- Call Number:
- HIL-MICL FC LMR .P4J6N6
- Category:
- Military
- Creator:
- Peebles, John, d.1824.
- Material Description:
- 2 microfilm textual records 35 mm
- Background:
John Peebles was commissioned an ensign in the British Army on 23 August 1763, a lieutenant on 31 March 1770, a captain lieutenant and captain on 5 October 1777. He saw action in the American Revolution while a lieutenant (latterly captain) with the 42nd or Royal Highland Regiment of Foot, a Scottish regiment formed in 1739. He died in 1824. In 1787, a John Peebles from the 42nd Regiment received lot numbers 79 and 85, totaling 124 acres, on the Nashwaak River in the Parish of Saint Mary's, York County, New Brunswick.
- Contents:
- The collection consists of 13 Notebooks, 12 April 1776 - 2 March 1782, belonging to Lieutenant, later Captain, John Peebles of the 42nd, or Royal Highland Regiment during the American Revolution.
The Notebooks begin on Reel 1 with Peebles' journal describing his voyage from Greenock to New York via Boston and Halifax on board a troop transport from 12 April - 4 August 1776. The Notebooks follow his military experiences with the Regiment in a chronological order: a journal of operations in the vicinity of New York; the expedition to Rhode Island and operations in New Jersey; operations under General Cornwallis in the vicinity of Philadelphia; operations in the vicinity of New York; the evacuation of Philadelphia; the expedition to Charleston and the siege and capture of Charleston; the return to Staten Island; operations in the vicinity of New York and reports of the desertion from the Americans of General Benedict Arnold and the hanging of Major Andre by the Americans; and the abortive expedition for the relief of General Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown.
Reel 2 contains correspondence and documents relevant to the American Revolution. Included are an indenture for servitude of a negro boy; a bundle of abstracts and accounts of Captain Peebles' company of the 42nd Regiment; a copy of the proceedings of a Treaty held at Easton, Pennsylvania between commissioners on behalf of the United States and a number of Indian chiefs on behalf of the Six Nation Indians; a note on the line of battle of the fleet under the command of Admiral Thomas Graves, Sandy Hook; a copy of a letter published in the Antigua Chronicle, criticizing the way in which the war in America was being waged; and a number of commissions, letters and other documents.
- Originals:
The original records are held by the National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh.
- Archival Ref. No.:
National Records of Scotland, GD21, Papers of the Cuninghame Family of Thorntoun.
- Finding Aids:
There is no table of contents at the beginning of each reel.
A table of contents has been compiled for the Loyalist Collection Inventory and is available in print and as a PDF.
- PDF Finding Aid:
- Peebles, John, d.1824. Notebooks 1740-1816. DOCUMENT LIST.pdf
- Notes:
Also available as published, book, "John Peebles' American War: The Diary of a Scottish Grenadier, 1776-1782," (Published by Sutton for the Army Records Society, 1997), available at HIL-STACKS E267 .P44 A3 1998.