Protecting the Empire’s Frontier

“…Given the many studies of prominent military leaders on both sides, it is surprising that a book exploring the leadership of one British Army regiment could offer such a plethora of new and interesting information.…The book opens many windows onto the lives of military men during the eighteenth century….Protecting the Empire's Frontier is first and foremost a meticulously prepared reference book. …Baule is to be commended for giving his readers so many invaluable insights into the human side of a military organization.” ~Michigan War Studies Review

“[By] including every officer who served in the regiment during its deployment to America in the 1760s and 1770s, [this] is a rare comprehensive look at the internal management of the organizations that formed the backbone of the British army in America, the infantry regiments. Although focused on the decade before the war began, the book provides a good foundation for understanding the state of the army’s officer corps in the early stages of the war….Anyone interested in the human side of military organizations will find this book satisfying.” ~Journal of the American Revolution

“Based in the most thorough research in primary sources, Protecting the Empire’s Frontier brings to life the officers and the service of a typical infantry regiment in America in the years preceding the breach with Britain; it is a significant contribution to the field of study, and will be welcomed by students of the 18th-century Ohio-Illinois country, of late-Colonial America, and of the old British Army.”

“Protecting the Empire’s Frontier paints an intimate group portrait of the officers of the Royal Irish Regiment, which strove to uphold British authority in a vast, newly conquered territory in the years preceding the American War of Independence. Steven M. Baule conducted exhaustive research in British and American archives and also mined a plethora of printed sources, producing a rich reference for students of the British Empire, George III’s army, the Old Northwest, the American Revolution, and the Atlantic World. Baule’s careful scholarship complements broader studies on the eighteenth-century British Army, and takes the reader even deeper into this institution than previous studies on the subject.”

“A fascinating and well-researched treatment of a little-studied social aspect of military history. Baule’s survey of the backgrounds, service histories, and ultimate fates of the men who led the Royal Irish Regiment sheds valuable light on the experiences of the British office class during the era of the American Revolution.”