"US Unit Database" Topic

This sounds like an obvious question, but is there an online database of the American regiments of the AWI ?

The books I have seem to present many fractions of the whole but don't appear to come close to covering all the different units.

This seems very odd compared to the Napoleonic wars where despite there being a couple of dozen nations involved each with up to 200 regiments each, information is fairly easy to find.

So, is there a single online source that will simply say -

Name, Raised, Fought at, Disbanded/Captured/Destroyed, Date

TIA

Simple answer no. Why would there be? By available on the internet I suspect you also mean free at point of use? For the information that you seek I am afraid it is back to boring old books.

Probably the closest thing that you are looking for is:

Fred Anderson Berg "Encyclopedia of Continental Army Units: Battalions, Regiments and Independent Corps" published in 1972 by Stackpole Books. – top tip buy definitely worth the money.

Robert K Wright's "The Continental Army" can be downloaded here:

link

Heitman's Historical Register of the officers of the Continental Army is available here:

link

A number of publications deal with regiments from individual states: Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolinia, Delaware, Maryland but these can be difficult to find and expensive.

You could also try looking through Greg Novak's two volumes dealing with with orbats etc that were published by Old Glory (and used to be listed on their website) or the earlier edition that was published by Pickelhaube or someone similar. Lastly you might get something from Boatner's Encyclopedia the the American Revolution which can be had quite cheaply if you avoid the two volume re-vamp.

The Berg encyclopedia will also give you the names of the COs at various times in the war – important as units were often referred to by the name of the commander – as well as where appropriate, any units that were amalgamated to form it, or that it later merged into.

It should be available through larger public libraries, or smaller ones if they are part of the inter-loan service.

Why not ? Because it seems a logical thing to exist given how much Napoleonic information there is on the web.

The AWI was only 30 years earlier, and literacy and information storage wasn't any worse.

The fact that it gave rise to the US is a matter of great pride on that side of the pond, and I am a little surprised to hear that such a database doesn't exist …

I bought the Novak books from Old Glory at Historicon 2013 so they may still have copies.

Well, the Berg book is available (ex-library) for just a few dollars, but only on Amazon.com. Amazon.com will not ship to the UK. Grrrrrr ……

However, after speaking with a friend it's on it's way to me – albeit via Missouri. :-)

Guthroth

I am glad that you have been able to get a copy of Berg's encyclopedia. Perhaps when you have free time you will spend it entering all the date into a web database freely accessible to all?

To be serious most of the freely available material on the web has been put there through the efforts of individuals or organisations. Where such freely available materials exist it is a great boon but it is a great mistake to assume that everything will be available on the net everywhere for free. Someone has to do the work to get it there. Enjoy Berg's book it is a treasure trove ;-)

For many units it is relatively easy to track history through sources on the net. Nafziger's orders of battle found at link is one source for which units fought where. The Carolana website has information on OOBs for actions in the Carolinas. For Loyalists a starting point would be link and for British it would be fifedrum.org/crfd/BD_1R.htm .