Christopher Machell: Not Wounded at Bunker Hill

Earlier this month I saw a Bluesky posting about a disabled artist named Christopher Machell, who had lost an arm at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Perhaps because the name was unfamiliar to me, I assumed that was an enlisted man. I sought more information since sources on the experiences of British privates are hard to come by.

I soon realized that Machell was an officer, not a private. The Annual Report of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society for 1907 stated:

Christopher Machell was born in 1747. He was Lt.-Colonel in the 15th Regiment of Foot, and served with the British Forces under General [Thomas] Gage in the American War of Independence. the 17th June, 1775, he was present at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, and in that fiercely contested and sanguinary engagement the gallant Colonel lost an arm.

The source of this information was Machell’s grandson. Unfortunately, he was wrong on several counts.

First, the 15th Regiment wasn’t in Boston in 1775.

Second, Machell wasn’t a lieutenant-colonel during the war. British Army Lists show that he was a lieutenant when the fighting began and promoted to captain on 9 Oct 1775.

In the 1775 Army List, Machell was the least senior captain in the regiment. In 1783 he was the most senior captain because all of the others had been promoted, died, or retired.

According to Robert John Jones’s History of the 15th (East Yorkshire) Regiment, Machell received a promotion to major in June 1783 and retired at that rank in 1789.

So how did Machell come by the rank of lieutenant colonel? Because in 1807 he was on the War Office’s list of “Persons appointed INSPECTING FIELD OFFICERS of Yeomanry and Volunteer Corps in GREAT BRITAIN, with the Rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army while so employed.” In other words, he was an army veteran called in to inspect militia units. I don’t know whether there was any actual work in that appointment or it was just a courtesy.

What about that wound? According to Burke’s Landed Gentry, Capt. Machell “lost his arm in the battle of New York.” The 15th Regiment was indeed part of the Crown’s New York campaign in 1776, fighting in the Battles of Brooklyn, White Plains, and Fort Washington.

When Machell was wounded is unclear. He wasn’t listed among the casualties in Gen. Sir William Howe’s 27 August report, and the British army and press were much better at reporting wounded officers than wounded privates. It’s conceivable Machell was wounded not in any of the big memorable battles but in the ongoing skirmishing around New York.

The 15th Regiment remained in North America through 1778, when it was moved to the Caribbean. In 1781 the French captured the 15th on St. Eustatius, setting them free the next year. The brief profiles of Machell don’t say anything about him being a prisoner or war, hinting he may not have been with the regiment then.

All that raises the question of why, if Capt. Machell actually lost an arm in the first three years of the war, he remained on the regiment’s roll through the end. Jones’s History of the 15th may contain an answer, but I don’t have access to the whole book.

TOMORROW: Arguing over Crackenthorpe.