Ever wonder why the British lost the American Revolutionary War? And how the United States managed to win its independence? The triumph of a colonial insurgency over a mighty European empire is understandably seen as an astonishing upset. Yet re-imposing royal authority over the rebellious colonies was perhaps always going to be a tall order, given the vast distances involved. Was former prime minister Lord Chatham correct to assess, as he did in 1777, that Britain had committed itself to an unwinnable war?
I convened an international panel of experts to ponder these questions as part of the UK National Army Museum’s commemorations of the 250th anniversary of the American War of Independence. My enlightening discussion with Friederike Baer, Kevin Weddle and Mark Urban, which was recorded earlier this year, goes live on Sunday, 19 October.
I’ve recently relocated from Cambridge, England, to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to start a new role as the Ewart A. Pratt Fellow in Military, Naval, and Maritime History at Memorial University. It is wonderful to be back in Canada after many years abroad, and I’m eager to explore this beautiful part of the country.
During my two-year tenure, I will be researching duelling, honour, and courts-martial among British Army officers during the era of the Napoleonic Wars. The project seeks to get at the heart of what it meant to be an officer and a gentleman at the time, and I’m really looking forward to digging into the archives.
To mark the move, I wanted to share something that connects directly to both the place and the period: a watercolour of St. John’s painted around 1796 by a Royal Artillery officer named George Bulteel Fisher. This beguiling view from Fort Townshend also depicts an artilleryman and a soldier of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. Currently housed in the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University, the artwork was the subject of an informative 2022 article by the late historian René Chartrand.
I also look forward to teaching students at Memorial; I’m set to run a third-year course on the history of the British Empire in Winter 2026.
I look forward to delivering a lunchtime talk tomorrow at the National Army Museum in London, England (12 noon). The lecture will explore the life of Shadrack Byfield, a War of 1812 veteran who lost an arm, wrote multiple memoirs, and designed his own prosthesis.
‘Chelsea Pensioners’. Aquatint by J.C. Stadler after Charles Hamilton Smith, 1812. NAM 1950-11-33-48.
Talk Synopsis
Join Dr Eamonn O’Keeffe as he explores the War of 1812 through the eyewitness account of a disabled British veteran of the conflict.
The military memoirs of Shadrack Byfield, a Wiltshire weaver and war amputee, have long enjoyed a prominent place in the story of the Anglo-American War of 1812. As one of the few eyewitness accounts of the conflict from a rank-and-file British soldier, his autobiography has been widely quoted in books, documentaries and museum displays. Yet very little is known about the man behind the memoir.
Drawing on original research, including a newly discovered second autobiography, this talk investigates Byfield’s efforts to navigate civilian life, secure veterans’ benefits and publish accounts of his experiences. It chronicles the ex-soldier’s invention of a prosthesis to enable a return to work and analyses his shifting and sometimes contradictory self-presentation in print.
O’Keeffe uses Byfield’s lively and often moving story as a case study through which to explore the broader experiences of British veterans returning home after the Napoleonic Wars.
In recent months, I have had the pleasure of collaborating with the UK National Army Museum on a range of public programming focused on the American War of Independence (1775–1783). Besides hosting roundtable discussions and planning weekly talks to mark the conflict’s 250th anniversary, I presented a series of short films exploring contrasting and often unfamiliar perspectives on this transformative event.
These concise videos aim to synthesize the latest historical research on the American Revolution for a broad audience while also highlighting the range of the National Army Museum’s collections. The first instalment explores the origins of the breach between Britain and the nascent United States. Subsequent videos explain how a colonial rebellion morphed into a worldwide conflict and highlight some of the myriad ways the war impacted life in Britain and Ireland.
🎥 Watch the full series on YouTube:
Visit the National Army Museum’s YouTube channel to discover further recordings of recent expert talks on the American Revolutionary War, including analyses of the Saratoga campaign, British strategy and tactics, Patriot political mobilization, and mutinies in the Continental Army.
This Easter weekend marked the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord – the opening engagements of the American War of Independence. I recently had the pleasure of convening a roundtable discussion at the National Army Museum to commemorate the occasion. Over the course of a ninety-minute conversation, Professor David Armitage, Dr Megan King, and Professor Steve Pincus offered wide-ranging insight into the debates over rights, allegiance, and imperial governance that set the stage for the American Revolution.
A recording of this thought-provoking anniversary event is now available on the National Army Museum’s YouTube channel.
Over the past week and a half, I had the opportunity of presenting at two major conferences: the Society for Military History annual meeting in Mobile, Alabama, and the Wellington Congress in Southampton, England. The itinerary, which was scheduled many months ago, was intense and rather exhausting. Nonetheless, I greatly enjoyed reconnecting with longtime friends and meeting an impressive array of researchers and scholars.
