Thomas Orchard at Battle of Saratoga
Who is "Thomas Orchard" of the British Army, serving at Saratoga under General Burgoyne?
Thomas Orchardwas an Ensign in the Ninth Regiment of Foot. He was commissioned on June 3, 1777. [Source: p. 63, A List of the General and Field Officers, As they rank in the Army; of the Officers in the several Regiments of Horse, Dragoons, and Foot, on the British and Irish Establishments . . . with the Dates of their Commissions, as they rank in each Corps and in the Army; 1778; London; Printed for J. Millan, opposite the Admiralty-Office, Whitehall.]
The Ninth Regiment was part of Burgoyne's British Army, the army that surrendered to the American army on October 17, 1777. Thomas Orchard is on the Dec. 13, 1777 "List of Convention Officers on Parole in Cambridge, Massachusetts". [Source: George Washington Papers, Series 4 re "Saratoga Convention", in The Royal Army in America During the Revolutionary War.]
The American government violated the conditions of the convention, and detained the troops until 1781, when the Ninth proceeded to England . . . ." [Source: pp. 32, 33, Historical Record of The Ninth, or The East Norfolk, Regiment of Foot, compiled by Richard Cannon; London, Parker, Furnivall, & Parker, 1848.]
Thomas Orchard was commissioned as a Lieutenant on September 19, 1781. [Source: p. 71, A List of the Officers of the Army . . . . (The Thirty-Second Edition); 1784.] By 1783 Orchard had transferred to the 73rd Foot, 2nd Battalion and had retired at half-pay. [Source: A List of all the Officers of the Army and Royal Marines on Full and Half-Pay . . . .; War Office, February 1st, 1805; The Fifty-Third Edition; London; Printed by C. Roworth, Bell Yard, Temple Bar.]
Thomas died in 1826 or early 1827. [Source: A List of the Officers of the Army and Royal Marines on Full, Retired, and Half-Pay . . . .; War Office, 12th February, 1827.]