Thursday, January 19, 2012

Walking with Andrew

Five months and counting [First of three posts before 18 Jun 2012]
Andrew Spearman was born in Sligo, Co. Sligo Ire. about 1785
Ref; Attestation papers, File H-166 Goulbourn Museum. Joined in Dublin, 21 Sept 1804, age 19, for an unlimited period of service, attested by Maj. Hamilton.
After a period of initial training in Ireland the Reg't moved to The Isle of Wight and left Portsmouth 29 Aug 1805, for North America, with a large fleet of ships.They ran into severe weather, probably a hurricane, and one ship was wrecked [Nias] and most drowned; two went aground near Cape Breton and spent the winter on east coast [Two Friends and Three Brothers];
The Eagle and Osborne both arrived at Quebec 14 Nov 1805, not in good repair.
The regiment went into Garrison at Quebec City and spent time training and rebuilding to replace the 3 Company of soldiers lost on the Nias

An excellent account of the Regiment's activities is detailed in A. Barry Roberts' ' For King and Canada' ISBN 1-55036-683-1 available from Goulbourn Museum

Chapter 1 -Call to Arms Deals with raising the Regiment
Chapter 2 -Shaping the Regiment. Training, Training and more Training.
Reg't consists on 10 Companies of up to 100 Soldiers each
Chapter 3 -Farewell to Ireland. details events with shipwrecks and even correspondence
Chaprte 4 -Peace in time of War. In fall of 1807 Reg't ready for field Service.
As was the policy of moving Reg'ts every 2 yrs, Reg't HQ was moved to Fort Chambly

Next 18 Feb. Walking with Joseph part 2, events in Europe

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