76th Foot (1)

The 76th Foot stems from Lord Harcourt's Regiment which was raised in November 1745 and disbanded the following year.  The regiment was raised again in 1756 as the 61st Foot and renumbered to the 76th in 1758.  After a second disbandment in 1763 the regiment was re-raised in December 1777as the 76th Regiment of Foot (Macdonald's Highlanders) by Colonel John MacDonell of Lochgarry, in the West of Scotland and Western Isles.  The regiment was disbanded in March 1784 but raised yet again in 1787 for service in India.  It's present day successor unit in (what's left of) the British Army is the Yorkshire Regiment. 

The regiment arrived in America in 1779.  The soldiers had initially refused to embark until the arrears of their pay and bounty had been settled.  After several days' protest, Lord Macdonald advanced the monies to the troops himself as an investigation had confirmed that the men's grievances were genuine.  The regiment was quartered in New York before embarking for Virginia in February 1781 to become part of Cornwallis' ill-fated final American command.  The 76th arrived in time to participate in the Battle of Petersburg (or Blandford) on 25 April 1781, in which a force of 2,500 British and Hessian troops under Brigadier General William Phillips bettered a much smaller force of Virginians under von Steuben.  On 6 July the regiment was part of Cornwallis' force that surprised Anthony Wayne at Green Spring.  In October the regiment entered captivity when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown.  I don't know if this regiment was the last British Army unit to arrive in America for the AWI, but it must have been close.  

In the published "British Grenadier!" scenario books, the 76th appear in two battles: Petersburg (volume 3) and the hypothetical Gloucester Point (volume 2 - a planner but abandoned British break-out attempt from Yorktown).  In the former, the scenario is pitched at a ratio of 1:15 which creates a large unit of 32 figures that is divided into two "wings" of 16 figures each.  In Goucester Point, there is just one unit of 24 figures.  So the way I'm approaching this regiment, using King's Mountain Miniatures figures, is to do one of the Petersburg wings in the marching pose and then a 24-figure unit in the charging pose that will do for the second wing and Gloucester Point.  This is the former.  The second unit will have the colours, as the ensign figures in the KMM range look to me more suited to the charging pose.  The musicians, however, clearly belong in a marching-posed unit and so you see those here.  The officer is actually standing, but I think he looks ok here as well.  The sergeant behind the drummer is perhaps in more of a "firing line" pose, but I thought he might look as if he's shouting at people to keep in line.  I paint all my Southern theatre units in a mixture of overall colours, beiges and browns mostly (and in my AWI collection only the 71st Foot get tartan trews).  The drummer would probably have a black drum-belt, in keeping with the black accoutrements for highlanders generally, but I thought white was more aesthetically pleasing.  The Perries make marching figures in their late war highlander range (which I used for my first two units of the 71st), but these KMM sculpts are worthy of consideration and are pretty similar in size.       

I was suprised to see that this is my first unit of British regulars in 3 years.  I'm currently working on the larger unit of charging figures and a third unit of 71st highlanders for use in the Stono Ferry scenario, which I suspect will be finished first.  Next up, though, will be a unit of loyalist militia using Galloping Major figures.

16 figures. Painted May to June 2014.