142 Its most ambitious efforts were a small volume of maps printed at Cambray, during the occupation of France after Waterloo, with notes by Col. Carmichael Smith, R.E., and the General Orders for 1815, printed at Paris, by Sergeant Buchan, 3rd Guards, head printer to the Army of Occupation.
143 See, for example, York’s Alkmaar dispatch of Oct. 6, 1799.
144 E.g. in Walsh’s Expedition to Holland in 1799, p. 22, the whole original landing force of the British, 15,000 bayonets, is called the “first division,” but only in contrast to the troops not yet landed, not technically.
145 With the exception, of course, that the 1st and 3rd Caçador battalions served all through the war in the two brigades of the Light Division.
147 1/43rd, 1/52nd, 1/95th.
148 2/5th, 1/11th, 2/28th, 2/34th, 2/39th, 2/42nd, 2/58th. The 1/40th and 2/24th joined Wellington in time for Talavera.
149 The original British brigade of the 5th division consisted of the 3/1st, 1/9th, and 2/38th.
150 The 2/30th and 2/44th, to which the 1/4th was subsequently added.
151 The name Army-Corps appears first in the Waterloo Campaign of 1815.
152 The succession of brigadiers seems to have been, in the one brigade, Pack followed by Wilson and Alex. Campbell; in the other Bradford continued almost through the whole war, but McMahon was in command in part of 1811–12. After June, 1811, Ashworth’s Brigade was regularly attached to the 2nd division.
153 Now no longer wanted, as Leith had received his second British brigade.
154 2nd, 1/36th, and (added long months after) the 1/32nd.
155 1/50th, 1/71st, and 1/92nd.
156 51st, 85th, with the Chasseurs Britanniques and the Brunswick Oels Jägers. The 68th joined in July, but the 85th went home in October.
157 1st and 2nd Light Battalions, K.G.L., which landed very late, joined Beresford’s army in Estremadura, and only united with their proper division in June.
158 See notes on these battalions in the chapter on “The Auxiliaries.”
159 After Albuera their nickname was changed to “the Enthusiastics.”
160 This happened with the 5th, 28th, 38th, 39th, 42nd. The 2/4th and 2/52nd came out for a short time, and then discharged their serviceable men into their 1st battalion, and went home.
162 These thirty-seven were the 2nd, 12th, 13th, 16th, 17th, 19th, 20th, 22nd, 29th, 33rd, 37th, 41st, 46th, 49th, 51st, 54th, 55th, 64th, 65th, 68th, 70th, 74th, 75th, 76th, 77th, 80th, 85th, 86th, 93rd, 94th, and 97th to 103rd.
163 Which were intended for home service only, and were called the “Army of Reserve.” But ere long they were utilized for general service.
164 The regiments which raised belated second battalions were the 12th (in 1813), the 22nd (in 1814), the 37th (in 1811), the 41st (in 1814), the 73rd (in 1809), the 86th (in 1814), the 93rd (in 1814). The 95th (in 1809), and the 56th in 1813, raised a third battalion.
165 For all the establishments see Table in Appendix I.
166 This was the case with the 7th, 48th, 52nd and 88th in 1811.
167 The 3rd Hussars, K.G.L., 2/14th, 2/23rd, 2/43rd, 2/81st, never returned to serve under Wellington in 1809–14.
168 In 1810 the following returned to Portugal 3/1st, 1/4th, 1/9th, 1/50th, 1/71st, 1/79th. In 1811 the following: 2nd, 1/26th, 1/28th, 1/32nd, 1/36th, 51st, 2/52nd, 1st and 2nd Light K.G.L. In 1812 the following: 1/5th, 1/6th, 20th, 1/38th, 1/42nd, 2/59th, 1/82nd, 1/91st. In 1813 the 7th, 10th, 15th, 18th Hussars, the first and third battalions of the 1st Foot Guards, and the 76th.
169 These were the 1/3rd, 2/9th, 29th, 1/40th, 1/45th, 5/60th, 97th, the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 7th Line Battalions of the K.G.L., and the 20th Light Dragoons, the last-named incomplete.
