Henry Mellish: Gambler, Duelist, and Staff Officer

One of the most interesting characters that I came across while researching the Vimeiro campaign for my book So Just and Glorious a Cause was Henry Mellish, who served as one of Major General Ronald Ferguson’s aides-de-camp and then went on to serve on the staff later in the Peninsular War.

Mellish was born in 1782 at Blyth Hall near Doncaster. The son of a victualing contractor, he inherited a fortune at 21 and spent it on a lavish lifestyle. He was an accomplished horseman, runner, gambler, racehorse owner, and boxing backer. At one point, he had as many as 40 racehorses in training. A historian of the Georgian sporting set described him as the ‘appanage of a patrician sportsman of his day’ and also wrote:

He understood music, and could draw, and paint in oil colours. As a companion he was always in high spirits, and talked with animation on every subject; whilst his conversation, if not abounding in wit, was ever full of interesting information founded on fact and experience. He had a manner of telling and acting a story that was perfectly dramatic. He was at home with all classes, and could talk with the gentleman and associate with the farmer.

However, his horses lost more races than they won, and he lost huge sums betting on his own and other horses. By 1808, most of his fortune had gone, and he had also achieved notoriety as a duelist.

In 1807, he fought a duel with the Honourable Martin Hawke. The two were supporting a candidate in a parliamentary election in Yorkshire when they quarrelled over who had obtained a particular vote for the candidate, Lord Milton. The argument became heated, a challenge was issued, and pistols were chosen. Mellish missed, but Hawke’s shot passed around the rim of his opponent’s stomach and eventually penetrated his left wrist, shattering the bone. One newspaper report said Hawke lent his neckcloth to bind the wound, and the two parted as friends.

‘The slang duellist-s a shot at a hawke or the wounded pigeon!’ by Isaac Cruikshank.

Mellish’s army career had begun in 1803, soon after he inherited his fortune when he purchased a coronetcy in the fashionable 10th (Prince of Wales’ Own) Light Dragoons. He purchased a lieutenancy in 1804 and then exchanged into the 11th Foot and back to the light dragoons to get his captaincy. The 10th was very much the Prince of Wales’ hobby. Many of the officers were his friends, and he lavished money on the regiment’s uniforms. They were one of the first to become hussars. Mellish must have cut quite the dash in his hussar uniform. He was tall, nearly six foot, well-proportioned with a pale complexion contrasted by dark hair and eyes, and sported a long drooping moustache. Like many officers of such fashionable regiments, he likely spent little time with the unit doing duty.

Following the collapse of his finances in 1808, Mellish exchanged into the cheaper 87th Foot, probably to get paid the difference in the costs of the commissions, and decided to seek more active military employment. Perhaps the hounding of his creditors meant he needed to leave the country. He turned to one of his friends, Major General Ronal Ferguson, who had been assigned to the force at Gibraltar, commanded by Major General Brent Spencer. On 16 May 1808, Mellish wrote to his sister, Ann:

General Ferguson told me that he had appointed his Aid de Camp but if the Duke of York would allow him to take a supernumerary he would with pleasure take me. I immediately went to the Prince of Wales, who sent for me into his dressing room where the Duke of York was & on my mentioning what I wished, he said he would allow it with pleasure, but that he must put me into another Regiment which is going & which should be done directly. We expect to sail in about ten days or a fortnight. Our destination is the Mediterranean, but what part God knows. I am busied in making preparations.

In another letter to Ann, Mellish wrote that his appointment as an ADC to Ferguson was ‘in every respect … desirable both for my health, my advancement in my profession, & the arrangement of my affairs.’ He remained in the 87th, so the Duke of York did not follow through on his intention to transfer Mellish into one of the regiments going abroad.

Mellish was soon on his way to Portsmouth to embark for Cork, where the expedition was gathering, but he nearly met with disaster. On 22 May, he wrote to Ann:

Our service has not commenced very auspiciously, but you need not be alarmed for we are all safe and sound. Captain Warre the General’s other aid de camp & myself were proceeding here last night in a hack chaise. Just previous to entering Kingston (the night being very dark) the boy contrived to run us onto the footpath against a post & upset us into the road. The chaise was smashed to pieces, but fortunately neither of us were hurt. I fell unluckily on my wounded arm and bruised it a good deal. It is however doing very well. Warre sprained his thumb & wrist very violently but it is getting better. The General arrived just [in] time enough to pick up his wounded staff & on our arrival at Kingston he produced his medical chest & dressed our wounds with such skill. In short our disaster has been rather productive of entertainment than otherwise. We are in high spirits going on board this evening & hope to pass the Needles without any difficulty. 

Perhaps to reassure his sister, he ended the letter with:

Remember my dear girl that to attain the honors of my profession we must require the dangers of it. I think we shall have not only a pleasant but an active & honorable service & that we shall meet again & talk of dangers past with increased pleasure in proportion to their magnitude.

On 29 May, he wrote to Ann:

We are likely to remain here these ten day. The Resistance being ordered to convoy the troops going to Gibraltar we shall certainly be detained till after the 5th of June as the 95th Regt which is going with us does not come down to embark till the 4th or 5th. This will be a great delay to us particularly as the transports sail so much worse than us. The General seems very anxious to get to Gibraltar. What our destination is after that, we have not the most distant idea. I am more and more delighted with the General every day. In every point of view the more I see of him the more worthy of admiration I find him. In short I think myself the luckiest fellow in the world. He has so pleasant a manner of stating what his wishes are, that one cannot but feel a pleasure in conforming to them. In short we should be very ungrateful did we not, as he seems only to think how to make our situation the most pleasant to us. We are also in high luck in being on board the finest frigate in the service, the captain of which [Charles Adam] is a most excellent fellow & a great friend of the General.

On 5 July, after Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley had been given command of the expedition, Mellish wrote again to his sister:

I fear, as I have been silent some time, you must have began to think we had sailed. We have had a most weary sojourning here instead, but our prospects begin to brighten. Sir Arthur Wellesley will be here tomorrow & Captain Malcolm (our Commodore) has received his definitive orders to sail with what ships are ready. We may perhaps be detained a day or two, as some of the transports masts are bad, but that will be the utmost. We shall cut a very respectable appearance a seventy four, two frigates & about seventy sail of transports. Spain seems certainly to be our destination. Indeed the accounts from that country hold out a very fair prospect of doing something brilliant, if we get there directly. We have one great advantage in disembarking in a country friendly to us, we shall not have our force weekend in effecting a landing. We have some of the finest troops with us that ever were seen & several well informed officers on the staff that may be of great service in organising the Spaniards. Should we be delayed here you shall certainly hear from me. At all events you shall hear by the first opportunity after we land. 

Mellish managed to write a letter to Ann during the voyage, but his letters naturally became less frequent once the expedition landed. On 19 August, after the Battle of Roliça, he wrote briefly:

We have had an affair with the enemy in which we lost many gallant officers & nearly 500 men killed & wounded. The enemy was completely defeated & retreated precipitately with very considerable loss. We are all well. … If you think a detail of our proceedings interesting you may see my journal, but I cannot find time to write.

Sadly, his journal seems not to have survived.

Mellish does seem to have adapted well to his role. During one dinner in Portugal prior to the Battle of Vimeiro, another general commented to Ferguson that he was sure he had just seen someone he recognised from a cock-fight in York a few weeks before. Ferguson replied that Mellish was ‘The very same man, he is now my aide-de-camp, and I think you will say, when you have the opportunity of knowing more of him, a better officer will not be found.’

On 1 September, after Vimeiro, Mellish wrote again to Ann:

After as signal a victory (on the 21st at Vimeiro of which I wrote an account to Eliza) as perhaps one army has ever obtained over another, will still find ourselves 20 miles from Lisbon. Sir Hew Dalrymple arrived the day after the action, & took the command of the army. General Kellerman came in the evening from the French army with proposals for treating. The convention is after much squabbling signed & we are not to enter Lisbon till the French are sent home. We (as we great men write, meaning my General & myself) are well & write from Lisbon, after which in all probability you will see us at Hodsock [the family home] very soon. I dare not now say too much, but if Sir Arthur Wellesley had continued in command things would have been far otherwise. He is in the adoration of the army & he deserves every thing they can wish him. … The house is so full of noisy Portuguese that I am obliged to write upon my knee.

With Portugal liberated, Ferguson sought leave to return to Britain to attend to some family business. Mellish wrote to Ann on 13 September:

I expect in a week or ten days to be (with the General) on the way home. If W.M. is in London I shall stay a few days there & then come to Hodsock immediately, where I hope to find you all well. We had thoughts of going in the Donegal who sailed yesterday but the General did not like to leave this place till the French had quitted it & everything appeared quiet. He will now take the first ship that sails, which is probably be with Sir Charles Cotton the Admiral here, who has offered to take us or let us know if any thing goes sooner. This is the nastiest & most miserable place I was in in my life. There are some fine buildings but the beauty of every thing is destroyed by the excessive filth, which may be truly said to reign here in all its glory. It is far beyond what you can form any idea of. In the streets you are up to ancles in it. They have no idea of sweeping, washing or any other method of cleaning even their most splendid houses. You may conceive we shall be glad to escape from this. The General (who is perhaps the cleanest man in the world) exists in misery, so that you may depend on his not delaying longer than is absolutely necessary. I am in a state very little short of the lepers we read of in scripture, as I am bitten by fleas, bugs & mosquitoes that my skin is totally changed. As I sail home I trust I shall wash & be clean.

Ferguson and his aides returned to Britain with Sir Arthur Wellesley, landing at Plymouth on 4 October.

Ferguson, with Mellish, sailed again for the Peninsular in December and arrived at Corunna just as the British evacuated. He returned to the Peninsular in the spring of 1809 as a deputy assistant adjutant general. He served at Wellington’s headquarters and with the 4th and Light Divisions. After Talavera, Wellington wrote to Horseguards, ‘I beg leave to recommend Capt. Mellish in the most particular manner to the attention of the Commander in Chief, as an officer whose activity, ability, and attention to his duty upon all occasions deserve, and have obtained, the approbation of all those with whom he has served.’ 

When Major General Ferguson became colonel of the Sicilian Regiment, he made Mellish a major in the regiment, and then Mellish was given a brevet promotion to lieutenant colonel. He left the Peninsular in August 1811. In April 1812, the Prince Regent made him one of his equerries. He married the same year but died of dropsy in 1817.

Sources:

J. Mollo, The Prince’s Dolls (London: Leo Cooper, 1997)

R. Nevill, Light Come, Light Go; Gambling – Gamesters – Wagers – The Turf (London: Macmillan, 1909)

University of Nottingham Libraries, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Me 4 C 2/1/8-13

Accounts of the French Invasion of Portugal, 1807

The following accounts are material that I did not have the room to include in my forthcoming book, So Just and Glorious a Cause: Britain and the Liberation of Portugal-Rolica and Vimeiro, 1808.

In the late summer of 1807, Napoleon began to plan an invasion of Portugal. The ostensible reason was to force the Portuguese to close their ports to British shipping, and so plug a hole in the continent-wide trade embargo he had set up. But in reality, he was more interested in the Portuguese colony of Brazil and extending his sphere of influence to South America.

The Corps d’Observation de la Gironde, commanded by Général de division Jean Andoche Junot gathered around Bayonne, in south-west France and, in October, received orders to march across the border with Spain, France’s ally, and head for Lisbon. The instructions issued for the march by Junot’s chief of staff, Général de brigade Paul Thiébault, on 17 October were very detailed and closed with:

The General-in-chief counts enough on the good spirit which animates the troops to think that he will receive nothing but just praise for their conduct.

