Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hadden, James Murray
HADDEN, JAMES MURRAY (d. 1817), surveyor-general of the ordnance, a son of Captain John Hadden of the marines, entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, as a cadet, 2 April 1771, and was appointed a second lieutenant in the 2nd battalion royal artillery in 1776. His subsequent commissions were: first lieutenant, 7 July 1779; captain-lieutenant, 21 Nov. 1783; captain, 17 Jan. 1793: brevet-major, 1 March 1794; brevet-lieutenant-colonel, 1 Jan. 1798; regimental major, 1 Aug. 1800; regimental lieutenant-colonel, 27 May 1801; colonel, 1 June 1806; major-general, 4 June 1811. Hadden embarked for Quebec 4 May 1776, arrived there 12 July, and in the following October commanded a gunboat in the operations on Lake Champlain. He commanded a detachment of two guns with Burgoyne's army the year after, and distinguished himself and was wounded in the battle of Freeman's Farm, 19 Sept. 1777 (Duncan, i. 315). He was among the prisoners at Saratoga, but must have been exchanged before 1781, as his name is given in Game's 'Universal Register,' 1782, p. 113, as one of the artillery officers of Clinton's force. He was appointed adjutant of the 1st battalion at Woolwich in 1783, and in 1793 was one of the officers specially selected for command of the new troops of royal horse artillery. His troop, the old D troop, was raised in 1793, and disbanded in 1816. In 1797 he was appointed adjutant-general of the British troops in Portugal. He was secretary to the Duke of Richmond when master-general of the ordnance in 1794-5, and was surveyor-general of the ordnance from 1804 to 1810. Hadden, who was married and left a family, died at Harpenden, Hertfordshire, 29 Oct. 1817. According to an obituary notice, 'he lived honest and died poor' (Morning Chron. 5 Nov. 1817). A brother of Hadden, Colonel John Hadden, many years in the 11th foot, who was paymaster-general of British troops in Portugal in 1797, and afterwards in the Mediterranean, predeceased him on 24 Sept. 1817 (Gent. Mag. 1817, pt. ii.473). According to a family tradition, John Hadden, when a child eight years old, scaled the defences of Belle Isle in front of the troops at the famous siege (Portlock, p. 11).
A manuscript journal kept by James Murray Hadden in America from 4 March 1776 to the date of the battle of Freeman's Farm, and eight manuscript order-books of the royal artillery for 1776-8, all of which after Hadden's death were at one time in possession of William Cobbett, were purchased some years ago by Henry Stevens on behalf of an American publishing house. They were printed at Albany, N.Y., in 1884, with copious annotations by Brevet-brigadier-general Horatio Rogers, United States volunteers, as volume xii. of 'Munsell's Historical Series.'
[Kane's List of Officers Roy. Artillery, Woolwich, revised ed. 1869; Duncan's Hist. Roy. Art. i. 179, 315, 399, ii. 35, 83; Portlock's Memoir of the Life of Major-General Colby, R.E., London, 1869, pp. 9-12; Hadden's Journal and Order Books.]