The American Revolution was about more than just America. It was a worldwide event. America did not fight alone. They got help from every part of the globe.

And we don’t just mean Marquis de Lafayette and Casimir Pulaski. Countless soldiers from all over the world stood up and fought with America, and without them, the United States never would have won its independence.

10Crispus Attucks
The Slave Who Was The First Casualty Of War

The first man to fight and die in the War of Independence was born in America, but most of his fellow Americans didn’t think of him as a countryman. His name was Crispus Attucks, and he was a runaway African slave.

Attucks was working as a sailor, even though there was a price on his head. His master wanted him back, and he was willing to pay anyone who would drag him back into slavery. Nobody tried it, and if someone had, the American Revolution might never have happened.

Attucks and his fellow seamen were in a pub when a British soldier walked in. Attucks and his friends didn’t take kindly to the British presence, and they started taunting the soldier. Staring down a hulking 6’3″ man, the soldier got nervous. Seven of his friends, other British soldiers, rushed in to help. In short time, things got out of hand, and the British opened fire.

Attucks fought back. He grabbed a soldier’s bayonet and knocked him over, but the British gunned him down before he could do any more. Four other men in that bar would die before the massacre was over.

History has debated whether Attucks was a hero or just a violent drunk, but it can’t deny his impact. He was the first to die in the Boston Massacre, a moment that would spark the American Revolution.

9Von Steuben
The Prussian Who Trained The American Army

The Americans who fought for Independence weren’t all seasoned veterans. Before Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben came in from Prussia, they were using bayonets to skewer meat more often than they were using them to skewer their enemies.

Von Steuben crossed the ocean to teach the Americans how to fight. He was the Inspector General of the American Army, in charge of drilling the soldiers and organizing their training, and he barely spoke a word of English. Von Steuben would bark at people in Prussian, his secretary would translate it into French, and then another secretary would translate that into English.

It was complicated, but it worked. He taught the American army how to fight and how to use bayonets, and that made a huge difference in the war.

In 1779, General Wayne used Von Steuben’s lessons to take Stony Brook. He and his men took a fort protected by 750 men without firing a single shot. They won the battle entirely with bayonets. Without filling the night with the sound gunfire, they were able to launch a sneak attack the British didn’t expect. Thanks to Von Steuben, Stony Brook was taken.

8Tadeusz Kosciuszko
The Polish War Hero Who Tried To Free The Slaves

Tadeusz Kosciuszko was one of the chief engineers for the US Army. He planned the defensive strategy in Saratoga, a moment that turned the war in America’s favor. He built the military fort at West Point, which, today, is the site of the US Military Academy.

The real story for Kosciuszko, though, happened after he died. He became close friends with Thomas Jefferson, and when he died, he trusted the president to carry out his final wishes. Every penny he had, he said, should be used to free and educate African slaves.

Thomas Jefferson was almost 75 years old, so he passed the job on to someone else. That man didn’t want the responsibility of trying to get white people to educate black people, though, and he passed it on, too. Eventually, Col. George Bomford was put in charge of it, and he decided to blow the money on himself instead.

By the time Col. Bomford died, only $5,680 of Kosciuszko’s $43,504 was left. His will made it into the hands of the Supreme Court, and they just threw it out. Despite his wishes, not a single penny was put toward freeing slaves.

7De Galvez
The Spanish Governor Who Secretly Supplied The American Army

Bernardo de Galvez was the governor of Louisiana, which, at the time, was a Spanish colony. He wasn’t exactly invested in the cause of democracy, but he was deeply involved in the cause of messing with England.

And so, when America went to war with England, he started sending them everything he could. He promised them all the weapons and medicine he could get them, warning them, “It must appear that I am ignorant of it all.”

Spain entered the war in earnest in 1779, and De Galvez didn’t have to hide it anymore. He could fight, and he did. Within a year, he’d chased the British out of Mobile, Alabama. The year after that, he chased them out of Florida.

