Explore Listing
The 87th Regiment of Foot set sail to oppose France's new ally, the Spanish, in the West Indies as part of the expeditionary force commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Ralph Abercromby KB. Their first objective was the Spanish island of Trinidad which capitulated on 18 February 1797.
Following the capture of Trinidad during the French Revolutionary Wars, Lieutenant General Sir Ralph Abercromby continued with his expedition against the Dutch, French and Spanish in the West Indies. The fleet sailed from Martinique on 8 April 1797, arriving two days later in St Kitt's. The only action for the 87th Regiment was in Puerto Rico where they landed on 18 April.
Between the 2-12 February 1846, the 87th Regiment had provided a detachment for duty in Inverness where there had been a riot to protest about the exportation of potatoes. When the detachment departed, the provost and magistrate thanked Captain Campbell and his men:
The naval and military forces of Britain and the recently independent United States of America clashed between 1812-14 in a little remembered war called 'The War of 1812'. In 1813, the American Secretary of War (John Armstrong) set in motion a strategy to capture Upper Canada by moving two armies to attack undefended Montréal in an attempt to force the British to abandon their territory to the west.
The Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel William Boyle, embarked for India at Queenstown, Ireland, in HM's Indian steam Troopship Crocodile and sailed on the afternoon of 30 September 1870. The strength of those boarding was thirty officers, including the Quarter-Master, the surgeon with his two assistants, 914 NCOs and men, plus 106 women and almost as many children.
After Brigadier General Willoughby Cotton's disastrous attack against the stockade fortress at Donobyu in Burma on 7 March 1825, an attack in which the 89th Regiment had suffered what was to be their heaviest loss of the campaign in Burma, Cotton's lesser force joined with Major General Sir Archibald Campbell's troops and together they laid siege to the fortress.
During the Anglo-American War of 1812-15, the Americans invaded westwards across the River Niagara on 3 July 1814, captured Fort Erie and defeated Major General Riall's 5,000 strong British force in battle around Chippawa. The Americans then moved north along the west bank of the Niagara and threatened Fort George at Lake Ontario. The commander of the forces and governor general of Upper Canada (today's Ontario), Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond, moved his forces from Fort George to attack the American supply lines.
During The War of 1812, and following their success at the Battle of Crysler's Farm, the 2/89th continued the Niagara campaign with the British force led by Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond. The Americans were surprised when the British force continued the Niagara campaign despite their small numbers and the onset of winter.
In 1819, the 89th Regiment was stationed at Quilon near Bombay in India. Following the end of the Third Anglo-Maratha War in February 1818, there were still some forts in revolt in the Sawant Waree states south of Bombay.
The Russians in the Crimea were securely established in their fortress-port of Sebastopol with the Allies faring less well as they occupied entrenched positions on the bleak plateau facing the Russian lines. The Allies remained in this exposed location awaiting spring when they hoped the weather would permit them to launch an offensive.
