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Show English Regiment's Colors in a U. S. Army Post Chapel Recalls Day When Briton and American Fought Side by Side to Win Historic Victory I By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union. RECENT press dispatches from the Italian front recorded re-corded the fact that the King's Royal Rifle corps was one of the units of the Seventh Armored Division, which had served so brilliantly under General Montgomery in his victory over Rommel in the North African campaign and which was now a part of General Gen-eral Alexander's British Eighth army. To most American Amer-ican readers this reference to the Royal Rifles had no special spe-cial significance, although they might well have been as interested in its progress in the campaign against Kessel-ring's Kessel-ring's Germans as in the fortunes for-tunes of any regiment in Gen. Mark Clark's American Fifth army. For the fact is that the Royal Rifle corps is intimately associated with the history of this country. It is the lineal descendant of a regiment which helped gain one of the most brilliant victories ever won on the North American continent, thereby giving to American colonial history one of its greatest military heroes. Known originally as the 62nd Loyal American Provincials, the regiment was later christened the 60th Royal Americans and this was the name it bore when its leader, Col. Henry Bouquet, snatched victory from what seemed certain defeat at the Battle of Bushy Run, marched on to raise the siege of Fort Pitt and gave the deathblow to Pontiac's Conspiracy. A New Era in Military Science. One thing which distinguishes the Battle of Bushy Run from all other engagements in our history is that here Colonel Bouquet established an American tradition of 'tactical resiliency re-siliency and readiness to adapt methods meth-ods to new requirements" which has cr4minated in the military innovations innova-tions of World War II, such as the new techniques of jungle fighting against the Japs and of air combat against the German Luftwaffe. In a day when battles were fought strictly according to rule, Bouquet, a superb tactician, dared to disregard disre-gard the rules and to "improvise" on the battlefield, thereby marking the beginning of a new era in military mili-tary science. Bouquet was a soldier of fortune, born in Switzerland in 1719. In 1754, at the outbreak of the war between be-tween France and Great Britain in America, he became lieutenant colonel colo-nel of the newly organized 62nciLoy-al 62nciLoy-al American Provincials, which was j to become the 60th Royal Ameripans three years later and eventually the King's Royal Rifle corps. He came to America in 1756, and served under General Forbes in the capture of Fort Duquesne, the French post at the Forks of the Ohio which was rebuilt re-built and named Fort Pitt. Five years later, in May, 1763, the conspiracy con-spiracy of Pontiac, the great Ottawa Otta-wa chieftain, broke like a storm along the frontier. One after an- f f u If if "f ' A 1 i FT i v "lfiirn,ftr'f ii.f m i-iVii-iiii.iMytfiifii;riiiiritr COL. HENRY BOUQUET other the chain of British posts fell, either from treacherous attack or j from assault by overwhelming forces I of Indians. Only Detroit and Fort Pitt held out and if the latter post fell, Pontiac might well make good his threat to "drive the English into in-to the sea." In this crisis the Swiss adventurer was called upon to save the day by marching to the relief of Fort Pitt. It is no overstatement to call his expedition a "forlorn hope," for when he arrived at Carlisle late in June, he found there neither adequate ade-quate stores nor transport which he had ordered only panic-stricken refugees from the west. He had a i " t I ; - : , i Colors of the 60th Royal Americans Ameri-cans in the Chapel of Saint Cornelius the Centurion, Governors Island, New York. force of little more than 500 men. composed of a detachment of his own regiment; the 60th Royal Americans, Amer-icans, and portions of two regiments, the 42nd Highlanders (the famous "Black Watch") and the 77th (Montgomery's) (Mont-gomery's) Highlanders, which had recently been invalided home from the West Indies. With this "army" Bouquet reached Fort Bedford, the first leg of his 200-mile journey, on July 25. There a force of experienced rangers joined him and they proved invaluable invalua-ble as an advance guard against ambush. am-bush. By August 5 he was nearing his goal. About noon of that day, after a forced march of 17 miles through the hot forests, he reached a place called Edge Hill, 25 miles from j Fort Pitt. Suddenly there were rifle shots ahead and screaming war-whoops. war-whoops. The Indians had attacked his advance guard. The two light infantry companies of the "Black Watch" went to their support and scattered the Indians. But they , came swarming back immediately im-mediately and within a short time his little army was surrounded and fighting for their lives behind a hastily has-tily constructed defense on top of the hill. By nightfall Bouquet's losses, in killed and vjotscded, were more than 60iOfficers and men. A Desperate Situation. It was probably as desperate a situation as any military commander command-er had ever faced. In the dark forest for-est around him swarmed a force of savages three or four times the size of his. Flushed with their recent successes in capturing the British posts and remembering how they had overwhelmed Braddock, who had more than three times as many soldiers sol-diers as did Bouquet, the Indians were confident of another great victory. vic-tory. Outside the little circle of piled-up supplies, which formed the walls of his "fort," lay the bodies of 25 soldiers, killed in the fighting that afternoon. Inside there was suffering suffer-ing from undressed wounds and heat and thirst. For there was little water wa-ter to he had pyfpni