He who would not meet this expectation, who would not support with honour the reputation of the French name and the glory of our arms, would be doubly guilty, since he would show himself at the same time unworthy of the corps to which he belongs, of the distinguished chiefs who command the army and especially of the honour of marching under our triumphant eagles.

In Junot’s own order, issued on the same day, he wrote:

Soldiers, we are going to enter foreign territory, but remember that this is not enemy terrain. The Spaniards are the faithful allies of the immortal Napoleon. You know, Soldiers, how much I care about discipline, I have always regarded it as the sure guarantee of victory; it is by discipline that the soldier deserves the esteem of friendly peoples, just as it is by his courage that he conquers the admiration of enemies. You know my attachment to you; you are sure that you will not want for anything, as long as it is in my power to prove it to you. I will severely punish disorders; I will do justice to all with the most rigid impartiality. Observe military regulations exactly; march well in order; may the inhabitants of Spain have no complaints against you; be as wise, as disciplined in crossing their country, as I am sure to find you brave on the day of honour; I ask you to deserve your esteem; also ensure for me that our Emperor can say: ‘Soldiers of the army of the Gironde, I am happy with you’.

The troops crossed the border, marching in 16 columns, and entered Spain. The Spanish were also contributing troops to the invasion and had committed to feeding the French troops. However, the Spanish population were sometimes less welcoming. There were some fights and even a few murders, but generally, the troops maintained their discipline, and the Spanish tolerated them. In Dueñas on 11 November, at the end of a long day’s march, the ninth column fought for seven hours to put out a fire that threatened to destroy the town. The French troops were thanked by the inhabitants, but that gratitude did not prevent a straggler from being murdered the next day.

Capitaine Jaques Louis Hulot, born in 1773 in Charleville, commanded the artillery of the 1st Division. In his memoirs remembered the welcome of the Spaniards as warm, but complained that the inns and lodgings were not as good as those in France or Germany. The wine was acceptable, though it did smell of the goat skins it came in, and he grumbled about having to buy his own bread and meat.

After Salamanca, the French troops began to march through more difficult terrain. An example of the conditions endured by them can be drawn from four days in the records of the Légion du Midi, a regiment of Piedmontese troops formed in 1803. The Légion marched from Salamanca at 7:00 a.m. on 17 November with the aim of spending the night at Calzada de don Diégo, 15 miles away. Through rain and snow, the troops marched on clay and mud until 1:00 p.m., when they stumbled into their intended stop for the night. However, they were then told they needed to march another 15 miles to San Muñoz. They received a ration of wine and continued. Their guides lost their way in the awful weather conditions, and the column marched miles out of its way. The mud sucked the shoes from the feet of the men. Eventually, the head of the column arrived at San Muñoz at around 10:00 p.m., but the previous column was still there. The Légion had to wait until midnight for them to march before finding what meagre quarters they could. At 6:30 a.m. the next morning, they left for Ciudad Rodrigo, without having received any food. The roads were no better, and they had to ford several streams, but after another march of 15 miles, they made it to Sancti-Spíritus by 3:00 p.m. They got a meal of bread and wine and marched again an hour later. It was still raining, and many men got lost in the woods and were robbed and murdered by the locals. They arrived at Ciudad Rodrigo in the middle of the night and were quartered in a convent. The Légion had by now left 120 stragglers behind. On the 19th, they had an easier stage to march, but on the 20th, they had to cross the wild and desolate Sierra de Gata, through the Perales gorge. The few small stone houses had been looted by the previous columns, and the men started to pass the mutilated corpses of stragglers. They reached their destination at 10:00 p.m., having lost another 80 men to straggling during the day, including a battalion commander and three officers. The only ration available was a little wine. At 8:30 a.m. on the 21st, they marched for Zarza la Mayor, where they arrived in good order. They were lodged in the houses of the town and, at last, managed to get a decent meal.

Junot outlined how little he knew of the route ahead to Napoleon in a letter on the 19th:

It has not been possible for me to obtain any information on Portugal here. The Governor of Alcantara does not even know on which side of the hill the frontier of Portugal lies, even though it is only a league away; there is not a single man here who speaks Portuguese, and I have not been able to obtain a guide who has been to the first village; I sent a reconnaissance yesterday to Rosmaninhal. It takes eight hours to get there; the best map is very inaccurate. The inhabitants of the various villages through which my detachment passed welcomed it: they said that they had heard of a French army, but that they believed it to be a long way off; that there had also been talk of war with the English, but that they did not know any more; they are extremely helpless and their country offers almost no resources.

The terrain once the troops entered Portugal got far worse. Napoleon had insisted on what, from a map in Paris, seemed like the most direct route but which took Junot’s corps through one of the most barren and inhospitable regions of Portugal. Capitaine Hulot and his artillery were soon finding the march even more difficult than the infantry:

On the 23rd of November we left Castel-Branco at six o’clock in the morning; barely two hours from this town we found ourselves on the edge of an abyss whose appearance frightened even the men on foot. At the bottom, a torrent, the Craso or the Gressa, rolled with a roar of water that seemed deep; we could only descend by a narrow path winding along another precipice. At the bottom of this torrent there was a steep hill no less high and no less steep. The crews and baggage of the Generals and regiments were frightened into retreating; the latter were loaded on beasts of burden. We nevertheless set about overcoming this new and difficult obstacle. To give the horses a foothold and to prevent them from slipping and getting lost, it was necessary to cut the rock, and to make some sort of steps in it. When a certain number of horses had descended to the edge of the water, a carriage was lowered with the greatest precautions; it had only the two horses at the back well chosen, and was secured by mooring ropes, which were held by gunners behind and on the side opposite the flanking precipice. Having reached the bottom, this carriage was harnessed to twelve or sixteen horses, crossed the torrent, with gunners on top, and finally climbed the opposite mountain, where the necessary horses were uncoupled and brought back to the edge of the torrent. In the meantime, the supporting cables were brought up from below and reattached to the second carriage, which joined the first with the same care and effort, to which our horses lent themselves meekly and intelligently. The men did not waste a moment, and in spite of the rain, which never ceased, they worked until their forge, which was at the back of the park, was hauled up. The men of the escort (for one had been returned to us), crowded together and electrified by the pace of the charge, threw themselves into the torrent, where more than one of our soldiers died. The drummers passed on our cars.¹

Capitaine Bleuler of the 4e Régiment Suisse also commented on the numerous river crossings in his diary:

When we had to wade through the water, which often happened 10 to 20 times a day, the chiefs, even the Generals, got off their horses and set an example for the soldiers. It was customary to march forward and pass with sections. lmfeld, a lieutenant of the voltigeurs, once rode on the back of a voltigeur. General Laborde, who usually waited until everyone had passed when one had to go through deep water, saw it and commented on it to Felber [the battalion commander], who called out with his lion’s voice: ‘Put him down!’ Plop! The Lieutenant lay in the water, and Felber and the General, both in the water themselves, laughed loudly. I gave my horse to this or that sick person or woman, and then I waited until the battalion had passed and everyone was out of the way. It was already late on 15 November when I wanted to follow the battalion and my horse, which I had given to a sick man, through a stream, when Junot, the General in chief, who was always on foot in the mountains and always in his splendid uniform as colonel General of the hussars, came running down the mountain. He already had his foot in the water when I remarked to him that I wanted to fetch my horse from the other side so that he could pass the water on horseback. He accepted, and I followed him on foot through the stream and into the bivouacs.

For the cavalry, the march into Portugal pushed the men and the horses beyond their limits, as Maréchal des logis chef Jean-Auguste Oyon of the 4e régiment de dragons, recalled:

Here our sufferings redouble; killings are on the rise; hunger and fatigue greatly increase our losses; we are exhausted! In the depths, always torrents to cross; infantry and cavalry leave their men and horses there; the artillery can no longer follow, it has lost its entire train; we are constantly climbing steep mountains, by paths which only goats frequent, and the steepness of which could often be compared to three-quarters of the perpendicular line. When a horse stumbles, it rolls with its rider into abysses from which they can never come out. The tops of the mountains, inordinately high, are almost always shrouded in clouds; we are wet to the bone there, at the same time as in the plain, the weather is calm. Our harshness, caused by the misery that overwhelms us and by the inhumanity of the inhabitants, has ended up being harmful to them to the point of forcing them to flee their homes; the villages and towns are deserted; it is only by breaking down the doors that we find open lodgings. Great disorder is the result; we did not want it, the blame must not fall on us; our excuse is found in the old proverb: Hunger drives the wolf from the wood.

While crossing a river, Oyon saw a dragoon’s mount stumble. Horse and rider were instantly washed away in the torrent, with the heads of each appearing above the water as they were rolled down the river. Oyon noticed a bend in the river ahead. He ran to it and managed to pluck the dragoon off the horse as they passed. The man was bleeding profusely from dozens of abrasions and cuts, and barely breathing with his clothes in tatters, but after some brandy recovered enough to continue.

Again, the diary of the Légion du Midi provides an insight into the privations of the march across the border. They arrived at Zarza la Mayor on 21 November and intended to take time to make repairs to their clothing, especially to their shoes, as most men were now barefoot. However, at 4:00 p.m. the same day, they were given three days’ worth of bread and told to march on. They arrived at Piedras Albas at 10:00 p.m., and some of them pillaged the Spanish village for food. The rest of the 3rd Division gathered there, and on 23 November, they marched for Zibreira across the border. The bread they had received had long been eaten, and patrols led by officers had to be formed to try and reduce the plundering. They marched on the next day in the pouring rain and arrived at Castelo Branco at 4:30 p.m. Quarters should have been prepared for them but had not, so the regiment, ignoring their officers, dispersed into the village to take matters into their own hands. Many forced themselves into the houses to take shelter from the rain and find whatever food had not been appropriated by previous columns or hidden by the locals. Those who could not find shelter inside broke down the doors and anything else they could find for firewood. On the 25th, the brigade marched for Sobreira Formosa. It was still raining incessantly, and the guides lost their way, so they arrived instead at Perdigao at nightfall, which was already occupied by another brigade and had been picked clean by other troops. The Légion collapsed under oak trees, and their only meal was the acorns. It was still raining. The next morning they marched on but had to cross the deep Ocreza river. The brigade had only one boat, and many of the soldiers, already exhausted, starving, and cold, could go no further and collapsed. It was with some difficulty that the few veterans and officers managed to get them to carry on. A rope was made of linen and clothes and stretched across the water. Several men got swept away as they waded up to their chests in the frigid water. The water rose, and the rope broke under the strain. Half the Légion was across and half not. The men on either side of the river found what shelter they could for the night and again had to resort to eating acorns (Iberian acorns are larger and more palatable than those found in Britain). The river level fell during the night, enabling the regiment to be reunited on the 27th. That day they got a small bread ration, and then on 28 November, they finally arrived at Abrantes, where they remained on the 29th, waiting for their 200 stragglers to arrive.

Louis Begos, adjutant major, of the 2nd battalion of the 2e Régiment Suisse in the 2nd Division, recalled how much worse the march got after Castelo Branco. Some days they managed to march only seven or eight miles. There was too little food and forage, and the villages were deserted. 

Only then did the trials and tribulations of our battalion begin. On the first day we went only two and a half leagues, over crumbling and abominable paths, and through mountains where no one had ever seen. We crossed a deep torrent, where we lost two men and a horse, as well as the muskets of several of our number. Finally we arrived in a village abandoned by the inhabitants. The troops and the horses were dying of hunger; everyone was looking for food where he could, so there was General looting. Fortunately I found a chicken coop, where I got hold of everything I could. Without this resource, I and my colonel would have died of hunger. The next day the march was even more difficult. The third day, in spite of our efforts, we walked only three quarters of a league, and we arrived at an almost deserted village where we found some food which was sufficient to sustain us for 48 hours. We had two goats for every three hundred men and twenty-five chestnuts a day for each man, with a quarter of a pound of bread and a pint of wine. The next day we went a little further, and made a stage of three and a half leagues. We came across another large village, which had been pillaged by three hundred stragglers of the army. In General, it is always these fellows who do the most harm. So some of them were shot, to give an example of the severe discipline in a country where we did not enter as enemies.

