101. Histman and Sorby, “Independent Foreigners,” 16, quoting Beckwith to Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, July 5, 1813.
102. Graves, “‘Every Horror’”; Histman and Sorby, “Independent Foreigners,” 14–15.
103. Inspection Report by Major General Horsforth, May 4, 1814, TNA, WO27/127, part 2.
104. “Remarks” to Monthly Return, TNA, WO17/2470.
105. Burnham, “Filling the Ranks,” 210–215.
106. Inspection Report by Gibbs, October 12, 1813, TNA, WO27/122, part 1.
107. Return of troops at Breda, February 28, 1814, TNA, WO1/200, 37.
108. The battalion had 580 total rank and file in February and 611 in March, with 29 deaths and 1 desertion to be factored in; Monthly Returns, TNA, WO17/1773. Regarding the draft from Britain, see “Statement of Forces in Holland,” January 4, 1814, TNA, WO1/658, 25.
109. Report by Lt. General Ferguson on 33rd and 54th Regiments, April 25, 1814, accompanying Inspection Returns, TNA, WO27/126, part 2.
110. Castlereagh to Clancarty, December 8, 1813, TNA, WO1/198, 217–219.
111. Graham to Bathurst, December 19 and 26, 1813, TNA, WO1/199, 163–169 and 239–244 respectively.
112. Graham to Bathurst, January 3, 1814, TNA, WO/199, 347–350.
113. Inspection Returns, TNA, WO27/126, 127.
114. Inspection Report by Major General Cooke, May 21, 1814, TNA, WO27/126, part 2.
115. Inspection Report by Brigadier General Halkett, May 17, 1814, TNA, WO27/127, part 1.
116. Inspection Report by Major General Anson, May 19, 1814, TNA, WO27/127, part 2.
117. Bathurst to Wellington, September 11, 1813, in Wellesley, Supplementary Despatches 8:249; see also Fortescue, British Army 9:416–420.
118. Haythornthwaite, Armies of Wellington, 173.
119. They were still slated to go to Wellington as of March 10, and were again reassigned before the end of the month. See Bathurst to Wellington, March 10, and 29, 1814, in Wellesley, Supplementary Despatches 8:635–636 and 8:702–703; and Bunbury to Graham, April 1, 1814, TNA, WO6/16, 81–82.
120. Burnham, “Filling the Ranks,” 221. See also Haythornthwaite, Armies of Wellington, 176, and, regarding the detachment of an NCO from the 95th to drill Wynn’s Rifle Companies, Calvert to Rosslyn, February 17, 1814, TNA, WO3/60, 414.
121. Torrens to Wellington, January 26, 1814, in Wellesley, Supplementary Despatches 8:544.
122. “Embarkation Return of the Provisional Battalions of Militia under the Command of Major General Bayley at Pouillac on the 22, and 23, days of May 1814,” TNA, WO17/2476.
123. Burnham, “Filling the Ranks,” 221–223.
124. Wellington to Bathurst, April 7, 1814, in Gurwood, Dispatches 11:626–628.
125. York to Bathurst, March 14, 1814, TNA, WO1/657, 455.
126. Circular to General Officers commanding relevant districts, March 15, 1814, TNA, WO3/60, 475.
127. Calvert to Green, March 15, 1814, TNA, WO3/60, 483.
128. Notes to Battalion Return for March 1814, TNA, WO17/277.
129. Notes to Battalion Return for March 1814, TNA, WO17/274.
130. Darling to Acland, March 26, 1814, TNA, WO3/61, 4–5.
131. Calvert to Chatham, March 18, 1814, TNA, WO3/60, 485; Calvert to Richmond, March 18 and 23, 1814, TNA, WO3/60, 485 and 494; Calvert to Don, March 31, 1814, TNA, WO3/61, 16.
