Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword

by Andrew Bamford

  When the state of the 1/40th over the period in question is presented graphically, as in figure 1, the high levels of sickness, and resulting low effective strength in percentile terms, make it clear why all available manpower was needed in the first battalion and could not be spared to build up the second. However, simply packing more and more men into the 1/40th did not represent an ideal solution, and sickness in the battalion increased in proportion to its total manpower. Even the huge reinforcement draft of July 1811, which took total strength well over establishment to nearly 1,500 rank and file, only briefly raised the effective strength of the first battalion. Hard service through the winter of 1812, and heavy losses at Badajoz, soon had the figure for effectives back down even lower than it had been, with less than one-third of the battalion fit for duty as of April 25, 1812, and the situation remained poor throughout the rest of the year. Matters eventually improved during the first half of 1813, during the lull between the retreat from Burgos and the march to Vitoria, but the huge discrepancy between total and effective manpower continued throughout the rest of the Peninsular War, and was only truly eradicated when the 1/40th was redeployed, minus its ineffectives, to North America and then to Flanders. Whilst the 1/40th is an extreme case, and a little unusual in that it remained overseas and active throughout the period, getting the fever into its ranks via the marshes of the Tagus and Guadiana rather than the Walcheren swamps, similar trends may be identified in those units that owed their sickly condition to service with Chatham’s ill-fated Grand Expedition.

  Along with senior battalions of multi-battalion regiments, single-battalion regiments formed the other, secondary, group of units that the theoretical regimental system prioritized for active service. For the most part, regiments that remained at a single battalion establishment did so because they spent their war in the colonies and returned to Britain only toward the end of the period if at all, thereby never being in a position to be augmented by a second battalion. Nevertheless, some single-battalion regiments were employed more extensively in Europe, with eleven going to the peninsula between 1808 and 1814. Many, like the 20th, served two distinct stints in Spain and Portugal, and seven also took part in the Walcheren expedition. The problem with such deployments was in keeping the battalions up to a good effective strength, and, since it was in most cases lack of successful recruiting that kept these regiments down to one battalion in the first place, the difficulties involved were considerable. The 2nd, whose woeful story has already been told in the previous chapter, was cut down to four active companies as part of Wellington’s project of provisional battalions, and two more single battalions, the 51st and 68th, were also considered for the same treatment. The remainder were mostly sent home as understrength, or else escaped this fate only by virtue of having come out to the theater in 1812–14 and thus not being on active service long enough to become completely worn down.

  Figure 1. Campaign Manpower in the 1/40th. Data from Monthly Returns, TNA, WO17/2464–2465, 2467–2476, 1218, 1760, and Battalion Returns, TNA, WO17/150. The two blank periods represent firstly the passage from Bordeaux to the Mississippi, and secondly the return passage back to Europe.

  For the 2nd, poor leadership led to limited effectiveness, but this logic can hardly be applied to the 20th, with which we began this chapter. Nor—unless one includes the consequences of an ill-judged decision on the battlefield—can any failing of leadership be blamed for the difficulties encountered by the 29th, which, unlike the 2nd and 20th, remained in Portugal in 1808 and thus became part of the re-formed peninsular field army under Wellesley. However, unlike the 1/40th, it was not sickness but battle casualties that had rendered the 29th unfit to march into Spain with Moore. At Roliça, Lt. Colonel the Hon. Gerard Lake had unwisely led the battalion in an unsupported attack that sought to access the French position via a concealed gully. The stratagem was successful in enabling the 29th to penetrate the French first line, but left the unit confined and vulnerable to counterattack; assailed from all sides, the battalion was badly broken, with Lake amongst the dead.13 Largely as a result of the 190 casualties incurred in this action, the 29th was, within a month of coming ashore, down from its embarkation strength of 863 men to only 592 effective rank and file, with a further 148 sick or detached.14 Although substantial drafts of manpower were received from home in the summer of 1809, and again during the spring of 1811, hard service over the same period meant that the general trend of the battalion’s strength was consistently downward, even as the experience and toughness of the survivors grew.