Laurent-François Trousset, ordonnateur en chef, and responsible for feeding the troops wrote to the Minister of War on 25 November and gave more details about the provisions, or rather the lack of them:

It is impossible to describe our situation from Salamanca to Abrantes. We have crossed a hundred leagues of desert and terrible mountains, all the carriages and most of the artillery have been left behind, the horses can no longer walk. For eight days it has not been possible to make a complete distribution of bread, and today, after three days of deprivation, each soldier will receive a third of a ration. In addition, the troops will receive rice, vegetables, meat and wine. It seems that from Abrantes to Lisbon we will travel through an abundant country. The army is in great need of this, for it has suffered all that it is possible to suffer.

Nicolas-Joseph Dejardin of the 58e de ligne wrote a summary of the march into Portugal in a letter to his father:

I am in a far-away country and have had a hard time on the road. We went through Spain before reaching Portugal. We saw no peasants and their houses were empty. They had all fled and left everything behind. We were left without food and were forced to cross many rivers during the worst season. We slept in the countryside and in the woods and were forced to band together to find food near the camp. Misery and peasants killed many of us on the roads.

From Abrantes, the route to Lisbon became easier and provisions more plentiful, but many of the troops were exhausted and could barely march. Junot formed a vanguard of the 70e de ligne and voltigeur companies and headed for Lisbon. During the night of 29 November, a proclamation from Junot was posted on Lisbon’s streets:

Inhabitants of Lisbon, my army is about to enter your city. I come to save your port and your Prince from the malignant influence of England. But that Prince, otherwise respectable for his virtues, has let himself be dragged away by the perfidious counsellors who surrounded him, to be by them delivered to his enemies: his subjects were regarded as nothing, and your interests were sacrificed to the cowardice of a few courtiers. People of Lisbon, remain quiet in your houses; fear nothing from my army, nor from me; it is only our enemies and the wicked who ought to fear us. The great Napoleon, my master, sends me for your protection; I will protect you.

However, the French did not look like the triumphant army that had conquered most of Europe as they marched into the city. As Colonel Maximilien Foy of the artillery wrote:

They had at last made their entrance, those formidable warriors before whom Europe was dumb and whose looks the Prince Regent had not dared encounter. A people of lively imagination had expected to see heroes of a superior species, colossuses, demigods. The French were nothing but men. A forced march of eighteen days, famine, torrents, inundated valleys, and beating rain, had debilitated their bodies, and destroyed their clothing. They had hardly strength enough left to keep the step to the sound of the drum.

Their muskets were rusty, their cartridges damp, and their artillery was far behind them. Any show of resistance by the Portuguese would probably have stopped them, as historian Robert Southey wrote: ‘The very women of Lisbon might have knocked them on the head.’However, most of those with the will and means to command such resistance had already sailed for Brazil. Junot was too late. Prince João, the Portuguese Regent, his court, and thousands more, had sailed for Brazil, escorted by a Royal Navy squadron under Rear Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith. The Portuguese navy, coveted by Napoleon for his South American plans, had escaped. Junot began to occupy the defences of Lisbon and bring the country under his control.

Thiébault wrote in his memoirs:

Then, at intervals of one or two days, the shreds of the army’s corps followed in an ever more miserable state, the soldiers appearing as living corpses. Elite companies of one hundred and forty men did not have fifteen, and eagles [regiments] arrived with two hundred men instead of two thousand five hundred. All day long, and not counting those who went down the Tagus in boats prepared at Abrantes and Santarem, soldiers arrived carried by peasants and transported on donkeys, without weapons, without clothes, without shoes, and almost moribund; several expired at the gates on arrival.

The French occupation would be short-lived. In May 1808, the Portuguese began to revolt against their oppressors, and in August, a British army under Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley landed and defeated the French at Roliça and Vimeiro. Junot then negotiated the withdrawal of his corps back to France.

Sources:

C. Sepulveda, Historia Organica e Politica do Exercito Portuguès

R. Southey, History of the Peninsular War

A. Grasset, La Guerre d’Espagne 1807-1813

P. Thiébault, Relation de l’Expédition du Portugal faite en 1807 et 1808 

P. Thiébault, Mémoires du General Baron Thiébault

J.L. Hulot, Souvenirs Militaires du Baron Hulot

Plon, & Dumaine (eds), Correspondance de Napoléon, 

A. Maag, A., Geschichte der Schweizertruppen im Kriege Napoleons I in Spanien und Portugal (1807-1814)

J.A. Oyon, J.A., Campagnes et Souvenirs de Maréchal de Logis Jean-Auguste Oyon

L. Bégos,  Souvenirs des Campagnes du Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Bégos

N. Griffon de Pleineville, La Première Invasion du Portugal par l’Armée Napoléonienne (1807-1808) 

B. Wilkin & R. Wilkin, Fighting the British

M. Foy, Junot’s Invasion of Portugal

From Bugler to Lieutenant Colonel: Alexander Joseph Wolff

Lieutenant Colonel Wolff in later life.

One of the joys of having written a regimental history is that I still get contacted by descendants of the men I wrote about, long after the book has been published, and I get to learn a little more about the riflemen and their later lives. This week a great great grandson of a rifleman who served in the 5th Battalion 60th Foot sent me his ancestor’s obituary:

In our issue of the 10th instant, it is our painful duty to announce the death of one of our best known and most respected citizens, Alexander Joseph Wolff, J.P. of Valcartier, formerly Adjutant of the 5th Battalion of H.M. 60th Rifles and Lieut. Col. Of the 11th Battalion of Quebec Militia. Col. Wolff was born in Vienna, in the Empire of Austria, and at the early age of thirteen entered the British Army. In 1801 he was in Egypt with Sir Ralph Abercromby whose name is sacred to every British soldier. He was with the force dispatched from Cork in 1808 under the command of the Duke of Wellington (then Sir Arthur Wellesley) and fought under the great General against the French at the battle of Rolica and Vimeiro in Portugal, on the 17th & 21st of August of that year. He was with the army which crossed the Douro in May 1809, under Sir Arthur and which defeated Marshal Soult and took Oporto from the French. He continued with the troops stationed in Portugal until they advanced into Spain and commenced operations against the French to complete their expulsion from the Peninsula. He was at the battle of Talavera in July 1809; at Fuentes d’Onora, when Marshal Massena made his impetuous but unsuccessful attack upon the British; at Albuera in May 1811; at the storming and taking of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812; at the siege and capture of Badajoz in April; at the battle of Salamanca in July and at the battle of Vittoria in June 1813. He served during the whole campaign in the Pyrenees, and mountain passes of which had become the scene of fierce encounters. He was at the battle of Nivelle and Nives in November 1813; at the battle of Orthez, in France, in the Lower Pyrenees in February and finally, at the taking of Toulouse in April 1814, from the French under Marshal Soult. He was wounded on five several occasions, that is, at the storming and taking of Ciudad Rodrigo, and of Badajoz, and at the battles of Oporto, Salamanca and Orthez. As a reward for his military services, he received the war medal with thirteen clasps, being entitled to sixteen, and three remaining to be sent to him. The latter part of his life was spent in the retirement of the country and occupied chiefly in improving and managing his property at Valcartier. There, in the bosom of his family he passed many years beloved and respected by all around him, making himself useful by the faithful discharge of his duties as the commander of a Battalion of Militia and as an active and upright magistrate. Col. Wolff possessed an excellent understanding and was distinguished by suavity and modesty of manner and most benevolent disposition and by a conscientious attention to his religious duties as a sincerely attached member of the Church of England.

The Morning Chronicle (Quebec) December 12th 1863

In Riflemen I had already traced some of Wolff’s career but had not discovered any details of his later life, and the obituary gave me an excuse to do a little more research especially as Wolff’s descendent also sent me a link to some family research on him, which, with what I already knew and a little more research in the records of the National Archives enabled me learn even more about him, but there is much that is still unclear. During his time with the army he seems to have used Joseph as his first name, but later swapped to using Alexander.

In the 1851 census Wolff listed his place of birth as Austria, however in 1806 it was entered on an army form as Poland. The town his mentions is not clear, but might be something like Dubrinca. Central Europe has undergone many border changes and I think it is likely that he was born in a town that was part of Poland in the late 18th century, but later became part of Austria, and now could well be part of the Czech Republic or another state.

His age is also uncertain, the family suspects he was born in the late 1780s and that his father was an officer in the Austrian army who was killed at the first or second Battle of Stockach (1799 or 1800). He was orphaned and the oral family history says he was adopted by British officer. I think any formal adoption is unlikely but around this time agents of Prince Lowenstein Wertheim were in the region raising a regiment of jägers for British service. The rank and file were mainly Polish, with German and Walloon NCOs, and German or French officers. The commander of the unit was to be Lieutenant Colonel Charles Schoedde, formerly of the 60th Foot. It’s possible that Schoedde, or his son James, took the young Wolff under their protection. What is known for sure is that he joined the Lowenstein Jägers as a bugleman. The family history suggests he was 13 when this happened but on a much later army form Wolff lists his age when going the army as just 10.

The Jägers embarked at Trieste in May 1801, sailed for Malta and then were sent to reinforce the British army besieging Alexandria in the latter stages of the campaign to evict the French from Egypt, where they saw action and enabled Wolff to later claim the first of the 13 clasps to his General Service Medal. On the signing of the short lived Peace of Amiens the Lowenstein Jägers were disbanded on the Isle of Wight and just over 250 men then transferred to the 5th Battalion 60th Foot, sailing to join their unit at Halifax, Nova Scotia. This would be the start of Wolff’s long association with the country that became Canada, and the 60th Foot.

By 1806 the 5/60th were back in Britain and Wolff was now a private, aged perhaps 16 or 17. When the battalion landed in Portugal as part of Sir Arthur Wellesley’s force tasked with liberating Portugal from the French Wolff was a corporal in Captain John Wolff’s company. As far as I can tell the two Wolffs were not related, and Captain Wolff had been with the 5/60th long before the Jägers joined, but perhaps the similarity in names could be the root of the family story about adoption by a British officer. The 5/60th was one of only three units to be present for the whole of the Peninsular War, and the younger Wolff stayed with them throughout. In December 1809 he was promoted to sergeant, and then in April 1812 he became sergeant major, the senior NCO of the battalion. He was still in his early twenties, possibly as young as 23 or 24.

Wolff married Hana Kasel Ehlert (the spellings of her name vary) on 13 January 1811 in Azambuja, Portugal. Given her Germanic name it is unlikely that she was a local girl and was therefore probably either a widow or daughter of another soldier, but I can’t match the name to any in the 5/60th. However, there were other mostly German units with Wellington’s army. Their first daughter, Margaret was born 30 January 1812. Margaret survived the rigours of campaigning (she died in 1893) and was later joined by five siblings, only one of whom died in infancy.

