The History of the Rifle Brigade (the Prince Consort's Own) Formerly the 95th

In this bivouack the Riflemen continued till the 28th. But it was toilsome work. The picquets were continually fired at; the reliefs waylaid; the officers going round their sentries exposed to chance shots from a concealed marksman. How different this from the courtesies and chivalry of their European enemies, which I have so often had occasion to narrate!

Early on the 28th the army advanced towards New Orleans, the Riflemen leading, by the high road along the river’s bank. They drove in the enemy’s picquets, and proceeded along the road here called ‘Le détour des Anglais,’ till, on turning round some houses on the left, they suddenly found themselves in front of a strong work the enemy had thrown up, and from which they opened a cannonade from four guns; while their old enemy the ship, now moored a little in advance of the work, brought a flank fire to bear on them. The Riflemen, leading and extended, did not suffer so much;[149] but the 85th which followed in close formation were mown down by this fire. Some houses were on the right, which might have afforded some temporary cover; but the enemy, by their shells, set them on fire, and the flames added to the confusion. To escape in some measure from the effects of the fire the regiments were deployed to the right, while the Riflemen advancing about a hundred yards got into a ditch, which in a great degree sheltered them. In the afternoon the regiments moved off by wings, so as to present as small a body as possible to the enemy’s fire. The Riflemen, however, did not move off till after dark, nor till some of the Yankees had ventured out of their works ‘in a very triumphant manner.’ But a few shots from the Riflemen immediately produced the conviction among them that it was more advisable to return to the protection of their rampart. This work was a stout parapet, in front of which was a wet ditch or canal. Its extent was about 1,000 yards, and its left touched the river, while its right was defended by the wood.

The army now took up a position about a mile and a half or two miles from this work. The Battalion was placed in a house rather in advance, and on the left of the line. This was exposed, not only to the fire from the work, but also, as it was near the bank, from a redoubt which the enemy had constructed on the opposite side of the river. The men were placed in a sugar-house belonging to this farm, the floor of which being sunk below the level of the natural ground afforded some protection. Yet on one occasion at least their cooking utensils were knocked off the fire by shot passing through this house.

So matters continued until the 31st. It was resolved to bring up some of the ships’ guns and to place them in battery against the enemy’s work. Accordingly on the night of the 31st strong working parties were employed in constructing two batteries near it; one with the object of keeping down the flank fire from the ship; the other with the view of breaching the centre of the rampart. The night was dark; the men worked in silence; and before daylight the batteries were completed, and the guns in position.

Early in the morning of January 1, 1815, the troops were moved up, with the object of attacking the enemy’s work. A thick fog favoured their advance, and concealed their movements from the Americans. About nine o’clock the fog rose, and our batteries at once began their fire. This threw the Yankees, who were seen on parade, into utter confusion; and had a charge on the works been made at that moment, no doubt it would have been successful. But unhappily the orders were that the attack was not to be made till the enemy’s fire had been silenced, and his works breached. When, therefore, the Americans saw that nothing took place but a cannonade, their courage returned, and after about twenty minutes they began to return our fire; and gradually increased to a vigorous cannonade, which effectually overpowered our guns, and dismounted some of them. The flank fire too from the battery on the opposite bank of the river, in which they had placed their ship’s guns, was very galling.

After being kept under this fire inactive till between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, the troops were withdrawn and bivouacked on the ground, and some occupied the houses they had held during the last few days. At night the troops were turned out and employed in withdrawing the guns from the batteries in which they had been placed. This was hard work; and some of the guns had to be buried, it being found impossible to remove them before daylight. Thus the men had been up, and at hard work, two nights; and in the intervening day had been for many hours under the enemy’s fire, without the chance of fighting them. The loss of the Battalion was, 1 Rifleman killed, and 2 missing.

Things continued in this state till the 7th, the picquets being as before constantly harassed by the enemy.

