275 Notes to Johnny Newcome, p. 30.
276 Grattan of the 88th, selling his horse on leaving the Peninsula at the Lisbon Horse-Fair, says that he got 125 dollars for it, equalling at the then rate of exchange £31 5s. Boothby, R.E., buying a red English stallion, considers himself very lucky to get it for 30 guineas. A donkey fetched about 15 dollars only.
277 There are several court-martials on officers who (disregarding this order) kept a soldier-servant or bâtman out of the ranks.
278 One officer relates that he came upon his own mule-boy, aged ten or twelve, deliberately beating out the brains of a wounded Frenchman, at Salamanca, with a large stone. Another diarist speaks of making a wounded Frenchman comfortable while he went for a surgeon, and returning to find him stabbed and stripped. A third (F. Monro, R.A.) says, “I found myself among the dead and dying, to the shame of human nature be it said, both stripped, some half-naked, some wholly so, and this done principally by those infernal devils in mortal shape, the cruel, cowardly Portuguese followers, unfeeling ruffians. The Portuguese pillaged and plundered our own wounded officers before they were dead!”
279 See Ross Lewin’s With the 32nd in the Peninsular War, p. 205.
280 Sergeant Anton’s Retrospect of a Military Life, pp. 60, 61.
281 Rough Notes of an Old Soldier, vol. i. pp. 74, 75.
282 Wellington (General Order of April 26, 1814) makes the concession that colonels may permit “a few who have proved themselves useful and regular,” to accompany the soldiers to whom they are attached “with a view to being ultimately married.”
283 For details see Donaldson’s Eventful Life of a Soldier, pp. 231, 232.
284 History of the Peninsular War, vol. iv. p. 276. Also mentioned in Tomkinson’s Diary, p. 185.
285 Memoirs of Lejeune, vol. ii. p. 108. I am a little inclined to think that this may have been the household establishment of Hill’s senior aide-de-camp, Currie, as the sight was seen by Lejeune in the Elvas-Olivenza direction, where the 2nd division was then quartered.
286 See Dickson Papers I., p. 448.
287 This letter, found among Lord Liverpool’s papers in 1869, was communicated to me by Mr. F. Turner of Frome.
288 See Connolly’s Royal Sappers and Miners, pp. 187–8 and 194.
289 Jones, Sieges of the Peninsula, i. p. 169.
290 General Orders, p. 275.
291 Jones’ Sieges of the Peninsula, ii. p. 97.
292 Grattan’s With the Connaught Rangers, pp. 193, 194.
293 Grattan, dealing with the Storm of Rodrigo, p. 145.
294 Sergeant Donaldson, p. 155: he is speaking of the last assault on Badajoz.
295 Instead of the brass plate with regimental badge or number, the Light infantry and rifles had only a bugle-horn.
296 Light infantry had a small green tuft on the front of the shako; regiments of the rest of the line a larger upright plume fixed on the side.
297 Cooke of the 43rd says (in his Narrative of Events in the South of France, p. 67) that “distorted by alternate rain and sunshine, as well as by having served as pillows and nightcaps, our caps had assumed the most monstrous and grotesque shapes.”
298 Grattan’s Connaught Rangers, p. 51.
299 See Leslie’s edition of the Dickson Papers, ii. p. 994.
300 Memoirs of Captain Ellers, p. 124 (dealing with the year 1800). “He never wore powder though it was the regulation to do so. His hair was cropped close. I have heard him say that hair powder was very prejudicial to the health, as impeding perspiration, and he was no doubt right.”
301 See for example the description of the 43rd preparing to storm Rodrigo, in Grattan, p. 145.
302 Military Journal of Col. Leslie of Balquhain, p. 229.
303 Memoirs of Captain Cooke, ii. p. 76.
304 7th, 10th, 15th Hussars. The 18th were still called Light Dragoons in 1808.
305 In April, 1813, 10th, 15th, 18th Hussars, the 7th Hussars followed in September of the same year.
306 Ker-Porter’s Letters from Portugal and Spain, 1808–9, p. 219.
307 The Royal Military Artificers were wearing in the early years of the century a most extraordinary and ugly head-dress, a tall top-hat with brim, looking more fit for civilian’s wear, and having nothing military about it except the “shaving-brush” stuck at one side. It was not unlike, however, the hat of the Marines. For illustration of it see the plates in Connolly’s History of the Royal Sappers and Miners, vol. i.
308 There are plenty of stories about him in Grattan’s With the Connaught Rangers. This one, however, is from Bell’s Rough Notes, i. 95.