Wolff’s obituary states that he was wounded at Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Oporto, Salamanca and Orthez. However, his record of service lists wounds received at Vimeiro, Badajoz (by a grapeshot), the Pyrenees and Toulouse. When the General Service Medal was awarded in the 1840s he received clasps for Egypt, Roliça, Vimeiro, Talavera, Bussaco, Fuentes d’Onoro, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Orthez and Toulouse. There are four Peninsula clasps he was not awarded: Corunna, Albuera, Nivelle and Nive. The 5/60th were not at Corunna, so that leaves the other three as the ones that he might have been claiming in addition to the 13 he was awarded. The Battles of Albuera and Fuentes d’Onoro happened within days of each other in different parts of Spain. However, Major John Galiffe and Private Daniel Lochstadt were awarded medals for both because a detachment of the 5/60th marched from Fuentes d’Onoro and reached Albuera in time for the battle, so it is possible, but unlikely, that Wolff was at both. By 1813, as sergeant major, Wolff would have normally been attached to the battalion’s headquarters in the 3rd Division, rather than one of the detached companies. The division was engaged at both the Nivelle and the Nive and the pay book does not list Wolff as being absent or sick during that period, so why he wasn’t awarded those medals is a bit of a mystery. Had he been awarded the full 16 that the obituary seems to think he was entitled to then that would have been more than any other soldier in Wellington’s army. Daniel Lochstadt was the joint highest with 15 clasps, along with a soldier of the 45th, but given that the medal was awarded so long after the campaign and had to applied for it is likely that there were many soldiers eligible clasps they never received.

Wolff stayed with the 5/60th after the war. The battalion was disbanded in 1818 but Wolff, along with many of the men, transferred to the 2/60th, which after more battalions were disbanded became 1/60th and was stationed in Canada. Wolff was commissioned as an ensign in December 1821, something that happened to almost all the 5/60th’s sergeant majors, and then in 1823 was appointed adjutant of his battalion. In 1824 the decision was taken to convert the 60th from a foreign corps to a British one and most of the remaining foreign men were discharged. The foreign officers were given the choice of being placed on half-pay or selling their commissions. Many men of the 1/60th chose to remain in Canada. Wolff was one of those men, and had already taken up a land grant of 50 acres in 1821.

He settled at Valcartier in Quebec, and many other men of the 60th also settled nearby. A Political and Historical Account of Lower Canada published in 1830 stated:

In 1824, when a population of 315 were living on 1,670 acres of land, Adjutant Alexander Wolff, late officer of the 60th Regiment, settled in the district with his family. Adjutant Wolff was a very popular officer, and a great number of his men also settled in Valcartier, after receiving their discharges from the British Army.

Wolff joined the Quebec Militia and rose to command one of its battalions as a lieutenant colonel. Life for his family was still tough, with the land having to be cleared, but he became a magistrate and his children married and rose to prominence in the growing community. His original homestead seems to have been abandoned and he died at a place called Crescent Farm near Quebec City, after a long and very full life.

My book, Riflemen: The History of the 5th Battalion, 60th (Royal American) Regiment – 1797-1818, is available direct from the publisher, Helion, and other booksellers.

A Memoir of a Soldier of the 38th Foot

One of the joys of historical research is coming across unpublished letters or memoirs. While searching the National Army Museum collection for material for my forthcoming book on the campaign to liberate Portugal in 1808 I found a memoir written by a soldier of the 1st Battalion, 38th Foot. The 38th were amongst the troops that sailed with Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur Wellesley from Cork in July 1808, and they took part in the battles of Roliça and Vimeiro in August.

The unnamed memoirist was born in Hartshill, Warwickshire in 1789. He was apprenticed in nearby Hinckley, and seems to have become involved with the methodist movement. He ran away from his apprenticeship to Leicester and soon after he enlisted in the 2nd Battalion of the 38th aged 17, so probably 1806 or 1807. He served on Guernsey, and then in Ireland. Historian Gareth Glover has identified the probable author of the memoir as Private Joseph Cooley.

I began transcribing the memoir from the point he arrived in Ireland. For the purpose of this blog I’ve added some punctuation, as it was entirely lacking.

We had not been long in Ireland before there came an order for a draft to join the first battalion of the Regiment, it was then laying in another part of Ireland. A parade was ordered and every other file of men was taken but it did not fall to my lot to be one of them but I was of a roving mind and had a great desire to see different scenes and different places. Volunteered to go in another’s stead as soon as we got to the first battalion we got the rought [sic. route] for Portugal where we landed on the 2nd of August and on the 17th of the same month we engaged the French Army. As soon as the enemy appeared in sight I began with myself in this may hem I prepared to dye for this day many will be huried out of time into Eternity and I perhaps may be one of them. My sins stood in aray before me and put me in far greater dread than the French that stood armed with their Weapons of War. I then began to pray that the Lord would spare me and if he did I thought I would strive to to be different for the future. The scene of slaughter that day wass dreadfully terefick, one might think enough to soften the most obdurate heart but alas such is the depravity of the human heart that it is not the scenes of human whoes that we behold, tho in their Nature are so dreadful and affecting, that is sufficient to change the heart for when we had caused our enemy to retreat and the action had subsided I considered myself safe and went on in my mad career of sin. On the 22 day of the same month [it was actually the 21st] we fell in with them again and at the commencement of the action I thought I have been spared 4 days since the last engagement wherein I had promised such resolutions to amend my life and in looking back on that time I though I had been worse in stead of better and if I should this day fall my soul must be miserable forever, but through mercy I was spared and the action terminated in our favour for we made them retreat and they marched into Lisbon and gave themselves up as prisoners and they wass from thence by the order of Sir Hue Dalrimple our Commander in Chief conducted home to France instead of being sent prisoners to England. We in a few days marched into Lisbon after them. We stayed in that place abought a month.

Although short on details I think you get a great sense of the impact of the battles on him. You can read the entire original memoir on the NAM website here, and Gareth Glover’s transcription here. The passage I quoted is on the 7th image of the original. Cooley went on to serve in the Corruna campaign, and then returned with the 38th to the Peninsula. In 1812 he was wounded and then taken prisoner. He was released in 1814 and then soon after discharged from the army. Garry Wills also used portions of Cooley’s memoir in Wellington at Bay.

Rowland Hill

There are several reasons why I wanted to write a book where Lieutenant General Sir Rowland Hill played a prominent role. Firstly, we are both Shropshire Lads, haling from that beautiful county that so many pass through on their way to Wales without stopping. I walked the paths around the Hill family estate at Hawkstone Park many times when I was growing up. Secondly, in a time when kindness seems to be actively devalued by those in government in the UK, and until recently the US, it was satisfying to write about a man for whom consideration for others was at the heart of his personality. Rowland Hill was nicknamed ‘Daddy Hill’ by his troops because he so evidently cared for their well-being, which perhaps says as much for other generals of his era as it does about him. Historian Charles Oman, near the end of his A History of the Peninsular War, wrote “I have never seen a hard word of ‘Daddy Hill’ in any of the hundred Peninsular diaries that I have read.” Thirdly, the two of Hill’s battles that I chose to cover in At the Point of the Bayonet – Arroyomolinos and Almaraz – had not had much attention and I was curious to find out if there was more to Hill than just his reputation for kindness and affability.

Hill was born in August 1772 at Prees Hall in Shropshire. Part of a large family, it was his uncle, Sir Richard, who owned the much larger and prosperous Hawkstone estate. Rowland and his brothers were destined to enter careers common to sons of the minor aristocracy, such as the church and the army. His sisters of course were merely expected to marry as well as they could. His parents, knowing his gentle nature, suggested that Rowland enter the law but the 17 year-old wrote to them:

I know it is your’s and Papa’s wish that I should be in the law, but I hope you will forgive me if I say I should not like that line of life; for, indeed, I have a dislike to the law, and am sure I should neither be happy, nor make any figure, as a lawyer. The profession which I should like best, and I hope you and Papa will not object to, is the army.

His father determined that if that was Rowland’s wish then he would do what he could to ensure Rowland did well in his chosen profession, and after purchasing him a commission in the 38th Foot he arranged a place at a military academy in Strasbourg, there being no equivalent institutions in Britain at the time. Unfortunately, Rowland’s education was interrupted by events in Revolutionary France. Nevertheless, he managed to rise quickly in rank, not by purchase, but via the cheaper routes of raising recruits and exchanging regiments. One of Rowland’s early commanding officers wrote to his father “as an officer, his talents, disposition, and assiduity are of the most promising nature; and that his amiable manners, sweetness of temper, and uncommon propriety of conduct, have not only endeared him to the regiment, but procured him the most flattering attentions from an extensive circle of the first fashion in this country [the west coast of Scotland].”

At the outbreak of war with France in 1793 he recruited more men to get himself promoted to captain, and then had his first experience of combat at the Siege of Toulon where he met and became friends with the much older Thomas Graham. After the siege ended, Graham raised his own regiment, the 90th Foot, and again by recruiting men Hill jumped from captain, to major and then lieutenant colonel, despite only being 21. In 1801 he took his battalion to Egypt with Sir Ralph Abercromby’s expedition to expel the French army abandoned there by Napoleon. The 90th led the advance inland from the beachhead and were attacked by French cavalry. A musket ball hit the peak of the Tarleton helmet Hill was wearing and he was concussed.

After Egypt, the 90th and Hill went to Ireland and shortly afterwards Hill was promoted to brigadier general on the Irish staff, which would mean his leaving the regiment. The officers of the 90th wrote to him:

On their taking their farewell of an officer who has ever stood so high in their estimation, they feel themselves called upon to declare that the discipline he maintained in the regiment, has ever gained it the distinguished praise and approbation of all the general officers they have ever served with, – a discipline so tempered with mildness that must have endeared him to every individual in the regiment, as well as his general attention to their private interests.

By 1808 Hill was a major general and was assigned to an expedition to Portugal, commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley. Hill commanded a brigade and performed well, personally steadying and then leading troops at the Battle of Roliça. Hill and Wellesley seemed to have worked well together and Rowland had handled his brigade skilfully in action. He was also already building a reputation as a commander that cared for his men, and the ‘Daddy Hill’ nickname was already being used.

Hill fought under Moore in the Corunna campaign and then returned to Portugal in the spring of 1809 just before Wellesley. At the second Battle of Oporto, Hill took charge of troops across the river at a seminary when Lieutenant General Edward Paget was wounded at the start of the action, and he also played a prominent role at Talavera. When the army was reorganised Hill was given command of the 2nd Division. In December 1809 he was Wellington’s first choice for an independent command covering the southern approaches to Portugal.

Hill became ill in the winter of 1810 to 1811 and returned to Britain to recover. In his absence Beresford took over his command and fought the Battle of Albuera. Hill returned soon afterwards to find his division shattered. He resumed his role covering the southern flank and became engaged in a tedious round of advances and retreats across the Spanish province of Extremadura. In October a French division moved forward to raise contributions from the town of Cáceres, driving Spanish troops back to the Portuguese border. Hill decided to manoeuvre forward to force the French to retreat. It was a dance that he and his French opponents had performed before and he did not seriously expect the experienced French commander, Général de Division Jean-Baptiste Girard, would allow himself to be brought to battle.

Most Britains now think of Spain as a sunny holiday destination but the winters in the hills and mountains of the interior can be cold and wet. Hill’s British, Portuguese and Spanish force marched through torrential rain and squalls towards Cáceres. The roads were so dreadful that some of the artillery had to turn back. The troops slept in the open and had soon outpaced the commissary carts carrying their rations. After five days they were tired, wet and hungry. But Girard had heard of their approach and so, as expected, had begun his withdrawal. However, Hill learnt that he had halted at the village of Arroyomolinos. Despite the fatigue of his troops Hill decided that he’d make one last push to try and catch the French, and on the night of the 27th of October the allied army halted just a couple of miles from them. During the night Hill quietly pushed his men forward into postion for an attack. The weather was still dire, with the commander of the 92nd Foot, the Gordon Highlanders, referring to the morning of the 28th as “one of the most dreadful mornings for wind and rain I ever remembered” – which is saying something coming from a Scot.

