The 16th Regiment of Foot

The 16th Regiment of Foot was originally formed in October 1688 in Reading, Virginia to oppose a possible invasion by William of Orange (later William III after the Glorious Revolution); at this point it didn't have an actual name but was associated with its acting colonel. When William of Orange landed in England, King James abandoned his troops and went into exile. During the Nine Years War, the regiment served in Flanders and fought in the battles of Walcourt, Steenkirk, Neer Landen, and in the 1695 Siege of Namur. After the war, the regiment served garrison duty in Ireland. 

At the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1702, it returned to Flanders and served in Marlborough’s campaigns. It helped capture Liege in 1702 and fought at Schellenberg, Blenheim, Ramillies, the Oudenarde, and Malplaquet. After the war it was sent to Scotland where it held Fort William against the Jacobite Uprising of 1715. 

During the War of Jenkins’ Ear, it served in the West Indies and partook in the failed assault on Cartagena de Indias in modern Columbia. During its time in the Caribbean, it suffered nearly ninety percent attrition due to yellow fever. The regiment recuperated in England whilst the War of Jenkins' Ear was subsumed into the War of the Austrian Succession. Back up to strength, it again suffered heavy losses, this time due to actual warfare at Melle on the Continent. It retreated to Antwerp and then shifted to Scotland to suppress the Jacobite Uprising of 1745, arriving just in time to miss the actual fighting. It remained on garrison duty in Scotland until it was sent to Ireland in 1749. 

The military reforms of 1751 rebranded it as the 16th Regiment of Foot. It remained in Scotland until 1767, when it was ordered to British-acquired Pensacola, Florida. En route it stopped at New York City for a time, and its soldiers partook in the January 1770 ‘Battle of Golden Hill.’ The regiment eventually completed its rendezvous with Pensacola, but after the outbreak of the American War of Independence, it participated in the 1776 British invasion of New York, fighting at White Plains in October that year. In 1777 it returned south to garrison parts of Georgia and Florida. In 1778 Spanish forces invaded the south from their bastion in Louisiana Territory, and part of the 16th was captured in the fall of Baton Rouge. Other companies of the 16th repelled French attacks on Savannah in September 1779 and on Pensacola in May 1781. What remained of the 16th returned to England in the spring of 1782.

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