by Mark Urban
111 ‘I consider the action that was fought by the Light Division’: Wellington’s dispatch to the Earl of Liverpool is dated 9 April 1811, in Dispatches.
– ‘it would be stupid to pretend to persuade you that I did not feel any regret that the events’: Craufurd to his wife, 13 April 1811, Spurrier.
– ‘On 11 April, Peter O’Hare was given an in-field promotion, or brevet, to the rank of major’: this data, and much else in the subsequent paragraphs, comes from the Challis Index, a biographical goldmine on Peninsular officers kept at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
113 ‘supposing I got into the most desirable Regt. in the service, I should be happy to leave it the moment I could get a step’: this letter is contained in The Pakenham Letters 1800 to 1815, privately printed 1914.
– ‘as to remaining an English full-pay lieutenant for ten or twelve years!’: letter from Charles Napier, quoted by William Napier.
– ‘Layton and Grant argued until, pistols being produced, they determined to fight a duel’: details of this fascinating case emerge from Green and the Rifle Brigade Chronicle, 1947.
114 ‘A contest of this kind had caused one officer of the 95th to leave the regiment’: Captain Travers – the case is described in the Rifle Brigade Chronicle, 1895.
– ‘But Layton’s fate was to serve on without the possibility of promotion’: this is evident from the fact that he was never promoted, even though others less senior were, without purchase.
ELEVEN Fuentes d’Onoro
116 ‘I found my Division under arms, and was received with the most hearty appearance of satisfaction’: Craufurd’s letter to his wife dates from 8 May 1811, another one cited by Spurrier.
– ‘they had the sense that Craufurd attended keenly to his duty’: Costello and Harris are examples of this. Interestingly both books were (ghost) written long after the Napoleonic wars and Craufurd’s mention of the three cheers is the only one I can find in any contemporary document. The same applies to more general remarks about his qualities: they do not appear in the contemporary journals or letters of characters like Simmons, Leach and John Cox.
117 ‘formed column at quarter distance, ready to form square at any moment if charged by cavalry’: Simmons. This account of the Light Division’s battle differs somewhat from that of Oman, the great authority, and indeed from my own Oman-influenced version in The Man Who Broke Napoleon’s Codes, Faber, 2001. The changes reflect careful study of Light Division accounts.
118 ‘While we were retiring with the order and precision of a common field day’: Kincaid, Adventures.
– ‘One of these riflemen, named Flynn, was a good specimen of the hard-fighting Irish’: both tales of Flynn come from an officer called John FitzMaurice, who joined the 95th in 1811 and whose son privately published a volume of reminiscences called Biographical Sketch of Major General John FitzMaurice in Italy in 1908.
119 ‘this was the first charge of cavalry most of us had seen’: Costello.
– ‘a company of the Guards, who did not get out of the wood’: Simmons.
– ‘Lieutenant Colonel Hill’s men were unable to form square’: Oman quotes Hall of the Guards at length on this incident.
120 ‘The town presented a shocking sight’: William Grattan of the 88th, ‘Adventures with the Connaught Rangers, 1809–1814’, London, 1902.
– ‘Such was the fury of the 79th’: FitzRoy Somerset writing to his brother, the Duke of Beaufort on 8 May 1811, unpublished, residing in the family archive at Badminton House, Beaufort Papers FmM 4/1/6.
121 ‘Most of the Peninsular veteran regiments … had adopted the movement and firing tactics of the Light Brigade’: Major General John Colville, commanding the British brigade most heavily engaged at El Bodon in September 1811, for example, wrote home that the drills his battalions used to form square during that battle were, ‘the Light Infantry or Sir John Moore’s’, i.e. not the old regulations. Colville’s letter, retained in family papers, is reproduced in The Portrait of a General, by John Colville, Salisbury, 1980 – a very useful volume. As for the regiments adopting Light Division firing practice, this is evident in Simmons’s comments about the losses to the 79th.
– ‘firing volleys in sections according to the old drill’: this point is made by Simmons.
