Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters

by Mark Urban

  – ‘The rifle, in its present excellence, assumes the place of the bow’: this quotation is from Scloppetaria: or Considerations on the Nature and Use of Rifled Barrel Guns, London, 1808, published by Egerton. The author is given as ‘a Corporal of Riflemen’ but was actually Captain Henry Beaufroy of the 95th. The references to Egypt and Calabria are to recent British military expeditions (of 1801 and 1806) in which the British had acquitted themselves well against the French.

  – ‘No printers, bookbinders, taylors, shoemakers or weavers should be enlisted’: this is Colonel Von Ehwald (sometimes spelt Ewald) in A Treatise Upon the Duties of Light Troops, London, 1803. This work, another of Egerton’s, was translated from German and contains many fascinating ideas. Colonel William Stewart’s notions on recruiting in Ireland, cited later, seem to owe something to Ehwald. The decision to publish his works in English was a deliberate attempt to keep alive lessons of the American war, in which Ehwald had served as an officer in the Hessian Jaeger Corps.

  – ‘if it were smaller the unpractised recruit would be apt to miss’: another quotation from the 1803 Regulations for the Exercise of Riflemen.

  – ‘The more experienced riflemen had trained in techniques for shooting at running enemy’: the use of little trolleys with targets mounted on them is described both by Beaufroy and Sergeant Weddeburne of the 95th, Observations on the Exercise of Riflemen, Norwich, 1804.

  – ‘Eight out of ten soldiers in our regular regiments will aim in the same manner’: William Surtees, Twenty Five Years in the Rifle Brigade. I used the 1973 reprint.

  – ‘One of the 95th’s founders had written in 1806’: this was Sir William Stewart, and his outline for the reform of the Army is quoted from in the Cumloden Papers, privately printed in 1871.

  34 ‘Plunket, however, swore blind he would shoot the first officer’: this is based on Costello’s version of the incident.

  35 ‘back in 1805 Beckwith had proven his aversion to flogging’: this anecdote in Surtees.

  – ‘despite the wish of some officers to develop a more selective recruitment system’: e.g. Beaufroy in his book suggests the Rifles should be recruited only from the light companies of line regiments.

  – ‘its composition had been roughly six Englishmen to two Scots and two Irish’: these estimates for 1809 are my own and are necessarily approximate, based on the details in muster rolls and casualty returns. My work on the Casualty Returns for January 1811 to December 1812 showed ninety-five English (including Welsh), thirty-three Irish and thirty-two Scots. Later things changed somewhat. WO 17/282, a Monthly Return dated 25 July 1814, gives a rare national breakdown of soldiers in the 1st Battalion 95th. Its lists: 63 sergeants (of which 31 English, 20 Scotch and 12 Irish); 48 corporals (of which 24 English, 8 Scotch and 16 Irish); 15 buglers (11 English, 2 Scotch, 2 Irish); and 748 privates (523 English, 87 Scotch, 138 Irish). The points of notes here are (a) that the rank and file of the regiment had become even more ‘English’ by 1814 due to recruiting efforts (b) the Scottish element had declined relative to the Irish because – I believe – of higher losses due to sickness, desertion and capture in the Peninsula, and (c) the pattern of heavier Scottish recruitment during 1800–5 and Irish in 1805–8 is reflected in the respective national ‘bulges’ for sergeants and corporals.

  35 ‘Many officers felt the Irish were particularly prone to thieving’: the evidence of this stereotype can be found in several memoirs or diaries where an officer (e.g. Kincaid) notes that his Irish servant has stolen from him. We do not see similar records of English or Scottish thieving. It is worth noting that in General Orders the 88th or Connaught Rangers feature in scores of courts martial for theft and other misdemeanours during 1809–11. How far this represents a prejudice against this regiment with its strong Irish character, or how far it substantiates General Picton’s view of them as ‘robbers and footpads’, we can only guess.

  36 ‘except in cases of infamy’: another quotation from Stewart’s ‘outline’.

  – ‘Officers of the 95th were sensitive to cases which might damage the regiment’s good name’: this point is made by Costello relative to the later flogging of a rifleman named Stratton – it explains however why the many punishments of this kind that he and others like Leach refer to do not appear in the Army’s General Orders.

  37 ‘The training at Campo Maior reached a peak on 23 September’: Leach mentions the field day in his MS Journal.

  – ‘The tactics taught to the 43rd and 52nd by Moore back in England … were a hybrid of orthodox and rifle ones’: the best evidence of this comes from A System of Drill and Manoeuvres As Practised in the 52nd Light Infantry Regiment, by Captain John Cross, London, 1823. Cross makes clear that the system described in the book was adopted during the Shorncliffe camp exercises of 1804. The quotation on the 52nd’s method of aiming is from the Cross text.

  38 ‘My case was really pitiable, my appetite and hearing gone’: this was not a 95th man, but another sufferer, Sergeant Cooper of the 7th Fusiliers, in his Rough Notes on Seven Campaigns, Carlisle, 1869.

  38 ‘We were ordered to sit up with the sick in our turns’: William Green.

  – ‘Dozens died in the 95th, with O’Hare’s company, for example, losing twelve soldiers’: this comes from the pay and muster roll research conducted by Eileen Hathaway and myself.

  FOUR Barba del Puerco

  40 ‘It was beyond anything I could have conceived’: Simmons.

  41 ‘This extraordinary undertaking’: James Shaw Kennedy, whose essay on the outpost line appears in Lord Fitzclarence’s Manual of Outpost Duties, London, 1849.

  42 ‘by the over-eagerness of the riflemen’: Wellington’s Dispatches, letter of 16 August 1808 to the Duke of Richmond.

  43 ‘They in turn thought highly of him’: Simmons and Leach praised Wellington highly in their journals well before his great Peninsular victories.

  – ‘He rejected, for example, the old system of forming ad hoc battalions’: this emerges from a letter to General William Stewart of 27 March 1810, in the Cumloden Papers, Edinburgh, 1871.

  – ‘Wellington soon realised that these regiments – the 43rd, 52nd and 95th – were among the very best troops’: Charles Napier, in a letter home of 21 March 1811, describes the Light Division as ‘great favourites’ of Wellington’s.

  – ‘He also rejected the doctrine of many conservative generals that riflemen, by virtue of their slower rate of fire and skirmishers’ vulnerability to cavalry, could only ever be deployed in penny packets, supporting regular infantry’: in a letter of 11 July 1803, General Clinton (Military Secretary at Horse Guards) wrote, ‘I cannot help thinking that a corps armed with rifles, unless it is supported, would be exposed in a very short time to be cut to pieces.’ He is cited by Gates.

  – ‘with him the field officers must first be steady’: these comments about William Stewart’s time as commanding officer were made by Charles Napier (then an officer in the 95th) in his journal and reproduced in The Life and Opinions of General Sir Charles James Napier, by Lieutenant General Sir W. Napier, 4 vols., London, 1857.

  44 ‘he had begun his military career as a surgeon’s mate’: see WO 12/7695, muster roll of 69th Foot.

  – ‘He had been promoted to captain in 1803’: Sir William Stewart’s letter to the Commander in Chief, see WO 31/143.

  45 ‘His brother officers were ignorant of the wife, Mary, and daughter, Marianne’: their ignorance is shown by the Register of Officers’ Effects, WO 25/2964 where it says it is ‘not known’ whether he is married. Mary’s existence emerges from PROB 6/189 Acts of Administrations (these are probate records), and Marianne’s from WO 25/3080 which are Abstracts of Compassionate Allowance Claims for 1814.

  45 ‘O’Hare had spent some time pursuing a young lady in Hythe’: Costello, who also provides the quotations about flogging the next man who makes an attempt, and about O’Hare’s extremely ugly countenance.

  – ‘having enjoyed the wine very much’: this quotation and t
he saga of the stolen boots come from Simmons.

  46 ‘Whereas, for example, Lieutenant Harry Smith, a dashing young English subaltern’: these forms of address come from Smith’s memoirs. Costello says O’Hare’s men usually called him Peter.

  – ‘We had but a slender sprinkling of the aristocracy among us’: John Kincaid, Random Shots From a Rifleman, first published London, 1835.