No other course remained but to carry the enemy’s work by an attack de vive force, and it was decided that this should take place on the 8th. Three companies of the Battalion were to precede the advance of the right column under General Gibbs, consisting of the 4th, 21st and 44th regiments; while the other two companies were in like manner to act with the left column. The Riflemen were to extend along the edge of the canal or ditch in front of the enemy’s rampart, and both parties so extended were to occupy the whole of the bank, or as it might be called, the crest of the glacis. At four o’clock in the morning the troops paraded; and by daylight the Riflemen were in their place. But the 44th Regiment, which had been appointed to carry ladders and fascines to enable the attacking force to cross the ditch, had come without them. Their commanding officer, the Hon. Colonel Mullens, had said loudly the night before when the regiment was detailed for this duty in orders, that ‘his regiment was sent on a forlorn hope’ and ‘was doomed.’ And on the regiment returning to fetch the ladders and fascines, he prudently did not come back to the front with them. The enemy meanwhile opened a furious fire on the troops, specially destructive to the Riflemen who were extended within 100 or 150 yards of the work. One regiment of the right attack, finding itself exposed to this fire, and without the fascines and ladders they had been led to expect, wavered, broke up, and fled to the rear, throwing the regiment which was following in support into confusion. Sir Edward Pakenham, who commanded, in trying to rally this column was killed; General Gibbs, who commanded it, was mortally wounded; and General Keane, who commanded the left attack, was wounded. This attack succeeded better; and for a time the troops composing it held a redoubt which the enemy had constructed in front of the ditch, and which they had stormed. But in the end they were obliged also to give way. Thus the Riflemen, extended in skirmishing order along the edge of the ditch, were left unsupported, and were obliged to retire as best they could. As their files were extended they presented a less prominent object for the enemy’s guns, and they eventually got away with comparatively small loss. Some of them had got quite to the edge of the ditch, and reported that they could have passed it, but the attacking columns which they expected never came up; and to have entered the enemy’s work without them would, of course, have been certain destruction.

A gallant and successful diversion was made on the right bank of the Mississippi by a column under Colonel Thornton; but as the Battalion did not form part of it, it is not my province, as historian of the Regiment only, farther to notice it.

It was regretted by the Riflemen, that Pakenham, himself a Peninsular soldier, did not employ troops who had seen fighting more prominently in so arduous an operation as storming this work. The 7th and 43rd had arrived just before; beside both these regiments the Riflemen had fought in Spain and Portugal; the latter were especially companions in arms, and they had hailed their advent with delight. Yet these he held in reserve, while he advanced comparatively unseasoned troops to the fire of the Americans.

The Battalion retired at last, sorrowful and weary, to its bivouack. It lost 1 Sergeant and 10 Riflemen killed; and Captains James Travers (severely) and Nicholas Travers (slightly), Lieutenants John Reynolds, Sir John Ribton, John Gossett, William Backhouse, and Robert Barker (severely), 5 Sergeants and 89 Riflemen wounded.[150]

During the night the wounded were removed, and a truce for two days, to enable the dead to be buried and the wounded cared for, was made between General Lambert (who succeeded to the command) and General Jackson who commanded the American force. This truce was effected, not without difficulty, by Major Harry Smith, Assistant Adjutant-General, who passed and repassed frequently between the opposing armies.

During this truce every attempt was made by the Yankees to induce our men to desert. The non-commissioned officers were promised commissions, the men land, if they would enter the American service. On one such occasion two Sergeants and a private of the 95th were accosted by an officer of American Artillery, who with such large promises invited them to enter the American service. The Riflemen heard the tempter out; and then, in language perhaps rather forcible than complimentary, assured him that they would rather be privates in their own Corps, than officers with such ‘a set of ragamuffins’ as they saw before them; assuring him that if he did not move off, he should have a taste of their rifles. On that hint, he fled; but getting into the work turned a gun on them and fired, knocking over the private, whom however he only wounded.

A Rifleman on sentry was exposed to the solicitations of another of these gentry. He heard all his generous offers of money, land, and promotion; but pretending he did not, he begged him to come a little nearer and ‘tell him all about it.’ The Yankee elated at his success walked up to the post, and when he was well within range, the Rifleman levelled and shot him in the arm. Then walking forward, he led him prisoner to the guard-room; on the way informing him what a real soldier thought of such sneaking attempts on his fidelity.[151]

These attempts were not always unsuccessful, and much desertion took place; but Surtees records with natural pride, that as far as he knew not a single instance took place among the Riflemen of the 3rd Battalion.

During this truce an officer of the American army was observed plundering a wounded soldier. This excited the ire of Corporal Scott of the 3rd Battalion, who (with the permission of his officer) took a shot at the marauder, and tumbled him over the man he was plundering.

The last duties having been paid to the dead, and all the wounded that were capable of being moved having been withdrawn, a retreat was effected on the night of the 18th. The fires were trimmed, and the men fell in and marched in silence. The weather had latterly broken up; heavy rains by day, and sometimes thunderstorms, were often followed by frost at night. As it was impossible, owing to the narrowness and shallow water of the Bayou Catalan, to embark the troops where they had landed, a road, or an attempt at a road, had been constructed across the marsh, from the great road to New Orleans, along the river’s bank to the shore of Lake Borgne. This extended some miles, and was made of reeds, which it was thought would support the men across the morass; and where it crossed open ditches, as it frequently did, the reeds were laid on boughs of trees brought with great labour from the wood. This road, a bad one at the best, was much injured by the rains, and sunk in with the tramp of the head of the column; so that this night march was very fatiguing, the men often sinking in to the knees, and sometimes in the dark slipping off into the marsh, from whence they were with difficulty rescued.