f- f... Cious mouthfuls, brought in the hats of some of the rangers who risked their lives to creep down to a spring nearby to get it. The hot dawn of August 6, 1763, brought a renewal of the Indian attack. at-tack. Slowly but surely their plunging plung-ing fire cut down the number of defenders on the hill. At last, Bouquet, Bou-quet, seeing that destruction of his command was inevitable if this unequal un-equal kind of fighting continued, resolved re-solved to attempt one risky maneu- VPr anH UfaOor Q,rn...tkiu desperate chance. If he could get the enemy out into the open long enough to give his Highlanders an opportunity for. a bayonet charge, one such decisive stroke might end the affair. Explaining clearly to his men what he wanted them to do, so there would be no mistake and no confusion confu-sion when the crisis came, Bouquet ordered the two companies of Highlanders High-landers to withdraw suddenly from the line, retreat rapidly across the hill until they reached a little ravine ra-vine which ran along one side of the eminence. They were then to advance ad-vance down this ravine and be ready to attack from it when necessary Meanwhile the Royal Americans were to extend their line across the hill to replace the Highlanders . As the kilted Scotsmen withdrew the Indians, seeing this maneuver and believing it to be the beginning of a retreat, came screeching out from their hiding places like a pack of famished wolves. Charging out into the open they struck the thi and weakened line of the Royal Americans which began to waver under the force of the savage onset. For a moment the issue hung in the .balance with disaster just a hairsbreadth away. Then the Royal Roy-al Americans stiffened their resistance resist-ance just long enough. Out of the ravine came charging the Highlanders Highland-ers who poured a volley at point-blank point-blank range into the flank of the red mob. The Finishing Touch. Although greatly surprised, the Indians In-dians faced about and returned the fire. But before they could reload, the Highlanders were bearing down upon them with their bayonetted guns and the red men realized that they were trapped. Then Bouquet put the finishing touch upon his daring dar-ing maneuver. Once more taking a desperate chance, he again broke his line and threw two companies out of the circle cir-cle on the other flank of the enemy. The flying Indians, retreating - before be-fore the grim-faced Highlanders, ran squarely into the Royal Americans i and withered away before the volley vol-ley which swept their line. A few moments later the savages had fled, leaving Bouquet and his men in full possession of the field. ' It had been a dearly bought victory. vic-tory. Fifty of his men had been killed, 60 wounded and five were missing, a total casualty list of 115, nearly a fourth of his entire force. But Bouquet had saved his army. Fort Pitt and Pennsylvania. It took him four long days to march the remaining 25 miles to Fort Pitt. But the Indians had had enough. They had suffered a loss of more than 60 killed and many more wounded. wound-ed. There was little opposition to his advance and when he reached that outpost and raised the siege, it sounded the death knell to the high hopes of the great Pontiac. Within a year the Ottawa's confederation of tribes had collapsed and the last threat to English occupation of North America was ended. The next year Bouquet scored an equally briliant success in an expedition ex-pedition into the heart of the Indian country beyond the Ohio. With two Pennsylvania battalions he cut a roaa into the wilderness of the Muskingum Mus-kingum valley. There he summoned the Indians to a council to demand, not merely ask, that they cease their raids upon the English settlements. Moreover, he demanded and secured the release of more than 300 white captives who were restored to their families. Bouquet's brilliant campaigning brought him the thanks of the King and the colonial assemblies of Virginia Vir-ginia and Pennsylvania. He was promoted to brigadier-general but he did not live long to enjoy his honors. He died of the yellow fever at Fort St. George (Pensacola, Fla ) in 1766. The great commander of the 60th Royal Americans might die. but the regiment lived on. After Bouquet's .death, British troops in the South were commanded by Augustine Pre-vost, Pre-vost, another Swiss adventurer who had become lieutenant colonel in command of the 60th in 1761. During Dur-ing the Revolution the regiment was in the expedition led by Prevost which marched north to the conquest con-quest of Georgia and the first battalion bat-talion took part in the successful defense of Savannah in 1779, against a combined French and American force. In the Revolution. Parts of the-regiment fought with Lord Rawdon at Hobkirk's Hill and were with Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Guildford Court House It was also with that luckless commander com-mander when he laid down his rm and surrendered to Washington at Yorktown in 1781. But whatever enmities, en-mities, growing out of the Revolution, Revolu-tion, there may have been between Briton and American they have long since been forgotten. Today there hangs in the Chapel of Saint Cornelius the Centurion on Governors island, New York the colors of the 60th Royal Americans (Pictured above). They were pre-sented pre-sented to the chapel in 1921 by Field Marshal Lord Grenfell on behalf ol the officers and men of the King's Royal Rifle corps, lineal descendant of the 60th Royal American A hat time they were the symbo 'of a radi ion shared by the British arrny and the American army-the traH, tion of Britons and Americans gh ' and dying side by side whila fighting a savage foe in the fore of western Pennsylvania one hot Au gust day back in 1763. Today tho" colors are a symbol of the same t d.tion-the tradition of Britons and by" Rh?S d dying sid France Ualy a,ld |