Battle of New Orleans - British Units -93rd Sutherland Highlanders

93rd Sutherland Highlanders at New Orleans

The Figures

This unit was completed on 48 individual bases about five years ago but was recently rebased on 30mm (frontage) by 40mm depth MDF bases. I use the 30mm frontage for most of my regular units to portray the shoulder to shoulder spacing that was typical for this period. The figures are mostly Old Glory with a few Knuckleduster added.

The command group with their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Dale mounted. The C.O. is a modified Victrix mounted highland officer. Basically, I sawed off the feather bonnet head ala the 42nd and replaced it with a OG or KD 93rd bonnet. 

This 48 figure unit makes an impressive site on the wargaming table despite my poor photo.

Left front; a view of the six man grenadier company with their white touries atop their bonnets. Front right is number one company (four figures each) and the officer leading the number two company.

Numbers seven, eight and nine companies and at the right a sergeant of the light company.

 The photo right six figures of the light company mounted on individual 15mm by 20mm based for deployment onto to skirmish or open order bases.

A Brief History and Description of the 93^rd Sutherland Highlanders

The 93^rd were formed in 1800 as a regular regiment from the Sutherland Highlanders fencible regiment. They served in Ireland in 1803, where surprisingly unlike most British regiments, they cemented good relations with the local Irish. The 93^rd earned their first battle honour at in the expedition to capture the Cape Colony from the Dutch. They were part of Major-General Baird’s army in the highland brigade along with 71^st and 72^nd Highland regiments under command of Brigadier-General Ferguson. The 93^rd and its fellow highlander regiments distinguished themselves by an amphibious landing while under attack and subsequently defeating the Batavian army (and 200 French marines) on the fields outside Cape Town.[i]

The 93rd Sutherland Highlanders have often been portrayed in cinema and paintings as wearing kilts and full Scottish Highland regalia at New Orleans, not the case. Just prior to leaving their duty station at the Cape of Good Hope for America via Plymouth England, the 93rd were issued “trews” or tartan trousers made of “Government” or “Black Watch sett” cloth. This decision was made in Plymouth while awaiting their departure for America. The tartan was deemed as “ill calculated for severe service” for the coming operation. Besides, they were short of ‘about 200 pairs of hose that could not be supplied in the south of England.’ Coats and equipment were identical in design and cut to those worn by their European counterparts. Interestingly, their sister 2^nd battalion wore the full highland regalia complete with kilts and feathered bonnet and hose. The second battalion was stationed in Newfoundland from June 1814 to October 1815 but saw no action.[ii]

Facings were lemon yellow, and the regiment was issued Hummell or “porkpie” bonnets with wider than normal diced borders bearing a red-and-white checked pattern later so closely and uniquely associated with its lineal successor, The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. Caps had a tourie or tuft atop them, red for battalion companies, white for grenadiers, and green for the light company. Officers’ caps bore a white metal thistle badge. Blue-gray trousers had been worn in South Africa, these apparently retained by some officers and supernumeraries.[iii]

Through sheer tenacity the 93rd numbered among the few British troops to actually reach the American parapet through withering fire. In so doing it lost three-quarters of its 1008 men in killed and wounded, an appalling toll.[iv] One American observer characterized them as “firm and immovable as a brick wall.” The 93^rd were part of Maj-Gen Sir John Keane’s Brigade on the far left of the British front on or near levee road. In one of his many bad decisions that day, Major-General Pakenham ordered the 93^rd to traverse the field from left across the front of the American gun line to the right flank exposing the Scotsmen to sustained cannister fire, which cost them heavily.

 

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[i] The British Invasion of The River plate 1806-1807, Ben Hughes, pp. 3-17.

[ii] A Scarlet Coat: Uniforms, Flags and Equipment of the British in the War of 1812, Rene Chartrand, Service Publications, 2011, pp 83-84

[iii] Armies of the War of 1812 by Gabriel Espostio published by Pike and Powder Publishing Group.

[iv] New Orleans 1815, Osprey campaign Series, Tim Pickles.

Uniform Plates

Ref: Armies of the War of 1812 by Gabriel Espostio published by Pike and Powder Publishing Group, p. 81.

The figure on the left is a sergeant of the Grenadier Company. Note the white tourie (pom pom), which denotes the grenadier company. Ref: New Orleans 1815, Osprey Campaign Series, p. 46.

TBC