170 The regiments which arrived with Wellesley, or before him, during the spring and the preceding winter of 1808–1809, were 3/27th, 2/31st, and 14th Light Dragoons, during the winter; in April, 1st Coldstream Guards, 1st Scots Fusilier Guards, 2/7th, 2/30th, 2/48th, 2/53rd, 2/66th, 2/83rd, 2/87th, 1/88th, 16th Light Dragoons, 3rd Dragoon Guards, 4th Dragoons.
171 Since April there had come out the 23rd Light Dragoons, 1st Hussars, K.G.L., 1/61st, 1/48th, 2/24th; but the 20th Light Dragoons had been deducted (sent to Sicily), while the 2/9th and 2/30th had been sent back to Lisbon, for passage to Gibraltar. The net gain, therefore, between April and July was only one cavalry regiment.
172 To recapitulate again. 1st battalions: 1/3rd, 1/40th, 1/45th, 1/48th, 1/61st, 1/88th. 2nd battalions: 2/7th, 2/31st, 2/24th, 2/48th, 2/53rd, 2/66th, 2/83rd, 2/87th. Other junior battalions: 3/27th (left at Lisbon), 5/60th. Single battalion regiments, 29th, 97th. There were also two “Battalions of Detachments.”
173 The strongest battalions at Talavera were 1/3rd Foot Guards 1019, 1st Coldstream 970, 1/48th 807; the weakest were 2/66th 526, 97th 502, 2/83rd 535.
174 Viz. 2/7th, 2/48th.
175 2/24th, 2/31st, 2/53rd, 2/66th. The first battalions of three of these were in the East Indies, that of the fourth in Sicily.
176 1/7th, 1/11th, 1/23rd, 1/37th, 1/39th, 1/57th.
177 2/5th, 2/34th, 2/38th, 2/44th, 2/47th, 2/58th, 2/62nd, 2/84th.
178 68th, 74th, 77th, 85th, 94th.
179 This was the case with the 2/62nd, 77th, 1/37th, 2/84th.
180 The sixth of the units of the provisional battalions being a single battalion corps, the 2nd Foot or Queen’s.
181 Typical figures are 77th, landed in July 859 of all ranks—had only 560 present in September. The 68th, landed about the same time, had 233 sick to 412 effective: the 51st, landed in April, 246 sick to 251 effective! But the 51st had lost men in the second siege of Badajoz. The other two regiments had not seen much service.
182 Over 14,000 men in October, 1811.
183 Wellington wrote to the Secretary of War (Lord Bathurst), “I assure you that some of the best battalions with the army are the provisional battalions. I have lately seen two of these engaged, that formed of the 2/24th and 2/58th, and that formed from the 2nd Queen’s and 2/53rd: it is impossible for any troops to behave better. The same arrangement could now be applied with great advantage to the 51st and 68th, and also to other regiments” (Dispatches, x. p. 629). There was another “provisional battalion” composed of the 2/30th and 2/44th for a short time in 1812–13.
184 Probably a year later Wellington would not have allowed the 29th and 97th, both old single battalion regiments sent home after Albuera, to depart, but would have worked them together as a “provisional battalion.” He expresses great regret in his private correspondence at losing two excellent units because they had fallen to about 250 men each.
185 After Albuera, where they both suffered heavily, the 2nd was sent home, discharging its serviceable men into the 1st, which was the first connection with the sister-battalion that it had.
186 Such figures are, however, occasionally found, e.g. the 1/4th at Bussaco, and the 1/43rd in September, 1811, had over 1000 of all ranks. So had the 1/42nd at Salamanca.
187 These chanced to be the 1/43rd and the 2/38th respectively. The two Guards battalions were each just under 900 of all ranks at this time.
188 3rd Dragoon Guards, 1st and 4th Dragoons, 14th and 16th Light Dragoons, 1st Hussars, K.G.L.
189 13th Light Dragoons.
