotia instead of back to the Caribbean , although he recommended to Lieutenant-General Sir John Sherbrooke, the Lieutenant-Governor, that they be returned to England if necessary.[52]  Sherbrooke, however, was less than enthused (to the point of open hostility) at the prospect of receiving the Independent Companies.  Writing to Sir George Prevost (the Governor-General) on 13 July he begged, notwithstanding the shortage of troops in Nova Scotia, to be allowed to dispose of them, complaining that “men such as them [sic] are described to be can lend only to increase my embarrassment.”[53]  Gone too was the prospect of transfer to Canada.  In a private letter to Sir George, Sherbrooke surmised that as “Mutinous French Deserters like these might contaminate your [French] Canadians” Prevost would not want them, and therefore resigned himself to bringing the Frenchmen “back to a state of subordination” if possible.[54] 

Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, c1815 (Library and Archives Canada)

While Sherbrooke considered what to do with them, the two companies of Foreigners sat in Halifax harbour cooped up aboard their transports.  Thus confined, widespread discontent among the 1^st Company flared as a result of the disappearance of their pay for the Chesapeake Bay Campaign.  Before leaving Bermuda, Beckwith tried to ensure the regular issuance of pay by disbursing the funds to the company officers.[55] Yet according to the subalterns of the 1^st Company, Captain Smith had spent the money “in a most extravagant Manner” before departing the island, and the men had gone unpaid.[56]  As a result of antagonism between the officers and the shortage of funds, the 1^st Company was spurred towards further misconduct.  Once finally disembarked on 20 July due to their transport being required for other duties, Sherbrooke reported that they immediately alarmed the populace with outrageous behaviour and indulged in larceny: “notwithstanding the precautions which I had directed the Commander [Captain Smith] to take, some of the Scoundrels broke open a house in Dutch Town the same night, and tho [sic] one of them was taken … I much fear they will not be able to prosecute him to Conviction.[57] Smith’s guilt in stealing the funds was later confirmed when he was convicted and dismissed from service in February 1814.[58]  In the meantime, however, authorities at Halifax urged that the deficiency be rectified to placate the rampaging Foreigners. 

Curiously, the Foreigners’ behaviour appears to have improved markedly once comfortably housed, properly paid and subjected to better discipline at Halifax.  In July the two companies were inspected by Major-General Thomas Saumarez, commandant of the garrison, who despite lamenting their deficiencies in performing British drill reported that they would amount to a “useful Body of Men” if given further instruction.[59]  Moreover, Saumarez also remarked favourably upon their appearance and conduct in quarters.[60]  Interestingly, Private Benjamin Harris of the 95^th Rifles made similar observations when stationed alongside recruits for the 3^rd and 4^th Independent Companies in England.  In particular, Harris noted that when properly looked after the Frenchmen were “smart-looking fellows” capable of forming amicable relations with British troops, although they were nevertheless still prone to desertion and displaying vehement opposition to the harsh realities of British military discipline.[61]  Regardless, their improvements failed to eclipse their earlier misdeeds in the opinion of both Prevost and Sherbrooke, leading to the two companies at Halifax being returned to England in September.  Following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy after Napoleon’s first abdication on 6 April 1814, the four companies of Foreigners were ignominiously disbanded and repatriated to France, where they faced an unwelcoming and hostile reception from their countrymen owing to their late service in the British Army.

Conclusion

      Recent Scholarship has attempted to humanise the Foreigners by placing their outrageous conduct in context and dispelling enduring notions of unmitigated irascibility.  Therein, however, a chief shortcoming has been the failure to fully connect the precise psychological and causal chain of events that rendered their crimes at Hampton and subsequently an unfortunate and inevitable result.  Simply put, the Independent Companies of Foreigners were undisciplined and potentially psychologically brutalised troops placed into circumstances guaranteed to exacerbate their volatility by commanders who failed to anticipate the logical outcome.  A testament to this fact is the subsequent conduct of the 7/60^th Regiment, another foreign battalion recruited from French-allied German personnel.  Better officered and not employed in either an ostensibly deadly climate or a vindictive campaign, it saw exemplary service during Sir John Sherbrooke’s occupation of Maine in the summer of 1814, to the point where American officials could not believe they and the Foreigners were not one and the same unit.[62]  That the men of the Independent Companies of Foreigners reverted to modes of behaviour learned in the Iberian Peninsula is seminal, rather than incidental to understanding who these men were, and the fact that that they repeated the crimes of the Peninsular War on North American soil should therefore be unsurprising.

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