  – ‘They soon took over the small cantinas, inviting local girls to join them in nightly drinking, dancing and song’: tales of their carousing emerge from Leach, Rough Sketches, and The Peninsula and Waterloo, Memories of an Old Rifleman, a memoir of John Molloy, of the 95th, by Edmund F. Du Cane, published in Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 76, December 1897.

  – ‘Various amusements were exhibited this morning in our village’: Leach, MS Journal, entry for 4 February.

  – ‘that to divert and to amuse his men and to allow them every possible indulgence’: Leach, Rough Sketches, where the rifleman also cheerfully admits to stealing honey and poaching pigeons.

  48 ‘There was great uncertainty in the French command about whether Craufurd’s line of outposts was at all supported’: that Ferey’s raid was some sort of reconnaissance in force emerges from General Loison, his divisional commander’s report of the event. This is found in the general’s letterbook in French Army archives at Vincennes, dated 21 March 1810, letter 344.

  – ‘Early in the evening of 19 March’: this account of Barba del Puerco relies on Simmons, Costello, Green, John Cox’s MS Journal (RGJ Archives, Box 1, Item 34) and the official French report of the action above.

  – ‘O’Hare, who had “been taken unwell”’: these are Simmons’s words. My own suspicion, given some of the other material in this chapter, is that O’Hare was drunk. I have no direct proof, so I have refrained from making such an emotive allegation in the text itself. Clearly, whatever was wrong with him, it was not a serious enough illness to stop him bellowing about the battlefield just a few hours after he had retired.

  51 ‘Our swords were soon fixed and giving the war cheer’: John Cox MS Journal.

  – ‘Ferey’s dispatch reported the losses: twelve dead and thirteen wounded’: actually Loison’s dispatch alluded to earlier, but it was the custom simply to incorporate the details sent up by your subordinates in their own accounts.

  52 ‘Had the drunken carousing of the 95th’s officers alienated the locals’: both Molloy and Leach speculated along these lines. The quotation about them being ‘blind drunk’ comes from Leach’s Rough Sketches.

  – ‘we … looked upon it as no inconsiderable addition to our regimental feather’: Kincaid, Random Shots.

  – ‘The action reflects honour on Lieutenant Colonel Beckwith’: Craufurd’s order has been reproduced in many places, including Simmons.

  54 ‘Eventually, though, the brigadier set off regardless’: Wellington told his brother-in-law in a letter of 31 July 1810 (in Dispatches) that ‘I knew nothing before it happened’.

  – ‘Craufurd cruelly tried to cut up a handful of brave men, and they thrashed him’: Charles Napier.

  FIVE The Coa

  55 ‘Craufurd had posted his division’: this has been pieced together from various accounts, including Leach’s MS Journal and Simmons.

  56 ‘Some riflemen came around with dry cartridges’: according to Green. This looks like interesting evidence that, even this early in their campaign, the riflemen had abandoned the pre-war style of loading. Instead of a loose ball, powder poured from the horn that symbolised their corps and a leather patch to give the bullet a snug fit, they were using paper cartridges with ball and powder wrapped up in them. This made for faster shooting.

  – ‘As the morning fog cleared away we observed the extensive plains’: John Cox, MS Journal.

  57 ‘If the enemy was enterprising we should be cut to pieces’: these quotations from the journal come from Sir William Napier’s life of his brother.

  – ‘Wellington himself had echoed these views’: apologists for Craufurd, notably Alexander Craufurd in General Craufurd and his Light Division, London, 1891, suggest there was some ambiguity in Wellington’s orders. I can’t see that Wellington’s missives of June and July 1810, culminating with one two days before the battle stating, ‘I am not desirous of engaging in an affair beyond the Coa’ (these can all be found in the volumes of Wellington’s Dispatches), leave any room for doubt about his intentions.

  – ‘He sent his aide-de-camp, Major Napier, around the battalion commanders, telling them’: Napier, life of Charles Napier.

  58 ‘He ordered half his company, Lieutenant Coane’s platoon (under Simmons now)’: Simmons.

  – ‘The French cavalry are upon us!’: Costello.