190 3rd, 4th, 5th Dragoon Guards; 1st, 3rd, and 4th Dragoons; 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 16th Light Dragoons; 1st and 2nd Heavy Dragoons, K.G.L.; 1st and 2nd Hussars, K.G.L.
191 Tomkinson in his diary observes (p. 230) that the 11th Light Dragoons was not in such bad state as the other condemned regiments, but that their colonel was so senior that he stood in the way of the promotion of several more capable officers to command brigades—hence Wellington resolved to get him out of the country.
192 Dispatches, vii. p. 58. To Lord Liverpool.
193 9th and 11th Light Dragoons, 4th Dragoon Guards, 2nd Hussars, K.G.L.
194 Viz. the 1st Royals, 13th, 14th, and 16th Light Dragoons, and 1st Hussars, K.G.L. See General Orders, October 2, 1811.
195 In the Talavera army, taking the general totals, there were 536 lieutenants to 259 ensigns; in the Bussaco army 624 to 237; in the 1811 army (March) 739 to 323—in each case more than two to one.
196 Viz. killed, the Brigadier-Gen. Hoghton and one major, wounded two lieutenant-colonels and two majors.
197 Picton, though wounded in the foot at Badajoz, rode with his division for some time after it marched from Estremadura for the North, but the wound getting inflamed he was compelled to go into hospital, and Wallace had his place for some weeks in June, Pakenham appearing as divisional commander in July.
198 See the bitter remarks on pp. 367–369 on Blakeney’s Autobiography. For a number of illustrative anecdotes see Leach’s curious little book, Rambles on the Banks of Styx, which is full of Peninsular grievances.
199 The allusion is to the obscure business of influence in distributing commissions said to have been used by the Duke of York’s mistress, Mrs. Mary Ann Clarke.
200 For more of this pamphlet, see Stocqueler’s Personal History of the Horse Guards, pp. 60–67.
201 For an astounding story of an ensign who had been a billiard-marker in Dublin, and who was ultimately cashiered for theft, see Col. Bunbury’s Reminiscences, vol. i. pp. 26–28.
202 Memoirs of Captain George Ellers, 12th Foot, p. 43.
203 See the instances in General Orders for April 23, 1810, and July 16, 1812.
204 For a good example, see Dickson Papers, pp. 622, 623, where the good Dickson gets one officer to own that he was “betrayed in a moment of intoxication” into insulting words, and the other to say that the counter-charge with which he replied was made “in a moment of great irritation and passion.” The apologies were both passed as satisfactory.
205 A series of court-martials in one Peninsular battalion shows us such a picture, with the colonel on one side and the two majors on the other. The former prosecuted the senior major for embezzlement, while at the same moment a subaltern was “broke” for alleging that the junior major had shown cowardice in the field. The Horse Guards finally dispersed all the officers into different corps, as the only way of ending the feud.
206 See pp. 121–2 of vol. ii. of Robinson’s Life of Picton.
207 Letter printed in Vie Militaire, ed. Girod de l’Ain, p. 98.
208 See the heading “Lisbon” in the collected volume of General Orders, pp. 206, 207.
209 General Orders, Freneda, December 4, 1811. For anecdotes about this officer’s shirking propensities, see pp. 27–36 of the second series of Grattan’s Adventures with the Connaught Rangers. He was ultimately cashiered.
210 Gleig’s Reminiscences of Wellington, p. 303.
211 Conversations with Duke of Wellington, pp. 13 and 18.
213 When the 90th was raised in 1794, out of the 746 men 165 were English and 56 Irish—not much less than a third of the whole. Cf. Delavoye’s History of the 90th, p. 3. In the Waterloo campaign the 71st had 83 English and 56 Irish in its ranks.
