Royal Welsh Fusiliers...

[bigjarofwasps]

Hi Guys,

I was surfing the net & found this website...

http://www.geocities.com/the23rdfoot/

On the guest book, there is mention of the RWF having a battalion in America during the Civil War. Can anyone shine any more light on this?

[Guest Rick Research]

:Cat-Scratch: In our 1860s Civil War ???? :speechless1:

[Taz]

I tried to email the guy who wrote that and for some reason my email wasn't sent, my mail won't accept the address i'm trying to send to.

Maybe someone else can try?

All I found is that they were involved in the War of Independance.

Regards Eddie

[Bear]

I think that the only uniformed British in the American Civil War were officers that observed tactics on the Confederate side.

[Guest Rick Research]

"War of Independance"

ahhh.. the FIRST Civil War.

[mariner]

Certainly no mention of the American Civil War in...........

[leigh kitchen]

"War of Independance"

ahhh.. the FIRST Civil War.

Or the "American Revoluton", as we used to call it over here.

A few weeks ago I found a review of a book called, I think t was "Fusiliers", about the 23rd Foot in the War of Independence. Although I don't have a specific nterest in the RWF, it looked a very good read.

Can't find it on the web now though, & can't remember the author.

[bigjarofwasps]

Or the "American Revoluton", as we used to call it over here.

A few weeks ago I found a review of a book called, I think t was "Fusiliers", about the 23rd Foot in the War of Independence. Although I don't have a specific nterest in the RWF, it looked a very good read.

Can't find it on the web now though, & can't remember the author.

Cracking book, I`m reading it at the moment....

[Ulsterman]

Excellent book!! Urban is the Stephen Ambrose of the 18/19th centuries. His book on the Rifles in Spain is smashing!! It was the best thing I bought 3 years ago.

[bigjarofwasps]

I tried to email the guy who wrote that and for some reason my email wasn't sent, my mail won't accept the address i'm trying to send to.

Maybe someone else can try?

All I found is that they were involved in the War of Independance.

Regards Eddie

Eddie, I`ve tried as well, it appears that this email address no longer exists. I also tried to email the guy who the site belongs to, as yet no reply, I think the site might de be extinct..........

[Tom Y]

In our 1860s Civil War ????

You mean the War of Northern Aggression? :cheeky:

[Mike Dwyer]

You mean the War of Northern Aggression?

...or as a person I know used to say, "The recent unpleasantness."

[Graham Stewart]

There'll always be some controvesy over whether the 'War of Independence' of 1775-1783 was or was not Civil War and our American cousins probably find it difficult to understand that perhaps some 80% of those who actually took part in the affair actually spoke the 'Kings' English without the hint of the American accent we recognise today.

Hugh Bicheno's "Rebels & Redcoats" is probably one of the finest books I have ever read regarding the War of Independence and brings home the fact that it was truly a "civil war" fought between brothers, families and friends. I've even read somewhere that Flora McDonald of Bonny Prince Charlie fame, sided with the British rather than follow those who took up arms against the King.

Our loss was the world's gain and it said that George III never ever forgot the loss of these colonies and many British who fought there hated having to go to war against their own flesh and blood. Our own nation went onto create the greatest Empire the world has ever known, but one historical question which can never be answered would be what sort of Empire would we have had if the colonies had remained British?

[leigh kitchen]

A world without MacDonalds?

[Graham Stewart]

A world without MacDonalds?

Brit humour - priceless.

[Les]

You mean the War of Northern Aggression?

The United States government has never recognized the formal existence of the "confederacy." The contemporary term was "the War of the Rebellion." During the 1870's, former rebellious parts of the United States who wanted their statehood back, began referring to the past hostilities as "the War between the States" and that term was used for several decades in a spirit of reconciliation between the former factions.

During the first year of the war, military delegates from various European nations were dispatched to observe and report. For the most part, almost few were impressed. The German states on the otherhand, saw the war as an opportunity to train military officers and Germans served on both sides of the conflict.

The use of expanded railway systems to move troops quickly from one zone of operations (or even across theaters of war from the Army of the Potomac to the Army of the Tennessee), expanded telegraph networks, and the use of new weapons particularly breechloading artillery and rifles began having major impacts on tactics and strategies used during the war. Most of the Europeans missed what was happening when they dismissed the war as nothing more than "armed rabble" and felt the conflict had litttle of value. After 1862, most of the European military officers went home, thinking there wasn't much worth watching. Arthur Freemantle of the Coldstream Guards crossed into Texas during the spring of 1863, spent a few months with Bobby Lee and was present at Gettysburg where he spent some time watching Pickett's Charge from the vantage point of a large tree. Shortly afterwards he went home to England. He seems to have been the last observer to be noticed.

