Category: 82nd Regiment of Foot, American Revolution

Categories: Penobscot Expedition | British Units in the American Revolutionary War | Battle of Guilford Court House

82nd Regiment of Foot (Lanarkshire)

In 1778, Douglas Hamilton, 8th Duke of Hamilton, was tasked with raising a Regiment for service with the British Army as part of the American revolutionary war. The Regiment, numbered 82nd, was known as Hamilton's Regiment. The unit was raised over the Hamilton lands in Lanarkshire and deployed initially to Nova Scotia. Hamilton did however provide a commission to the son of his tutor Dr. John Moore, John Moore. Moore, later Lieutenant General Sir John Moore, hero of Corunna, served as a Lieutenant in the 82nd, taking part in the action at Bagaduce.

In April 1779 about half of the Regiment was deployed, along with the companies of the 74th Regiment of Foot, a Regiment recruited from neighbouring Argyll, as part of a British naval and military force under the command of General Francis McLean. They deployed to Maine, Penobscot Bay, with the intent of creating a new loyalist colony to be called New Ireland. They began erecting Fort George on one of the highest points of the peninsula.

Siege of Bagaduce'

The action was opposed, by a force of 2,500 men under the command of Commodore Saltonstall of Boston, and the Regiment fought a strong defensive action resulting in a 21-day siege. The Royal Navy relieved the siege with reinforcements and the Americans were routed by the arrival of British reinforcements under the command of Sir George Collier. The battle was one of the greatest British victories of the war. The failure by the Revolutionaries proved to be the greatest American naval defeat until Pearl Harbour in 1941.

Carolinas

The Regiment was deployed to the Carolinas to support Clinton's actions and was at Wilmington, North Carolina on 1 February 1781 under the command of Colonel Balfour with support from Major James H. Craig.

The Regiment, under Colonel Hamilton, was at the Battle of Guilford Court House.

Disbanding

It late 1783 the unit returned to Halifax, Nova Scotia and wintered there. Much of the unit was disbanded in Nova Scotia in 1784, although the Regimental Colours were returned to Edinburgh castle, and many of the soldiers remaining to become settlers in Pictou County.

See 82nd Regiment of Foot for the primary category for this unit.

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