Historical Record of the Fourteenth, or the King's, Regiment of Light Dragoons: Containing an Account of the Formation of the Regiment and of Its Subsequent ServicesCannon, Richard
History
Historical Record of the Fourteenth, or the King's, Regiment of Light Dragoons: Containing an Account of the Formation of the Regiment and of Its Subsequent Services
Cannon, Richard
Great Britain. Army -- History; Great Britain. Army. Regiment of Light Dragoons, 14th
This alteration served as a precedent for subsequent changes; and
further experience, during the American war, from 1775 to 1783,
confirming the value of Light Cavalry, the SEVENTH, EIGHTH, NINTH,
TENTH, ELEVENTH, THIRTEENTH, and FOURTEENTH Regiments of Dragoons
were changed from _heavy_ to _light_. The Light Dragoons attached to
the heavy regiments were incorporated into newly-raised corps, and
the following regiments of
LIGHT DRAGOONS
_Were embodied in 1779._
NINETEENTH,--by Major-General Russell Manners;--disbanded in 1783.
TWENTIETH,--by Major-General Richard Burton Phillipson;--disbanded
in 1783.
TWENTY-FIRST,--by Major-General John Douglas;--disbanded in 1783.
TWENTY-SECOND,--by Lieut.-Colonel John Lord Sheffield;--disbanded
in 1783.
_Embodied in 1781._
TWENTY-THIRD,--by Lieut.-General Sir John Burgoyne, Baronet, for
service in India, and was numbered the NINETEENTH after the peace
in 1783. This regiment signalized itself on numerous occasions in
India, and was rewarded with the honour of bearing on its guidons
and appointments the _Elephant_, with the words _Assaye_ and
_Seringapatam_. The word _Niagara_ was also added in commemoration
of the gallantry of two troops, in the year 1813, in North America.
In 1817 it was constituted a corps of LANCERS. It was disbanded in
Ireland in 1821.
Thus a few years had produced a great change in the British Army.
Twenty-five years previously to the termination of the American war
there was not a single Light Dragoon Regiment in the Service, and
in 1783 there were seventeen; four of them were disbanded at that
period, and thirteen retained in the Service.
Soon after the termination of the American war, the French monarch
having, by aiding the rebellious British provincials, taught his
own subjects a lesson of insubordination, was deprived of the reins
of government; and the violent conduct of the French revolutionists
in the West Indies occasioned the TWENTIETH or JAMAICA REGIMENT OF
LIGHT DRAGOONS to be raised in 1791 by Colonel Henry F. Gardner,
for service in that island. Besides its services in Jamaica,
detachments of this regiment served at Malta; Sicily; at the taking
of the Cape of Good Hope, in 1806; at the capture of Alexandria, in
1807; at the attack on Monte Video; in Portugal; at Genoa; and on
the eastern coast of Spain; and acquired the honour of bearing the
word _Peninsula_ on its guidons and appointments. It was disbanded
in Ireland in 1818.
War with France commenced in 1793, and was followed by
augmentations to the Army. It was not found necessary to add a
single Heavy Cavalry Regiment; but the following Regiments of
LIGHT DRAGOONS
_Were incorporated in 1794._
TWENTY-FIRST,--by Lieut.-Colonel Thomas R. Beaumont. This regiment
served at the Cape of Good Hope and in India thirteen years;
a detachment was sent to do duty at St. Helena, when Napoleon
Buonaparte was removed thither. This regiment was disbanded at
Chatham in 1820.
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