"Hanoverian Sachsen-Gotha Infantry" Topic

Particularly during the French invasion and around the battle of Hastenbeck, can I safety assume the Battalion carried a Hanoverian Kings colour as well as its original Duchy of Sachsen-Gotha Battalion flag?

According to Stephen Summerfield's excellent "Hanoverian Army of the Seven Years War, the Sachsen-Gotha Regiment was raised in 1751, taken into Hanoverian service (under British pay) in 1757 and fully integrated into the Hanoverian Army in 1759 (IR9a). Their 3 page entry has illustrations showing their 1751-59 uniform as white with green facings, changing to red with green facings in 1759. It also has their campaign history, including Hastenbeck, Mehr, Minden, Vellinghausen, Wilhelmstal and Lutterberg, plus names of their Inhaber from 1751 to 1798.

Their flags are shown as normal Hanoverian White Liebfahne and Green Regimental flag with a lion passant (standing) bearing a raised sword in its right front paw. There is a green wreath around the lion and a scroll above bearing the motto "PRO FIDE REGE ET LEGE".

The entry says that, according to von Wissel, the Regiment received new flags, drums and grenadier caps on entering Hanoverian service (ie in 1757, before the Battle of Hastenbeck).

Rod

I have the excellent Summerfield book, but don;t recall it saying if they wore the old white and green uniform at Minden or their new red faced green one? What do you all think?

Terry

To clarify: In 1751 2 guard grenadier companies and 2 new companies of Sachs-Gotha were formed into a battalion entitled the Herzogin Battalion. On 15 April 1757 it was brought into the British service (not Hanover) and given the name Erbprinzen Regiment. On 25 January 1759 the regiment moved to the Hanoverian Army (supposedly complete with their new red coats) as the Sachs-Gotha Regiment. Thereafter it was relegated to guarding the Hanoverian heavy artillery. It was all a bit complex in 1757 as the rest their fellow "Sachs-Gothans" went off as a battalion to serve the commitment to the Empire in the Reichsarmee. I have this vague recollection of the mention of white coats later in a 1759 letter, so I will see if I can find it, but I think the winter of 1759 is when the new uniforms arrived. The common sources list the generalities that are in recent books.

Re the last post
I was looking at my copies of Tessin, Sichart and Lawson when I answered. I just went to the SYW Project site and see that it has the same info, presumably from the same common sources. The Wissel book, Truppen…. also confirms. I got an original of Wissel at Harvard about 40 years ago to photo-copy (microfilm), but I see that even it is available on-line. Sigh!

Thanks Tricorne, So it sounds like at Minden they were still wearing the white faced green. Great, as that is how I would prefer to do them….just for a little variety.

Terry

No Terry. As I said, the new uniforms (drums and all) would have been received shortly after 25 January 1759, so the unit would have had the red coats during the 1759 campaigns.
In the 1970's I painted them in white coats using Austrian Garrison 25mm figures based on the drawing in Lawson, just because they looked cool.

Tricorne, Thanks for the clarification.

Terry