In the early 1800s Christmas was far from the commercialised festival of over-indulgence that it is today, but it was still a special day and often the occasion for more than a little feasting. Gift-giving was not unknown but not that common, turkeys were occasionally eaten but goose or beef were more prevalent, and Queen Charlotte had introduced the court to the slightly odd custom of bringing a tree inside and decorating it.
The British Army in the Peninsula were usually in their winter quarters at Christmas and often made the most of the excuse to brighten up the dull winter days. Commissary Richard Henegan recalled the Christmas of 1813:
“Christmas-day was not only hailed with as much fun and frolic as could have welcomed it in England, but roast beef and plum-pudding lent their aid to the illusion that we were, de facto, at home. Hospitality and conviviality went hand-in-hand; of the latter, some judgment may be formed by the regulation adopted to disperse the guests, which movement was only to take place when the empty champagne bottles met in the centre of a long dinner-table, forming an uninterrupted line of communication between the [mess] President and Vice-President.”
Judge-Advocate General Francis Larpent noted that for Christmas 1812 Wellington’s headquarters had procured two turkeys and ordered tins of mincemeat from Lisbon. However the following year he decided not to eat at Wellington’s table, writing in his journal:
“I have received a note from Lieutenant-colonel E___ to dine with him on Christmas day, and have accepted, though probably I shall lose a great party at Lord Wellington’s by so doing, for he generally asks heads of departments on those days. I own, however, that I prefer his smaller parties, when fewer grandees are there, and Lord Wellington talks more and we drink less.”
The fare on officers’ tables was obviously usually far better than the ordinary soldiers could hope to have. Lieutenant Peter Le Mesurier of the 9th Foot wrote home from Portugal on December 23rd 1811:
“To day my messmate is gone to a fair about two leagues from this place, to try to get something for our Christmas dinner, as we intend to regale ourselves on that day with something extraordinary. Our dinners are almost always the same, beef and potatoes.”
A year later, back in Portugal again, Le Mesurier wrote that they’d been given lamb by the inhabitants of the village where they were quartered for their Christmas dinner, but also mentioned the poor quality of the port wine available locally.
Hunting was a common amongst the officers and Brevet Lieutenant Colonel George L’Estrange of the 31st bagged three snipes to add to his Christmas dinner of 1812. Ensign James Hope of the 92nd had his celebration of the same year rudely interrupted:
“The well picked bones of a Christmas goose had scarcely been removed from our mess-table, when an orderly entered, and announced the unwelcome intelligence that our attendance was required at the alarm-post next morning before day-break, — and worst of all, in light marching order. Had this personage been the bearer of a warrant for the execution of the whole party, our countenances could not have presented a more rueful appearance. We could have wished the evil day put off for twenty-four hours, but as any memorial to that effect would only have been productive of further disappointment, we at once resolved to make a virtue of necessity, and accordingly retired to our respective quarters, and made the necessary preparations for another excursion into Spain.”
Private John Green of the 68th was doing duty in 1812 as a soldier-servant to a staff officer at Wellington’s headquarters, and messed with his officer’s Spanish muleteer, English groom and Portuguese servant:
“The next day we killed a young kid for our Christmas dinner, and we had what we considered a delightful repast, but nothing to be compared to what some of the poorest peasants have in England, However we were content, and where contentment is, there is a feast.”
Just as today, Christmas was a time to be spent to be spent with family. Lieutenant John Cooke of the 43rd Foot remembered the Christmas of 1813 in his memoir:
“On Christmas-day I was on picquet, but we partook of the usual fare, and some mulled wine, with as much tranquillity as if afar removed from hostile alarms. Just before dark, while passing a corporal’s picquet, an officer and myself stood for a few minutes, to contemplate a poor woman, who had brought her little pudding, and her child, from her distant quarters, to partake of it with her husband, by the side of a small fire kindled under a tree.”
The Christmas of 1813 seems to feature more than any other in the memoirs from the Peninsula. The army had just crossed into France itself and perhaps the soldiers were not only celebrating Christmas but also that the end of the campaign was at last in sight. Sergeant John Cooper of the 7th Fusileers remembers that year as the first time he had really celebrated Christmas, despite being in the Peninsular since 1809:
“Here for the first time in the Peninsula we kept Christmas. Every man contributed some money, meat, or wine. A sheep or two were bought and killed. Pies and puddings were baked, etc. Plates, knives and forks, were not plentiful, yet we managed to diminish the stock of eatables in quick time. For desert we had plenty of apples ; and for a finish, two or three bandsmen played merry tunes, while many warmed their toes by dancing jigs and reels.”
