Washington’s Invalid Corps: Wounded Warriors Still Served the Revolutionary Cause

Although some readers may be familiar with the Civil War’s Invalid Corps, which wrought value and service from even grievously wounded men during that conflict, few probably know that America’s first such organization appeared during the Revolutionary War. Like its later counterpart, Washington’s Corps of Invalids provided the nation valuable service and roles for men who had paid a high personal price for seeking liberty. This is their story.

Tapping the skills of organized wounded soldiers, “invalids” as they were then called, to support national objectives was first recorded in England. In 1688, when the British army of King James II faced rising manpower demands ahead of a feared invasion by William of Orange, the Corps of Invalids was formed to free able-bodied men for active service by using wounded soldiers for rear area duty. Initially manning fortifications in Chelsea and Tynemouth and serving as Hampton Court Palace’s ceremonial guard, the Corps was repeatedly abolished and restarted by various monarchs over the years. By the time of the American Revolution, British invalid companies served in garrisons throughout Great Britain, and were augmented by pensioners recalled to service during times of emergency (such as when France declared war in 1778). In North America, the Royal Garrison Battalion was created and manned by discharged soldiers, manning posts such as Paulus Hook in New Jersey and forts in Bermuda. Soldiers of this battalion served periodically as guards aboard the infamous prison hulks posted in New York harbor. Although France spawned the term “invalid” and French King Louis XIV founded the Hotel Royal des Invalides in 1670 as the first dedicated institution caring for wounded soldiers, the nation never reached England’s level of organizing and utilizing its injured veterans.^[1]

The Second Continental Congress first proposed forming an American “corps of invalids” on August 26, 1776, following deliberations of a report from its committee on disabled soldiers and seamen. Although it provided these men a half-pay pension, the ever-frugal Congress included provisions requiring any man capable of still providing even limited service to do so. For soldiers, this would be in a newly-formed corps of invalids, which was announced by publishing the report in newspapers in Philadelphia, New York, New Hampshire and elsewhere in August and September, 1776.[2]

Action to make this corps a reality came, however, not from Congress but rather from Ireland-born writer and merchant Lewis Nicola. Despite his twenty-seven years as a British army officer, being fifty-eight years old at the war’s outbreak prevented Nicola from field service. Although made Philadelphia’s Town Major, leading the city’s guard force, the ambitious Nicola wanted a higher post. It remains unclear if he was aware of Congress’s 1776 announcement, but in spring 1777, Nicola wrote the Second Continental Congress proposing that it create a “Regiment of Invalids” and place him in command. Like Britain’s corps, Nicola suggested it would perform rear-duty functions to free able men for combat, adding that discharging wounded veterans “without some provision would be inhuman to them & disadvantageous to the publick, as others, whose services may be wanted in camp, must be employed in certain duties these invalids could perform, for which reason all nations in Europe employ them in garrison.”[3]