HISTORY

“Those are Regulars” Quote

After “Don’t give up the ship,” probably the most quoted line from the War of 1812 is “Why those are regulars,” attributed to Gen. Riall. The story goes that as he say Scott’s grey-clad brigade advance across the field at Chipawa mistaking the unit for a body of militia, who typically wore brown and gray clothes because of the low cost of those types of materials. When that unit failed to break under fire, as militia often did, he realized his mistake and uttered the now famous line.

Unfortunately no British or Canadian source contains the quote . . . nor do any American sources prior to 1864.

The quote seems to come from Scott himself who wrote: General Riall … said it is nothing but a body of Buffalo militia! But when the bridge was passed in fine style, under his heavy fire of artillery, he added with an oath: Why those are regulars.

In 1937, Charles W. Elliot in the book Winfield Scott: The Soldier and the Man, found the need to add the oath by changing the quote to: Those are regulars, by God! In any case, the Scott story is most likely just a story, as the comments of an opposing general are usually out of earshot of his counterpart.