William Eyre | |
|---|---|
| Born | unknown |
| Died | 1764 |
| Allegiance |  Kingdom of Great Britain |
| Service/ |  British Army |
| Rank | Lieutenant-Colonel |
| Unit | Royal Engineers 44th Foot |
| Battles/wars | Battle of Lake George Battle of Carillon |
| Awards | Voted the thanks of the General Court of Rhode Island 1756 [1] |
| Relations | Mary Henzell, wife [2] |
William Eyre (died 1764) was an officer in the British Army during the French and Indian Wars.
Eyre served in the Royal Engineers during the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the War of the Austrian Succession. [3]
Eyre came to North America in 1755 as a captain in 44th Foot. He was sent by General Edward Braddock to attend General William Johnson as military Engineer upon his expedition to erect Forts on the Hudson, at the foot of Lake George, and at Crown-Point. [4] He was also made quartermaster general and director of artillery for the campaign, making three roles he filled as the only British regular officer in the otherwise American colonial militia and Mohawk Indian army of General Johnson. Eyre's planned Fort Lyman – later renamed Fort Edward – under orders from General Phineas Lyman.
During the Battle of Lake George he commanded the artillery that defeated repeated French attacks. After the battle he planned and led the construction of Fort William Henry, becoming its first commandant. In 1757 he left the command to George Monro when the 35th Foot relieved the 44th. [3] During the Battle of Carillon (also known as the 1758 Battle of Ticonderoga) he was wounded leading his 888-men strong regiment during the failed attacks to take the French fort. [5] [6] He was later in charge of the rebuilding of Fort Ticonderoga. [7] Having been promoted to Major in the 44th in 1756, [8] he became an Engineer in Ordinary in 1758 [5] and Chief Engineer of the Army and Lieutenant-Colonel in his regiment in 1759. [9]
Eyre drowned off the English coast in November 1764 on his way home. [2]
Fort Ticonderoga, formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain, in northern New York, in the United States. It was constructed by Canadian-born French military engineer Michel Chartier de Lotbinière, Marquis de Lotbinière between October 1755 and 1757, during the action in the "North American theater" of the Seven Years' War, often referred to in the US as the French and Indian War. The fort was of strategic importance during the 18th-century colonial conflicts between Great Britain and France, and again played an important role during the Revolutionary War.
The Battle of Carillon, also known as the 1758 Battle of Ticonderoga, was fought on July 8, 1758, during the French and Indian War. It was fought near Fort Carillon on the shore of Lake Champlain in the frontier area between the British colony of New York and the French colony of New France.
Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Montcalm de Saint-Veran was a French soldier best known as the commander of the forces in North America during the Seven Years' War.
Fort Carillon, presently known as Fort Ticonderoga, was constructed by Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, Governor of New France, to protect Lake Champlain from a British invasion. Situated on the lake some 15 miles (24 km) south of Fort Saint Frédéric, it was built to prevent an attack on Canada and slow the advance of the enemy long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
The siege of Boston was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. In the siege, American patriot militia led by newly-installed Continental Army commander George Washington prevented the British Army, which was garrisoned in Boston, from moving by land. Both sides faced resource, supply, and personnel challenges during the siege. British resupply and reinforcement was limited to sea access, which was impeded by American vessels. The British ultimately abandoned Boston after eleven months, moving their troops and equipment north, to Nova Scotia.
General James Abercrombie or Abercromby of Glassaugh, Banffshire was a British Army general and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1734 to 1754. He was commander-in-chief of forces in North America during the French and Indian War, best known for the disastrous British losses in the 1758 Battle of Carillon.
The 1759 Battle of Ticonderoga was a minor confrontation at Fort Carillon on July 26 and 27, 1759, during the French and Indian War. A British military force of more than 11,000 men under the command of General Sir Jeffery Amherst moved artillery to high ground overlooking the fort, which was defended by a garrison of 400 Frenchmen under the command of Brigadier General François-Charles de Bourlamaque.
Rogers' Rangers was a company of soldiers from the Province of New Hampshire raised by Major Robert Rogers and attached to the British Army during the Seven Years' War. The unit was quickly adopted into the British army as an independent ranger company. Robert Rogers trained and commanded the rapidly deployed light infantry force, which was tasked mainly with reconnaissance as well as conducting special operations against distant targets. Their tactics were built on earlier colonial precedents and were codified for the first time by Rogers as his 28 "Rules of Ranging". The tactics proved remarkably effective, so much so that the initial company was expanded into a ranging corps of more than a dozen companies. The ranger corps became the chief scouting arm of British Crown forces by the late 1750s. The British forces in America valued Rogers' Rangers for their ability to gather intelligence about the enemy. They were disbanded in 1761.