However at last on the 19th they reached the shore of the lake about one mile from its entrance. Here they were ordered to hut themselves; but this was no easy task, the place being a desert, and almost the only material the reeds which grew on the marsh.

Here they remained till the 25th, when the Battalion embarked on board the ‘Dover,’ which had brought out two of its companies. The Battalion was reduced by its losses in the field to almost half its strength on landing. On the 27th they set sail; and it was resolved to attempt the capture of Mobile. This place, lying about 100 miles to the eastward of New Orleans, is situated in a bay, the entrance to which is defended by a work called Fort Boyer, which therefore had first to be reduced. In order to effect this the 4th, 21st, and 44th Regiments were landed, and commenced the investment of and approach to the place. While on the 8th February the Riflemen and the rest of the troops were disembarked on Île Dauphine at the other side of the bay, till the reduction of Fort Boyer should enable them to move up to Mobile. Here the men hutted themselves; for the island, though otherwise almost a desert, is well covered with pine wood; while the officers, or some of them, had tents.

During the time that they were here, General Lambert inspected the troops by regiments. On making his inspection of the 3rd Battalion, James Travers (in Mitchell’s absence, who had been taken prisoner) was in command. ‘Well, Travers,’ said the General, ‘I hear your Sergeant-Major ran away on the night of the 23rd December.’ ‘Nay, General,’ answered Travers, ‘that he did not. He fought as well as any man could, and was towards the end of the affair severely wounded. But,’ added he, ‘I think I know what may have given rise to that report. A sergeant of ours was in or near one of the houses where the wounded were taken, and the surgeon made him remain there as Hospital Sergeant. I did all I could to get him back to the Battalion; but I could not succeed.’ ‘Well,’ said the General, ‘since I had done the Sergeant-Major some wrong, I must see what I can do to make him amends.’ He did procure him an ensigncy in a West India Regiment, to which he was gazetted soon after.

While the Battalion was on Île Dauphine, a gallant act was performed by Sergeant Thomas Fukes. He, with four or five Riflemen, was sent over to the mainland to shoot bullocks. Fukes with a couple of Riflemen went inland, leaving the other men in charge of the boat. Here one Shiel of the American navy (who had captured a boat in bad weather with some of the 14th Light Dragoons, when embarking at Lake Borgne, and who in consequence fancied himself a hero) came upon them round a jutting point, and having captured them, put them in charge of some of his own crew into their own boat, and dispatched them to an American ship or post. Then waiting for the sergeant, the other two Riflemen, and the Commissary, he of course made them prisoners, since their boat and the rest of their party had disappeared. The Commissary was placed aft with Mr. Shiel; Sergeant Fukes and his two men forward; and they were being rowed off. When well off the shore the Commissary seizing Shiel by the thighs chucked him overboard, while Sergeant Fukes at the same instant sent one of the boat’s crew to follow him, and the Riflemen disposed of the rest. They now recovered their rifles, and having taken security of Mr. Shiel for his good behaviour, admitted him at his urgent importunity into the boat, from whence they landed him, a moist and dispirited prisoner of war, on Île Dauphine.

The approaches to Fort Boyer being completed, Harry Smith was sent in with a summons to surrender. The poor Yankee commandant, sadly puzzled, asked Major Smith what he would advise him to do. He strongly recommended him to surrender immediately, as the place must be taken by assault. Acting on such good advice, which fell in probably with his own sinking courage, he surrendered with his garrison, and signed a capitulation on the 11th February.

This important work having fallen, immediate preparations were made for re-embarking the troops, and attacking Mobile. But on the 14th news arrived of the preliminaries of peace between England and the United States having been settled at Ghent on December 24. All warlike operations of course terminated; and the troops only awaited on Île Dauphine the ratification of the treaty by President Madison. Intelligence of this reached them on the 5th March, and on the 15th the officers and Riflemen who had been made prisoners re-joined the Battalion, having been released under the terms of the treaty. Major Mitchell had been roughly treated by General Jackson, because he refused to furnish him with information of our strength or movements.

On the 31st March the Battalion embarked on board the ‘Dover,’ some few men being placed on board the ‘Norfolk’ transport. On the 4th April they set sail, and, having called at the Havannah, arrived at Plymouth, whence they were ordered round to Dover, where they disembarked on the 2nd June and moved to Shorncliffe, where they found three companies of the Battalion, the remaining two being in Flanders, as is now to be narrated.