– ‘a ball had passed through the back part of the head’: Kincaid, Adventures.
– ‘endless euphemisms were coined to provide a little conversational variety’: Kincaid’s Random Shots is the best single source of these, but they appear in many different places.
123 ‘to be in the Light Division is sufficient to stamp a man as a good soldier’: Wyndham Madden, an officer of the 43rd, writing home to his mother on 5 August 1811, RGJ archive box 1A /455.
– ‘Lord Wellington conceives there he might be treated to more shots than his friends would wish’: letter from FitzRoy Somerset, 23 May 1811, Beaufort Papers FmM 4/1/6, as is the recommendation of the Fusiliers. In his next letter, Somerset changed this to the Guards (‘as I am persuaded it is the only part of the Army where there is now good society’). The identity of the young aristocrat receiving this advice via the Duke of Beaufort is not entirely clear from the letters.
124 ‘the last named officer, I beg leave in a particular manner to recommend to Lord Wellington’s notice’: Beckwith’s letter to Somerset, 3 July 1811, in WO31/327.
TWELVE The Gentleman Volunteer
125 ‘I hope to see a great number of volunteers come out soon’: Simmons.
– ‘your memorialist, a native of Scotland, aged 19, is a son of respectable parentage’: Mitchell’s notes survives in the Mitchell Papers, cited by William C. Foster in his Sir Thomas Mitchell and His World 1792–1855, published by the New South Wales Institution of Surveyors.
126 ‘A volunteer – be it known to all who know it not’: Kincaid, Random Shots. Kincaid calls Sarsfield ‘Dangerfield’ in his book, presumably to safeguard against the threat of litigation or a challenge to a duel.
– ‘John FitzMaurice … had come out a few months before his countryman Sarsfield’: his recommendation was from Judge Day. The story of FitzMaurice’s arrival in his regiment was told by his son, cited above.
127 ‘While they are treated as gentlemen out of the field’: Kincaid, Random Shots.
– ‘That young devil FitzMaurice is covered with blood from head to foot’: FitzMaurice fils.
128 ‘Sarsfield’s brother had been killed at Albuera’: this detail emerges from Beckwith’s letter to Somerset of 4 July 1811 in WO31/327.
129 ‘the usual sinister cast of the eye worn by common Irish country countenances’: Kincaid, Random Shots.
– ‘His original good natured simplicity gave way to experience’: Costello, who calls Sarsfield ‘Searchfied’ in his book.
130 ‘General Murray who commands the garrison … is very fond of shew and parade’: Gairdner’s letter to his father 26 May 1811. The other quotation comes from a letter of 10 September 1810. Both are contained, along with Gairdner’s journal, in the archives of the National Army Museum MSS 7011-21. Gairdner’s impressions form a vital and hardly ever used primary source on the 95th.
130 ‘the laughing stock of the whole army, and particularly of the Light Division’: Charles Napier, in William Napier’s book of his life.
– ‘Ensign William Hay joined the 52nd only to witness the following’: Captain William Hay, Reminiscences, 1809–1815, Under Wellington, London, 1901.
131 ‘Order upon orders of the most damnable nature were issued’: Leach MS Journal.
– ‘I am glad to see you safe, Craufurd’: this is one of the better-known Craufurd anecdotes, first described by F. Larpent, Private Journal of F. Seymour Larpent, Judge Advocate General, London, 1853.
THIRTEEN Deserters
134 ‘A Spanish peasant girl has an address about her’: Kincaid, Adventures.
135 ‘characters like Leach or Johnston strolling down the lanes with a pet wolf’: Leach, Rough Sketc
hes and ‘Anecdotes in the Life of the Late Major Johnstone, of the Rifle Brigade’, by a Brother Officer [in fact Kincaid], United Service Journal, 1837, Part 1.
– ‘21 August, when half of the 3rd Battalion – four companies comprising its Right Wing’: Leach MS Journal.
136 ‘One evening, returning from an inspection of the outposts, General Craufurd rode straight into a scene of near riot’: Costello is the source of this entire anecdote.