  Moyle Sherer, then newly arrived in the peninsula, saw the surviving men of the 29th in the aftermath of the Talavera campaign; they were the first veteran battalion that he had encountered, and the sight impressed him greatly: “Nothing could possibly be worse than their clothing; it has become necessary to patch it; and as red cloth could not be procured, grey, white, and even brown had been used: yet, under this striking disadvantage, they could not be viewed by a solider without admiration. The perfect order and cleanliness of their arms and appointments, their steadiness on parade, their erect carriage, and their form and free marching, exceeded any thing of the kind that I had ever seen. No corps of any nation, which I have since had an opportunity of seeing, has come nearer to my idea of what a corps of infantry should be, than the old twenty-ninth.”15 Wellington too saw the value of this veteran battalion, but realized that it could not be kept in the field much longer unless something be done to augment its ranks. Indeed, Wellington had already written to Castlereagh, then still secretary of state for war and the colonies, in order to draw the matter to his attention: “I wish very much that some measures could be adopted to get some recruits for the 29th Regt. It is the best regiment in this army, has an admirable internal system, and excellent non-commissioned officers; but for the want of a second battalion, and somebody to attend to its recruiting, it is much reduced by numbers, by losses in the actions of Rolica and Vimeiro, in the expedition to the north of Portugal and at Talavera.”16 As well as giving an interesting view of the criteria by which Wellington judged his battalions, this passage makes it apparent, even as early as 1809, that he was already finding fault with the constraints of the regimental system insofar as it interfered with his hopes of keeping every veteran solider as long as possible in the peninsula.

  For the 29th, however, little could be done. February 1811 saw an augmentation of one hundred additional rank and file from the regimental depot, but this was of little avail after Albuera, where the battalion formed part of Colborne’s unfortunate brigade. The aftermath of that disaster found the 29th with a mere 144 effective rank and file, and by September it could still only put 193 effectives into the field, forming part of the Provisional Battalion (see chapter 4) with elements of the equally cut-up 2/31st and 2/66th.17 The situation was not sustainable, and in October 1811 the 29th left the peninsula after just over three years of service. The General Order that announced the battalion’s impending departure, along with that of the 85th and 97th, again stressed the battalion’s good service record but also made two points of wider significance. The first was to make it clear that Wellington had sent these units home only under duress and as the result of a direct order, something that would prefigure the tussles over numerically reduced battalions over the next two years. The second, which again reinforces the want felt as a result of all three regiments lacking a second battalion, was that “the only chance of recruiting is to send them to England,”18 because a depot detachment simply did not possess the manpower to recruit on the scale required.

  Figure 2 demonstrates just how bad the situation had become, but the story does not end there, for there was time enough for the battalion to be rebuilt for further service with its ranks filled up with fresh recruits. The 29th was, like the 20th after Walcheren, ultimately built back up to a respectable strength, and in March 1813 went out to Gibraltar 713 strong. Thereafter, the battalion served successively in garrison at Gibraltar and Cadiz before joining Sherbro
oke’s force in the relative backwater of the Maritimes and Maine. On the face of it, this restriction to secondary theaters seems odd for a unit possessing such a good prior record, but the influx of outside manpower during the eighteen months spent at home had vastly diluted the quality of the battalion, rendering what had once been Wellington’s “best regiment” unfit for anything other than garrison service. When Major General Cooke inspected the battalion shortly after its arrival at Cadiz, he found that “[The privates] cannot throughout be called a good body of men, and the Regt. is not at present fit for service in the field. They are very young and several of a low standard, particularly a bad description of recruits from the Irish Militia.” However, Cooke went on to state that the rank and file were “well-drilled and appear attentive and well-behaved, and as sober as any other soldiers I have known at this station.”19 What Cooke’s assessment indicates, therefore, is that the 29th had been posted to Cadiz because by this stage of the war it was an inactive garrison, where the battalion could complete its rejuvenation whilst still doing something useful in a secondary station. Only in 1815, after two years in second-line duties, was the 29th again considered fit to join a major field army; as it was, however, the battalion reached the Netherlands after Waterloo, and never got the chance to prove itself in action.

