Emmerick's Chasseurs
Emmerick's Chasseurs
EMMERICK'S CHASSEURS. In August 1777, Sir Henry Clinton authorized Captain Andreas Emmerick, an experienced jäger officer from Hesse-Hanau who had briefly led the Guides and Pioneers in December 1776, to raise a company of one hundred rifle-armed marksmen from the Provincial regiments in New York City. Operating with a company of bayonet-armed infantrymen in support, the Chasseurs distinguished themselves in Clinton's campaign in the Hudson Highlands in October 1777. Having proved its effectiveness, the corps was expanded in 1778 to a small legion of riflemen, light infantrymen, and light dragoons, with Emmerick as its lieutenant colonel. By 1779 the corps was on the verge of mutiny, and Clinton disbanded it. The rifle company under Captain John Althouse became part of the New York Volunteers, and with other light troops aboard the transport Anna, was blown across the Atlantic while on the way to Charleston in 1780.
SEE ALSO Anna; Bayonets and Bayonet Attacks; Guides and Pioneers; Hudson River and the Highlands; Jägers; Riflemen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cole, Nan, and Todd Braisted. "The On-Line Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies." Available online at http://www.royalprovincial.com.
Smith, Paul H. "The American Loyalists: Notes on Their Organization and Numerical Strength." William and Mary Quarterly, third series, 25 (1968): 259-277.
revised by Harold E. Selesky