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THE COMPANY OF MILITARY HISTORIANS |
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Re: [AmRevolution] Capt. Lasher's NY Grenadiers
Posted By: Eric Manders In Response To: Re: [AmRevolution] Capt. Lasher's NY Grenadiers (Phil Weaver)
Date: Sunday, 15 January 2006 1557 hrs. EDT
I hope my good friend Phil Weaver won’t mind if I enlarge on some of the excellent points he made regarding the independent Grenadier Company of the City and County of New York in 1775 and 1776. And forgive me if I quibble with some of the others.
Basically, the system of independent companies was a device whereby the men of society’s upper crust could discharge their militia obligations while avoiding a distasteful mixture of social classes. There is no doubt that these companies doubled as private clubs, as Phil tells us, but the New York companies also served in lieu of a minuteman establishment for the city and county.
Independent companies in the New York City militia date back to 1724, with the establishment of two companies of Cadets and one of “Blew (Blue) Artillery.” A list for 1765 shows six companies, none of them titled except for a Troop of Horse and the Grenadiers. The latter was captained by the Earl of Stirling (William Alexander), who subsequently became a major general in the Continental Army. His first lieutenant is given as “John Lashar.”
In 1773 the royal governor (William Tryon) reported nine independent city companies beside a troop of horse: “two Companies of Cadets or Governor’s Guards, one of Grenadiers, one of light infantry, one of Rangers, one of Germans, and three of Artillery.” The six infantry companies were formed into a battalion by the last colonial militia act of 1 April 1775.
A variety of independent companies appear regimented under “John Lashier Colonel” in an undated return of “Officers belonging to a Battalion of Independent Foot Companies in New-York City.” There are thirteen listed, including two of artillery. The internal evidence suggests the return belongs to the early post-colonial period when New York came under the jurisdiction of a revolutionary Provincial Congress. Nine of the infantry companies, including the Grenadiers, were commissioned in September 1775 and designated the “First (or Colonel Lasher’s) Regiment, in New York.”
William Heyer was the colonel of the 2d Independent Regiment from December 1775. William Malcolm was his first major; he assumed command of the regiment in May 1776. At this point one of the companies was transferred from the 1st to the 2d Regiment, giving each eight companies. Each had a company of grenadiers and one of light infantry.
The two regiments of New York independents effectively lost their distinctiveness when they were drafted as part of a militia levy by the Provincial Congress on 7 June 1776. They were assigned to John Morin Scott’s brigade. Since only a fourth of the personnel were required to go on active service, the ranks had to be filled by levies from the city’s three ward regiments of common militia. In addition, companies of levies from Kings and/or Queens counties were attached to both regiments. Also, a company of state regulars was attached to Malcolm’s 2d Regiment. (“The very sweepings of hell,” Malcolm called them.)
Lasher’s regiment was temporarily detached from the brigade and sent to Long Island. One of the Queens County levies attached to the regiment described how, during the hairy retreat from the Island on the night of 29 August, “the grenadiers were stationed at regular distances inside the American lines, each having 6 hand-grenades beside their other arms.” They may even have been wearing their old uniforms. A metal hat badge belonging to another of Lasher’s companies, Hearts of Oak, was somehow appropriated and taken home by a Hessian participant in the recent battle. A color image of it was published in a German military calendar in 1975.
The enlistments of Scott’s brigade of levies expired on 1 December 1776, despite attempts to extend them for another month. The survivors of Lasher’s and Malcolm’s regiments, their home city under British occupation, either settled into exile or joined one or another of the new line regiments then raising. Lasher received a staff appointment with the Army and Malcolm was given command of one of Washington’s “additional” Continental regiments in June 1777. This was a newly formed unit and not an extension of his defunct independent militia battalion.
For those interested in more complete information, I humbly suggest Alan C. Aimone and Eric I. Manders, “A Note on New York City’s Independent Companies, 1775–1776” in New York History, LXIII, no. 1 (January 1982): 59–73. New York History is published quarterly by the New York State Historical Association.
Eric Manders
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