  Figure 2. Campaign Manpower in the 29th. Data from Monthly Returns, TNA, WO17/2464–2465, 2467–2468, 1799, 1488, 2242–2243, 1760. The large gap in the center of the graph represents the time that the battalion was back in Britain, and the two smaller gaps toward the end relate to its passage to and from North America.

  Because units like the 29th lacked any second battalion to serve in the depot role, not only did they have to take what they could get in terms of reinforcements but they also lacked the organizational infrastructure to process new manpower before it reached an active battalion. This in turn meant that a worn-down single-battalion unit was unavailable for active service whilst it absorbed and trained its replacements, needing instead to spend this time either at home, as with the 20th, or in an inactive garrison, as with the 29th. However, whilst these two units typify the experience of single-battalion regiments serving in Europe, the majority spent much of their war in the colonies. Of these twenty-one battalions, five spent the entire war in India, whilst the unfortunate 46th left there in 1813 only to be posted even further from home, to New South Wales. The bulk of the remainder were in similarly long-term postings to the West Indies and Canada, but were then drawn into more active service when 1812 brought renewed hostilities to the North American continent.20 Although few saw service as long or as arduous as their peninsular equivalents, their experiences reflect, on a smaller scale, those already exemplified above. After the Niagara campaign of 1814, for example, it became necessary to send the two longest-serving single-battalion regiments—the 100th and 104th—away from the front and into garrison due to the level to which they had shrunk.21 The latter unit suffered a steady decline from 908 rank and file in March 1813 to 572 when hostilities ceased, with effective strength in the field generally well below 400. Although this does not account for two companies left in garrison throughout, nor for the fact that the flank companies were also frequently detached, it is nevertheless a similarly low ratio of effective manpower to that found in the battalion’s peninsular equivalents.22

  Having considered the typical circumstances of those battalions that were intended to go on active service, and the problems they encountered, it is also necessary to look at those that were not originally envisaged as suitable for this sort of role—the second battalions and the handful of third and fourth battalions. Whilst some junior battalions did serve in North America, the bulk of these deployments were within Europe, and can be broadly divided into two groups. The first group comprises the battalions sent out to Portugal during 1809 and early 1810, which, along with some single-battalion regiments deployed at the same time, represented the only effective units then available. Although a few other second battalions did find their way into active theaters, having been moved from various garrison commands, the second major group comprises those battalions sent on service as part of the seemingly desperate attempts to deploy all available battalions, second, third or otherwise, as manpower systems began break down during the last twelve months prior to the peace of 1814. More relevant here, whilst we are still concerned with the workings of the regimental system rather than its temporary circumvention, are the experiences of the first group.

  For the most part, the second battalions deployed to the peninsula in the early months of the war were those from regiments whose first battalions were deployed to the colonies, and whose regimental establishments were accordingly set at a high level. As such, the battalions in question had a not dissimilar experience to the single-battalion regiments deployed at the same time and in similar strength. Only the 2/83rd was able to serve throughout the entire Peninsular War, the battalion’s manpower situation being detailed in figure 3, which shows a rapid decline in strength followed by an eventual stabilization with an effective strength of around 350. Whilst the maintenance of the battalion as an effective unit is a worthy achievement, there were certain factors that helped the 2/83rd escape the fate of its counterparts. Firstly, the 83rd Foot was, in 1809, on the highest establishment of any two-battalion infantry regiment in the service, 2,461 men all told, and therefore had a greater allowance of manpower at its disposal. Secondly, the 2/83rd benefited from a lengthy spell of garrison duty in Lisbon after the Talavera campaign, during which its effective strength grew by over 150 men.23 Without these advantages, it must be assumed that the 2/83rd would have suffered the same fate as its sister battalions, and, at best, finished the war as one half of a provisional battalion. That said, its experiences are not too dissimilar to those of the 3/27th, which, as the junior battalion of a three-battalion regiment, served effectively not only throughout the Peninsular War but also in North America thereafter. Yet, with an established strength of 3,448 men in 1809, and a strong regional identity and accordingly strong recruiting potential, the 27th Foot was in a good position to sustain all three of its battalions. This was made easier by the fact that, whilst all three were overseas, the 1/27th and 2/27th were part of the Sicilian garrison and did not see active service until sent to eastern Spain in 1812.24