6Moses Hazen
The Man Who Led A Canadian Regiment For America

Canada was a British colony during the Revolutionary War. They were, quite directly, America’s enemies, which makes it surprising that some of them fought alongside America. The Americans sent out political tracts and messengers to try to get Canadians to switch sides, and some of them did. A ragtag group of Canadians, most of them French, joined the American army.

The American army had two Canadian Regiments. The first group of turncoats, appropriately enough, was commanded by Benedict Arnold. They tried and failed to take over Quebec and then spent the rest of the war stationed in New York.

The Second Canadian Regiment, commanded by Moses Hazen, was a bit more successful. Hazen was a Canadian himself, and he led his army through some of the most important battles in the war. That included the Siege of Yorktown, the battle that ended the war.

When the war ended, Moses Hazen and the Canadians who fought with him no longer had the option to return home. They had to give up everything they’d known to fight for American Independence and had to live, from then on, in the United States.

5Antonio Barcelo
The Spaniard Who Fought The Biggest Battle Of The War

We usually think of the American Revolution as a war on American soil, but it was more than that. The Spanish and the French took the fight straight to the English. In fact, the biggest and longest battle of the whole war took place in Europe.

It was on Gibraltar, a tiny, 3-square-mile island that happened to be in an important strategic location. On June 24, 1779, a fleet of French and Spanish ships tried to take it, and they kept trying for more than three years.

Their best attack was the brainchild of Antonio Barcelo. He set up a fleet of small ships loaded with cannons called “floating batteries” and sent them against the British. It didn’t work. The British held them off, but it was the closest they got.

The siege didn’t end until the peace treaty was signed. Antonio Barcelo and his men failed, but even if it was a waste, 3,000 Spanish soldiers gave their life fighting in Gibraltar.

4Goetschius
The Dutchman Who Led A Guerrilla Army

In its early years, there were a lot of Dutch settlers in the United States. They had their own community, one that seemed separate from the rest of America, and when the Revolutionary War started, that let them do things the Americans couldn’t.

After the British took New Jersey, John Mauritius Goetschius formed a guerrilla militia of Dutch farmers and struck back. They would attack and raid the British under the cover of night, and then, when morning came, pretended to be nothing more than farmers.

They might have been farmers, but they were capable of a lot more than they seemed. That became clear when, in 1781, Washington sent his army to take Fort Lee from the Loyalists. By the time the American troops had made it to their destination, the Loyalists were gone. Goetschius and his Dutch guerrillas had already taken the fort on their own.

3Tewahangarahken
The Native Chief Who Fought For The Us

No one could be more American than the Native Americans, but they weren’t treated that way. They played a role in American Revolution, though, and it’s one that’s often overlooked.

Most, if they picked a side, went with the British. That only makes sense: Part of the reason the Americans wanted independence was so that they could move into native land.

The Oneida tribe, though, refused to believe that the Americans had any intention of hurting them. Their main contact with Europeans had been through a missionary named Rev. Samuel Kirkland, and he had been good to them. And so, when they knew that Kirkland’s people needed their help, they raised up their arms and fought alongside them.

The Oneida tribe worked as guides, harassed British sentries, and even joined some of the battles. They were good at it, too. In the Battle of Oriskany, their War Chief Tewahangarahken single-handedly took out nine British soldiers.

Despite that, they still had to struggle to convince America they were on their side. At one point, they sent them six prisoners from another tribe and a rescued American soldier. The Americans had asked for scalps instead, but they sent along a letter that apologetically explained, “We do not take scalps.” They ended it, “We hope you are now convinced of our friendship toward you and your great cause.”

2Rochambeau
The French General Who Made The British Surrender

The decisive battle of the American Revolution came when George Washington led a troop of American soldiers into battle against the British at Yorktown. Washington, though, was not alone. He was joined by an even bigger army of French soldiers and ships, led by Comte de Rochambeau.

