Hello everyone, and happy 4th of July to my fellow Americans or North Americans, as my Colombian wife would say.
Just finished most of my research on the 12e Legere and found some interesting service records. Below can be seen the service record of an Italian officer named Joseph-Louis-Antoine-Melchior Cerboni, who served in America as a Caporal with the Royal Italian Regiment in 1781, 1782, and 1783 with General Comte de Grasse. He was wounded at the naval battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782. Here is a link to a description of the battle. A quick search shows that from "1781 to 1783: detachments of this regiment fought in ship garrison during the American War of Independence, in particular on the Le Pluton and Le Glorieux ships ( Admiral de Grasse" link
Also, an interesting website that helped me find which regiments served in the Americas can be found at this link
For AWI fans, here is a link to the controls de troupes of the Régiment d'infanterie Royal italien from 1747-1776. On the left of the screen all french regiments prior the the French Revolution can be found and searched. link I will try to find his name in the list and post it later.
For us Napoleonic fans, the 52-year-old Capit. Cerboni served in the Peninsular war with Junot and was wounded on 29 July 1808 at the Battle of Evora link On 1 February 1809, Capit. Cerboni was recorded as the commander of the 4th Company of the 5th depot battalion located in Paris. He would retire only a few months later on 1 March 1809 after 45 years of service, lucky to miss out on serving in Austria where the 5th Battalion was sent to Strasbourg on March 9th under the order of the former Chef de Bat. of the 12e Legere Major Oudot of the 15e Legere.
Service record from Base Leonore, shows the signature of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, link and his service record found in the 2YB files of the 12e Legere.
goes to sea with the Terrain Mat.