132. Bathurst to Graham, March 17, 1814, TNA, WO6/16, 69–71.
133. Calvert to Don, April 12, 1814, TNA, WO3/61, 48; Calvert to Chatham, April 14, 1814, TNA, WO3/61, 57.
134. However, see Oman, Peninsular War 6:233.
135. Hall, British Strategy, 195.
136. Oman, Peninsular War 6:558–561; Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 197; Hall, British Strategy, 47, 94.
5. Beyond the Regiment
1. Cole to Wellington, May 28, 1815, in Wellesley, Supplementary Despatches 10:389–390.
2. Graham to Bunbury, January 15, 1814, TNA, WO1/199, 459–464.
3. On eighteenth-century doctrines of organization by unit seniority, see also Muir, “Order of Battle,” 98–101.
4. Ross, “Combat Division,” 84–94; Boycott-Brown, Road to Rivoli, 47–61.
5. Mackesy, Statesmen at War, 238, 258, 320; Great Britain War Department, British Minor Expeditions, 34–35, 43–44.
6. Smith, Napoleonic Wars Data Book, 195–196.
7. Weller, Wellington in India, 140–142, 202, 211, 301–303.
8. “Memorandum of Troops arrived in the Weser on and previous to the 1, January 1806,” TNA, WO1/186, 441; see also Fortescue, British Army 5:285–298.
9. Great Britain War Department, British Minor Expeditions, 55.
10. Fortescue, British Army 5:306–307, 339; 6:7; Hopton, Maida, 96–99.
11. Fletcher, Waters of Oblivion, 73, 133–134.
12. McGuigan, “Origin of Wellington’s Peninsular Army,” 41–42. This excellent study details the British order of battle in the Peninsula to the end of the Oporto campaign, from which point the record is picked up by C. T. Atkinson’s Appendix 2, “Divisional and Brigade Organisation and Changes 1809–1814,” in Oman, Wellington’s Army, 343–373.
This chapter makes extensive use of McGuigan and Atkinson to provide details of organizational changes, supplemented where necessary by other sources in order to fill the very small number of gaps in their data.
13. Oman, Peninsular War 1:220–262. See also Hadaway, “Rolica: A Most Important Affair.”
14. McGuigan, “Origin of Wellington’s Peninsular Army,” 43.
15. Ibid., 41–42, 44, 64–68.
16. Wellesley remained chief secretary of Ireland until his reappointment to Portugal in 1809. Longford, Wellington: Years of the Sword, 220.
17. Chart filed with returns, TNA, WO17/2464. Although undated, this chart was drawn up before the arrival of the 1/42nd, which is a penciled addition, but after the arrival of Beresford since he appears in the original replacing Barnard Bowes. This places it around September 1, 1808.
18. McGuigan, “Origin of Wellington’s Peninsular Army,” 48–50.
19. Oman, Peninsular War 1:287–290.
20. Ibid., 287.
21. The 51st and 1/71st, also with Moore, were not re-designated as light infantry until after their return from Corunna.
22. McGuigan, “Origin of Wellington’s Peninsular Army,” 55–58.
23. Great Britain War Department, British Minor Expeditions, 57–79; Burnham, “British Expeditionary Force.” Not all accounts give Paget’s command its divisional number, possibly because it was soon broken up.
24. Bond, Grand Expedition, 167–168.
25. Return of September 7, 1809, in Great Britain War Department, British Minor Expeditions, 78; see also Monthly Return, September 25, 1809, TNA, WO17/2466.
26. McGuigan, “Origin of Wellington’s Peninsular Army,” 40–44.
27. Haythornthwaite, Armies of Wellington, 156–157.
28. Memorandum of March 19, 1808, WO17/2464. See also McGuigan, “Origin of Wellington’s Peninsular Army,” 65.
29. AGO of May 8, 1809, in Gurwood, General Orders 1:24–25.
30. Wellesley to Castlereagh, May 12, 1809, in Gurwood, Dispatches 4:297–301.
31. GO of May 4, 1809, in Gurwood, General Orders 1:9–14; McGuigan, “Origin of Wellington’s Peninsular Army,” 69.
32. GO of June 18, 1809, in Gurwood, General Orders 1:70–72.
33. Strictly speaking, Hill’s appointment was also temporary, but was made permanent five days later, and Major General Tilson posted to command Hill’s old brigade. See AGO of June 23, 1809, in Gurwood, General Orders 1:80.