Between conferences, I took some time to explore the rich culture and cuisine of the Gulf Coast. Highlights included touring the massive battleship USS Alabama and exploring the French Quarter and National WWII Museum in New Orleans. I also made my way to the Chalmette battlefield, the site of a disastrous British assault on Andrew Jackson’s lines at the close of the War of 1812.
Presenting in MobilePresenting in SouthamptonUSS AlabamaNational WWII MuseumNew Orleans streetcarA keyed bugle reportedly captured from the British during the 1814-15 New Orleans campaignChalmette battlefieldChalmette battlefield
Plate from Percy Groves, History of the 91st Princess Louise’s Argyllshire Highlanders (1894)
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars exacted an awful human toll. As one British publication asserted thirteen years after Waterloo: ‘There are few families in the land who have not one or more relatives sleeping in a soldier’s grave’.
While the letters of officers and their families provide voluminous documentation of the pain of separation and bereavement, accessing the experiences of rank-and-file soldiers and their kin is altogether more difficult. The autobiography of John MacKinnon, a clerk and weaver who grew up in wartime Glasgow, provides a moving description of the last time he saw his uncle, James Moodie, an unmarried grenadier in the 91st Highland Regiment, in 1806 or 1807. Moodie had enlisted in the army, much to the disappointment of his mother, after an unsatisfactory stint as an apprentice stocking weaver. Continuing to make hose as a regimental tradesman, he survived the gruelling retreat to Corunna in 1809 but died of illness during the disastrous Walcheren expedition later that year.
MacKinnon’s account underscores the length of time servicemen spent apart from their families, but also hints at the importance of the exchange of letters for maintaining connections with home. Moodie’s attempt to test whether his sister, John MacKinnon’s mother, would recognize him after a dozen years’ separation echoes similar tricks recounted by veteran soldiers in their memoirs. It is also fascinating to learn that the soldier’s arrears of pay were later used to purchase a mourning ring. Born in 1802, MacKinnon would have been very young at the time of Moodie’s furlough; his recollections likely reflect family stories repeated after the grenadier’s death as much as the first-hand memories of a four or five-year-old boy.
[A]n uncle of mine, James Moodie, a soldier in the Grenadier Company of the 91st Regiment, got a furlough, and came to see us. My parents had not mentioned the change of residence in their letters, and he came to the house in Cheapside [Street, Glasgow]; one of the neighbours called me from among the children, and told me to take the soldier home to my father’s. The 91st at that time wore the kilt, and my uncle was a tall good looking man, but I did not at the time know that he was any relation to me; he took me by the hand, and I led him away round to the house. He thought that my mother would not know him, as she had not seen him for twelve years, and he meant to pass himself off for an acquaintance of her brother from the regiment; but as soon as he entered, and took off his bonnet, she knew him, and seized him by the hand. He had been seen by Young’s people going up the street leading me by the hand, and he being tall, his bonnet and feathers were seen over the kirkyard wall going down towards the house. James Young’s father immediately came round to see who it was, and during the time that his furlough lasted, they made his stay as pleasant as possible.
We never saw him again. He had enlisted in the Argyleshire Regiment [later renumbered as the 91st] in 1794, and was through all the campaigns till 1809. He got his furlough in 1807. He was with the army during the retreat to Corunna, and wrote an account of the retreat in a series of letters after the regiment returned to Britain. His regiment was sent out to Walcheren in Holland in 1809; he was attacked with fever & ague, but got better, he went to his duty too soon, had a relapse and died there; a great portion of the Army died in that unwholesome place. There was a guinea of arrears due to him when he died, and it was sent home. Half a guinea was sent to my aunt in Lanark, and my father put as much to the other half guinea, as bought a fine gold ring to [sic] my mother, with my uncle’s name engraved on it.
MacKinnon provides further information on Moodie’s visit in another handwritten account, entitled ‘My Schools and School Masters: or The Story of My Education’. This version contains a fuller description of the soldier’s warm welcome in Glasgow, his emotional final parting with MacKinnon’s mother, and a less enjoyable sojourn with his other sister in Lanark.
Towards the end of that year [1806], we had a visit from my uncle James Moodie. The 91st Regiment had returned to Britain, and when furloughs were being granted to the men, it came to his turn, and he thought he would go north, and see how his sisters were. [Moodie’s parents had both died by this time.]
