LOD010 (British Regular Army)

At the outset of the American War of Independence, the British Army’s largest combat arm – the infantry – numbered seventy regiments of foot. With one exception, these regiments were single-battalion organizations. Each battalion had ten companies and an authorized peacetime strength of 477 officers and men. A regiment’s tallest and strongest men belonged to the grenadier company, which specialized in spearheading assaults. Smaller and especially agile fellows composed the light infantry company, which would screen a regiment’s front, guard its flanks, and engage in open-order skirmishing. The rest of the regiment’s personnel went into its eight battalion companies. These soldiers were also known as “hatmen” because they wore cocked hats instead of the grenadier’s tall bearskin or the light infantryman’s leather cap. Throughout the Revolutionary War, British commanders invariably detached grenadier and light infantry companies from their parent regiments and brigaded them with troops