Girard had failed to post adequate pickets, and Hill’s men managed almost complete surprise with many of the enemy’s first inkling of their presence the pipers of the 92nd playing Hey Johnnie Cope are ye waukin’ yet. The highlanders charged into the village while other troops encircled it on the flanks. Girard’s only escape route was across the hills behind the town, and a long pursuit ended with him only saving around 500 men of the two brigades who had been in the village when Hill attacked, one brigade having already marched off before the action.

Hill received a knighthood and much praise for the victory. Arroyomolinos also earned the 2nd Division the nickname of ‘the surprisers’ and many of the memoirs and journals from the division relate how pleased the officers and men that Hill led were at the praise heaped upon their well loved commander. Lieutenant Moyle Sherer of the 34th Foot wrote:

One thing in our success at Arroyo de Molinos gratified our division highly; it was a triumph for our General, a triumph all his own. He gained great credit for this well conducted enterprise, and he gained what, to one of his mild, kind, and humane character, was still more valuable, a solid and a bloodless victory; for it is certainly the truest maxim in war, ‘that conquest is twice achieved, where the achiever brings home full numbers.’

Image credit: Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery

During the winter of 1811 into 1812 Hill and his men resumed their game of cat and mouse with the French. Wellington captured the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo early in the new year and then came south to tackle Badajoz. With both fortresses that guarded the approaches to Portugal secure he could at last contemplate moving deeper into Spain. However, it was vital that the French forces, that still vastly outnumbered his own troops, were prevented from uniting against him. So, he determined to destroy the main crossing across the river Tagus near Almaraz which would prevent the French armies in the north and south from coming to each other’s aid. He chose Hill for the job.

Hill gathered a mixed British and Portuguese force and marched deep into French territory. The pontoon bridge near Almaraz was protected by several small but formidable fortifications, including one on a vital mountain pass that covered the only route down to the river for artillery. An initial night attack on that fort failed after the French were alerted by an accidental shot. Hill had also been trying to get down to the bridge via a small goat track but the terrain was so difficult that the troops were nowhere near the bridge by morning.

Hill paused and regrouped. He considered another attack on the fort at the pass but that could take time he did not have. The garrison at the crossing would have sent for reinforcements which were only a day’s march away. Instead, he ordered a diversionary attack at the pass while he again led a British brigade, and a Portuguese regiment, plus two companies of the 5/60th Rifles, through the mountains down to the bridge. The paths were so narrow and winding that the scaling ladders had to be cut in half. By daylight Hill’s men were near the bridge, but still spread out. 

They formed up behind a low ridge and charged towards the main position overlooking the crossing, Fort Napoleon. The main assault was by two columns of the 50th Foot, and one of the 71st Highland Light Infantry. The rest of the 71st and the 92nd looped around to attack the bridge itself. The strongest part of the fort was assaulted by No.4 Company of the 50th led by Captain Robert Candler, 34 years old, from Colchester in Essex. Candler was first up the ladders and waived his sword, urging his men to push forward. He was quickly hit by several shots and fell dead inside the fort. The 50th and then 71st managed to overpower the French on the walls and the enemy’s resistance crumbled. The French cut the bridge and those on the far side fled, leaving their comrades to drown or be captured trying to swim across the river.

The original plan had called for artillery support and more than two brigades, but Hill had taken the risk to attempt the task with far less and won, although the casualties amongst the 50th especially were severe. The bridge and the forts were destroyed and Hill retired before the French could react. Hill and his men again gained much credit from their victory. Wellington was convinced it was a key strategic point in the 1812 campaign:

I think we are now in a great situation. The blow which I made Hill strike a few days ago upon the enemy’s establishment at Almaraz has given me the choice of lines of operation for the remainder of the campaign, and do what we will we shall be safe. If I have luck we may do great things; at all events, the campaign is ours, I believe.

Hill and his troops continued to play a key role in the Peninsular campaign, although following their defeats in 1812 the French withdrew from southern Spain and there was no need for Hill to continue with his independent command. At Vittoria Hill’s men were involved in hard fighting along the high ground on the flank. As the army advanced into the Pyrenees and up to the borders of France itself Hill obtained perhaps his hardest won victory at St. Pierre. French columns advanced on a narrow front and Hill’s men first fought them to a standstill and then successfully counter-attacked. 

Following Napoleon’s abdication in the spring of 1814 Hill returned to Shropshire. He was raised to the peerage, as 1st Baron Hill of Almaraz and of Hawkstone, for his services to the country. In December 1813 the editor of The Shrewsbury Chronicle had proposed the erection of a column to honour Hill:

It is suggested therefore, that by erecting a COLUMN, or some other Building, DEVOTED to General Sir Rowland HILL we may… by a SUITABLE INSCRIPTION enumerate some of the GREAT TRANSACTIONS OF THE PRESENT DAY – the expulsion of invaders – the restoration of millions of inhabitants to national independence – and the March into France of triumphant British Soldiers, conducted by a SALOPIAN CHIEFTAN.

Construction started in December 1814 and was completed on 18 June 1816, the first anniversary of Waterloo, where Hill had commanded a corps. Sergeant David Robertson recalled that when the 92nd saw Hill at Waterloo: 

We all stood up and gave him three hearty cheers, as we had long been under his command in the Peninsula, and loved him dearly, on account of his kind and fatherly conduct towards us. When he came among us he spoke in a very kindly manner and enquired concerning our welfare.

After serving with the army of occupation in France Hill retired to Shropshire but when Wellington was prime minister accepted the position of commander-in-chief of the British Army. His tenure was unremarkable, but unsurprisingly he was noted as being extremely fair when it came to dispensing his powers of patronage. He finally retired in 1842, and was made a viscount. He died a few months later.

Hill had a very different style of command to Wellington, who does not always seem to have appreciated that there were different ways to doing things to his own. Hill delegated well, something that Wellington struggled with, and his own kindness seems to have resulted in both loyalty and affection from those he led. Of course, he was not a perfect man, nor a perfect general, but I for one would rather be remembered for being kind than winning battles. That Hill is remembered for both is much to his credit. He did not let his concern for his men stop him driving them hard, when needed, or risking their lives when the situation demanded it. Perhaps we should put the ‘Daddy Hill’ nickname in its proper context of more severe Georgian parenting, rather than think of it in terms of parenting today.

At the Point of the Bayonet is available to buy
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Sport and Wellington’s Army

Image: Cricket match between the pensioners of Greenwich and Chelsea Hospitals, 1825.

Many memoirs from the Peninsular War mention the officers’ predilection for indulging in hunting and denuding the Iberian countryside of its fauna, but mention of less bloody sports are fewer and further between. So, I was intrigued when I came across this passage in The Exploits of Ensign Bakewell, the memoir of Robert Bakewell of the 27th Foot:

Football was much played. Captain Smith, who commanded the Grenadier Company, challenged other captains in the Regiment that twenty of his men would play the best of three games with twenty chosen men from any other company, for a bet of 100 dollars, which Captain John Bring, who commanded the Light Company, accepted. As there were no fences in this country, the terrain presented a fine playing-field for the sport. Two poles, about 6 feet in length, were placed about two yards apart at each end of the field, which was about one mile in length. A ball was thrown up in the centre; and the contending parties had to kick it between one of the goals before either could claim to win the game. The 5ft 8-inch men [of the light company] were too fast for the 6 ft ones, [the grenadiers] but although there was only one hole in the ground, one or more of these taller men always managed to trip and fall into it. The two games were won with ease by the Light Company, and in half an hour only, to the no little disappointment of our Grenadier Captain. These two companies then united, with forty men proposing to play forty of any selected from the remaining eight companies. This was accepted by the battalion companies, and a great game it was, but neither side could claim the victory: after playing for two days, twelve hours each day, both sides gave it up neither of them able to kick the ball between the poles… so they agreed to a draw.

This is the only full account of a match that I’ve come across, but many other memoirs do mention football. Sergeant John Cooper of the 7th Fusiliers recalls being quartered in a convent in Guarda in 1810 and a skull from the relics being used as a football. An anonymous soldier of the 71st Highland light infantry mentions: ‘The officers often exercised themselves by riding horse and ass races; games of football and cricket were also instituted; besides occasional dances, to the sound of the bag pipe.’

And another soldier of the 71st tells of football being played during a pause in the Battle of Fuentes d’Oñoro:

As soon as the wounded were all got in, many of whom had lain bleeding all night, many both a day and a night, the French brought down a number of bands of music to a level piece of ground, about ninety or a hundred yards broad, that lay between us. They continued to play until sunset; whilst the men were dancing, and diverting themselves at football.

William Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons mentions a potential international fixture in 1810, relating how French officers approached the British and the two sides began to fraternise: ‘They invited us to a play in Santarem they had got up, and we them to horse-races, football, and dog-hunts. The communication was put a stop to by a general order.’

Major George Simmons of the 95th mentions the benefit of exercise and sport when recovering from a wound: ‘I am happy to inform you my thigh begins to fill out and gets stronger daily, so much so, that I begin to take one hour’s exercise at football very frequently.’

Judging from how often cannon-balls are likened to cricket balls in memoirs and letters, the game was very popular amongst Wellington’s officers. Surgeon Charles Boutflower of the 40th Foot tells of cricket games played within sight of the French siege of Almeida in 1810:

We amuse ourselves in this place chiefly at Cricket, and from the ground where we play can distinctly see the Fire from the Garrison of Almeida. From the Spirit with which the Officers in general enter into this game one would hardly suppose there was an Enemy within an hundred Leagues of us.

Ensign Bakewell also mentions cricket: ‘Cricket was played two or three times each week, the Revd George Jenkins being very partial to the game, and was considered one of the best batsmen in the Division.’

When cricket is mentioned in the memoirs of the rank and file it is in the context of a game played by officers rather than by the troops. Another sport played in the Peninsula by officers was rackets, or raquets, also known as Fives. This game was similar to squash. It was a development of real tennis and played on a similar large indoor courts, it was even popular within Fleet debtors’ prison. In the Peninsula it seems to have been played against the walls of any convenient building. Captain John Cooke of the 43rd wrote: ‘In a few days we moved from La Encina to El Bodon, where our principal amusement consisted in playing at rackets, with wooden bats, against the side of the church.’

There were also less conventional sports played. With one officer recalling that they: ‘Sometimes turned a pig loose with his tail greased, when he was pursued by the soldiers, and became the lawful prize of the man who could catch and hold him, which was no easy matter.’

With long periods in cantonments and sometimes little to do, apart from drink, you can see why officers might have fostered sport as a means of keeping both themselves, and the troops that they led, occupied, exercised and to boost esprit d’corps.

Johann Schwalbach: Rifleman to Nobleman

Johann Schwalbach was quite possibly the most successful rifleman of the 5th battalion, 60th regiment of foot. Born at Trier in the Rhineland in 1774 he enlisted in the 5/60th on the 2nd of May 1806, taking his eight guineas bounty, he was probably recruited in Germany but may also have volunteered after serving in the French army and being made a prisoner of war.

He was promoted to corporal in December 1807. When the 5/60th landed at Mondego Bay in August 1808, as part of Sir Arthur Wellesley’s force sent to liberate Portugal, they were initially brigaded with four companies of 2/95th to form the 6th, or Light Brigade. The brigade was commanded by Brigadier General Henry Fane, who took Schwalbach as his orderly.

