The Barracks

Unable to meet the problems of domestic social welfare, the British could not vanquish the danger of rebel violence either, in the hinterlands or in the area surrounding the regions they captured. Staten Islanders were “terrorized daily” by Patriots and Loyalists. The experience was similar in Westchester, eastern Jersey, and Long Island, “a semi-lawless no man’s land.” The British vowed to restore the rule of law. Yet it only deteriorated. And now their own men, high and low, contributed to the plunder, kidnapping, sexual violence, murder, and black-market corruption.

Yet average British soldier fared poorly, too. Here at the main Barracks, 300 to 500 were housed 20 apiece in rooms measuring 21 square feet. This included wives and children, surviving on half and quarter rations. Most soldiers lived in tents or huts (“cantonments”) around the city, or in bivouacs on the waterfront. British officers praised their diligence and valor, but the rank-and-file were often highly disillusioned. They were increasingly barred from taverns alongside dogs because of their heavy drinking, an escape from the boredom and the brutality. And, increasingly hated by the population they were sent to ostensibly protect, they were usually buried in their own unmarked graves, thousands of miles from home.

Still, for all its hierarchy, brutality, and squalor, military life was as good, sometimes better, than urban life in Britain. The average man was thirty, with ten years of service (a “career soldier”). And most were former artisans: shoemakers and coopers, bakers and blacksmiths, barbers and bricklayers. They were diverse, too, not just English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, but Canadian, Swedish, Danish, Austrian, Swiss, Dutch, Polish, even the odd American. Soldiers from the Germanic states (“Hessians”) made up an increasing share of the “British” force, perhaps 30,000 in all.

The officer corps was equally demoralized. Even though rebels spent most of the war in retreat, the British military leadership expected a quick victory, like most of Europe. By any measure of strength and experience, they should have won, easily. They were veterans of many brilliantly successful campaigns, who had built one of the largest empires in history, and seemed to hold many advantages. Until recently, they were blamed for the defeat by historians on both sides of the Atlantic. And they are still lampooned in popular culture as incompetent and corrupt aristocrats — purchasing their military ranks, deploying weak strategy, and championing unbridled monarchy. But in fact, these commanders were children of the Enlightenment, and often Whigs (like the rebels and many Loyalists), who shifted tactics adroitly.

The real problem was not ideological or individual but material. The British struggled with a fragmentary bureaucracy, like the rebel military. But they also had far greater logistical challenges. Nearly 3,500 miles away from home, a 2-4 month voyage in either direction, they had to care for an enormous soldiery, plus tens of thousands of camp followers, runaway slaves, Native allies, Loyalists, refugees, and P.O.W.’s. Nature made scheduling and coordination of the supply chain virtually impossible.

And London imposed hard economic constraints. The English were among the most heavily taxed people on Earth, with a deficit that had grown fourteen times in the 1700s alone. Payments on the debt ate up more than three-quarters of the budget. And Parliament had to supply twenty-seven garrisons in North America. But it soon found itself facing the prospect of revolution in Ireland and invasion by France and Spain.

England had relied on partners to grow its empire. But the crown had alienated Prussia, its main ally during the mid-century wars. Now it stood alone, more alone than it would ever be in its history. Once the French, Spanish, and Dutch joined, the war expanded dramatically for Great Britain. They had to fight to defend colonies in the West Indies, the Mediterranean, west Africa, and India, where the last battle of the “American” Revolution was fought.

Such challenges had bedeviled great powers since ancient times, empires often avoiding direct territorial control for this reason: counterinsurgencies are economically and politically draining, competitors always stand waiting.