34. Oman, Wellington’s Army, 345–346. But for a qualification of the status of Cole, and later Picton with the Third Division, see Muir, “Order of Battle,” 134–135.
35. Wellesley to Castlereagh, June 26, 1809, in Gurwood, Dispatches 4:438–439. See also Wellesley to Cotton, June 23, 1809, in Gurwood, Dispatches 4:432–433; and Dundas
to Castlereagh, August 4, 1809, TNA, WO1/641, 281.
36. Oman, Wellington’s Army, 344. In qualification of Oman’s stance on seniority of Brigades within a Division, see also Graves, “‘We Have an Immediate Opening.’”
37. Oman, Peninsular War 2:435–438.
38. Fletcher, Galloping at Everything, 102.
39. Coss, King’s Shilling, 130.
40. McGuigan, “Wellington’s Generals,” 195; Fletcher, Galloping at Everything, 109.
41. By 1814 there were five British and four Portuguese battalions, two of the latter being from a line regiment; Oman, Wellington’s Army, 349–373.
42. GO of February 22, 1810, in Gurwood, General Orders 2:24–26; see also Myatt, Peninsular General, 76–78.
43. Muir, “Order of Battle,” 138.
44. McGuigan, “Wellington’s Generals,” 194, 196; Centeno, “General Officers in the Portuguese Army”; Moon, Wellington’s Two-Front War, 191.
45. Wellington to Beresford, April 1, 1811, Dispatches 8:424–425. It is to be inferred that Hoghton’s men would have joined the Portuguese Division, which would then presumably have become the Eighth Division.
46. Oman, Wellington’s Army, 353–354.
47. Wellington to Beresford, July 17, 1811, in Gurwood, Dispatches 5:162; the opinion is reiterated in Wellington to Bathurst, May 5, 1815, in Gurwood, Dispatches 12:354. With reference to later plans for the Portuguese contingent to be reorganized into a national corps, see also Moon, Wellington’s Two-Front War, 190–192.
48. Nichols, Wellington’s Mongrel Regiment, 70.
49. Ibid., 20.
50. Oman, Peninsular War 4:650.
51. Oman, Wellington’s Army, 349, 357.
52. Ibid., 361, 364.
53. Muir, “Order of Battle,” 138.
54. Oman, Wellington’s Army, 252.
55. States, TNA, WO17/2475, with explanation in Gerges, “Command and Control,” 394–395; Oman, Wellington’s Army, 372–373. This idea had first been mooted over a year previously; see Wellington to Torrens, December 2, 1812, in Wellesley, Supplementary Despatches 7:485–486.
56. Gerges, “Command and Control,” 324, 353–355, 378–381, 401–403; Fletcher, Galloping at Everything, 210–219.
57. Oman, Wellington’s Army, 170–171, 357–358.
58. Ibid., 170–171, 347–350.
59. Ibid., 345, 357. This practice is exemplified by the assembly of Lightburne’s and Catlin Craufurd’s Brigades, for which see also Dundas to Castlereagh, May 27, 1809, TNA, WO1/641.
60. Thoumine, Scientific Soldier, 152–153.
61. Alten to officers of the 18th Hussars, September 22, 1813, quoted in Hunt, Charging against Napoleon, 145.
62. On the necessity for time for a division to retrain tactically with a new sequence of regiments and brigades, see Muir, “Order of Battle,” 149.