Captain Landmann of the Royal Engineers, who was also attached to the brigade, recalled that after the army marched through the town of Alcobaça, the abbot of the local monastery invited the staff and commanders to dinner but Fane could not accept due as his brigade was posted beyond the town to protect the rest of the force. The abbott offered to send the dinner to them instead and it was Schwalbach who was delegated to negotiate with the messenger. Landmann writes of Schwalbach:

“In order to augment the importance of his office, he pretended to be conversant with the Portuguese language, but of which he had a very imperfect knowledge. The party, including the General and his staff, would amount to six; he, therefore, directed his orderly to state to the Abbot’s messenger that he should require dinner for that number. Schwalbach was not a man that would miss a good opportunity, so mustering up his best Portuguese, he contrived to explain that dinner for six would be sufficient, but added with extraordinary gravity, and in a tone of voice truly German, “Mit vine fur twelf;” which, after many gestures, and more swearing by Schwalbach, the messenger appeared to comprehend; and he immediately departed at the utmost speed of his mule.”

A excellent feast was supplied, along with ‘with twenty-four bottles of the most excellent red and white wines, being a general assortment of Hock, Champagne, Port, Madeira, Lisbon, &c.’ Schwalbach was allowed his share of the left-overs. On another occasion Schwalbach, sent to get some wine from a village, returned with it in not on a jug or bottle, but in a shallow bowl a metre wide. Landmann again:

“We were greatly diverted, and laughed most heartily as Schwalbach deposited on the ground this immense dish, whilst he was perspiring most violently, and declaring that he had never in his life been so fatigued by carrying any weight. He said, that to keep the dish level on his head and the wine from splashing out, had strained his movements so much, that nothing could equal it. The wine was most excellent, in our estimation, and we drank to the health of the rifleman.”

The 5/60th were involved with the first skirmish of the campaign at Obidos, and then at the Battle of Roliça, and won praise from Wellesley. At the battle of Vimeiro Schwalbach assisted Fane and Landmann in chasing and capturing a French cannon, that was attempting to flee the field. Landmann later wrote:

“By some circumstance with which I never became acquainted, one of the enemy’s guns had been passed by the charging of our troops, and as by this time the conductors thought they might dash off and so escape from our hands, they started at a full gallop. I no sooner perceived this, than I set off in pursuit, and as my course lay close by General Fane and his Aide-de-camp, in passing I called to the General to follow and assist, which he forthwith obeyed, as if I had been his Commander; Captain Bringhurst, Brigade-Major McLean, and the General’s orderly, with the General, quickly came up, and we instantly attacked the drivers as we rode by their sides. I swore at them in the French language, declaring if they did not pull up immediately, I should cut down the wheel horse postilion, raising my sabre over my left shoulder with that intention; and I have no doubt I should have carried my threat into execution, for the drivers, instead of slackening their pace at this, applied the whips and spurs with increased vigour, but just as I was nearing the wheel horse’s postilion, and on his left-hand side, General Fane fired his pistol into the off-horse, which almost instantly brought him to the ground, and by that means the other horses were nearly all thrown down, and the gun itself narrowly escaped being overturned.”

After the campaign Schwalbach was promoted to Lance-Sergeant, an acting rank until a vacancy arose, but then left the 5/60th for a commission in the Portuguese service.  It is not clear if it was his proficiency at procuring wine or his bravery on the field that secured him this honour.

Schwalbach was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 3rd Caçadores, before moving to the 6th Caçadores in 1812 when he was promoted to Captain. He fought at the battles of Bussaco, Fuentes de Oñoro, Arroyomolinos, Almaraz, Vittoria and the Pyrenees, where he was severely wounded. Commissary Schaumann encountered Schwalbach in command of three companies of caçadores sometime in 1810 when he was part of force defending the town of Rio Mayor, writing:

“Brave old Schwalbach stationed himself with his foremost outposts, and coldly explained to the fellows how close they were to allow the French to come before they aimed and mowed them down.”

Schwalbach stayed in Portuguese service after the war. in 1819 was promoted to major in a militia regiment to train them, and then moved to a line regiment and commanded a battalion. He distinguished himself several times fighting for the liberal cause during the Portuguese civil wars in the 1820s and 1830s, winning promotion to lieutenant colonel, and then major general commanding a light infantry division. He was ennobled for his service first as Baron, and then Visconde de Setúbal. An engraving of him appeared in the London Illustrated News in January 1847 following further unrest in Portugal, in which he also played a prominent role by commanding some of the Royalist troops. He died in 1847 aged 73, and has a street named after him in Oporto.

My history of the 5/60th – Riflemen is available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other book retailers, or direct from the publisher Helion & Co. My next book, At the Point of the Bayonet covering the battles of Arroyomolinos and Almaraz should be out in the autumn.

   

Ten British Memoirs of the Peninsular War

As I write this a large portion of the world is in lockdown and many of us have more time to read than when life is ‘normal’. So, for this blog I will share 10 of my favourite British memoirs of the Peninsular War. All are available for free on-line and I will provide a link to each, as well as a sample of the text. I have a library of nearly 200 of these memoirs as PDFs, plus more as actual books, and could easily have chosen 20 or 30 favourites. As with all memoirs they need to be read with a little caution as most were written many years after the events that they relate. Memory is fallible, and many of the writers did not always resist the temptation to embellish. You may notice that I have included no memoirs from the Light Division. This is because the proliferation and popularity of their memoirs has, I think, skewed the narrative of the campaign, and there were many equally important regiments in Wellington’s army that deserve their share of the renown.

Title: The Diary of a Cavalry Officer in the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns

Author: William Tomkinson

Regiment: 16th Light Dragoons

Download: https://archive.org/details/cu31924024323697

Tomkinson’s diary of his time on campaign was edited by his son and published after his death. He arrived in Portugal in April 1809 and was took part in the advance towards Oporto, but was soon badly wounded:

On getting into the enclosure, we rode at a gallop up to the enemy, who, strange to state, ran away. They were scattered all over the field, and I was in the act of firing my pistol at the head of a French infantry man, when my arm dropped, without any power on my part to raise it. The next thing I recollect was my horse galloping in an ungovernable manner amongst this body of infantry, with both my hands hanging down, though I do not recollect being shot in the left arm. In this state one of their bayonets · was stuck into him, and he fortunately turned short round; and I had, in addition, the good luck to keep my seat on him. He went full gallop to the rear, and on coming to a fence of an enclosure he selected a low place in it under a vine tree, knocked my head into it, when I fell off him. This again made me insensible, and my next recollection was being supported by a French infantry soldier across the field to the rear and to the shade of a wall, where he laid me on my back. In a short time some of the German infantry came up (belonging to our advance under General Paget), and began to plunder me, taking out of my pocket a knife containing many useful things for campaigning. They were prevented proceeding any further by the arrival of a private of the name of Green, of Captain Cocks’ troop, who took me for Captain Swetenham, telling me I was certainly killed, and that it was a sad thing to order men on such a duty. There were only eight men who went into the field to the right with me. Green was the only one who escaped, and one man was shot in nine places. Green was made a sergeant.

Tomkinson went back to Britain to recover but returned in Portugal early in 1810 and went on to serve through the majority of the rest of the campaign, and at Waterloo. Being a diary, with additional letters included, his account has an immediacy and candour that memoirs written later sometimes lack.

Title: Rough Notes of Seven Campaigns in Portugal, Spain, France & America

Author: John Spence Cooper

Regiment: 7th Fusileers

Download: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dokh4PsXpqMC

As you would expect memoirs from the ranks are rarer than those from officers. Cooper’s memoir, written soon after the end of the wars but published in the 1860s, covers his service in Portugal and Spain from 1809 through to 1814, and then the war against the United States. His tale is simply told, but is not without the occasional error. His diary was lost twice and rewritten once he was back in Britain. His account of the Battle of Albuera is particularly vivid:

Having arrived at the foot of the hill, we began to climb its slope with panting breath, while the roll and thunder of furious battle increased. Under the tremendous fire of the enemy our thin line staggers, men are knocked about like skittles; but not a step backward is taken. Here our Colonel and all the field-officers of the brigade fell killed or wounded, but no confusion ensued. The orders were, “Close up;” “Close in;” “fire away;” “for­ward.” This is done. We are close to the enemy’s columns; they break and rush down the other side of the hill in the greatest moblike confusion.

In a minute or two, our nine pounders and light infantry gain the summit, and join in sending a shower of iron and lead into the broken mass. We followed down the slope firing and huzzaing, till recalled by the bugle. The enemy passed over the river in great disorder, and attacked us no more, but cannonading and skirmishing in the centre continued till night.

Title: Journal of James Hale

Author: James Hale

Regiment: 9th Foot

Download: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bBJDUK_SVjIC&dq

Hale was one of many soldiers to transfer from the militia into the regular army. He fought in the 1808 campaign in Portugal, then in Moore’s advance into Spain, and the desperate retreat to Corunna. The 9th was then sent on the disastrous Walcheren expedition and then back to the Peninsula. Like many of these memoirs his account is often at its best when recounting the details of everyday life in the army, like this passage which deals with the aftermath of the Battle of Vittoria when the booty he and his comrades helped themselves to was perhaps less valuable, but equally valued, compared to the loot of many other regiments.

So now having formed our camp, we fortunately beheld a field of beans very convenient to us, and just fit for use, and although we were rather fatigued, the field was swarming with soldiers in a few minutes, and before dark, there was hardly a bean to be found in the field. While some were gathering the beans, others were looking out for something to eat with them; for at this place we were not refused of getting something to eat if we could find any, although we never had been favoured with such liberty before; and as some of our regiment were searching about a village that was but little more than half a mile from our camp, they had the good fortune to find a great quantity of good flour, which they happily loaded themselves with, and brought it into the camp: so we all got as much flour as supplied our wants that night, and some to carry with us for another time. No bread could be found, but having plenty of flour and green beans with our meat, we all made a most noble supper: but still there was one thing that most of us were short of, that was salt to season our supper.

Now after we had filled our bellies, we sat and amused ourselves over what had passed during the day; in the mean time our commissary arrived with a pint of wine for each man, which occasioned our conversation to continue a little longer; and in the course of this evening I was promoted to the rank of a serjeant. So now night having approached, we laid ourselves down on the turf, under the branches of the trees, as comfortable as all the birds in the wood; for the enemy continued retreating nearly all the fore part of the night.

Title: Military Journal of Colonel Leslie, K.H., of Balquhain

Author: Charles Leslie

Regiment: 29th & 60th Foot

Download: https://archive.org/details/cihm_04595

Leslie’s memoir is nicely varied. It encompasses his service in the 29th Foot in the 1808 campaign, through to 1811 when the 29th were ordered home. They then sailed for Cadiz in 1813 where Leslie transferred to a battalion of foreign recruits at Cadiz to gain promotion. His battalion eventually became the 8th battalion of the 60th foot, the regiment that he continued to serve in until the 1830s. Leslie’s account is clearly written with the benefit of hindsight and can sometimes make war sound a bit like a boy’s own adventure, but it is very readable. In his account of the Battle of Roliça it is also clear that he is at pains to protect the 29th’s reputation. I often find the passages after a battle to be amongst the most interesting, as they often illustrate how little animosity was felt against the French. For example here is Leslie’s account of the aftermath of Vimeiro:

After resting some time on our arms, we marched back to our bivouac, with bands playing and colours flying. It was amusing to see many of the French soldiers who had been taken prisoners, or who had come over to us, marching along with our men, with shouldered arms and fixed bayonets, apparently in the greatest good humour, and all expressing anxious wishes to be sent to England. Two genteel-looking young men who were among the prisoners told me that they were conscripts torn from their homes, and that when their regiment gave way they threw themselves down, pretending to be wounded, in order that they might fall into our hands.