309 See the letter in General Rigaud’s History of the 5/60th.
311 There is a curious anecdote in the diary (p. 28) of Cooper of the 1/7th, of a sergeant, who, running with the point of his pike low, caught it in the ground, and fell forward on its butt-end, which went right through his body.
312 E.g. there is a Waterloo story of a sergeant of the 18th Hussars, who long engaged with a cuirassier, and unable to get at him because of his armour and helm, ultimately killed him with a thrust in the mouth. I should not like to take it as certain.
313 For ample details about them see Mr. Milne’s Standards and Colours of the Army, Leeds, 1893.
314 Autobiography of Sergt. Lawrence, p. 239.
315 See above, p. 161.
317 Cf. p. 266 above.
318 Hennegan’s Seven Years’ Campaigning, i. p. 52.
319 Dallas was taking care of the brigade of Skerrett, then marching (Oct., 1812) from Seville to Aranjuez, right across Central Spain.
320 Autobiography of the Rev. Alexander Dallas, London, 1871, pp. 59, 60.
321 For the maddening delays, caused by the impossibility of finding a mule-train ready to go back to the front, a good example may be found in the autobiography of Quartermaster Surtees of the 95th, stranded at Abrantes for unending weeks in the late autumn of 1812 with the new clothing of his battalion, which (as he knew) was suffering bitterly for want of it.
322 See Donaldson’s Eventful Life of a Soldier, pp. 219, 220.
323 Surtees’s Twenty-five Years in the Rifle Brigade, pp. 173, 175.
324 From Travels and Adventures of Bugler William Green, late of the Rifle Brigade, Coventry, 1857—a most interesting little book.
325 Memoirs of John Stevenson, 3rd Foot Guards, p. 191.
326 Recorded in Tancred’s Historical Medals: for details see Stevenson, as also the Life of a Scottish Soldier, which is a 71st book (p. 118).
327 The absurd semi-religious correspondence of the Duke and ‘Miss J.’ in the 1840’s, published some ten years back may be remembered.
328 Sir H. Calvert, Adjutant General, to Wellington, 8th November, 1811.
329 See Stevenson, p. 172.
330 Surtees, pp. 177–9.
331 For the “Belemites” see above, pp. 204–5.
332 Who “never went into action without subjecting himself to a strict self-examination, when after having (as he humbly hoped) made his peace with God, he left the result in His hands with perfect confidence that He will determine what is best for him.”—See Cole’s Peninsular Generals, ii. 292.
333 In 1809 the 14th, formerly Bedfordshire, took the Territorial Designation of Bucks; and the 16th, formerly Bucks, became Beds.
334 Of these 25, twenty had been with Moore’s army in the Corunna Retreat, and 23 went to Walcheren.
335 Of these 42, seven had been with Moore’s army in the Corunna Retreat, and 14 went to Walcheren.
336 Of these 11, three (l/43rd, 1/52nd, 1/95th) had been with Moore’s army.
337 Of these 3, one (3/1st) had been with Moore’s army in the Corunna Retreat and went to Walcheren.
338 9th, 30th, 47th, 48th, 53rd, 56th, 83rd, 84th, 87th. The 83rd was far over this figure, 2461, a wholly exceptional strength.
339 4th, 5th, 7th, 11th, 23rd, 24th, 28th, 31st, 42nd, 43rd, 44th, 52nd, 66th, 67th, 81st, 88th, 89th.
340 6th, 21st, 32nd, 34th, 35th, 38th, 39th, 40th, 50th, 58th, 61st, 71st, 78th, 79th, 82nd, 92nd.
341 3rd, 8th, 10th, 18th, 26th, 36th, 45th, 57th, 62nd, 63rd, 72nd, 90th.
342 15th, 25th, 59th, 69th, 73rd, 91st, 96th.
343 13th, 17th, 29th, 76th, 80th, 93rd.
344 2nd, 12th, 19th, 20th, 22nd, 33rd, 49th, 51st, 64th, 97th, 90th, 101st, 102nd.
345 37th, 41st, 54th, 55th, 65th, 68th, 70th, 74th, 75th, 77th, 85th, 86th, 94th, 99th, 100th.
346 16th, 46th, 103rd.
347 The 94th went out to Cadiz in 1810; the 75th, not long back from India, was very weak and did not go on foreign service (Sicily) till 1812.
348 This brigade was added to IV on January 2.
349 These regiments had arrived at Lisbon in April, but having been at Walcheren were not at first sent into the field till July, since the 8th of which month they had been shown as a brigade under Leith.
350 Some accounts represent the Light Battalions as forming a separate brigade under Halkett.
351 Not the same man who commanded the 7th Division in 1812, but the 1st Earl of Hopetoun.