"Light Infantry Standards" Topic

Did light infantry regiments, British and American, carry standards with them?

No

That's good, since mine don't have any.

Interestingly, Lafayette "adopted" two Light Infantry battalions. He went back to France for a brief visit, and when he returned he brought with him brand spanking new musketsm uniforms, caps and flags.
Here is one of them:

from link

So, both of my Lafayette LI battalions have flags, but no other ones.
I can argue that these troops were elite line infantry, and the flags are cool.
I do wonder why a cannon is on a LI flag, though.

Yes, I know that this is the Danish site that I ridicule for copying Warflag. But, I have seen it elsewhere.

Lafayette was a spoiled rich kid, so he could do what he wanted. Hey, he brought them muskets too!

I do agree though, that as a general rule in 99% of OTHER cases, LI battalions did NOT have flags or colours.

For further clarification, the British light infantry battalions were comprised of the flank companies that were detached from their parent regiments, thus they would not bring the regimental colours with them, as these would remain with the parent regiment.

Most of the American light units were ad hoc groups formed for a particular battle or campaign, so they too would likely have not brought colours or flags with them. Light infantry really was not formalized until Lafayette formed his light infantry battalions towards the end of the war.

As a general rule, light infantry units did not have colours at all, or if they did – or if they were line units operating in a light infantry role – they tended to leave them in storage, as the role and the nature of the terrain made them less useful as guides/markers/rallying points, and equally put them more at risk of being captured.

The first American/Continental light infantry were the ranger companies formed by some States in 1775, and which fought in Canada and at Haarlem Heights. The first attempt to copy the converged Light Battalions in British service was Maxwell's battalion, which saw action at Brandywine; a similar unit, under Dearborn, served alongside Morgan's riflemen at Saratoga. In 1778, there were battalions of "picked men" assembled from small detachments drawn from every unit in a brigade, which formed the bulk of Lee's advance guard at Monmouth.

The Corps of Light Infantry was only formed in 1779, after a reorganisation of the Continental battalion structure saw a dedicated light company added to the 8 "hat" companies. These were later augmented by further "light" battalions that were in effect a return to the "picked men" units of the early years.

As the OFM says, the only units out of all of these to carry colours were those commanded by La Fayette, who brought the flags over from France (although I thought there were 3, rather than just 2).

DAF has explained why the British light battalions had no flags; in theory, though, the Highland regiments in the Crown forces – which would have flags – were supposed to operate rather like Austrian Grenzers/Croats and had done so during the WAS and SYW/FIW. This idea may have slipped somewhat by 1775, but the 42nd and 71st were both kept as part of the elite reserve under Cornwallis, and often operated independently, and were often also a "must have" on many raids in both the Philadelphia and Southern campaigns, so possibly this idea may have retained some credence.

John,

You kid too well sometimes, I am afraid some people new to the period might think you are serious about the "Last Argument of Kings" light infantry flag. Especially because you nailed the rich French kid element and of course you know it is true he also provided uniforms and equipment.

Author/Reenactor Todd Braisted of the recreated New Jersey Volunteers has pulled up a number of deserter accounts regarding the Lafayette provided light infantry flags. Apparently more than a few Americans were ticked off by the gaul and did not want to fight under a "French flag."

Todd gave me permission to report this information on this site. The full report can be found on the Rev War list. One of the deserter reports provided this information about the flags:

"They have Received New Colours white A Flower Deleua and Small Stripes. The Troops will not fight under French Colours. They say the[y] would rather
fight against the French."

Anyone know, would that be a water flower?

Redcoat, I hand painted my ULTIMA RATIO flag from a book.
Your argument is not with me, but my source. I forget which one, but it is in more than one source.

Besides I would never intentionally mislead anyone about something as vitally important as flags.
I got it from a credible source that called it a LI flag. I also expressed puzzlement.

Sorry John, I really thought you were joking.

So, what were the uniforms Lafayette brought back like? There's a small pic in Funcken of a bloke in sky-blue faced white with a French style Tarleton. Could that be it?

Perhaps he was making reference to a water lilly? Not a big jump from there what the flower might be.

The uniforms Lafayette brought back were brown or blue, faced white. Standard cut coat with LI caps.

Again, I forget my source, but I used Hinchliffe "X" Range AWI LI and RSM LI, both very similar and by the same sculptor.

Funcken is … funky when dealing with the AWI in the American book. Spectacular pictures, though! (Love the Hessians and Brunswickers!)
Not to cut Funcken, but they drew from the same sources that a few other dodgy sources did for some of the uniforms.

The flag issue is the reason I've discounted the Monmouth Historical Society's claim that they have "LtCol Monckton's flag."

Converged grenadiers and lights did not have flags.

What does the alleged Monckton flag look like?

It looks like a rebel flag of some sort.

The Monmouth HS have put the flag away into storage – at least they had when I was there several years ago. I think perhaps they got sick of hearing how it obviously wasn't a British flag (wrongsize, wrong deisgn, wrong unit, etc).

Most observers have agreed that it probably is AWI era, but is most likely a grand division colour from a Pennsylvania regiment, donated by a descendant of one of the unit's officers.

I tried Googling that flag, but came up with nothing.
Any links, so we can all shake our heads in pity at it?

I am curious about what it looks like.

I had the good fortune to see the flags captured by Tarleton at the Waxhews. Some of them had blank spaces to put a regiment's number on at a later date! They were captured before that could happen!

OFM – Can't find one, but from memory it is pale yellow or buff, with somewhat crude "grand union" in the canton. I did have the dimensions somewhere, but it is clearly too small for a British flag.

SM is spot on what the flag looks like. The new Monmouth Battlefield Musuem will be opening up this June, and I am anxious to see if they have the flag on display.

FYI – Mount Vernon had a gold button numbered "22" on display and the card said it was from George Washington's F&I uniform. My point being, museums sometimes get stuff wrong – for a variety of reasons.