The Siege of Yorktown ended in the British surrender. Lord Cornwallis was the leader of the English soldiers there, but he refused to stand in front of his enemy and surrender—instead, he sent his deputy, Brigadier General Charles O’Hara.

O’Hara offered the sword of surrender to Rochambeau, but Rochambeau refused it. This, he believed, was America’s war. He insisted that the English surrender to George Washington instead.

Washington, too, refused the sword. He made O’Hara surrender to his second-in-command, Benjamin Lincoln. Lincoln had been overwhelmed by the British in Charleston and was denied the honors of a proper surrender. Washington wanted to see he got to experience one firsthand.

1Hyder Ali
The Indian Sultan Who Fought The British

The last battle of the American Revolution wasn’t on American soil. It was in India. In the 18th century, communication was far from instant, and so the men fighting on the other side of the world had no idea it was over.

India had been a battleground for the American Revolution for the last five years of the war. When France declared war on England, the British East India Company started attacking their colonies there. Hyder Ali, the Sultan of Mysore in India, took the side of the French and led the fighting there.

When Hyder Ali died in 1783, the British started making serious advances on French India. They moved their forces to Cuddalore, a city on the Bay of Bengal, and very nearly took it. The French, however, managed to send a fleet in time to fight them off.

That French fleet kept the battle going. An army of French and Mysorean soldiers fought across India, struggling to hold back the British. Then, on June 29, 1783, word finally came in that the war had been over for eight months. The last fighters of the American Revolution put down their arms and went home, a whole world away from the country they had liberated.

Colombia, Poland, Venezuela, Ireland, Sweden, Morocco—the list goes on. For hundreds of years, Scottish soldiers have taken the opportunity to earn money by fighting in foreign lands. In other words, they were mercenaries. Sometimes these Scottish soldiers of fortune supported established monarchs, while on other occasions, they fought with rebels anxious to upend the status quo. But wherever they went and whoever they fought, the results most often were tales well worth the telling.

10 Peter McAleese

A Glaswegian born in 1942, Peter Maltese led a band of mercenary fighters to Colombia in 1989. McAleese had an impressive pedigree for his role as the commander of a motley bunch of soldiers of fortune. He’d served with Britain’s feted elite force, the SAS. In a documentary film about his life, McAleese reinforced his image as an all-around tough guy, saying, “I was trained to kill by the Army, but the fighting instinct came from Glasgow.”

McAleese left the army in 1969 and drifted into the shadowy world of mercenary fighters, seeing action in African hotspots such as Angola and what was then Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe. But why did he travel to Colombia? In a barely credible turn of events, he’d been hired by the Cali Cartel to kill the leader of its main rival, the Medellin Cartel. In other words, McAleese’s mission was no less than to assassinate Pablo Escobar. The Scotsman and his buddies were to helicopter into Escobar’s compound. But McAleese’s chopper crashed in the Andes, injuring him badly. The plot was aborted. McAleese escaped and died in 2021, aged 79. Escobar was killed in a gun battle in 1993.^[1]

9 Gregor MacGregor, Prince of Poyais

Born on Christmas Eve 1786, Gregor MacGregor launched his military career conventionally enough by joining the British Army’s 57th Foot Regiment while still only a 16-year-old. The young man saw action in the Napoleonic Wars and eventually attained the rank of major before hanging up his sword in 1810. For his next adventure, his eyes turned to South America, and he arrived in Venezuela in 1812.
MacGregor was acquainted with the revolutionary leader General Francisco de Miranda, who accepted him into his forces as a colonel in the fight against the Spanish colonialists. MacGregor, who had awarded himself a knighthood, rose to be a general in the Venezuelan Army. His exploits included an attempt to seize Florida from the Spanish and a bid to found a colony in Nicaragua.