214 Woolwright’s History of the 77th, p. 29.
215 Rogerson’s History of the 53rd, p. 35.
216 See Fortescue’s History of the British Army, vi. pp. 180–183.
217 To quote an interesting explanatory note from the autobiography of Morris of the 73rd. “The militia would be drawn up in line, and the officers for the regiments requiring volunteers would give a glowing description of their several corps, describing the victories they had gained, and the honours they had acquired, and conclude by offering the bounty. If these inducements were not effectual in getting men, coercive measures were adopted: the militia colonel would put on heavy and long drills and field exercises, which were so tedious and oppressive that many men would embrace the alternative, and volunteer for the regulars” (p. 13).
218 A canny Scot makes his explanation for volunteering in a fashion which combines patriotism, love of adventure, and calculation. “In the militia I serve secure of life and limb, but with no prospect of future benefit for old age (pension) to which I may attain. It is better to hazard both abroad in the regular service, than to have poverty and hard-labour accompanying me to a peaceful grave at home.” Anton’s Retrospect of a Military Life, p. 39.
219 See the amusing narrative of Lawrence of the 20th and his two evasions from his stone-mason employer.
220 See Stanhope’s Conversations with Wellington, p. 13.
221 Journal of T. S. of the 71st in Constable’s Memorials of the Late War, i. p. 25.
222 Note by Colborne on p. 396 of his Life by Moore-Smith.
223 Rifleman Harris, pp. 10–16.
224 In the Court-Martials on privates printed in General Orders, out of 280 trials I make out 80 certainly Irish names, and a good many more probably Irish—while there are only 23 Scots. There were certainly not four times as many Irish as Scots in the Peninsular Army, though there were more than twice as many.
225 See also Stanhope’s Conversations with Wellington, p. 6.
226 Twenty-five Years in the Rifle Brigade, pp. 47, 48.
227 Both court-martialled, of course: see General Orders, vol. vii.
228 This incident occurs in the unprinted letters of F. Monro, R.A., lent to me by his kinsfolk of to-day.
229 One of the Duke’s acrid generalizations on this point was “the non-commissioned officers of the Guards regularly got drunk once a day, by eight in the evening, and got to bed soon after—but they always took care to do first what they were bid.”—Stanhope’s Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 18.
230 See Anton’s (42nd, Black Watch) Retrospect of a Military Life, pp. 239, 240.
231 Retrospect of a Military Life, pp. 57, 58.
232 Memoirs of Sergeant Morley, 5th Foot, p. 101.
233 The survivors in 1809 were the regiments of de Meuron, Rolle, Dillon, and de Watteville.
234 This proviso was neither submitted to nor approved by the British Government, who refused to take notice of it. Napoleon, during many disputes as to the exchange of prisoners in later years, always found a good excuse for breaking off negociations in the fact that he held that 4000 or 5000 Hanoverians of the K.G.L. should be reckoned as men requiring exchange.
235 I note among the deserters from the German Legion in 1812–14 the strange and non-Teutonic names of Gormowsky, Melofsky, Schilinsky, Wutgok, Prochinsky, Borofsky, Ferdinando, Panderan, Kowalzuch, Matteivich, etc.
236 The other two names are one Swiss the other Croatian.
237 Names such as Davy, Woodgate, Galiffe, Andrews, McKenzie, Holmes, Linstow, Wynne, Joyce, Gilbert are unmistakably British. See Colonel Rigaud’s History of the 5/60th, Appendix i.
240 This corps only raised its second battalion in 1811.
241 Algarve, Nos. 2 (Lagos) and 14 (Tavira). Alemtejo, Nos. 5 and 17 (1st and 2nd of Elvas), 8 (Evora), 20 (Campomayor), 22 (Serpa). Lisbon, Nos. 1, 4, 10, 16. Estremadura, No. 7 (Setubal), 19 (Cascaes), 11 (Peniche). Beira, Nos. 3 and 15 (raised in the Lamego district), 11 and 23 (1st and 2nd of Almeida). Oporto region, Nos. 6 and 18 (1st and 2nd of Oporto), 9 (Viana), 21 (Valença). Tras-os-Montes, Nos. 12 (Chaves), and 24 (Braganza).
