Loyalist Units of the
American Revolution

Update

by Rudy Scott Nelson



Additional information has been found about the following units:

The Volunteers of Ireland recruited heavily from Patriot POWs after the battle of Camden.

The Duke of Cumberland Regiment was comprised solely of Patriot POWs who agreed to join the British Army as long as they fought Spanish and French forces but not American Patriot units. The British recruited from the prison barges in New York (500 men) and in Charleston (400 men). The British regarded those troops at Charleston as some of the best trained troops available. The resulting unit was comprised of men from all thirteen colonies and the West Indies. The nationalities included Irish, Scots, English and German. I am not sure what the unit's facing colors were.

The regiment's colonel was Charles Montagu who was a loyal British nobleman who owned plantations in South Carolina but had refused to take a commission to fight against his friends in the American colonies. He was actually captured in-transit between Charleston and New York but was released by Patriot Gen Greene when his recruiting mission was revealed.

The Duke of Cumberland Regiment took part in the British invasion of Nicaragua in 1780. The plan was to split the Spanish colonies and force the Spanish to devote more resources to protecting their Latin American colonies. The British expedition lost numerous men to disease. The regiment was disbanded in 1783 with many of the men electing to migrate to Nova Scotia rather than returning to the American colonies.


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