Hearts of Oak (New York militia)

The Hearts of Oak (originally, "The Corsicans") were a volunteer milita in the British colony of New York, formed c. 1775 in New York City. Among its members were students at King's College (now Columbia University) such as Nicholas Fish, Robert Troup, and perhaps most famously, Alexander Hamilton. The company would drill in the graveyard of nearby St. Paul's Chapel before classes in uniforms they designed themselves, consisting of short, green tight-fitting jakcets, a round leather hat with the phrase "Liberty or Death" on the band, and a badge of red tin hearts on their jackets with the words "God and Our Right". In August of 1775 the Hearts of Oak participated in a raid, while under fire from the HMS Asia, to seize cannon from the Battery, becoming an artillary unit thereafter. Hamilton was given a commission as a Captain by the revolutionary government of the colony with instructions to raise the New York Provincial Company of Artillery (today the Regular Army's 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery) with instructions to protect Manhattan Island, and the Hearts of Oak formed its core.