The 78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot was a
Highland Infantry Regiment of the Line, raised in 1793.
by Francis Humberstone MacKenzie (pictured above), Chief
of the Clan Mackenzie.
First assembled at Fort George in July 1793, the
regiment embarked for Holland in September 1794 for
service in the French Revolutionary Wars. The regiment
saw action at the defense of Nijmegen in November 1794.
In a bayonet attack there the regiment lost one officer
and seven men; a further four officers and 60 men were
wounded. The regiment returned to England in April 1795
and then took part in the Battle of Quiberon Bay in June
1795 and the landing at Īle d'Yeu in September 1795.
The regiment also took part in the successful attack by
a British fleet under Sir George Elphinstone on the
Dutch Cape Colony, then held by the forces of the
Batavian Republic: the attack led to the capitulation by
the Dutch Navy at Saldanha Bay and the capture of the
colony by British forces in summer 1796. After returning
home, the regiment embarked for India in February 1797
and saw action at the Battle of Assaye in September 1803
during the Second Anglo-Maratha War. During the battle
the regiment were tasked with retaking the Maratha gun
line.
A second battalion was raised in May 1804. The 1st
battalion remained in India and, from there, took part
in the Invasion of Java and the capture of Fort Cornelis
in August 1811.
When the battalion was withdrawn from Java in September
1816 the vessel it was travelling on, Frances
Charlotte, wrecked off Preparis on November 5, on
the way to Bengal. There were relatively few deaths and
Prince Blucher rescued most of the survivors, who
it carried to Calcutta; cruisers from the British East
India Company rescued the remainder. Prince Blucher
carried a part of the battalion on to England.
The 2nd battalion embarked for the Italy and took part
in the Battle of Maida in July 1806 It also took part in
the Alexandia Expedition in spring 1807. Three companies
of the regiment were captured at Al Hamed near Rosetta:
among the prisoners was Thomas Keith who converted to
Islam and entered Ottoman service. The battalion then
took part in the disastrous Walcheren Campaign in autumn
1809. The battalion embarked for Holland in 1813 and
took part in a skirmish at Merksem in January 1814. The
battalion returned home in 1815 and the two battalions
amalgamated again in 1816.
The regiment embarked for a tour in Ceylon in April 1826
and did not return to England until February 1838. It
embarked for India again in April 1842 for service in
the First Anglo-Afghan War. While at Sindh, largely due
to cholera, the regiment lost two officers, 496 soldiers
and 171 women and children between September 1844 and
March 1845. It then moved to Persia in January 1857 and
took part in the Battle of Khushab in February 1857
during the Anglo-Persian War.
The regiment returned to India in May 1857 to help
suppress the Indian Rebellion. It took part in the
recapture of Cawnpore in July 1857 and then took part in
the reinforcement of Lucknow strongly defending the
residency until it was relieved in November 1857. The
regiment won eight Victoria Crosses during the campaign
and its role at Lucknow was commemorated by poets
such as John Greenleaf Whittier and Alfred, Lord
Tennyson. The regiment returned home in September 1859.
The regiment embarked for Gibraltar in 1865 and then
sailed on, in the troopship HMS Crocodile on May 8,
1869, to Halifax in Nova Scotia arriving on May 14,
1869. Each summer, men from the regiment camped at
Bedford to practice musketry at the military range. On
their departure in 1871, a farewell ball was hosted by
the Grandmaster of the Masonic Lodge of Nova Scotia,
Alexander Keith. The regiment, together with 17 young
local women who had married soldiers, embarked for
Ireland in the troopship HMS Orontes in November 1871.
As part of the Cardwell Reforms of the 1870s, where
single-battalion regiments were linked together to share
a single depot and recruiting district in the United
Kingdom, the 78th was linked with the 71st (Highland)
Regiment of Foot, and assigned to district no. 55 at
Cameron Barracks in Inverness. On July 1, 1881 the
Childers Reforms came into effect and the regiment
amalgamated with the 72nd Regiment, Duke of Albany's Own
Highlanders to form the Seaforth Highlanders.
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