Grenadiers were the heavy infantry of 18th-century armies. British regiments normally had 10 companies: 8 line companies, 1 light infantry company, and 1 grenadier company. Agile, intelligent men were chosen for the light infantry, while the regiment’s biggest men were placed in the grenadier company, and tall bearskin caps made them appear even larger. During most of the Revolution, the British grouped their light infantry companies and grenadier companies into separate battalions, and at Monmouth the heaviest fighting fell to the two battalions of British grenadiers. In a July 4, 1778, letter to his parents, Lt. William Hale of the 45th Regiment, 2nd Grenadiers, recalled the exhausting march under intense heat and no water, the advance under heavy grape fire, General Clinton and Lord Cornwallis urging a charge, and the rush into the heaviest fire he had yet felt. He found himself with only a handful of men among a large body of Rebels driven from the wood by the 1st Battalion of Grenadiers, saw Lt. Bunbury of the 49th kill one of them with his sword, and tried unsuccessfully to overtake a fleeing battalion carrying its colours. Hale wrote that his battalion lost 98 men, with 11 officers killed and wounded.