Royal Marines
History
With a need to free troops for service in the Peninsula, the Admiralty in 1810 created a battalion of marines and sent them to be a part of the garrison in Lisbon. This was done by combining men from each of the four marine divisions. In 1812, this unit served aboard Admiral Popham's fleet off the North Coast of Spain where they were joined by a second battalion. Together, by being landed here and there, they managed to disrupt coastal traffic and supplies, capture several towns and ports and pin down the northern division of the French Army.
Wishing to pursue the war with America, the two battalions were recalled to England, re-equipped and then sent to the Chesapeake Bay. They arrived in June 1813. With the Navy and several other units, they proceeded to roam at will up and down the bay creating chaos wherever they landed. Both battalions were withdrawn in September and sent to aid in the defense of Canada. By May of 1814, the 2nd was used to augment Commodore Yeo's ships on Lake Ontario and the remainder were merged with the 1st. In July, the 1st was also "disposed for Naval Service".
In 1814, with the demise of Napoleon, Britain decided to send a larger force to America and the Chesapeake. Along with regiments from the Peninsular army, a third battalion of Royal Marines was organized from detachments in Holland and again from the divisions in England and added to the force. Upon reaching the region, this battalion was renumbered the 2nd and was combined with the 21st Foot to create General Ross' 3rd Brigade and served as such at Bladensburg and North Point. A new 3rd battalion was created by Admiral Cockburn by joining three companies of Royal Marines and three companies of Colonial Marines.
In addition to the above battalions, Marines from the ships in the Chesapeake were used as landing forces and raiding parties throughout the campaign. Frequently, provisional battalions were formed from these Marines, and sometimes with sailors, and were used to re-inforce the regular units. This occured at North Point. Another provisional battalion was thrown together for the assault on New Orleans and along with the 85th, managed to breach the American line on the south side of the Mississippi. A company sized detachment operated independently out of Pensacola among the Creek Indians in the southeast.
As can be seen, the Royal Marines served throughout the War of 1812 (and the Napoleonic Wars) in every capacity and every theater of operations. By 1814, there were approximately 30,000 Marines in service throughout the world.
We started researching in 1994 the possibility of recreating a unit from the War of 1812. As the core members are mostly from Maryland and had long re-enacted British Army for RevWar and F&I, it was only natural for us to look at Ross' Army and the Chesapeake campaign to determine which unit to portray. After much reading and deliberation, we finally decided on the Royal Marines as they were involved in most of the campaigns of this War and could be found from the Canadian border to New Orleans.
It is our intention to promote the War of 1812 in the Mid-Atlantic region where the Marines figured so prominently, to participate in other 1812/Napoleonic events and to recreate as well as we can this distinguished organization.
For further information, please contact:
Ed Seufert
8 Urbanwood Ct.
Essex, MD
USA
21221
This page was created by John Sek © 1998.