It’s interesting to get a chance to see yourself through someone else’s eyes — especially if that person has a very different perspective from yours. But it’s even rarer and more interesting to get a glimpse through the eyes of someone who was once on the other side but then decided to join your side.
A lot of people deserted during the Revolutionary War. Some, especially on the American side, just went home when they got a taste of real battle, or when they didn’t feel like living under army discipline any more. But many — both British and Americans — deserted to the other side. Maybe they did it on grounds of principle; maybe it was purely self-serving; maybe they just figured the other side would win. After all, the grass is always greener on the other side, and who wants to be on the losing team anyway?
I’d like to tell a little of the story of one man who deserted in late 1774 or early 1775, before the war started. I don’t know his name or much about him, only that he deserted from a British regiment in Boston, with some help, and made his way to Charleston, South Carolina. He was evidently a young man who had some wild living in his past — “my days of folly”, he called it. In February 1775, he wrote to his father, who was a tradesman in York, England, to convince him how much he had matured, and to tell him why he hadn’t written in so long:
Honoured Father,
From the tender affection you always professed for me, your unworthy child, I can easily conceive the pangs your heart must have felt at my long but involuntary silence; know then, that I am now as happy and free as I could wish; unless being denied the liberty of returning to my native land, for the pleasure of seeing you, and convincing you that I have lived over my days of folly. How I came to this place it is necessary to inform you. After our regiment arrived at Boston, I found my wretched situation made so much worse by confinement (although I had obtained a halbert) that I resolved to take the first opportunity of leaving my colours; it was a considerable time before I could do it with safety; at last, with the assistance of a young fellow from Shields, I effected my escape; but the fatigue I suffered for the first [day], from a hurry of spirits, and the labour of walking, is as much beyond my abilities to describe, as is the infinite joy I felt the second day, when I found myself once more possessed of liberty and safety.
The hospitable kindness I received from the county people, in my way from Boston to this place, is beyond my description; if I could have rode an hundred horses I might have had them; every man that owned one offered him to me, and all brought me out their best fare. Before I knew these people, I was shocked at the thought of being sent out to cut their throats, and resolved not to turn human butcher, for it is no better, to destroy my friends and countrymen. Now I know them, I find them the best hearted, generous people in the world, ready to give everything to strangers. I am now down at Charles Town, and have several engagements offered me, to be clerk on different plantations, but I intend accepting a plot of land that is offered me, some distance from this town, where the gentlemen have proposed to build me a house, give me some tools, and lend me some negroes to settle…
We hear several regiments are coming out [from England]; if that is true, they can do nothing in this country. I understand it is determined to oppose them, though that will be unnecessary, for there were not three men in my company who would fire on the people of this country; I am sure there was not one Englishman or Irishman that would do so; be assured, if the army moves up the country, they will soon want a number of recruits, as all the men know they can change a life of beggary, as well as slavery, for liberty, and have a portion of land forever…
The people here that know most, tell me their troubles will soon be over, and some of the great men at home must suffer, and then there will be pardon for all deserters; when that happens I shall certainly come once more to Old England, to see my aged parents and dearest friends…
It sounds like this young soldier was inclined to wishful thinking. Things didn’t turn out as nicely as he hoped: there were plenty of redcoats quite willing to shoot rebels, the war dragged on a long time, and the British never issued a pardon for all deserters.
As I read his letter, I wonder whether he really got the land he had been promised, and whether he was successful at starting his own farm. I wonder whether he ever regretted his decision to leave the British army, and whether he was involved in any fighting during the war. I wonder whether he was ever caught by the British (if so, he was probably executed). And I wonder whether he ever saw his parents again.
Source
Letters on the American Revolution, 1774-1776, ed. Margaret Wheeler Willard, 60-62.