63. Reproduced in Oman, Peninsular War 4:750–752.
64. Muir, Salamanca, 161–158, 178–183.
65. Oman, Wellington’s Army, 355–372.
66. Wellington to Fane, December 8, 1813, in Gurwood, Dispatches 11:353–354; Wellington to Torrens, April 21, 1815, in Gurwood, Dispatches 12:317–318.
67. Stewart was brave to a fault but lacking in common sense; see Wellington to Torrens, December 6, 1812, in Wellesley, Supplementary Despatches 7:494–495.
68. Tilson had acquired a new surname since 1809, but no additional military aptitude.
69. Glover, Wellington as Military Commander, 179–181.
70. GO of April 11, 1815, in Wellesley, Supplementary Despatches 10:62–63.
71. Wellington to Torrens, April 21, 1815, in Gurwood, Dispatches 12:317–318.
72. Clayton, British Officer, 115, 122.
73. For the original KGL organization, see GO of October 12, 1814, TNA, WO30/122.
74. Wellington to Torrens, May 2, 1815, in Gurwood, Dispatches 12:340–341.
75. “Reminiscences of Captain Carl Jacobi, Luneberg Field Battalion, 1st Hanoverian Brigade,” in Glover, Waterloo Archive 2:121–123.
76. Tomkinson, Diary, 133.
77. Holmes, Acts of War, 307 (however, see also 327–328 for an exception). Coss (King’s Shilling, 191) ignores the division entirely in suggesting a scale of identity levels running from squad to company, battalion, brigade, army—this may reflect modern soldiering but does not fit the realities of the Napoleonic era.
78. Wellington to Bathurst, August 1, 1813, in Gurwood, Dispatches 10:576–589. Oman (Wellington’s Army, 172) falsely expresses the opinion that their advance at Albuera was the source of the nickname.
79. Tomkinson, Diary, 133.
80. Cook and Burnham, “Nicknames.”
81. Quoted in Nichols, Wellington’s Mongrel Regiment, 131.
82. Tomkinson, Diary, 286.
83. Kincaid, Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, 55.
84. Grattan, Adventures, 238–254.
85. Robertson, Commanding Presence, 237.
86. l’Estrange, Recollections, 124
87. Colley, Britons, 282–319; Cookson, “Regimental Worlds,” 23–42.
88. McGuigan, “Wellington’s Generals,” 185–196.
89. Urban, Rifles, 156–157; Coss, King’s Shilling, 128.
90. Wellington to Leith, December 21, 1813, in Gurwood, Dispatches 11:383; Wellington is quoting Leith’s own description back to him.
91. Bingham to mother, letters of March 13, April 4, November 10, and December 12, 1812, in Bingham, Wellington’s Lieutenant, 105–106, 110–112, 164–165, and 168–169.
92. Stewart to Wellington, March 6, 1813 (including enclosure of previous correspondence with Lt. Col. Guise, 1st Foot Guards); and York to Wellington, April 7, 1813, in Wellesley, Supplementary Despatches 7:574–576 and 7:600–601.
93. Crowe, Eloquent Soldier, 145.
94. Costello, Adventures of a Soldier, 120.
95. Donaldson, Eventful Life, 198–199.
96. Cole to Wellington, May 28, 1815, in Wellesley, Supplementary Despatches 10:389–390.
97. Wellington to Clinton, June 15, 1815, in Gurwood, Dispatches 8:469–470.
98. Wellington to Cole, June 2, 1815, in Gurwood, Dispatches 8:435–436.
99. Smith, Autobiography, 62.
100. Grattan, Adventures, 196–206.
101. Oman, Peninsular War 6:557–586; 7:6–36, 529–530.
102. Watson, When Soldiers Quit, 67–88, 157–167.
103. Oman Peninsular War 7:15–17.
104. Wellington to Graham, August 25, 1813, in Gurwood, Dispatches 11:31–33.
105. Wellington to Graham, August 28, 1813, in Gurwood, Dispatches 11:50.
106. Watson, When Soldiers Quit, 84.
107. See Coss, King’s Shilling, 211–234. On the issue of command breakdown, Oman (Peninsular War 7:33, 529–530) records officer casualties in excess of 50 percent. See also Watson, When Soldiers Quit, 86.
