Project Appleseed

Approximately how many men were in a redcoat light infantry company? How many companies in a regiment?

Basically trying to examine the breakdown at the North Bridge...
Seven companies went out... four to the farms and three to guard the bridge and return route.

Thanks!

Fischer sites 115 men guarding the North Bridge (p. 212 in my copy of Paul Revere's Ride.  The footnote refers you to Appendix K on p. 313 where your question may be answered in greater detail.

brian

Fischer posts numbers complete as he could find in Appendex K of Paul Revere's Ride.
The British total estimates "by partcipants and eyewitnesses ranged between 600 and 900 men."

He does provide a table of effective estimated strength drawn from contemporary muster rolls. I won't reproduce the whole thing, but  -

Regiments listed are the 4th, 5th, 10th, 18th, 23rd,38th, 43rd,52nd, and 59th of foot, along with British Marines and assorted others. Each Regiment is listed as having one company of Grenadiers and one of Light Infantry, averaging mid-30's to low 40's per company.

Thank you very much! Still working my way through Paul Revere's ride. That's about how I understood the numbers, but wanted to verify.

"A little over a hundred" is what I typically go with.

I've heard history where there's exact numbers for everything "There were seventy-seven men on Lexington Green" or "At 1:15 PM, twenty-two members of the King's Own ran the three hundred yards through the bloody curve and met their maker" or my personal favorite, "Six grenadiers."

Of course we want to be accurate with our history. Of course we want to get it right. But, the devil is NOT in the details on this one. As a matter of fact, the more detailed you get, the more you could throw folks off. I know we have some stitch counters in our own program and no doubt we'll have some on the lines.

What's important is not that you're 100% factually accurate and your story coincides with peer-reviewed, double blind research. It's that your story moves people. Because even that stitch counter can say, "Well, he wasn't 100% accurate, but boy was he pretty good. You've got to hear this story!"

*disclaimer - I'm not saying you shouldn't know the numbers or fudge the details in any way. I'm simply saying like most things adults like to argue over..... no one really knows anyway so why waste your time arguing!

Some of the "numbers" I always like to include are the number of hills the redcoats were SUPPOSED TO secure but didn't. They were supposed to head up that big ol' hill but stayed down low. They were supposed to secure the far side of the bridge but came back to the safe side. They were supposed to stay there and keep the Colonials at bay but instead.... they took off running!

How many times had the British Army broke and run before North Bridge? That's a pretty good number to tell!

Another good "number" is the number of inches the musket ball missed the Colonial Irishman's heart by. "Another few inches this way and you'd have been lost to eternity." "Aye, ma'am. But another few inches the other and I wouldn't have been hit at all."

Depending on the audience, I like to talk about the "number" of redcoats that puckered up when they saw those hillbillies form up in military lines and file from the right in military order. I bet those professional soldiers said a "number" of curse words! Some of them may've even squeaked out a little "number" two in their shorts!

The other "number" I include (maybe not during 2nd Strike, but sometime throughout the weekend) is the "number" of brothers Samuel Prescott had and how they'd set off on that fateful night on trails their father had shown them long ago. The "number" of horses they were rated for, the "number" of square feet in their house, the "number" of coins in their sock drawers, the "number" of days they'd live out in happiness on a physician's pay. Then I remind folks the "number" of days, months and years that Lydia Mulliken waited for her dear Samuel to return. I close with the "number" of months that DOCTOR Able Prescott suffered through along with the "number" of DOCTORS in his house who tried to save him from the gangrene that ulitimately took his life. The "number" of bridges the redcoats killed Colonials at was not just one.

The "numbers" aren't nearly as important as some folks make them out to be.

I agree that overwhelming the listeners with too many exact numbers isn't the best idea... Wasn't planning on including them. However, I just wanted to ensure that my knowledge of the event was filled out correctly before teaching it to others.