Reviews of Books

Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755–1763. By STEPHEN BRUMWELL . (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. x, 349. $35.00.)

Reviewed by Peter J. Way, Bowling Green State University

Redcoats marches onto the increasingly crowded field of Seven Years' War studies, adroitly flanking the allied histories of the provincial armies that have dominated for twenty years, most notably Fred Anderson's A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War (Chapel Hill, 1984). It does so dauntlessly, borne by weighty historical research against its twin objectives: the restoration of the British army to its rightful place as prime victor of the war in North America and the recapture of the social world of common redcoats. The author, Stephen Brumwell, experiences more success with the first objective than the second, in part because he identifies so closely with his soldier subjects.	1
Brumwell seeks to contest the prevailing image of the British army as "starkly polarised" between soldiers drawn from the bottom of society and aristocratic officers, with the former subject to a "savage disciplinary code" (p. 2), and combat as a response to fear of such discipline at the hands of venal, arrogant officers, ineffective at New World warfare. This characterization of the historiography is something of a straw man. The British army itself exaggerated the class hierarchy of Britain in that era, ruled by iron-hard discipline, and had its share of ineffective placemen among the officer corps. In counterattacking some historians' crude depiction of the British army, Redcoats yields too much ground to its celebrants.	2
Brumwell achieves greater success in claiming that the Seven Years' War was a British victory, a point often overlooked owing to the continued fascination with the provincial forces. The first chapter draws an overview of the war and recounts the massive infusion of British troops into the colonies, prompted primarily by Braddock's defeat in 1755 and the fall of Oswego in 1756. As early as autumn 1757, twenty-one battalions and seven independent companies, amounting to an unprecedented 20,268 officers and men, were in place. As a result of this buildup of regular forces, colonial provincial troops assumed a largely supporting role in construction, transportation, and small garrison duty. Hence it was largely redcoats that fought—and won—the war. Key to their success was the army's adaptability to fighting conditions in the Americas. The army blended American guerilla tactics with European battle strategies, which culminated with the invention of light infantry tactics and the formation of the 80th Regiment of Light Armed Foot. Although Brumwell warns that we should not exaggerate the British army's adaptation to American-style warfare, efforts to emulate native fighting practices had long-term effects on British fighting tactics.	. . .