He knew that my mother was married, and he had heard of my father from some of the Fencible men who had entered the 91st Regiment after the Fencibles were broke [i.e. disbanded]. My parents had not mentioned to my uncle their removal from Cheapside to Piccadilly Street [in Glasgow], lest he might think the one place distant from the other, whereas they were next streets to each other, and the post man knew our new residence and brought the letters quite regularly. When my uncle came to Cheapside Street… he was informed that my parents had removed to the next street, but as I happened at the time to be in Cheapside Street engaged with my former play fellows, I was called forward, and told to take the soldier round to my father’s. I got hold of the soldier’s hand, and took him round to my father’s. He wanted to pass himself off as a soldier of the regiment who had called at her brother’s request, but he had not spoken many words when my mother recognised him, and seized his hand, exclaiming “You are Jamie Moodie my brother.” They had not seen each other for twelve years. My father was sent for, and he gave him a hearty welcome, and we were all delighted that Uncle James had come. When it became known that a brother of my mother’s had come home on furlough from the army, the neighbours and our acquaintances were all anxious to see him and hear of his adventures during the twelve years that he had been a soldier. My uncle was treated with the greatest kindness during the time that he stopt with us, not only by ourselves, but by our acquaintances. He was shewn [sic] every place about the town that was thought worth seeing, and on all these occasions he was not allowed to be at any expense, so as that he might reserve the pay that he had to carry him back to the regiment. My uncle was well liked in the regiment, for he was of an open, frank disposition.
He passed the most time of his furlough with us, and as the town of Lanark lay between Glasgow and the place where the regiment lay, he went to pass the remainder of the time with my aunt, as he would be so far on the way. Before leaving he made one request of my mother, and that was that if she had another son, she would call him by his name; this was promised at once.
When he went away, my parents accompanied him to the end of Glasgow Green, and they bade each other farewell. He had only gone a few steps, when he came back, and took mother’s hand, and kissed her, saying perhaps they might never again see each other, and then parted.
They never met again; he died of fever and ague at Walcheren in Holland.
During his stay in Lanark, my aunt’s husband John Watson died, and she was left a widow with one son about my own age. He had not the same pleasure in Lanark as he had with us: my aunt’s disagreeable temper caused words between them, and my uncle wrote to us after he had rejoined the regiment, regretting that he had left us to go to Lanark.
Source: Glasgow City Archives, TD743, John MacKinnon papers, autobiography, pp. 10-11, 26, and ‘My Schools and School Masters: or The Story of My Education’, pp. 8-10, 27-30.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of hosting an online talk by David Suisman, associate professor of history at the University of Delaware and author of Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America’s Soldiers (University of Chicago Press, 2024).
As someone with a research interest in military music myself, I found Instrument of War to be a fascinating, deeply researched, and remarkably empathetic book. Suisman explores the role of music in the lives of American soldiers from the Civil War of the 1860s to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years. He lays bare the US military’s intense and longstanding interest in music, but also shows how performing and listening habits have evolved over time, from the rise of radio to the era of the iPod. We learn about extensive official efforts to sponsor musical activity, from funding military bands to shipping song books, live performers, and olive-green pianos to war zones. The book casts music as a top-down tool used to manage soldiers’ behaviour and emotions but also remains admirably attuned to the actual preferences and priorities of enlisted men. Music, it turns out, has much to tell us about the character of the US military and its social and political context, from questions of discipline and morale to race, imperialism and much else besides.
It investigates the presence and significance of British military music in action during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Based on a diverse body of sources, including contemporary military manuals, archival collections, and soldiers’ memoirs, the article argues that regimental bands did not normally strike up in the heat of battle. Highland pipers, on the other hand, were celebrated for playing in combat. Bugles and trumpets were crucial for relaying tactical commands to dispersed skirmishers and cavalrymen, but British drummers were less often heard under fire. The article also explores the non-musical duties of drummers and bandsmen in combat, including their contributions as stretcher-bearers. It ends by highlighting music’s importance in shaping how battles were remembered, drawing on evidence from regimental commemorations and Victorian military art.
My review of The Horrible Peace: British Veterans and the End of the Napoleonic Wars by Evan Wilson has now been published in the latest issue of the journal War in History.
‘Historians of eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland have increasingly interpreted warfare as a major agent of change. The domestic effects of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, above all, are now recognized as broad and deep, with profound implications for the reach of the state and the development of empire, commerce and national identities. But for all the attention devoted to the mounting demands of war, not to mention the course of individual battles and campaigns, not enough has been written about the United Kingdom’s troubled transition to peace. As Evan Wilson points out in his lucid and considered new book, Waterloo is too often treated as a beginning or end point in the historiography, with veterans taking centre stage for the defeat of Napoleon only to quickly vanish from view.’
1812 and all that 