AbstractThis dissertation is about the Loyalist Regiments of the American Revolution, 1775-1783. These were the formal regiments formed by the British, consisting of Americans who stayed Loyal to the British crown during the American Revolutionary War. They fought in most of the main campaigns of this war and in 1783 left with the British Army for Canada, where many of them settled. The Loyalist regiments have been neglected by academic historians with only one major work on them as a group. The intention of this dissertation is to give them their proper place in the historiography of the American Revolutionary War and of eighteenth century military history. The dissertation is laid out in the following way. Chapter one, will be an overview of the history of Regiments, from their origins in Colonial days until 1783. It will assess how they were dealt with by the British and examine both organisation and combat. Chapter two is a thematic chapter looking principally at the organisation of the regiments as well as their motivation and composition. The next four chapters are case studies of three Loyalist regiments. Chapters three and four are a case study of the Queens Rangers. A database of all the soldiers who served in this regiment was created and is included with this dissertation. Chapter five is about the controversial regiment, the British Legion. Chapter 6 is a case study of the frontier regiment Butler?s Rangers.

Summary: The story of the American Revolution and of the Loyalists who fled to Canada after Britain lost. Discusses who they were, why they acted the way they did, and their influence on Canadian history.

To celebrate the 450th title in the Men-at-Arms series, this book examines in much more depth than previously the units and the uniforms of a still-controversial army: the many thousands of American colonists who chose to fight for King George during the Revolution. As well as the better-known corps from the Atlantic seaboard, the author covers the units raised for service against the Spanish in the Floridas, the Caribbean islands and Central America. The text is illustrated with portraits, photographs of rare surviving artefacts, and with color reconstructions by Gerry Embleton, the respected expert on 18th century American forces whose work was recently exhibited in the Smithsonian Institute.

In this thought-provoking history, Gilbert illuminates how the fight for abolition and equality - not just for the independence of the few but for the freedom and self-government of the many - has been central to the American story from its inception."--Pub. desc.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER This groundbreaking book offers the first global history of the loyalist exodus to Canada, the Caribbean, Sierra Leone, India, and beyond. At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousand Americans loyal to the British cause fled the United States and became refugees throughout the British Empire. Liberty’s Exiles tells their story. This surprising new account of the founding of the United States and the shaping of the post-revolutionary world traces extraordinary journeys like the one of Elizabeth Johnston, a young mother from Georgia, who led her growing family to Britain, Jamaica, and Canada, questing for a home; black loyalists such as David George, who escaped from slavery in Virginia and went on to found Baptist congregations in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone; and Mohawk Indian leader Joseph Brant, who tried to find autonomy for his people in Ontario. Ambitious, original, and personality-filled, this book is at once an intimate narrative history and a provocative analysis that changes how we see the revolution’s “losers” and their legacies.