  59 ‘Captain Vogt, one of their squadron commanders, fell dead’: Capitaine R. Dupuy, Historique du 3e Régiment de Hussards de 1764 à 1887, Paris 1887.

  – ‘One of the Portuguese battalions started to disintegrate’: Wellington’s letter of 29 July 1810 to William Beresford (the British officer seconded to command the Portuguese army) reveals the flight of about half of the 1st Cacadores. An inquiry into their conduct was subsequently ordered by Beresford, which concluded, rather feebly, that those who fled across the bridge had been left without orders.

  – ‘They sent their light infantry in abundance like swarms of bees’: Jonathan Leach MS, from the letter account of the Coa sent home to an (unknown) friend and later copied by Willoughby Verner while researching his history.

  60 ‘Beckwith saw Major Napier nearby, and ordered him to get through to the 52nd’: this is evident from Napier’s journal and Harry Smith’s comments.

  – ‘they had run out of ammunition’: Leach MS Journal.

  61 ‘Captain Alexander Cameron’s men of the 7th or Highland Company’: Cameron’s positions vis-à-vis the 43rd were discussed in a letter to him from Christopher Patrickson, late 43rd, written in 1844, RGJ Archive, Box 1A, Item 40.

  – ‘This is an officer of ours, and we must see him in safety before we leave him’: Simmons.

  – ‘The French in a second occupied the hill which we left’: Leach MS Journal.

  62 ‘Colonel Jean-Pierre Bechaud called out to the grenadiers of his 66ème Régiment’: Capitaine Dumay, Historique du 66e Régiment d’Infanterie (1672–1900), Tours, 1900.

  – ‘Captain Ninon, commander of the 82éme’s grenadier company’: Capitaine P. Arvers et al., Historique du 82e Regiment d’Infanterie de Ligne, Paris, 1876, contains a report by Ferey dated 10 September 1810 which relates the grenadiers’ attack.

  63 ‘The 95th had accounted for 129 of them: including 12 killed and 54 missing’: Oman.

  – ‘all this blood was shed for no purpose whatsoever’: John Cox MS Journal.

  – ‘But for Colonel Beckwith our whole force would have been sacrificed’: Harry Smith.

  64 ‘The Combat of the 24th proves to [the British] there is no position the French infantry cannot take’: Loison’s report of 26 July, contained in his letterbook in the SHAT Vincennes C 720.

  – ‘that a very unusual degree of severity is exercised towards the soldiers’: this letter from the Adjutant General, Harry Calvert, to Wellington, dated 5 January 1810, is cited by Spurrier, apparently from the Wellington Papers at Southampton University.

  64 ‘I never thought any good was to be expected from any thing of which General R. Craufurd had the direction’: Charles Gordon, letter of 1 August 1810, in family papers relayed to me by Air Commodore John Tomes.

  – ‘If I am to be hanged for it, I cannot accuse a man who I think has meant well’: Wellington to Wellesley-Pole, as above.

  65 ‘The command of your advanced guard appears to be founded in more ignorance’: Torrens to Colonel Bathurst (Military Secretary in Wellington’s HQ), 14 August 1810, Spurrier citing WO 3/597.

  – ‘reports flew about that Craufurd would any moment be replaced by another general’: Sir Brent Spencer was fancied for the job, according to a letter by Lieutenant Henry Booth, of the 4
3rd, to his brother in England, 30 July 1810, reproduced in Levinge’s ‘Historical Records of the 43rd’.

  SIX Wounded

  66 ‘In the churches or barns where Wellington’s few surgeons struggled to cope with the Coa wounded’: the main sources for the first part of this chapter are Simmons, Smith and Costello.

  68 ‘The surgeons had neither the time nor opportunity to look after us’: Costello.

  69 ‘The people are not worthy of notice. I met with great barbarity all the way’: Simmons sent this letter home on 10 August 1810.

  – ‘A lieutenant who had lost an eye or one of his arms could augment his income to the tune of £70 per annum’: see A Gentleman Volunteer, The Letters of George Hennell, ed. Michael Glover, London, 1979. Hennell came out to the Peninsula as a volunteer and was commissioned into the 43rd in 1812. His observations were often deeply perceptive, but we must wait several more chapters before his letters regularly inform this narrative.