His most grandiose scheme, however, saw him taking the title of Prince of Poyais as he developed a colony in the Bay of Honduras. To do so, he enticed gullible British investors and prospective colonizers with false claims. They lost all their money, and the colony was a total disaster. Somehow, “Prince” Gregor walked away unscathed.^[2]

8 Patrick Leopold Gordon of Auchleuchries

Born in the northeast of Scotland in 1635, Patrick Gordon first left his native land while still a teenager. He traveled to the Polish city of what was then Danzig and is now Gdańsk, where he enrolled at a Jesuit college. A war between Poland and Sweden erupted in 1655, and that was when the young Gordon first became a mercenary. It seems he was none too choosy about who his employers were since he fought on both sides during the hostilities.

In 1661, Gordon walked away from both Poland and Sweden, electing to join the Russian army. With the rank of major, he gave useful service in 1661 by crushing civil disturbances in Moscow. After Peter the Great came to power in 1696, Gordon became a key adviser and even friend to the young Tsar, earning the rank of general. He played an important part in suppressing an attempted palace coup against Peter in 1698. He died a year later.^[3]

7 James Francis Edward Keith

Keith was a high-born Scot, the second son of the 9th Earl Marischal of Scotland. Despite that, he was forced to leave his homeland after becoming involved in the unsuccessful Jacobite attempt to seize the British throne in 1715. Fleeing to France, Keith ended up in Spain, where he became an officer in the Spanish Army. But since he was a Protestant in a Catholic country, his prospects were poor, so he left for Russia.

In 1728, Keith was made a colonel of a Russian regiment and fought against the Swedes. After his time with the Russians, it seems that Keith was keen for new pastures, and he joined the Prussian Army, seeing extensive action in the Seven Years’ War that convulsed much of Europe and North America. By now a Field Marshall, Keith fought at the 1758 Battle of Hochkirch in Germany when 80,000 Austrians faced 31,000 Prussians. The Austrians routed the Prussians killing 9,000 of them, including Keith.^[4]

6 Archibald Ruthven of Forteviot

Archibald Ruthven was born into a distinguished Scottish family—his father was Lord Ruthven. In 1572, Ruthven sailed for Scandinavia, where he accepted a post in the army of the Swedish king, Johan III. Johan’s first order was that the Scot should return to his homeland to recruit 2,000 mercenaries. In the event, he returned to Sweden with nearly 4,000 soldiers.

Ruthven became embroiled in a bitter dispute about his soldiers’ pay which resulted in the execution of one Scottish officer for embezzlement, Hugh Cahun. Before he was put to death, Cahun accused Ruthven, baselessly as far as we know, of plotting the assassination of King Johan. Apparently in the clear, Ruthven now sailed for Livonia on the Baltic Sea with his troops. There, a bitter dispute with their German allies resulted in the deaths of some 1,500 men. The upshot of this deadly squabble was that Ruthven was again accused of plotting against Johan. Despite his denials, the unfortunate Scot was imprisoned and died in jail.^[5]

5 Sir Harry Aubrey de Vere Maclean

Born into a well-to-do Scots family in 1848, the splendidly named Sir Harry Aubrey de Vere Maclean joined the British Army in 1869 and saw service in Canada, Gibraltar, and Bermuda. After seven years in the army, Maclean resigned his commission and accepted the position of a drill instructor in the army of the Sultan of Morocco, Mawlay Hassan.

Not long after he arrived in Tangier, Mclean took command of 400 infantry troops, with an increase in pay dependent on him learning Arabic, which he did. Abdul-Aziz succeeded Hussain as the sultan and retained Mclean’s services, sending him on missions to various Moroccan provinces. But life in Morocco was not without its perils; in 1907, the Scotsman was kidnapped and held for ransom for seven months. The following year Abdul-Aziz was deposed by his own brother Mawlay Abdul-Hafiz. The new sultan was minded to keep Mclean on, but the two couldn’t agree on a contract, so Mclean resigned, living out his days in Tangier until his death in 1920.^[6]

4 Peter Duffy

Raised in the northern Scottish town of Elgin, Peter Duffy was born into some privilege in 1941. He was sent to Gordonstoun, the same private school that King Charles attended a few years after. Later in life, Duffy was second-in-command of a group of mercenaries who went to engineer a coup in Seychelles Island in 1981.

