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73 6 Generals’ Guards Generals of the Continental army could claim the services of a personal guard.The creation of these guards often posed a problem because of the drain of manpower from an already depleted rank and file. Not unlike the commander in chief’s guard, a general’s guard provided security for his person and for brigade or division headquarters and other services, such as watching over baggage, running errands, and carrying dispatches. Most generals, however, did not avail themselves of a full complement of guardsmen , and some, from time to time, declined having a guard unit altogether. Generals had ample assistance from their aides-de-camp and staff personnel , including adjutants and brigade majors; and like other officers, they were allowed to keep servants who were generally drawn from the ranks. The employment of senior officers’ guards had been a long-standing practice in European armies. A marshal of France in the early eighteenth century had a guard retinue of a captain, a lieutenant, an ensign, and fifty men.1 Usually, in the British army, a lieutenant general kept a guard of about thirty-three men; a major general, twenty-three; and a brigadier general, fifteen .2 During the French and Indian War, Major Generals Edward Braddock and Jeffery Amherst, both of whom commanded military campaigns in America, each had a guard consisting of a lieutenant and thirty men, who were supplied from regiments on a rotating basis.3 A contingency standard existed for the size of guards for generals in the Continental army, although the number of soldiers involved varied according to availability, circumstance, and the desire of individual generals. A major general was entitled to a guard of one or two subalterns, one or two sergeants, one or two corporals (or drummers), and twenty privates. Normally, a brigadier general’s guard consisted of a sergeant, a corporal, and twelve privates. The quartermaster general and adjutant general had the same prerogative GENERALS’ GUARDS 74 as a brigadier general; other staff department heads could retain four to seven men as a guard, usually one corporal and the rest privates.4 General De Kalb complained that “the generals never think of sparing their men. They take the full complement of guards to which their rank entitles them. The general of the highest grade has a lieutenant with thirty men, the brigadier a sergeant, with twelve men to watch him, and the remaining staff officers in proportion.” De Kalb said his setting “a good example ” by reducing his guard was “by no means imitated.”5 At least two major generals did create guards with an excessive number of men. Major General John Sullivan, still in Rhode Island in early 1779 after his unsuccessful campaign against the British there, had a “Life Guard” consisting of a captain, a first lieutenant, a second lieutenant, an ensign, ten noncommissioned officers , and sixty-one privates.6 In August 1780, Major General Benedict Arnold’s “life guard consisted of one hundred men.” Arnold, commandant at West Point, resided at the Beverley Robinson house, on the east side of the Hudson River, opposite and below West Point. A member of the guard recalled that two men were drafted “out of each company to form General Arnold’s life guard.” Members of the guard lived in tents and barracks around the Robinson house. “Their business was to stand guard and sentry” and “to go on errands to different places and was all the time under arms.”7 The major generals usually had their twenty-four- to twenty-six-man guard, from whom sentinels were assigned to watch over the quarters, three by day and four by night. Occasionally, major generals took a larger-thanstandard guard; for example, Horatio Gates, thirty-two (late 1777); and Benjamin Lincoln, forty-five (May 1777). Congress assigned a forty-threeman bodyguard to General Steuben in 1779; his guard numbered only fourteen by May 1782. Sometimes, major generals kept only the number of guards allotted to brigadier generals; for example, Israel Putnam (May 1776), Lord Stirling (September 1779), and Robert Howe (October 1780 and January 1781).8 Brigadier General Louis Le Bègue de Presle Duportail, a Frenchman serving as the army’s chief engineer, as befitting his rank kept a guard of one sergeant, one corporal, and twelve privates, usually furnished from the sappers and miners in his corps.9 Orders for Brigadier General WilliamWoodford ’s brigade of May 26, 1777, at Middlebrook stipulated that one sergeant, one corporal, and twelve...

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