"Grenadiers in the Carolinas?" Topic

A large number were with Clinton at the 1780 Charleston siege. It appears one company of the 60th's grenadiers were with Prevost in Georgia and South Carolina in 1779, and there were the Guard's grenadiers in the Guilford Courthouse campaign. There were also the von Trumbach Hessians that fought with Prevost in 177 before being used for garrison duty. Aside from these were there any other grenadiers in the Carolinas in the 1779-81 campaign.

After Clinton kept the Flank battalions with him in the north, even if their parent battalion were in the South. The Guards flankers apart. He didn't want his best units whittled away by sickness and was concerned about an attack on New York.

You might want to look at the Provincial corps that served in the south. Rawdon's Volunteers of Ireland were organised with flank companies, on paper. Whether their grenadiers were kitted out with all the trimmings is another matter. It was intended that the whole unit, I believe, should wear light infantry-style caps.
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I suspect you will find similar circumstances with other Provincial regiments- Prince of Wales', New York Volunteers, De Lanceys, etc.

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Even the grenadiers of regular units who had retained their bearskin caps finally left them in store after the return from Philadelphia. The expensive items weren't practical and would not have survived long 'Southward.' Ditto the fusilier caps of the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Although Richard Scollins in his well-known Guilford Courthouse article from 1982 showed a Guards grenadier in a bearskin cap, subsequent research shows the whole brigade left for America in peaked felt caps.

There were some flank companies (3rd Foot and some others) at Eutaw Springs, including grenadiers. I'm at work so can't check all of the details.

Yes, the 3rd, 19th and 30th Foot arrived in America in "European" uniforms, so one assumes this meant the full kit for the flank companies. Typically, grenadiers did not wear their caps on the march, replacing them with normal hats; what the light companies wore for "everyday" may have depended on whether or not their light infantry caps had peaks, which would have been very useful in the Carolina sunshine (its absence was a common criticism of the "Keppel" cap).

The Foot Guards' flank companies always served with the Brigade; both companies appear to have adopted a peaked cap similar to the "jockey" style of the F&I War, but without the ear flaps – the grenadiers had a bursting grenade on the front flap, the light bobs had a stylised "L". Some details here:-

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As "42" suggests, both grenadier and light infantry caps were quite expensive, and since men in both companies were also issued with a new hat (as in cocked hat) every year, it makes sense to wear them whenever possible instead. It is worth noting that the Light Battalions are depicted in hats cocked on the left (often called "slouch hats") for the Philly campaign, and there is some pictorial evidence that the grenadiers may also have adopted this style by the time of Germantown, even if they did not always wear them in action (which they did do at Brandywine). It's also worth noting that the four Doolittle cartoons of Lexington and Concord show the British troops in hats, despite them all being grenadiers and lights (with which the Americans would have been familiar); ditto the Revere plagiarism of an earlier depiction of the Boston Massacre, even though the men involved were from the grenadier company.

At Eutaw Springs Majoribanks had a small battalion of converged lights and grenadiers, the only force in the Rawdon's line that never gave way.

Thanks for the info. I have a small pile of grenadiers and was trying to figure out the best way to use them, even if it wasn't 100% historical.