Fatigue parties having been left to bury the dead, many of our men had possessed themselves of the French white linen frocks; and it was grotesque enough to see Highland soldiers strolling about the bivouac in these dresses. The field of battle after the action presented a curious feature from so many lying killed and wounded. There were quantities of letters and papers strewed about in all directions. I picked up a bill for several hundred francs payable in Paris, from which it appeared that the poor fellow who had owned it had gone as a substitute, and had received this bill in part payment. Many of the letters were from parents and friends, but not a word of politics was to be found in any of them.

Title: Rough Notes by an Old Soldier

Author: George Bell

Regiment: 34th Foot

Download: https://archive.org/details/roughnotesbyano01bellgoog

For many of the soldiers in Wellington’s army the Peninsular War was their first, but they went on to serve long after Napoleon’s defeat. George Bell arrived in Portugal in 1811 as a young ensign and eventually rose to the rank of major general after also seeing action in India, Canada and the Crimea. His first volume of his memoirs includes his service in the Peninsula, the second can be downloaded from here.

Like many memoirists he prefaces his memoirs in a very self-effacing manner:

I found my bundle of Notes, closed up in my knapsack, so much defaced and worn by long travel, that I was very much inclined to throw them all into the fire, when I was stopped one day by an old camarada who persuaded me to link them together and send them to the press. I protested, having no ability for book-making, not being an enthusiast or a novel reader, and to come out as an Author appeared to me to be worse than to hear the “tir-whit” of a shell from the Bedan into one’s tent. “Never mind,” he said, “try your luck don’t say too much about the R— T—; the truth is not always to be told, you know, and as for the critics and reviewers, you need not fear them: they are considerate and kind to old soldiers, who sit down in the evening of life by the fireside, without pretension, ostentation, or dash, to talk of old campaigns, and fight their battles o’er again.” These few words gave me some little encouragement. I condensed my bundle of notes into the smallest space I could, and they will be found in the following chapters without any varnish!

Another common theme of memoirs written long after the war is the sometimes pernicious influence of Napier’s history of the Peninsular War. Many of Napier’s errors and prejudices can be found repeated in supposedly first-hand accounts. Bell is, at least, honest about his plagiarism in a note at the end of the second volume:

I hope to be excused for quoting some random passages in the above narrative from the great and gallant Napier, for no military Historian could so vividly and so truthfully record a battle or a siege as that heroic General, whose memory will never die, and whose history of the great war can never be equalled.

Title: The Adventures of Captain John Patterson

Author: John Patterson

Regiment: 50th

Download: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TJtpAAAAMAAJ&pg

Patterson’s memoir is also very readable, sometimes to the point of seeming a little over-written, but it is well worth reading and encompasses almost all of the campaign until his wounding in the Pyrenees, and then some service in the West Indies. He went on to write two volumes of Camp and Quarters: Scenes and Impressions of Military Life, which can be found here.

Here he his describing the storming of Fort Napoleon during the raid on the bridge at Almaraz in 1812:

The moment was critical in the extreme, for at least thirteen pieces of cannon were playing away on us, while driving along in double quick time, the grape shot rattling among our bayonets, dealt out death and destruction through our already diminished ranks, the soldiers falling in numbers right and left. “Onward! forward to the ditch” was now called out, as the storming party rapidly advanced, and with desperate resolution all hurried, under an incessant raking fire, to the foot of the ramparts.

Having attained the ground work of the ditch, and established a firm lodgement therein, it soon became pretty clear, that, however strong our fire-eating habits might be, we should find this spot by far too warm a berth for any very protracted residence, and we therefore commenced the most prompt and vigorous measures to escalade the walls; but, the ladders being unfortunately rather short, our efforts were for some time fruitless. By this mischance considerable havoc was occasioned; for while we were endeavouring to raise the ladders, the French grenadiers, whose great bearskin caps and whiskered faces ornamented the breastwork overhead, hurled down upon us with ruthless vengeance an infinite variety of missiles. Anxious to dislodge such ugly customers, they were in no wise particular as to what they made use-of for the purpose; rolling down fragments of rock, stones of huge dimensions, round shot, glass bottles, and many other articles in the small way, so that had our pates been composed of adamantine stuff they could scarcely have resisted an avalanche so direful. In this situation, numbers of the men were killed or wounded, and when some of the most daring attempted to climb, they were either dispatched or tumbled over before they reached the summit.

The highest angle of the wall, on the north east side, was furiously attacked by the 4th battalion company, whose leader, Captain Robert Candler, with a noble spirit, was first to ascend at this point. Waving his sword as he stood on the topmost rail of the ladder, he called on his men to push forward closely; and he then jumped on the ledge of the parapet; but while cheering on his gallant followers he was blown to atoms, his shattered remains lying extended on the slope of the rampart when the troops got in.

You can also read Patterson’s excellent description of Captain Peter Blassiere that I used in Riflemen here.

Title: The vicissitudes of a Soldier’s Life

Author: John Green

Regiment: 68th Foot

Download:  https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qjwIAAAAQAAJ&dq

John Green’s war service started with a stint in the crew of a privateer before he joined the ranks of the 68th Foot. He joined the regiment just before it was designated and trained as light infantry, and then embarked for Walcheren. Like many who fought there Green suffer from recurrent bouts of fever for years afterwards, and he was frequently hospitalised. His memoir makes it clear that the danger of battle was much less of a threat than the constant privations of campaigning. This passage from when the 68th were near Burgos in 1812 is typical.

At this period our condition from want of provisions was miserable in the extreme there were none to be bought for money. I have known hundreds of our men eat bean-tops, or any green herb that could be eaten. Every day after the army had encamped, and when the bullocks were killed, it was a common practice with us to catch the blood, which we boiled until quite  sad, and this served as a substitute for bread. I have known twenty or thirty men, as soon as the butcher had made the incision, rush forward to obtain a supply. It was laughable to see soldiers falling one over the other, some of them covered with blood. I knew one man, during this famine, who was so exceedingly hungry, that he eat the raw tripe in its dirty state: indeed, some of the Chasseurs Britannique used to boil the bullocks’ hides until tender and eat them.

Title: Letters from Portugal, Spain, and France

Author: James Hope

Regiment: 92nd Foot

Download: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TgJQAQAAIAAJ&dq

Hope’s volume of his letters to a friend was published in 1819 and so is free from the influence of later works. However, in 1833 he published The Military Memoirs of An Infantry Officer and if you compare passages in that to the letters you can see signs of embellishment, as I detailed in this blog.

The letters begin in October 1811 and run until the end of 1815, after Hope has fought at Waterloo and been part of the Army of Occupation. They often have quite a light hearted turn of phrase. His account of the Battle of Arroyomolinos is a good example:

The 71st and 92d regiments moved forward to the village at a quick pace, and, in a few minutes, cleared it of the enemy, who were very far from being prepared for such an unceremonious visit. General Girard, driven from the village, formed his infantry in two squares ; and, at the distance of two hundred yards from it, threw a very destructive fire towards the 71st and 92d regiments. The first lined a wall outside the village, and the latter, quite unprotected, were formed at the entrance of the village, in column of sections. The 92d regiment having orders to reserve their fire, beheld their companions fall around them, without being able to avenge their death. But they were not long in this situation. An order soon arrived for the regiment to form line, and prepare to charge. In a few minutes the line was formed, and the Highlanders only waited for the order to advance. All this time the enemy appeared extremely uncomfortable—something like hesitation was observed in their squares. At this interesting period, the two Portuguese guns, attached to the left wing, were ordered forward, whose fire carried death into the thickest of their ranks. The Highlanders had received orders, and were about to present the enemy with a little of their steel, when they, with that politeness for which Frenchmen are so remarkable, declined the honour we intended them, wheeled to the right-about, and, with rather a hasty step, retired to a steep mountain in their rear, over whose summit the French General, no doubt, fancied he should be able to conduct them to more hospitable quarters.

Title: Adventures of a Young Rifleman in the French and English Armies

Author: Johann Christian Maempel

Regiment: 7th Line Battalion, King’s German Legion

Download: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4joZP17EFLMC&dq

This memoir barely qualifies as a British memoir of the Peninsular War, not because the author was German – the KGL were an integral and vital part of the British army – but because Maempel’s service in the peninsula was mainly with the French. His account takes him from joining one of the armies of the many satellite states Napoleon established in Germany, through to marching for Spain, fighting at Bussaco and then being captured. He reluctantly opted to join the KGL rather than remain a prisoner of war and was eventually posted to a fairly easy life in Sicily, before a short period of active service on the east coast of Spain. His friend Phillipe Schwein also wrote a memoir detailing very harsh treatment as a prisoner of the Spanish. In May 1811 Maempel was part of the besieged garrison of Almeida, which escaped through the allied cordon, but many of whom were then chased down.

Our ranks were every moment thinner, and at last entirely broken up. Every one sought his own safety, or endeavoured to sell his life as dearly as possible, so that the cavalry which pursued us lost several men. A small. number of our men were fortunate enough to reach the French line, a greater part were killed, and the remainder made prisoners, which fate I also experienced.

A sturdy Scotchman seized me by the collar, and an hussar flourished his sabre over my head; but when they perceived that I made no opposition, they desisted from hostilities. These two gentlemen, without further ceremony, took possession of my small stock of money and my knapsack, out of which they selected what they pleased. I was obliged to look patiently on, as, had I made the least opposition, I should only have experienced worse treatment.

Title: Recollections of My Military Life

Author: George Landmann

Regiment: Royal Engineers

Download: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TQ8ZAAAAYAAJ&dq

After sharing so many infantry memoirs it would be remiss of me not to include at least one from the vital supporting arms. The second volume of Landmann’s memoirs covers the 1808 campaign to liberate Portugal in great detail, his first volume can be found here. Landmann writes very well and offers many insights and recounts many minor, but interesting, incidents, as well as the major actions. Here he is writing about what he claims are the first shots fired by the British in the Peninsular War.

As the evening was closing, between sunset and dark, we were riding very quietly at the head of the brigade, when we were startled on hearing a shot fired at a short distance in our front, and in the next moment about twenty men, the whole of the advanced guard, of the 20th Regiment of Light Dragoons, came galloping at full speed against us, knocking down everything on the road; thus, in an instant, we were all pitched over into the ditch; the General’s canteens, baggage, and mules, close behind us, shared the same fate.

Fully persuaded that the enemy was close to us, the General halted the brigade, and rapidly formed it into line across the road; and as quickly as the nearest brigades in our rear could be brought up, they were also formed, in order to meet the enemy, and sustain the attack. The Dragoons who had made this precipitate retreat were immediately examined; when they stated, that they had seen one of the enemy’s videttes, and had fired upon him, and without further investigation they thought it their duty to fall back, which they accordingly carried into effect very expeditiously.

A more satisfactory inquiry into this event was evidently indispensable; and General Fane, putting himself with his staff at the head of the advanced guard, which had now been reformed, proceeded to the spot whence they had fired on the enemy’s vidette, and very soon discovered a man sitting on the grass by the side of his horse, and whom, upon further investigation, they ascertained to be a corporal of their own 20th Light Dragoons, whom they had shot through the arm, having mistaken him for an enemy.

On being questioned, this man stated that he had quitted his party for a moment, in order to look over a small bank he had observed at a short distance on the right; and, on returning, the country being quite unenclosed he rode on, cutting off a bend which the road made, without being noticed by his party, and had fallen in with the road beyond the advanced guard, and there waited till his friends came up. Thus, as soon as the two Dragoons, at a short distance in front, perceived this Corporal, the insufficiency of light preventing them from distinguishing his uniform; and not believing there could be a man belonging to the British army between them and the enemy, they challenged thrice, but so quickly, that the poor fellow had not had time to reply, or, if he did, they took no notice of it; but one of them immediately fired off his carbine at the Corporal, and so shot him in the arm. These two men instantly turned round, and made the precipitate retreat already noticed upon their companions, who, satisfied that the enemy must be close at their heels, also retreated, and caused the greatest disorder amongst the leading division of the light brigade.