Religion played a larger role in the celebrations than it often does now. Surgeon Walter Henry spent one Christmas in Lisbon:
“The Christmas Day of 1811 was one of the most beautiful days the sun ever saw, and he has seen not a few in his time. The geraniums, and roses, and passifloras were blooming in the open air, and the temperature was as warm as May in England, though the sky was much clearer; and there was no comparison between its pure and delicate azure and our muddy blue. I enjoyed the delicious time the more for having sat up half the preceding night, witnessing the gorgeous ceremonies of Christmas Eve in the lgreja da Renya. The church had been then crowded almost to suffocation; and the heat and foulness of the air, from the fumes of incense, the thousands of lights, and the exhalations from such a crowd of garlic-eating people, were admirable preparations for the ride I took, and the enjoyment I experienced amidst the Atlantic breezes, magnificent views, and rich sunshine of Cintra.”
Not every Christmas found the troops in the comparative comfort of their winter cantonments. The first Christmas the army spent in the Peninsula was probably the worst. Rifleman Benjamin Harris of the 95th recalled the Christmas of 1808 that he spent on the long and hard retreat to Corunna:
“Some of the men near me suddenly recollected, as they saw the snow lying thickly in our path, that this was Christmas Eve. The recollection soon spread amongst the men; and many talked of home, and scenes upon that night in other days, in Old England, shedding tears as they spoke of the relatives and friends never to be seen by them again.”
And an anonymous officer wrote:
The sacred season so celebrated at home with happiness and good cheer was greeted by us with misery and no cheer at all; and what was worse, not the prospect of any to replenish our exhausted spirits through through the fatiguing dreariness of a. retreating march. Sharing my ‘spare fast’ with two or three. companions, we pleased ourselves with the sublime hint of Milton, that we were ‘dieting with the gods.’ And when we found that meditation too ethereal an aliment, we tried to nourish ourselves with the ideas of more substantial fare, and fed upon the hopes of catching some sort of dinner next day. Never have any philosophers more in their power than we poor soldiers were now furnished with, to disprove Hume’s famous theory of· ideas and realities. being of the same substance. Had there been the least truth in such doctrine; while thinking on the roast beef of old England and its huge plum-puddings, we should not have remained an army of starving wretches on Christmas-day, ready to devour one another for very hunger.”
A common thread in many soldiers’ memoirs is that Christmas was a time when thoughts turned to home, and what they were missing. For example, Royal Artillery officer Benson Hill’s thoughts of December 1814 in the bayous before New Orleans:
“In vain I endeavoured to banish these homeward thoughts; still would my busy fancy conjure up the cheerful hearth, the Christmas log, the laugh, the joke, the merry game of forfeits, the evergreen holly, and kiss-provoking mistletoe — all passed vividly before me. From this delicious dream I was awakened by the voice of my chief, desiring me to give directions that our horses might be ready at daylight; and I found myself in the presence of strangers, in a strange land, separated by thousands of miles from those scenes to which my imagination had so vainly wandered.”
One other reason that the soldiers had to welcome Christmas was that it was when, in theory, they were meant to receive their clothing for the year, although this did not always happen. In May 1812 Wellington wrote to Horse Guards complaining that many regiments were still wearing the uniform given them in 1810.
If you want to give your own Christmas feast a Georgian theme then the following recipes from contemporary cookbooks may help, but the advice that if you want a tender turkey you should feed it a spoonful of vinegar an hour before it is killed probably isn’t much use to you:
Stuffing for a Turkey
Take the liver, a little scraped ham or bacon, some parsley, onions, shallot, salt, pepper, herbs, all-spice, mushrooms and truffles and some butter; mince all well; take care when the Turkey is done to have good gravy in the dish; this stuffing, with a small bit of garlick is good likewise for a goose fried.
Plum Pudding
Mix three quarters of a pound of raisins, one pound of suet, one pound of flour, six eggs, a little good milk, some lemon-peel, a little salt. Boil it in a melon-shape six hours.
Mulled Wine
Boil a bit of cinnamon and some grated nutmeg a few minutes, in a large tea-cupful of water; then pour to it a pint of port wine, and add sugar to your taste: beat it up and it will be ready.
Sources:
Sir Richard Henegan – Seven Years’ Campaigning in the Peninsula and the Netherlands
Sir George Larpent – The Private Journal of Judge-Advocate Larpent
Sir George L’Estrange – Recollections of Sir George B. L’Estrange
James Hope – The Military Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
John Green – The Vicissitudes of a Soldier’s Life
Cooke et al – Memoirs of the Late War
John Cooper – Rough Notes of Seven Campaigns
Walter Henry – Events of a Military Life
Henry Curling (Ed.) – Recollections of Rifleman Harris
Adrian Greenwood – Through Spain with Wellington
Benson Earle Hill – Recollections of an Artillery Officer
Mrs Hudson & Mrs Donat – The New Practice of Cookery, Pastry & Preserving
Maria Rundell – A New System of Domestic Cookery
My history of the 5/60th – Riflemen is available direct from the publisher Helion & Co. As is At the Point of the Bayonet, covering the Battles of Arroyomolinos and Almaraz.
Daring, Duty & Cunning Plans 