Major General John Bradstreet, born Jean-Baptiste Bradstreet was a British Army officer during King George's War, the French and Indian War, and Pontiac's War. He was born in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, to a British Army lieutenant and an Acadian mother. He also served as the Commodore-Governor for Newfoundland.
The New Hampshire Militia was first organized in 1631 and lasted until 1641, when the area came under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. After New Hampshire became an separate colony again in 1679, New Hampshire Colonial Governor John Cutt reorganized the militia on March 16, 1680, with one foot company apiece for the four major settlements in Portsmouth, Dover, Exeter and Hampton, and an artillery and cavalry company in Portsmouth. The King of England authorized the Provincial Governor to give commissions to persons who shall be best qualified for regulating and discipline of the militia. President Cutt placed Major Richard Waldron of Dover in command of the Militia. In 1879, the Militia was designated by the state as the New Hampshire National Guard.
The 1st New Jersey Regiment was the first organized militia regiment in New Jersey, formed in 1673 in Piscataway "to repel foreign Indians who come down from upper Pennsylvania and western New York to our shores and fill (themselves) with fishes and clams and on the way back make a general nuisance of themselves by burning hay stacks, corn fodder and even barns." The first commander and founder of the regiment was Captain Francis Drake (1615-1687) who served from 1673 to 1685. All of New Jersey's regular organized military forces trace their lineage to this first provincial militia unit.
Fort Loudoun was a fort in colonial Pennsylvania, one of several forts in colonial America named after John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun. The fort was built in 1756 during the French and Indian War by the Second Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiment under Colonel John Armstrong, and served as a post on the Forbes Road during the Forbes expedition that successfully drove the French away from Fort Duquesne. The fort remained occupied through Pontiac's War and served as a base for Colonel Henry Bouquet's 1764 campaign. In the 1765 Black Boys Rebellion, Fort Loudoun was assaulted by angry settlers, when their guns were confiscated after they destroyed supplies intended for Native Americans. The garrison retreated to Fort Bedford and the fort was abandoned.
The New Hampshire Provincial Regiment was a provincial military regiment made up of men from the New Hampshire Militia during the French and Indian War for service with the British Army in North America. It was first formed in 1754 with the start of hostilities with France.
Lieutenant-Colonel George Monro (1700–1757) was a Scots-Irish officer in the British Army. He is best remembered for his unsuccessful defense of Fort William Henry in 1757 during the French and Indian War. After surrendering with full honours of war to French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, he and his troops were attacked by France's Native allies. The events of the siege were made famous by James Fenimore Cooper in his novel The Last of the Mohicans.
Benjamin Hinman was a surveyor, soldier and legislator.
The 55th Regiment of Foot was a British Army infantry regiment, raised in 1755. After 1782 it had a county designation added, becoming known as the 55th (Westmorland) Regiment of Foot. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 34th (Cumberland) Regiment of Foot to form the Border Regiment in 1881.
The Virginia Regiment was formed in 1754 by the Colony of Virginia's Royal Governor Robert Dinwiddie, as a provincial corps. The regiment served in the French and Indian War, with members participating in actions at Jumonville Glen and Fort Necessity in 1754, the Braddock expedition in 1755, and the Forbes expedition in 1758. Small detachments of the regiment were involved in numerous minor actions along Virginia's extensive wilderness frontier.
The siege of Louisbourg was a pivotal operation of the Seven Years' War in 1758 that ended the French colonial era in Atlantic Canada and led to the subsequent British campaign to capture Quebec in 1759 and the remainder of French North America the following year.
Major-General John Barrington was a British Army officer who was the third son of John Barrington, 1st Viscount Barrington.
Provincial troops were military units raised by colonial governors and legislatures in British North America for extended operations during the French and Indian Wars. The provincial troops differed from the militia, in that they were a full-time military organization conducting extended operations. They differed from the regular British Army in that they were recruited only for one campaign season at the time. These forces were often recruited through a quota system applied to the militia. Officers were appointed by the provincial governments. During the eighteenth century militia service was increasingly seen as a prerogative of the social and economic well-established, while provincial troops came to be recruited from different and less deep-rooted members of the community.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
  | This biographical article related to the British Army is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