– ‘The corporal was broken to the ranks and awarded 150 lashes’: Costello says the man was called Corporal Miles, a name that does not appear in the 1st Battalion lists. It is possible he was in another battalion of the 95th. He is also unclear about when exactly the incident happened, but Leach in his MS Journal makes reference to the flogging of two men on 11 October 1811.
137 ‘I am labouring under a fit of the blue devils’: Craufurd to his wife, 3 December 1811, cited by Spurrier.
– ‘Headquarters was putting the squeeze on skulkers in the hospitals again’: with a General Order of 15 November 1811, in Dispatches.
138 ‘Three men had absconded from the 1st/95th within a year of its landing’: they were Neil MacLean and Ronald MacDonald, 7th Company, and Allan Cumming, 3rd Company, according to returns. Cumming returned later, as we shall see. Kincaid, in Adventures, reports the death in battle of another 95th deserter, which circumstantial evidence suggests may have been MacDonald.
– ‘A private of the 43rd had tried desertion back in the summer of 1810’: these examples come from the court-martial records in General Orders, Spain and Portugal, London, 1811–14.
– ‘Well, Rifles, you will remember the 24th of July’: the source of this fascinating anecdote and the quotation at the end of this passage is Green.
138 ‘The case of Allan Cummings may have also persuaded them’: Cummings’ desertion and pardon is described by Harris in his recollections. WO 25/2139, Casualty Returns, lists him as a deserter, as do the muster rolls, which show him having gone on 27 October 1810. WO 25/2139 is also the source of the information on MacFarlane and other deserters, including for example Almond’s debts when he deserted.
139 ‘On 17 November, Almond decided to take his chance’: the dates of the desertions come from subsequent proceedings in the volumes of General Orders and from WO 25/2139.
140 ‘one of his mad freaks’: Harry Smith, who, like Wellington, was evidently unable to accept the genuine privations described by Costello and others.
– ‘The Commander of the Forces is much concerned to learn from your letter’: this letter and the Adjuntant General’s of 21 December are in Wellington’s Dispatches.
– ‘Craufurd, you are late’: these quotations are from Smith.
141 ‘I cannot say that Lord Wellington and I are quite so cordial’: this comes from the Rev. A. Craufurd’s book.
142 ‘I expect in a few months, very few, to be with you’: this was Craufurd’s last letter to his wife, dated 8 January 1812, cited by Spurrier.
FOURTEEN The Storm of Ciudad Rodrigo
143 ‘Lieutenant Colonel Colborne led his column forward’: G. C. Moore Smith’s life of Colborne contains extensive details of this enterprise.
144 ‘Corporal Robert Fairfoot had joined the party’: this emerges from Fairfoot’s service record in the 2nd Battalion Description Book for 1830, WO25/559.
– ‘What’s that drunken man doing?’: Moore Smith again.
145 ‘Yer honour, I’ll lend him my greatcoat if ye’ll allow me’: Costello.
– ‘Uniacke enjoyed his men’s renown for his handsome looks and athletic prowess’: e.g. Costello. Others make mention of him too, like Harry Smith and Simmons.
– ‘His mother had long been a widow, and her survival and that of John’s eight siblings depended on his remittances from the Peninsula’: details of Uniacke’s family circumstances emerge in WO 42/47U3, an application by Mrs Uniacke for a pension.
146 ‘When that young subaltern eventually reached the battalion, on 13 January, he exhibited the whey face’: Gairdner’s journal, NAM MSS 6902-5-1.
148 ‘Gairdner, another officer, and thirty men were sent down to their position at about 8 p. m.’: details of this operation and the subsequent quotation are in a letter to his father of 19 January 1812, NAM MSS 7101-20.
