Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters (43 page)

183 ‘He and Captain McDearmid were the only two of the thirteen senior officers … left fit to march’: my own research with the monthly returns, WO 17/217, and the Challis Index. The figures for men fit to march and invalided home also come from the monthly returns.

184 ‘a subtle and unmistakable change in the conduct of quite a few old sweats in the battalion’: this is such a sensitive subject, being connected with powerful concepts of courage and honour, that it is hard to find direct evidence for it. Kincaid, in comments made about Vitoria (see Chapter 20) is one of the few to tackle it explicitly, stating that a man who survives a great battle wants to be able to tell the tale. Leach and Cooke (of the 43rd) both, for example, measured subsequent battles in comparison to Badajoz and one only has to look at the pattern of volunteering for the Salamanca forts and San Sebastian to see that most of those who came forward at Rodrigo or Badajoz did not go on these later storming parties.

– ‘a couple of men committed suicide and quite a few fell into deep depression’: according to Surtees.

– ‘Cameron was born and grew up in Lochaber’: an article on Cameron’s background and career appeared in the
Rifle Brigade Chronicle
, 1931.

– ‘His relatives had kept too tight a grip on the family funds’: this detail about Cameron emerges from Charles Napier’s journal in Napier’s History.

185 ‘perhaps from being less spoiled and more hardy than British soldiers’: Cumloden Papers.

– ‘As a
friend
, his heart was in the right place’: Kincaid,
Adventures
.

186 ‘Now Smith dined alone as acting commander of 3rd Company’: good detail of the reorganisation emerges from Gairdner’s MS Journal.

– ‘was in his choice of his profession’: Kincaid,
Random Shots
. Sarsfield’s departure is noted in the monthly return.

– ‘not suited to our
specie of troop
’: Beckwith’s letter to Cameron, 10 October 1813, referring to Sarsfield’s later transfer out of the 95th. The letter resides in the Cameron Head Papers.

187 ‘The march was commenced with precisely the same regularity’: Leach,
Recollections and Reflections
.

189 ‘A trooper of the 14th Light Dragoons captured a French cavalier’: Costello.

190 ‘Our division, very much to our annoyance’: Kincaid,
Adventures
.

– ‘The public buildings are really splendid’: Simmons.

– ‘It is here the stranger may examine, with advantage, the costume, style and gait’: Cooke.

– ‘A fine meal could be had in Madrid, but it would cost you six shillings’: Hennell.

191 ‘I have been very unwell, add to that I never had money’: Gairdner MS Journal, entry for 20 October 1812.

– ‘I sold some silver spoons and a watch’: Leach,
Rough Sketches
.

– ‘Lieutenant Samuel Hobkirk of the 43rd … was rumoured to spend
£
1,000 a year on his uniforms’: Cooke and Hennell are among those who were transfixed by Hobkirk’s wealth.

192 ‘In Madrid, they were able to find a proper theatre’: Cooke.

– ‘I was truly glad to get away from this unfortunate place’: Simmons.

– ‘The conversation among the men is interspersed with the most horrid oaths’: Hennell.

194 ‘The road was covered with carcasses of all descriptions’: Simmons.

– ‘It is impossible to conceive of anything more regular’: Leach MS Journal.

– ‘which was fun for them but death to us’: Simmons.

– ‘Cameron sent the Highland and 1st Companies out to the water’s edge as skirmishers’: Gairdner and Leach provide good accounts of this fight in their MS journals. Gairdner notes the four supporting companies of the 95th were ‘formed in line’.

196 ‘Charles Spencer, distraught at the prospect, burst into tears’: Costello.

– ‘sentries with fixed bayonets placed around the piles’: Leach MS Journal.

197 ‘Fire places of no small dimensions were made by our soldiers’: Leach MS Journal.

– ‘Having ransacked the canteens of each company for knives, forks, spoons, &c.’: Leach,
Rough Sketches
.

