Thursday, December 26, 2013

Prestonpans - The Anglo-Hanoverian Army

Commander-in-Chief North Britain: Lieutenant-General Sir John Cope
Adjutant General: Colonel Lord Loudon (64th)

Cavalry: Brigadier Thomas Fowke
13th Dragoons (Colonel James Gardiner)
14th Dragoons (Lieutenant-Colonel William Wright)
567 Troopers

Infantry: Colonel Francis Lascelles (58th)
55th (Lee's) Foot Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Halkett - 5 Companies
57th (Murray's) Foot Lieutenant-Colonel Jasper Clayton - 10 Companies
58th (Lascelles) Foot Majoy John Severn - 8 Companies plus two companies of Guise's 6th Foot
43rd (Murray's) Highlanders - 1 Company
Loudon's 67th Highlanders (Captain Alexander Mackay) - 3 1/2 Companies
1,464 Rank and File

Artillery: Major Eaglesfield Griffith and Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Whitefoord
6 1 1/2 pr "Curricle" guns
4 Coehorn Mortars

These figures do not square up too well with the casualties suffered on the day - 1400 of the Anglo-Hanoverians taken prisoner. 300 more were killed and another 170 escaped the fight.Unless I was mistaken in assuming that all the cavalry got away. A closer reading of my Duffy suggests that the 13th at least were fairly hotly engaged, but were mostly overrun standing. Perhaps more of the cavalry were lost than I had earlier thought. perhaps the Anglo-Hanoverian army was not quite at the "2300" strength I had originally thought. Perhaps their strength was more in the order of about 2000-2100 in total.

Also, my earlier assumption of basically three regiments of foot and two of dragoon starts to fall apart when we examine the actual breakdown of the forces involved. As can be seen there were lots of small-fry, interestingly including  four and a half companies from two highland regiments. Whether to fold them into the 55th and not worry or to set them apart as the Picquets is another decision.

I shall have to think this over and see what turns up. My original conversion of men to figures assumed that there were 1900 infantry which I scaled down to 108 - a 20:1 (weeeell, roughly) ratio. That may have to change.

2 comments:

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said...

Back to work already, good man! This would certainly seem to bring battalion strengths more into line with the average.

The loyalist/traitorous (depending on POV ) highlanders make an interesting and often overlooked addition . I wonder if they were uniformed?

Bloggerator said...

Ha, nose to the grindstone.

I agree, the battalion strengths look more realistic this way. I do like my 36-man standard regiment though, so I'm thinking of 3 x 36 plust 18 of the 42nd as picquets. I think that might about do it. I could paint a few of one regiment as Guise's as a nod to the "bitsy" nature of the Anglo-Hanoverians.

Some more research is needed on my part as to the dress of the "Governemnt" Highlanders. I'm thinking the Black Watch were already in the Government Sett by this time.

Greg