149 ‘the Royal Wagon Train supported by the mounted 14th Light Dragoons’: these words come from Rambles along the Styx, by Lieutenant Colonel Leach, London, 1847. This work, a curious combination of fact and fiction, takes the form of dialogues between old soldiers in the after-life. Leach suggests this wind-up was perpetrated on a volunteer just before Ciudad Rodrigo. I cannot be completely sure it was Gairdner, hence my weasel ‘it would seem’, but the circumstantial details fit neatly with Gairdner’s arrival during the siege.
150 ‘Craufurd and Picton did not intend to throw their divisions forwards in the usual order’: these details of the Light Division storming arrangements from Verner.
– ‘while the subaltern commanding the forlorn hope may look for death or a company’: Kincaid, Random Shots.
151 ‘The advantage of being on a storming party’: Kincaid, Adventures.
– ‘Move on, will you, 95th? or we will get some who will!’: Moore Smith, Colborne recalled that Craufurd ‘squeaked out’ this insult, an example of the pitch in his voice produced by anger.
– ‘Go back, sir, and get others; I am astonished at such stupidity’: Simmons.
152 ‘Look there, Fitz, what would our mothers say, if they saw what was preparing for us?’: FitzMaurice.
– ‘Soldiers! the eyes of your country are upon you’: these words of Craufurd’s come from Costello, written long after the event. It seems a little surprising that none of the other Light Division diarists recorded them at the time, but on the other hand it is likely that he would have said something inspiring to his men.
– ‘I mounted with a ferocious intent’: Kincaid, Adventures.
153 ‘Gurwood was making his way up one of the ladders when he was either thrown or knocked off’: Smith.
– ‘Looking up in the murk, they could see the mouth of a cannon facing down and across the breach’: Green.
– ‘When the battle is over, and crowned with victory, he finds himself elevated for a while into the regions of absolute bliss’: Kincaid at his descriptive best.
154 ‘broke into different squads, which went in different directions’: Costello.
– ‘If I had not seen it, I never could have supposed that British soldiers would become so wild and furious’: John Cooke, of the 43rd, from A True Soldier and Gentleman, the version edited by Eileen Hathaway and published by her Shinglepicker Press, 2000. Cooke records the unfortunate private as Evans.
– ‘What, sir, are you firing at?’: Kincaid, Adventures.
FIFTEEN The Reckoning
156 ‘We marched over the bridge dressed in all variety of clothes imaginable’: Costello.
– ‘I walked around the ramparts that morning at daybreak’: Gairdner MS letter, dated 19 January, but like many officers in these campaigns, he started the letter on that day and finished it, with various postscripts, somewhat later.
– ‘The general’s coffin was borne by sergeant majors from each of the Light Division’s battalions’: from the account by G. R. Gleig, published in The Gem, London, 1829.
157 ‘some Light Division men marching straight through a great slushy puddle’: this is Gleig again, speculating about the soldiers’ motivation on the basis of a few days with the Army since he had only joined during the siege. Personally I’m sceptical, but the muddy puddle has been a part of many subsequent accounts of Craufurd. Gleig’s account is generally colourful, almost to the point of Victorian high camp.
– ‘He is a man of a very extraordinary temper and disposition’: Somerset’s letter to his brother, 22nd January 1812, Beaufort Papers FmM 4/1/8.
– ‘His honour guard was formed of several dozen men of the 3rd Company’: Gairdner MS Journal.
&nbs
p; – ‘Fairfoot assured the priest that Uniacke was Irish’: this fascinating anecdote was first published in F. M. FitzMaurice’s Recollections of a Rifleman’s Wife at Home and Abroad, London, 1851. Mrs FitzMaurice was the wife of John, who was serving at the time of Uniacke’s funeral as a subaltern in his company.
– ‘an evasion made necessary by the British laws against Papists holding commissions’: the laws concerning Catholics holding officers’ rank had been modified away from an absolute ban in the last decades of the eighteenth century. However, it was to be some time before they were formally allowed to be commissioned and so a system of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ had emerged. I am grateful to Dr Rory Muir for bringing to my attention an article in the English Historical Review, Vol. 70, 1955, on ‘Roman Catholics holding Military Commissions in 1798’, for a description of this state of affairs.