There is a photo of foreign officers on duty with the Army of the Potomac taken during the summer of 1861, right about the time of the First Battle of Bull Run. Most are in formal uniform, with the exception of one Brit who was wearing the dark blue "undress" get up with "bell boy" cap, and ribbaned tunic many officers favored for less than formal occaisions.

The Germans on the otherhand watched the development of new technologies, new tactics, and quickly picked up on what happened during the war, and applied those lessons against the Danes (1864), Austrians (1866) and French (1870).

Les

[Les]

There'll always be some controvesy over whether the 'War of Independence' of 1775-1783 was or was not Civil War and our American cousins probably find it difficult to understand that perhaps some 80% of those who actually took part in the affair actually spoke the 'Kings' English without the hint of the American accent we recognise today.

Hugh Bicheno's "Rebels & Redcoats" is probably one of the finest books I have ever read regarding the War of Independence and brings home the fact that it was truly a "civil war" fought between brothers, families and friends. I've even read somewhere that Flora McDonald of Bonny Prince Charlie fame, sided with the British rather than follow those who took up arms against the King.

Our loss was the world's gain and it said that George III never ever forgot the loss of these colonies and many British who fought there hated having to go to war against their own flesh and blood. Our own nation went onto create the greatest Empire the world has ever known, but one historical question which can never be answered would be what sort of Empire would we have had if the colonies had remained British?

One historian has estimated that roughly a third supported the war for independance, another third were against it, and the remaining third wanted nothing to do with either faction. After the war ended, many of those who were loyalists decided to leave the newly founded United States and headed for Canada.

In 1781, the "brotherly" feeling was anything but. Anti-British feelings, even after Cornwallis surrendered and American independance was certain, ran high enough that the Contintental Congress considered and voted on a bill that proposed making -GERMAN- not English, the official language of the new country. The bill lost by one vote. If the vote had gone the other way, American and British relations would arguably have been considerably different over the last century or so.

Les

[MajorBloodnok]

Hi guys,

Everyone knows that the British let the Americans win the War of Independence, because the Americans had treatened to start crying if they didn't! [source: BBC's Little Britain USA]

How are things in the colonies?

Mike

[Tom Y]

Hi guys,

Everyone knows that the British let the Americans win the War of Independence, because the Americans had treatened to start crying if they didn't! [source: BBC's Little Britain USA]

How are things in the colonies?

Mike

But, yeah, but, no, but :cheeky:

[Guest Rick Research]

It wasn't as persistently nasty a Civil War (the first one) up here as it was down South--where things assumed almost the ferocity of the Napoleonic Peninsular campaigns, but it was very much a civil war to us--without the pitched battles or backwoods ambushes.

Benedict Arnold V (you already know you've got a problem when you name your offspring "V") is the closest of the blood of my innumerable Connecticut cousins. Even launched a special raid into West Haven just to GET another of his cousins who happened to be an ancestor of mine (the delightfully named and suicidally ornery octogenarian Deliverance Painter). We were also directly related by marriage to the "Tory Nathan Hale" Moses Dunbar.

So it's a wonder anybody spoke to anybody afterwards, let alone bred. Yet here am I-- spawn of traitors on BOTH sides!!! :rolleyes:

[Ed Maroli]

Our loss was the world's gain and it said that George III never ever forgot the loss of these colonies and many British who fought there hated having to go to war against their own flesh and blood. Our OWN nation went onto create the greatest Empire the world has ever known, but one historical question which can never be answered would be what sort of Empire would we have had if the colonies had remained British?

I assume this is a typo and you mean the Roman Empire.

I have found that Christopher Ward's "The War of The Revolution" the best comprehensive military history of the conflict.

~ED

[leigh kitchen]

The Romans? What did the Romans ever do for us?...........

[Guest Rick Research]

Impossible to rapidly decipher dates on the ends of movies? MCMLXXXVIII ?

[Ed Maroli]

The Romans? What did the Romans ever do for us?...........

Pizza, Spaghetti, Godfather movies, Sophia Loren :cheers:

[Michael Johnson]

On the guest book, there is mention of the RWF having a battalion in America during the Civil War. Can anyone shine any more light on this?

"America" can include Canada as in "British North America". They were here in the 1850s, but were doubtless recalled for the Crimean War: http://www.cmhg.gc.ca/cmh/en/image_382.asp?page_id=442

Edited December 9, 2008 by Michael Johnson