108. Campbell, British Army, 256–258.
6. Strategic Consumption
1. McGrigor, “Medical History.”
2. To be exact, there were 8,889 deaths through combat and 24,930 through sickness; see Holmes, Redcoat, 249.
3. Howard, Wellington’s Doctors. See also Blanco, “British Military Medicine,” and chapter-length treatments in Haythornthwaite, Armies of Wellington, 132–144; and Holmes, Redcoat, 249–262.
4. For details of data sources for this sample, see appendix 1.
5. McGrigor, “Medical History,” 389, 394, 467–468.
6. Ibid., 397; Monthly Returns in TNA, WO17/1796–1801.
7. Elting, Amateurs, 18–19.
8. Latimer, 1812, 309.
9. McGrigor, “Medical History,” 471.
10. The suggestion of indifference by officers is made in Coss, King’s Shilling, 123–125, based largely on the omission of such matters from correspondence and memoirs.
11. Return prepared by the Adjutant General’s office, February 1810, reproduced in Great Britain War Department, British Minor Expeditions, 80.
13. The role of the Walcheren scandal is placed in this wider context in Crowe, “Walcheren Expedition.”
14. Summerville, March of Death, 81–82; Harris, Recollections, 134–135.
15. Note by Major George McGregor, accompanying battalion return, TNA, WO17/176. Of the fit men, 57 were recruits who had not taken part in the Peninsula campaign, leaving only 176 fit from those who had served under Moore.
16. Battalion Returns in TNA, WO17/148 and WO17/101.
17. Battalion Return of June 25, 1809, TNA, WO17/131.
18. Report by Robert Craufurd, April 30, 1809, accompanying inspection return for 1/43rd, TNA, WO27/94; see also Urban, Rifles, 2, 13, 35.
19. It should be stressed that this is not a new argument—McGrigor made the connection as far back as 1815 (“Medical History,” 401)—but its significance has not generally been appreciated.
20. Harris, Recollections, 256.
21. Ibid., 261–265.
22. Green, Soldier’s Life, 39.
23. Ibid., 40–43.
24. Harris, Recollections, 265–268.
25. “Journal of the Proceedings of the British Army,” TNA, WO28/339, entry for April 19, 1810.
26. Harris, Recollections, 268–280.
27. McGuffie, “Walcheren Expedition,” 201.
28. The hospitalized numbered 11,296 out of 33,373; see return reproduced in Great Britain War Department, British Minor Expeditions, 80.
29. Inspection Report of May 3, 1811, by Major General Robinson, TNA, WO27/102, part 2; Inspection Report of May 13, 1813, by Major General Burgoyne, TNA, WO27/116.
30. Inspection Report of August 18, 1812, TNA, WO27/106, part 2.
31. Inspection Report of February 16, 1813, TNA, WO27/111, part 1.
32. Oman, Peninsular War 5:501.
33. McGrigor to Fitzroy Somerset, April 11, 1813, TNA, WO27/111, part 1.
34. McGrigor, “Medical History,” 383–385.
35. Schaumann, On the Road, 37.
36. Elting, Swords, 469–470.
37. Howard, Wellington’s Doctors, 97–98.
38. Battalion Returns, TNA, WO17/136 (29th); WO17/141 (1/32nd); WO17/164 (1/50th); WO17/203 (1/82nd).
39. Monthly Return for October 1808, TNA, WO17/2464.
40. Lawrence, Autobiography, 18–20, 39–41, 42–43.
41. Levinge, Forty-Third Regiment, 106. Note, though, that the 2/43rd was nevertheless considered fit to march with Moore, suggesting that the problem was not deep-seated.
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