Books and the British Army in the Age of the American Revolution

PART I: Officers and Their Books

PART I Officers and Their Books T he following sketches analyze the careers and libraries of forty-two eighteenth-century British army officers whose preferences for books on war have formed the basis for this study. These officers have not been chosen at random and cannot be considered representative of eighteenth-century British officers. Rather they have been included in this study exclusively because they were among the few British officers of their era who left records of preferences for books on war. It is, therefore, important to know who these officers were, what experiences they had, and how influential they might have been. It is also important to know as much as possible about their preferences for books: how they were expressed and what they were. Our officers might not have been representative of eighteenth-century British officers: they were wealthier, more successful, and far more influential than most. But because they were exceptional, their preferences for books are especially important. Nearly all of our officers had the inclination and means to acquire books; they believed that books were essential to mastering the art of war; and they knew which books were considered to be authoritative. Beyond that, by the middle of the century, they had risen to important commands and were determined to reform the army after its defeats in the War of the Austrian Succession. They sought, above all, to encourage fellow officers to become students of the art of war and thoroughly professional in their duties. Their efforts not only shaped their fellow officers but also created valuable evidence of the books that mattered most to British officers in the age of the American Revolution. As the sketches of the officers and their books make clear, every record of an officer’s preferences is important, but not all of the records are of equal value. Most rare and valuable are reflections on and recommendations for military reading, the kind of reflections that Sir Henry Clinton and Hugh Lord Percy preserved in small leather-bound notebooks and the recommendations that James Wolfe and George Viscount Townshend prepared for 66 OFFICERS AND THEIR BOOKS aspiring officers. Less rare but no less valuable are the bibliographies that Samuel Bever, Campbell Dalrymple, and Robert Donkin included in the books they wrote for their fellow officers, suggestions for further reading on the art of war, ancient and modern. More usual are records of books bought, sold, and owned: books that Thomas Blomefield, Hugh Debbieg, and George Lane Parker bought at the sale of another officer’s library in June 1773; books that William Tryon listed while seeking reimbursement for household goods destroyed by fire; and books that wealthy men like Sir William Maxwell, Lord John Murray, and Sir Charles Hotham Thompson had when they commissioned inventories of their libraries. Most often we learn of the books that an officer owned when he died. Inventories prepared by executors were common for small libraries like those of Thomas Cuthbert , Thomas Harrison, and Robert Murray; catalogues, for libraries large enough to warrant a sale—such as those of James Dormer and John Earl Ligonier. However varied in quality, all of the records of our officers’ preferences are important to an understanding of the books that mattered to eighteenth-century British army officers. The sketches of the officers and their books should be read in conjunction with Appendix E, a comprehensive list of our forty-two officers arranged by the date on which each entered the army, earliest to latest. Appendix E includes a summary of each officer’s service and his books—including the number of books on war that he preferred and the dates on which his preferences were recorded. Taken together, and adjusted to suit peculiarities in each officer’s service, these summaries reveal that our officers had on average 725 books in their libraries, that they preferred (again on average) some 35 books on war, and that the median date of the records for their preferences was 1766. The sketches do contain three entries that might well seem anomalous: General Officer, Captain George Smith, and Gentleman in the Army. The “General Officer, Lately Deceas’d” has not been identified. Yet as the annotated catalogue for the sale of his books makes clear, his fellow officers appreciated his remarkably fine collection. Captain George Smith probably never held a commission in the British army, but he and his preferences for books were unusually influential. He served the British for more than a decade...