With Zeal and With Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775-1783 (review)

As its title suggests, Matthew Spring's work is an operational history of the British Army in North America during the War of American Independence. While the author considers the political, strategic, and logistical dilemmas confronting the army and incorporates the work of those such as Sylvia Frey who have offered social histories of the army, his focus is squarely on tactics, infantry tactics in particular. This is an impressive analytical work rather than a narrative of battlefeld history, accounts of which are in ample supply. Chapter headings include subjects such as "Grand Tactics", "March and Deployment", "Motivation", "Te Advance", "Commanding the Battalion", "Firepower", and the "Te Bayonet Charge." Spring argues convincingly that the British adapted their tactics to American conditions and employed methods markedly different from stereotypes of eighteenth century European linear warfare.

European infantry typically deployed for battle in close order in three ranks in order to achieve the maximum volume of volley fire while at the same time protecting themselves from enemy cavalry. The wooded and broken countryside of North America and the relative absence of cavalry led British commanders to adopt tactics already employed in the Seven Years War. Ranks were reduced to two and sometimes one while a looser order was adopted. It was difficult for generals to command and control troops in battle in these conditions. As a result field officers and even company officers and sergeants found it necessary to display individual initiative in battle.

Another departure from European convention was the frequent employment of shock tactics in the form of bayonet charges as opposed to reliance on firepower, a hallmark of British infantry tactics since the days of Marlborough. Such attacks offered advantages against inexperienced American troops (referred to here as rebels) who could be counted upon to give way in disorder. Furthermore firefights between the two sides placed the British at a disadvantage against more numerous opponents who rested their weapons, many of which were rifled, on fences or walls. The small British army could ill afford the resulting casualties. British commanders relied on flank attacks whenever possible, performed by their most energetic and aggressive soldiers, men of the light infantry and grenadiers organized in ad hoc battalions. It seems that they did the lion's share of the fighting in North America. Eventually, however, American performance improved and the value of shock declined.

Spring's analysis is based on an impressive reading of the writings of British officers and NCOs. It is not always easy to get a coherent picture from such material. Officers did not always write about what you want to know. Sometimes their accounts are contradictory. For example, Spring uses a speech recorded by the Scottish officer John Peebles on the occasion of his departure from America to demonstrate his close bonds with his men. However, it is the only time in his diary that he mentions them. Nevertheless, this book is the best available discussion of British infantry tactics. The focus is strictly British. Those interested in other parts of the army, Germans, Loyalists, and Native American allies, will have to look elsewhere.