198 ‘after a great deal of needless and ungentlemanly blustering’: Gairdner MS Journal, as is the quotation of Cameron.

199 ‘Between field sports by day and harmony and conviviality at night’: Leach MS Journal.

– ‘Up to this period Lord Wellington had been adored by the army’, Kincaid,
Adventures
.

200 ‘the most ultra of all ultra-Tories’: Kincaid’s (anonymous) sketch of Johnston in the
United Services Journal
, 1837, Part I.

– ‘he was the type who might easily have called out some Scot’: FitzMaurice, in the work about his father, also the source of the above quotation, describes him as a man who could never be shaken from his conviction that duelling was an honourable way to settle matters of honour, saying he was raised in the tradition of the ‘
duello
’.

201 ‘take advantage of his superior rank, not only to decline giving me that satisfaction’: this passage is by William Surtees about an officer in another Rifles battalion who tormented him. I have included it because

it is an unusually candid consideration of some of the factors weighed up before calling someone out.

201 ‘the conduct of our Commandant and a few of his adherents is tending to establish
parties’
: this passage was written in a common or simple cipher in Gairdner’s MS Journal and is dated 25 March 1813. A Newsnight colleague, Meirion Jones, and I broke the code in about twenty-five minutes during a quiet afternoon in the office. In
The Man
Who Broke Napoleon’s Codes
, Faber, 2001, I wrote about the techniques used to break these types of cipher so quickly.

– ‘Lieutenant Gore and Lord Charles Spencer who are both good looking’: Leach MS Journal. This is also the source of the following quotation about Wellington crying out ‘Bravo!’.

202 ‘He is equally delightful at the festive board as at the head of his Division’: Leach MS Journal.

203 ‘Alten’s attempts to assert his authority were rather weak’: Gairdner MS Journal.

204 ‘If there is one school worse than another for a youngster’: Leach,
Rough Sketches
.

– ‘Cameron tried to obtain the recall of Second Lieutenant Thomas Mitchell’: this saga comes from the Mitchell Papers cited in his biography above. Cameron’s angry letter, dated 12 November 1812, was addressed to the Adjutant General. The reply from Colonel Gordon, the QMG, was fired back the following day. Gordon was replaced a few weeks later by George Murray, an officer who had previously held the same position and was much more to Wellington’s liking.

205 ‘I ought to have had you tried by General Court Martial’: this Cameron quotation comes from Costello’s account. Costello states that he can only think of six men of his battalion flogged during the Peninsular War. This is nonsense: my own researches would suggest there were dozens of such punishments, particularly during Craufurd’s command of the Light Division. Evidently Costello’s memory of this had been dimmed by the passing years. The Costello quotation, along with various statements by Moore, Manningham and Stewart about their dislike of corporal punishment, have sustained something of a myth that the Rifles were rarely flogged.

206 ‘Only one is a native of Great Britain’: monthly return WO 17/217.

– ‘A few dozen men in the 95th took Spanish or Portuguese wives’: the real measure of this was in the desertions at the end of the Peninsular War, when some of the soldiers disappeared rather than forsake their Iberian sweethearts.

207 ‘We have acted some plays … with various success’: this letter was written by Captain Charles Beckwith, 95th, to his friend William Napier of the 43rd who was on leave at the time. It is reproduced in Verner.

207 ‘Barnard took the setback philosophically, and began plotting’: Barnard’s thoughts emerge in letters home in ‘Letters of a Peninsular War Commanding Officer’, ed. M. C. Spurrier,
Journal for the Society
of Army Historical Research
, Vol. xliv, pp63–76.

– ‘We had a brigade field day this day on the plain between’: Gairdner MS Journal. Leach MS Journal suggests Kempt was rather impressed with his new brigade. Perhaps on first seeing it, he was just underestimating its potential (for evidence of how impressed he was later, see the following chapter).

208 ‘Officers would offer up the latest theory with an “
on dit
”’: Leach MS Journal.

