By Fiona Fitzsimons
In the American War of Independence, the Irish fought on both sides of the conflict. In the British Army, about one in six of the ordinary soldiers and one in three of the officers were Irish. The army recruited the Irish poor at home and in the American colonies, offering incentives such as regular pay, food and clothing, as well as legal relief to debtors and convicted felons willing to enlist. We can trace Irish soldiers in the British Army Service and Pension Records (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-army-soldiers-up-to-1913/). Contemporaries estimated Irish involvement in the Continental Army at more than half of all enlisted men, although this figure is probably exaggerated. The size of the army fluctuated during the war—as few as 5,000 at its lowest and 30,000 at its peak, with an average strength between 15,000 and 20,000.
The Continental Army had an exceptionally high turnover. Soldiers enlisted for short terms, and many deserted before completing their service. These short enlistments exposed the gap between revolutionary ideology and wartime reality: colonists feared standing armies as instruments of tyranny; the Continental line relied on a decentralised system of recruitment organised by the individual states; and most enlisted men were farmers who could not set aside their livelihoods for extended military service. Harsh conditions and irregular pay all contributed to the high turnover.
The Continental Congress struggled to pay its soldiers, and rampant inflation ate into the value of the newly issued paper currency. In May 1778 Congress approved pay increases for officers but not for ordinary soldiers. As enlistments fell and the rate of desertions increased, the individual states offered cash and land bounties to soldiers who remained until the end of the war. Some states that had no available lands within their own borders instead granted bounty lands in the western territories. Connecticut offered land in Ohio, while Virginia and North Carolina offered lands in the territories that later became Kentucky and Tennessee.
During the eight years and five months of the Revolutionary War, an estimated 200,000 individuals served in the Continental Army, yet short enlistments, decentralised recruitment and archival destruction have left a fragmented paper trail. So how do we trace their records today?
The United States Revolutionary War Compiled Service Records 1775–1783 document c. 80,000 individual soldiers who served. The cards are arranged as ‘Continental Troops’ or under a state name, by organisation, then alphabetically by surname (https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/1849623).
The United States Revolutionary War Rolls 1775–1783 include muster rolls, pay rolls, strength returns and other personnel, pay and supply records of the Continental Army. Search by state and military unit (https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/2068326).
The United States Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Applications 1800–1900 comprise the application files of veterans and widows of veterans who served in the Revolutionary War. This collection includes the warrants for bounty land and the Pension Rolls 1835 collection, compiled to replace service files and records lost in archival disasters (https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/1417475).
Fiona Fitzsimons is a director of Eneclann, a Trinity Campus company, and of findmypast Ireland.