Duffy’s commander was “Mad” Mike Hoare, a notorious mercenary of many years. Hoare and Duffy led a group of fighters drawn from ex-Rhodesian soldiers and ex-South African special forces. Armed to the teeth, the men flew into Seychelles aboard a commercial flight. Unfortunately for Duffy and his comrades, an airport official noticed an AK-47 in one man’s luggage. A gunfight ensued, and Duffy and others made good their escape by hijacking an Air India plane, leaving behind one dead comrade. Several of the conspirators were tried the next year in South Africa. Duffy got five years, Hoare 10. Duffy died a broken man in 1981.^[7]

3 George Sinclair

In 1612, Captain George Sinclair sailed from Scotland with a troop of Scottish mercenaries that he’d recruited in Caithness in the Scottish Highlands. They were to join the cause of King Charles IX of Sweden, who was fighting his neighbor Christian IV of Denmark. Sinclair and some 300 men landed in Norway with the intention of marching to Sweden.

The Scots had not bargained for the possibility that the Norwegians might not take kindly to a mercenary force tramping across their country. As it happened, the Norwegians were not at all happy. Seven days after Sinclair and his men had arrived on Norwegian soil, a local force launched a deadly ambush. As the Scots entered a narrow valley, the Norwegians rolled boulders down the slopes to block their escape routes. Once the rocks had been unleashed, musketeers picked off the mercenaries, killing more than 150. Sinclair was shot dead by a man named Berdon Sejelstad. The Scotsman’s wife and child, who had unwisely accompanied the ill-fated expedition, were also killed, although not before the woman had stabbed one of the Norwegians to death.^[8]

2 Redshanks

The Redshanks were mercenaries mostly recruited from the islands of the Hebrides off the coast of northwest Scotland, although mainland Highlanders joined in as well. In the 16th century, they went to fight for the Irish as they opposed the English invaders of the Emerald Isle. Life in the Highlands and islands of Scotland could be very tough, and men were glad to earn money paid to those who fought for Irish lords.

In one case, a regiment of Highland fighters came as a kind of wedding present. That was in 1569 when the Scottish Lady Agnes Campbell, daughter of the Earl of Argyll, married the Irish nobleman and chief Turlough Luineach O’Neill. She brought 1,200 Scottish mercenaries to the marriage. Unsurprisingly, the English were none too happy about the continual influx of Highland warriors arriving in Ireland. From the late 16th century, the English authorities began to pay off Highland clan chieftains. The payments—bribes might be the correct word—were made on the condition that the chiefs kept their men at home.^[9]

1 Alexander Leslie of Auchintoul

Alexander Leslie of Auchintoul was born into a landowning Scots family in 1590—Auchintoul is in the northeast of Scotland. Leslie started out fighting for the Poles in 1618 when he was captured by the Russians. They released him, and by 1629, he was employed by the Swedes. The Swedish king, Gustav II Adolf, sent him to Moscow, and Leslie tarried there in the service of the Tsar.

The Smolensk War, a conflict between Poland and Russia, broke out in 1632, and Leslie brought regiments of mercenaries from European countries, including England and Scotland, to fight for the Tsar. Returning to Scotland in 1637, Leslie embroiled himself in the Civil War of the time, on the wrong side. Captured in battle in the Scottish Borders, he narrowly escaped execution, the fate of many of his comrades. However, he was banished and never allowed to return to Scotland. Leslie returned to Russia, where he achieved the rank of general, the first Scot to do so. His achievements included seizing Smolensk from Polish control in 1654.^[10]