Help: Which Regiment(s)

Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 02 - 10:46 PM

Or songs about particular regiments....

Clare's Dragoons,

Inniskilling Dragoons,

Twa Recruiting Sergeants (Black Watch)

The Gallant Forty-Twa (I think it was...)

A Gordon For Me (dredging up the music-hall stuff)

Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 22 May 02 - 10:07 PM

Aye, we Scots never forget....... Now I wonder who said that? It was me, wasn't it? Yes, I remember....

To try and keep some sort of music theme going in this fascinating discourse, I'm reasonably familiar with a fair few of those "He's-off-to-war-and-leaving-me-behind-boo-hoo" and "Come-and-enlist-and-get-maimed-and-killed-if-ye're-lucky" songs, but bearing in mind battlefield conditions in the smooth-bore and bayonet era, and my note about smoke obscuring everything, are there many about an actual full scale punch-up. "Kerry Recruit" deals with storming a redoubt and being wounded at (I think) the Alma in the Crimea... Any others?

Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 22 May 02 - 09:45 PM

I'd forgotten about the Ferguson Rifle....Hell, its YEARS since I read about that, & hadnt thought about it for a LOOONG time...

Good thread! I'll be back tomorrow & see who else has chipped in, but I'm off to bed now...

Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 22 May 02 - 09:19 PM

..... AND another thing.... my God, will we ever get him to shut up?...

A cockade could also be a simple way of indicating a difference in loyalties when both sides were wearing the same - or at any rate similar - uniforms. As artbrooks has pointed out, during the French revolution, royalist and revolutionary troops could be from the same regiment, and all be wearing the same dress.

Mind you, when the muskets started firing, after a couple of volleys, nobody nearby was going to see anything anyway for the smoke.

Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 22 May 02 - 09:09 PM

Yeah, I'd forgotten about the cockade as a decoration pure and simple to entice the gullible to join up. Goes along with the King's shilling the poor sod found in the bottom of his beer mug.

Meanwhile back at the Napoleonic Wars - A "Chosen Man" was the name given in the then newly formed 95th Rifle Regiment to a rifleman who had proved to be suitable as a low ranked nco - the equivalent of lance-corporal or corporal. The 95th, then the other rifle regiments as they were formed, were trained to act as skirmishers and operate independently usually well in front of the line infantry. Their purpose was to pick off enemy officers, sergeants, colour parties, gunners etc, who would be a distinct threst to the line. Because of this completely new role - in the British army at least - the existing system of ranks etc was altered to reflect the need for trust in such a situation, where the rifleman had to work intelligently as a small team or separately.

PS - Sharpe fans should know this and be going on about "fixing swords" etc - The 95th were armed with the Baker rifle, a flintlock muzzle-loaded rifle as opposed to the standard smooth-bore 0.753 inch musket. The rate of fire was lower, but the accuracy - for its' time - quite frightening. BUT - and here we Scots can stand up and take a bow - the first rifle issued to British troops was the Ferguson rifle, a breech-loading flintlock issued to the light company of a Highland regiment for trial during the American War of Independence. It was a very promising weapon, but as its' inventor, Captain Ferguson, was killed in action, the whole experiment was dropped.

Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 22 May 02 - 08:15 PM

Ooops, & I meant to say, a further possibility was that it MIGHT denote someone who had volunteered during the patriotic fervour of some wars, rather than having joined up through poverty, hunger, to avoid jail, or having fathered a child out of wedlock.

I say again this is all pretty much speculation on my part though....

Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 22 May 02 - 08:10 PM

I wasnt aware of all the precise details that Ozmacca had gone into (thanks mate, useful stuff!) but all I can add to what he's said is that I havent come across the Cockade used as a 'badge' to denote a particular Regiment as such.

I'd GUESS, & it is just a guess (& someone more knowledgeable than me might have a better explanation) that it MIGHT be the mark of a 'Chosen Man' (unfortunately the 'Sharpe' series has misled people to what that means). There were no Medals awarded prior to Waterloo, & think its entirely possible that prior to that, a soldier who performed an act of particular bravery, or skill might be 'decorated' by having a Cockade pinned to him, presumably at the discretion of the Colonel.

Less complimentary (& presumably less likely to be commemorated in song...*G*)...might be that someone who wore a cockade had been 'conned' into the Army by a Recruiting Sergeant, presumably won over by the cockades & ribbons & other 'fancy' additions to the Sergeants uniform to impress potential recruits... there is more than one instance of Recruiting Sergeants doing that kind of thing, & making the gullible recruit think he was going into the Army with some degree of favour (or Rank) compared to other new recruits.

Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From: artbrooks
Date: 22 May 02 - 08:02 PM

In addition to being a Jacobite insignia, the white cockade was also the emblem of the royalist forces in France at the time of the French Revolution.

Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 22 May 02 - 07:11 PM

.... or something. Interesting that many regiments in the British and other armies were authorised to wear a black badge on the death of the monarch. For example.. I've always understood that the Brunswick regiments at Waterloo wore black because of the recent death of their Duke. However, and to the point - I don't know of any instances where regular regiments were ever authorised to wear a white special badge. I'd appreciate any info....

Subject: RE: Help: Which Regiment(s)
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 22 May 02 - 07:06 PM

As far as I've always understood it - which may be right, wrong, misleading, mis-representative and all those other things that the folk tradition is built on... On the death of Protestant Queen Anne, regiments in the British army were authorised to wear a black cockade or rosette in their headgear. Given that there was a good deal of support for Anne's Catholic brother James, who had been deposed by William and Mary, it looked likely that james would return to the throne, and so his followers adopted a white version of the same badge. They were known as Jacobites, hence all those songs about the white cockade and the 1715, and 1745 and Prince Charlie etc.....

And there was a lot of Jacobite support at the end of the 17th century throughout all Britain, not just in Scotland. The Highland connection is really more to do with the later period when English jacobite support had been greatly reduced.

Subject: Which Regiment(s)
From: GUEST,Yorkie (Chris) Bartram
Date: 22 May 02 - 06:54 PM

"Oh yes my love has 'listed and he wears a White Cockade.
He is a tall and handsome man; likewise a roving blade.
He is a tall and handsome man just fit to serve the king.
Oh my very (oh my very)
Oh my very (oh my very)
Oh my very heart is aching all for the love of him".

In this and, perhaps, other songs or versions of songs(e.g. Rambleaway) that seem to originate in the North-East region of England there is mention of the White Cockade. Which regiment(s) might this refer to?