This was the first shot fired in the Peninsula during the late memorable war, and will serve to show what a trifle will sometimes cause great confusion in an army, but more particularly during a night march.

Well, that should keep you all in reading material for a few more weeks. However, if you are still looking for something to read then my history of the 5/60th – Riflemen is available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other book retailers, or direct from the publisher Helion & Co. My next book, At the Point of the Bayonet covering the battles of Arroyomolinos and Almaraz should be out in the autumn.

   

An Account of the Battle of Arroyomolinos

I recently came across a letter from Lieutenant Benjamin Marcus Ball, 2nd Battalion 39th Regiment of Foot, to his mother containing an excellent account of the Battle of Arroyomolinos. I will use extracts in my forthcoming book on that battle, and the one at Almaraz six months later, but thought it worth reproducing here in full.

Benjamin Ball was 22 years old. He had been commissioned as an ensign in 1807 and promoted to lieuteant in 1809, shortly before his battalion arrived in the peninsula. To aid readability I’ve cleaned up a bit of the punctuation and introduced some paragraphs.

Alburquerque, November 15, 1811

My dear Mother,

I little thought when I last addressed you from the peaceful village of Alegrete that I should so soon have occasion to call forth my pen to record an additional Triumph for the British Arms – a Triumph the parallel of which has not appeared during this long & eventful War; as its Laurels are not tarnished with the blood of our brave Soldiers – & which has set the Talents of our much-loved General (Hill) beyond all competition in the Peninsula, unless with those of our illustrious Commander-in-Chief.

You will no doubt ere this reaches you have heard of our Movement, perhaps you will have seen the Dispatches, as the circumstances in which I have been placed, which I shall in due order unfold, have prevented me from writing as soon as I could have wished. A more detailed account may however not be unacceptable , I therefore lose no time in presenting you with the following.

About the latter end of September, the Division of the Enemy commanded by General Girard came down as far as Caceres for the purpose of levying contributions in that part of Estramadura, & drove the Spanish Troops under Conde de Penne as far back as Valencia d’Alcantara. They settled themselves very quietly in Caceres thinking I suppose they would meet with no molestation from us, as the season was so far advanced that all operations were deemed impracticable. In which expectation they were bitterly mistaken as will appear in the sequel. Girard’s force amounted to 5,000 Men; of which nearly 2,000 were cavalry – & this was the only force of any Consequence the Enemy had in Estremadura, the Garrison of Badajos alone excepted. General Hill formed his plans for surprising them with such secrecy & decision that no one for a moment suspected he had any intention of the kind, so much so that we were extremely astonished on 21st October, to see the 71st Regt marching into Alegrete from Castelo de Vide without our having in any manner been apprized of their coming, or being ordered to make way for them. We of course concluded it was some mistake, & sent into Portalegre for orders; when we were soon set to rights by an express from the General ordering both the Regts to march the following morning to Codosera, where we were joined by the whole Division & encamped. On 23rd our Brigade marched to San Vincente, & that of Genl. Howard to Alburquerque. As these two Brigades were the only British Troops employed in the subsequent operations except the Cavalry, I shall take no notice of the rest.

On 24th our Brigade moved to a place called San Catalina & encamped & the same day that of Howard to Alisada. At two in the afternoon of 25th we advanced to Aroyo de Puerco, & encamped. The Enemy at this time had an advanced of about 600 men in a village called Malpartida de Caceres, about a league in our front, & two from Caceres; which we received orders to attack the next morning. We accordingly marched at day break for that purpose, but on arriving at the place we found General Howard’s Brigade in the town. The enemy apprized of our approach had withdrawn at day-break, & Howard had entered the town two hours after they had left it. On arrival of the Advance in Caceres, the whole corps moved off to Aldea de Cano. General Hill was no sooner informed of the Route they had taken than he resolved on one effort more to come up with them, though a day’s march ahead of us. The more effectually to accomplish this he had to recourse to a Ruse de Guerre, which was sending into Caceres, to prepare Quarters & Rations for his Army which was to be there the following day, & of which he well knew the French would be Duly apprized. Instead however of going to Caceres, the next morning as we also expected we set out for Aldea de Cano, escorted by the same Guide who had conducted the French the preceding day, on our arrival there we found the Enemy was off & halted two hours while the General made a Reconnoissance, when we marched again & at nightfall reached a small village called Cuesca near which we encamped. The Enemy were then all in the town of Aroyo de Molino, only a league in our front. At two o’clock we moved on again so as to reach that place by break of day. Having performed a March of ten Leagues in 24 hours in the worst of weather, & then only came up with the Enemy who were to be attacked, beaten, & pursued over mountains for 4 Leagues further. We formed in close Column behind a little hill which concealed us from the town & shortly the French were seen march out in Column of Route on the Merida road, little dreaming destruction was so nigh.

Arroyomolinos, taken from the hill which hid the allied troops as they formed up.

General Howard’s Brigade was ordered to march directly on the town, & clearing it of all stragglers to take them to the Rear, while our Brigade under Colonel Wilson 39th operated on their flank.

The first information they had of our approach was a Volley from the 71st which killed several. Girard himself was in his house, & his horse & two Orderlies at the door. The fire of the 71st killed both his Orderlies, when he came running out, mounted his horse & galloped to his Brigade, when they came in contact with the head of our Column which they had not seen, having been obscured from their view by the heavy rain which fell. They immediately withdrew precipitately from the Road, & made for the mountains which were unfortunately but too near them; leaving the whole of their Baggage, Stores & Cannon in our possession. They were hotly pushed by the Light Companies of the Brigade, & 28th and 34th Regts while our Battn was detached to cut off their Retreat. We kept to the foot of the hill along the plain, while the other Regts drove them up the Mountain which was composed entirely of craggy rocks, at the point of the bayonet, making great numbers of Prisoners. After winding round the Mountains about a League we ascended a stupendous hill which we expected would command the Road they had to pass, but how great was our disappointment on gaining its summit to find they were not within musquet-shot.

The rear of the hills behind Arroyomolinos, showing the hill which could be the one the 39th marched up hoping to intercept the French.

A great part of our men were so completely knocked up by the fatigues they undergone, that they were unable to proceed any further. Determining however, to strain every nerve to cut them off we descended the plain, & following our former course gained a road which led into that by which they were retiring – but too late, we came within reach of them across a Vineyard, when we commenced a very brisk fire on them which they returned for half an hour. Suddenly they all made off as hard as they could run, & gained a very high ascent where they made a second stand. From this position they opened a very heavy fire completely enfilading the road we were in, we pushed directly for some rocks which commanded their position, but in this manoeuvre so much time was lost, they gained a full league, & returned without much further molestation from us tho we followed them as close as we could the whole way, having been informed that the cavalry was waiting to cut them off as soon as they reached the plain, & indeed about 20 Dragoons did show themselves when the French collecting, formed the square & kept them at a very reasonable distance. On arriving at the foot of the Mountain tho we had but a few men up, Lt Col Lindesay who commanded the Regt, resolved on demanding them to surrender & fixing his handkerchief on a Stick by way of Flag of Truce, rode up to their Column & was met by Girard himself who had conducted the Retreat the whole time & was wounded in the Arm. Col. Lindesay desired him in order to spare any further effusion of blood, to lay down his Arms. Girard with tears in his eyes answered he would rather die – but several of the Men calling out “yes we will surrender”, Lindesay desired them to follow him when 15 Men & an Officer came out of the Column, & returned to us with him. The whole of these Men were wounded. The wretched Remains of the Enemy retired into a wood, whither they were followed by the Guerrillas who took about 50 of them. We were then at the end of our chase of 3 Leagues from Aroyo de Molino, & finding a small village called Val de Fuentes we halted in it for the night. It was unfortunate our Men were so severely fatigued, as had they been fresh as their Antagonists every man would have been taken. As it is however it is splendid achievement, & reflects infinite credit on the General who planned, & the Troops who…

The letter is damaged here with the end of most lines missing. Ball talks about the prisoners that were captured, including the Duc d’Arenberg, who was related by marriage to Napoleon’s former wife Josephine, General Lebrun who commanded the French cavalry, three lieutenant colonels, and many more officers. He also mentions the 8,000 Dollars worth of stores and ammunition taken, and a chest containing about the same amount of cash. The 28th Foot apparently netted £10,000 between them with one solider seizing £400 in coin. He laments that his regiment missed out on the plunder because of its role in the further pursuit of Girard. He also talks about the very poor weather and the the long marches they had to endure, and then continues:

The day before the action we marched at six in the morning & continued on the Road till Eight at night, halted in a new ploughed filed till two while the Rain almost beat us into the Ground, & being forbidden to make fires, could get nothing to eat, marched again at two, came up with the Enemy at five, & continued our pursuit over Mountains till four in the evening having had nothing to eat or drink from 5 o’clock in the evening of 26th till 9 at night of 28th, incessantly on the move, & constantly wet through. To add to my comfort, my baggage was carried back to Portalegre during the fight, & I was left with only the clothes on my back, & these in no very Catholic condition, until a few days ago when it was restored to me in a most melancholy plight, one half of my things having been stolen, & these which remained, utterly destroyed by the wet, & my horse almost dead from ill-usage & starvation, so you see I am no great gainer from these wars.

On 29th we returned to Curesca, & thence by the same road to San Vincente, whence we were ordered to this place which we reached on 7th Inst. & Where the 28th & our Regt remain. The rest of the Division have returned to Portalegre. We are in good Quarters here & in some degree recovering From our fatigues, but Dreadfully in want of Money having received no Pay for four months, & in Spain nothing is to be had without the Dollars.

We have had no Mail from England since I last wrote to you, of course I have heard nothing further respecting my Promotion. It is indeed nearly three months since any accounts have been received from home which makes me think the King is dead, as I can conceive no better cause for delaying Pacquets. What alteration such an event might make in the star of affairs here, it is hard to say but I think the Spaniards would be somewhat downcast. From Lord Wellington’s Army we hear but little, but I believe all is quiet in the North. Our first battalion arrived in Lisbon sometime since from Sicily, & is shortly expected at Portalegre. I do not however suppose the transfer will take place between the two Battalions, before the 24th December. At present there is great canvassing in the Regt for who is to go home, & who to stay, a Question which time only can resolve. The loss sustained by our Regt in the late Affair amounts only to 1 Captain, 1 Sergeant 3 Rank and File Wounded; none killed, but I think our whole loss is under Twenty while that of the Enemy is as above mentioned. This is certainly at least a long letter & I shall expect a long one in Reply, Should any thing occur you shall soon hear from me again, in the mean time I remain with best lobe to Mr Baget & the Children

Your affectionate Son

B.M.Ball

Ball did transfer to the 1st Battalion and went on to serve for the remainder of the peninsular campaign. He was present at the first siege of Badajoz, Albuera, Arroyomolinos, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, the Nivelle, the Nive, Garris, Orthez, Aire and Toulouse. The Hampshire Archives has over 20 of his letters to his mother dated from May 1811 to April 1814, reference 20M62/11B.

My book on Arroyomolinos and Almaraz – At the Point of the Bayonet – will be published later this year by Helion & Co.

The first page of the letter.

My history of the 5/60th – Riflemen is available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.ukand other book retailers, or direct from the publisher Helion & Co.

Christmas in Wellington’s Peninsular Army

A Christmas Tale by Christa Hook – Soldiers of the 2/42nd, 5/60th and 1/79th of Graham’s 1st Division, Stopford’s Brigade, Guarda, Portugal, December 1811. © Christa Hook. http://www.christahook.co.uk

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.