  Part of the reason that so many of the initial crop of second battalions sent to Portugal in 1809 served for so long was that the first battalions of their respective regiments were not available to relieve them. Only in the case of the 2/5th, 2/7th, 2/28th, 2/39th, and 2/48th did the senior battalion also join Wellington and thus facilitate the eventual replacement of the junior battalion by the senior. Ideally, it had always been preferred to have both battalions of a regiment serving in the same theater, so that the second could be drafted into the first once it became impossible to sustain two separate units, but haphazard early wartime deployments meant that this rarely happened, and it took some time to get things unraveled. As late as 1814, York was planning to send the 1/83rd, which had been at the Cape of Good Hope since 1806, directly to join Wellington in order to combine it with the shrunken 2/83rd so that the latter could finally come home and recruit, and was also looking forward to bringing all three battalions of the 27th together in the same theater for the same reason.25

  Ideally, the solution was either to deploy both battalions together, or else send the second battalion to join the first. Thus, even before the War of 1812, both battalions of the 8th Foot were serving in British North America, whilst one of the earliest reinforcements for Canada brought the second battalion of the 41st Foot out to join its senior counterpart. Although the 1/8th and 2/8th served to the end of hostilities as separate units, the presence of both battalions of the 41st facilitated their combination after the first battalion’s heavy losses at the Thames on October 5, 1813.26 From a total strength of only 178 in December 1813, the 1/41st could therefore be brought up to a far more respectable 561 rank and file the following month, havin
g absorbed the 379 men of the second battalion in their entirety.27

  Figure 3. Campaign Manpower in the 2/83rd. Data from Monthly Returns, TNA, WO17/2464–2465, 2467–2476. The entire span of service relates to the Peninsular War.

  Lengthy side-by-side service of both battalions of a regiment was generally confined to colonial or garrison stations. More typical of the European experience are the cases either of a second battalion serving in a theater being joined by, and rapidly absorbed into, its first battalion upon the latter arriving on station or, conversely, of a second battalion being sent to serve alongside the regiment’s first for a few months before giving over its effective strength and taking a cadre home to recruit. The latter circumstance, in effect, represents the system working normally; even the strictest interpretation of the regimental system allowed a strong two-battalion regiment to deploy both battalions, the second returning home upon the combined strength falling below 1,600. Wellington tended to hang onto his second battalions rather longer if he could get away with it, but the concept remains the same and is encountered repeatedly throughout the peninsular and Waterloo campaigns.

  The history of the 88th provides perhaps the best example of this practice, since it clearly shows how both battalions were affected. The 2/88th arrived in Portugal in July 1809, four months after the 1/88th, which was itself a creditable achievement since the former had been extensively drawn upon to rebuild the latter upon its return from South America. However, as a result of its rapid augmentation, the 2/88th was not fully effective and was accordingly sent away to do garrison duty, first at Gibraltar and then at Cadiz, before returning to Lisbon in August 1810.28 From there the battalion was posted to join the 1/88th in the Third Division with effect as of September 4.29 This transfer reflected a growing practice of keeping battalions of the same regiment together in the same division, which was already the case for the 48th and which was also applied, a little later, to the 7th. The logic was clearly to facilitate the eventual merger of the battalions if required, although it was not then felt necessary, as later, to place them in the same brigade.30 Whilst the 7th and 48th were both badly cut up at Albuera and had their battalions amalgamated thereafter, the 88th soldiered on with two battalions in the field until the summer of 1811. By this stage sickness, exacerbated by the long march south to participate in the second siege of Badajoz, left the young and still relatively inexperienced 2/88th with only 274 effectives as opposed to 362 sick or detached. The 1/88th, with 746 rank and file on its strength of whom 585 were in the field, was still an effective unit but could clearly benefit from augmentation and so the inevitable merger took place.31