– ‘Rumour says that we are about to retrace our steps’: this comes from the Beckwith letter of 1 May 1813. It is worth pointing out that Beckwith was on the staff and therefore might reasonably have been supposed to be a little more in the know than the average regimental officer. Evidently this was some years before the Army had a department called the Directorate of Corporate Communications.

– ‘We now only require that the canteens of each Company’s mess should be well supplied’: Leach MS Journal.

209 ‘Such a review in England would have been attended by crowds’: Hennell.

210 ‘We encamped today in a most heavenly May morning’: Leach MS Journal.

– ‘Well, here we go again. We shall go so far and then have our arses kicked and come back again’: he said it to Jock Molloy and it is contained in the memoir of that officer written by Du Cane.

212 ‘it had three battalions of 95th, three of foreign riflemen, six battalions of light infantry’: I am counting the 5th/60th and two battalions of KGL Light Troops as ‘foreign riflemen’, although there could be some debate over whether all of the latter had the Baker rifle, and the 43rd, 51st, 52nd, 68th, 71st and Chasseurs Britaniques as light infantry.

213 ‘Wellington, wrote one company commander, “suddenly appeared amongst us …”’: Leach MS Journal.

– ‘The 1st Batt 95th extended over their flanks within pistol shot of them’: John Cox MS Journal.

– ‘Lord Wellington ordered four of the companies of our first battalion to attack’: Leach MS Journal.

– ‘A few hundred skirmishers were not meant to be able to drive off a similar number of men in a formed line’: the formation of this French line is noted by Leach, Cox and Simmons. The last says the Riflemen got ‘several discharges from a well formed line’. San Millan was one of several incidents during 1813–14 when the Light Division achieved such skill that they inverted the usual ‘rules’ of warfare.

214 ‘Our men became outrageous’: a nice comment in one of Hennell’s letters.

– ‘They were purchased by some of the officers either as
momentos’
: Leach MS Journal.

215 ‘I do not like the idea of forcing the bridge’: quoted by Hennell.

– ‘Others thought the Rifles would soon be able to pick off the French gunners’: Cooke.

– ‘More jokes pass then than at a halt on a wet day’: Hennell.

216 ‘Yes my Lord, I see smoke and dust in that direction’: Du Cane quoting Molloy.

– ‘This little path, clinging to the craggy rock face, led them around the right-angled bend’: this detail comes from one of Hennell’s letters which contains full details and a sketch map. If only we could find accounts of other Napoleonic battles made at the time and in such detail!

– ‘The 3rd Division, at a run, crossed the bridge of Trespuentes’: Cooke.

217 ‘two of our companies lost two officers and thirty men, chiefly from the fire of artillery’: Kincaid,
Adventures
. He uses ‘lost’ to mean both killed and wounded. A careful analysis of casualties and accounts allowed me to pinpoint those as the 2nd and 6th Companies.

218 ‘FitzMaurice was running at a cracking pace’: these details come from his son’s narrative – presumably they had heard it enough times around the dinner table to know it by heart. John Cox, MS Journal, also has some details on this memorable feat.

219 ‘It was impossible to deny ourselves the satisfaction of cursing them’: Kincaid,
Adventures
.

– ‘One other rifleman was rumoured to have taken
£
3,000 in coin’: Du Cane.

220 ‘Do any of you know where Jack Connor is?’: this passage comes from Costello. Eileen Hathaway did some reasearch into the names mentioned for her edition of his memoirs. The quotations and casualty records did not match up in all cases. I have included it nevertheless as one of the longest passages of authentic riflemen’s dialogue included in any of the memoirs. It always moves me, despite having read it dozens of times.

221 ‘After surviving a great day, I always felt I had a right to live’: Kincaid, Adventures.

– ‘This renewed report of disorder committed by soldiers’: Adjudant General’s letter to Alten, 29 June 1813, in
Wellington’s Dispatches
.

221 ‘You sweep everything before you’: Simmons.

– ‘By God I never saw fellows march so well’: Leach MS Journal.