John Hill was an officer of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

who served in the

American War of Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

Biography

Hill was promoted to

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

during the war, commanding the

9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot The Royal Norfolk Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army until 1959. Its predecessor regiment was raised in 1685 as Henry Cornwall's Regiment of Foot. In 1751, it was numbered like most other British Army regiments and named ...

under General

John Burgoyne General John Burgoyne (24 February 1722 – 4 August 1792) was a British general, dramatist and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1761 to 1792. He first saw action during the Seven Years' War when he participated in several batt ...

, and serving as deputy

quartermaster Quartermaster is a military term, the meaning of which depends on the country and service. In land armies, a quartermaster is generally a relatively senior soldier who supervises stores or barracks and distributes supplies and provisions. In m ...

for him. Hill commanded a small British detachment pursuing a retreating American force under Colonel

Pierse Long Pierse Long (1739 – April 13, 1789) was an American merchant from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He served as a colonel of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War and served as a New Hampshire delegate to the Confederation Congress in 1 ...

, and successfully held them off at the

Battle of Fort Anne The Battle of Fort Anne, fought on July 8, 1777, was an engagement between Continental Army forces in retreat from Fort Ticonderoga and forward elements of John Burgoyne's much larger British army that had driven them from Ticonderoga, early i ...

, when Long rounded on his pursuers. Hill commanded the 9th again at the

Battle of Bemis Heights The Battles of Saratoga (September 19 and October 7, 1777) marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. British General John Burgoyne led an invasion ...

. John Hill was granted

brevet rank In many of the world's military establishments, a brevet ( or ) was a warrant giving a commissioned officer a higher rank title as a reward for gallantry or meritorious conduct but may not confer the authority, precedence, or pay of real rank. ...

as Colonel in 1782 and was succeeded as Lieutenant-Colonel of the 9th by John Campbell in 1783.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, John Royal Norfolk Regiment officers British Army personnel of the American Revolutionary War