242 The three Lusitanian battalions wore a uniform of ivy-green, the nine others a dark brown dress. The cut of both was fashioned in imitation of that of the British Rifle Brigade.
243 Beresford to Wellington, Supplementary Dispatches, vi. p. 774.
244 From a memorandum by Benjamin D’Urban, Beresford’s Quartermaster-General, or rather Chief of the Staff, in the unpublished D’Urban papers.
245 From a letter to his friend, J. Wilson, in the unpublished D’Urban Correspondence.
246 General Orders, Santa Marinha, March 25, 1811.
247 The case of an officer who openly cohabited with the wife of a private, and fought with and thrashed her not-unreasonably jealous husband.
248 See General Orders, July 2, 1813.
249 There is a long quarrel of this sort between Colonel Cochrane of the 36th and General A. Campbell, whose original cause was in details of mismanagement at the escape of Brennier from Almeida.
250 General Orders, Lesaca, September 20, 1813. In this case a lieutenant of the 5/60th had been condemned for violently resisting the turning out of his horses from a stable by his senior, “using opprobrious and disgraceful language” and threatening to strike him.
251 General Orders, Garris, February 24, 1814.
252 Ibid., Freneda, February 3, 1813.
253 See Wellington Dispatches, vol. ii., pp. 330 and 369, and for his recapture Stepney’s Diary, p. 55.
254 Case of Corporal Hammond of the 87th, January 24, 1810.
255 Viz. 5/60th, 97th, 1, 2, 5, 7 Line of the K.G.L., 1 and 2 Light K.G.L., Brunswick Oels and Chasseurs Britanniques.
256 The tale comes from p. xxxi. of the Introduction to the Collected General Orders.
257 General Orders, September 22, 1809.
258 See the printed report of the Long Court-Martial on Colonel Quentin, London, 1814, p. 272.
259 Printed in General Orders, vol. v. 1813, the accused being Col. Archdall of the 1/40th.
260 Sergeant Donaldson’s Eventful Life of a Soldier, pp. 145, 146.
261 There are Peninsular-period Good-Conduct medals for the 10th and 11th Hussars (starting 1812), 5th Foot (Northumberland Fusiliers), 7th Fusiliers, 22nd, 38th, 52nd, 71st, 74th, 88th, 95th, 97th, and some other corps, not to speak of others which were medals for special deeds of courage or for marksmanship.
262 See Hope’s Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, 1808–15, pp. 459–60.
263 This is said to have been the case in the 1/48th when it was under Colonel Donnellan, who fell at Talavera.
264 Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence, pp. 48, 49.
265 Rough Notes, by Sir George Bell, i. p. 120.
266 Probably the case of a private of the 34th who had struck his captain, in a rage. This flogging (1813) was the only one of such severity which occurred in the regiment while Bell was serving with it in 1812–1814.
267 See footnote to p. xxv. of Selected General Orders.
268 These can be found in Fitzclarence on Outpost Duty, mentioned above, in which they were printed at full length. It is still easy to procure.
269 Donaldson of the 94th, pp. 179–181.
270 General Order, May 23, 1809.
271 See reproofs in 1811 and 1812 in Collected General Orders, p. 20.
272 “Under the orders of Sir John Moore a horse or mule was allowed to each captain of a company of infantry, and a horse or mule in common among the subalterns. And under the orders of Sir John Cradock, which have been the rule for this army, the subalterns were allowed a horse or mule between them” (General Orders, p. 122).
273 I find, e.g., in diaries, that 2nd Lieut. Hough, R.A., got “two domestics, a country horse, and a mule” immediately on landing. Geo. Simmons and Harry Smith of the 95th were certainly habitually riding when only lieutenants. So was Grattan of the 88th. Bell of the 34th being impecunious had “only half a burro along with another lad.” Bunbury of the Buffs had half a horse and half a mule in conjunction with another subaltern. Hay of the 52nd was just in the regulation with one mule to himself, on his first campaign, but bought a Portuguese mare before he had been a year in the field.
274 From that amusing piece of doggerel (strictly contemporary) The Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome.