56th (West Essex) Regiment of Foot - French Revolutionary Wars

French Revolutionary Wars

With the French Revolution of 1792 the army was expanded in preparation for war; the authorised establishment of the 56th was brought up to twelve companies, and it was ordered to prepare for overseas service. Before hostilities broke out, however, the regiment was involved in suppressing a riot near Wexford in June 1793. Major Valloton, a company commander, was killed along with several local men.

The regiment embarked for the West Indies in November 1793, arriving at Barbados in January 1794, and fought at the capture of Martinique in February. The line companies being left there as a garrison, the light and grenadier companies fought at the capture of St. Lucia in April, and the whole regiment saw service fighting at the capture of Guadeloupe in September. It remained as a garrison in the West Indies for the remainder of 1794, but took great losses from disease. In October, the men still fit for service were transferred to the 6th, 9th and 15th regiments, and the remaining cadre of officers and men embarked to return to England on 3 January 1795.

Arriving in England in February, they were stationed at Chatham to recruit and retrain. The regiment sailed to Cork in September, and after a brief period in Ireland was deemed to have attained "so perfect a state of discipline and efficiency" that it was considered fit for overseas service once more, and despatched to Barbados. It was sent to St. Domingo, and remained there through 1797. On the death of General Walsh, the colonelcy had passed to Major-General Samuel Hulse on 7 March 1795; he did not retain it long, and it was conferred on Major-General Chapple Norton on 24 January 1797. After a period stationed in Jamaica, the regiment returned to England at the end of 1798, again to recruit and rebuild its strength.

In 1799 the regiment was part of the force sent to the Netherlands in the ill-fated Helder Campaign, arriving in Holland in September in time for the Battle of Schoorl-Oudkarspel on the 19th, where it suffered sixty-three officers and men killed or wounded, plus another fifty-nine missing. It fought at Bergen and Egmont-op-Zee on 2 October, before withdrawing from the Netherlands on 18 November.

During 1800 the regiment was stationed in Ireland, and increased its establishment by a further two companies of a hundred men each. The new recruits, since returning from the West Indies in 1799, had been enlisted for service only within Europe; on hearing the announcement of the major victories in the Egyptian campaign in 1801, they promptly offered their services for general service throughout the world. This offer was, however, quickly followed by the Peace of Amiens in 1802, and the regiment remained in Ireland.