Rifles: Six Years With Wellington's Legendary Sharpshooters (45 page)

260 ‘about one soldier in four was new to the battalion’: this is my own analysis of the muster rolls.

– ‘Simmons’s brother Joseph had been left behind’: the process of senior men taking priority, etc. is described in one of Simmons’s letters.

– ‘the old sweats were calling them “recruits”’: Costello.

261 ‘This cursed war has knocked all my plans in the head’: Gairdner MS letter, dated 23 April 1815, with various postscripts.

– ‘my wife was separated from me when I went to the Peninsular War’: the story of Pitt and many other fascinating details and quotations in this chapter come from a long memorandum on the Waterloo campaign written by Simmons for Sir William Cope when he was writing his early history of the Rifle Brigade. Simmons’s document, which runs to many pages, can be found in Cope’s letter book, National Army Museum MSS 6804-2, Vol. I. Although written decades after the event (dated 15 August 1855) Simmons’s statement is consistent in every detail with his letters and journal and amplifies many points. I shall refer to material from this statement as Cope MS. After writing this passage, I came across the following in Field Marshal Lord Carver’s memoirs,
Out of
Step
, a description of what happened when his regiment returned to Britain in 1944 after several years’ fighting in North Africa: ‘several senior non-commissioned officers who had splendid records of gallantry and devotion to duty as tank commanders, applied to transfer to units less likely to be in the front line again. They were undoubtedly influenced by their wives, from whom they had been separated for several years and who resented their husbands going into the heat of battle again.’ The similarities with Pitt and Underwood are interesting, I think.

– ‘disliked flogging as much as any man’: Cope MS.

– ‘my legs will never carry me through a long campaign’: Simmons’s letter home of 19 May 1815, as is the quotation about entering Brussels.

262 ‘some riflemen were even attacked by the locals’: this incident is described both in the Gairdner MS Journal and Cope MS.

262 ‘for we were all aware that Napoleon was about to make a dash’: Kincaid,
Adventures
.

– ‘in consequence of the difficulty of assembling the division’: Gairdner MS Journal.

263 ‘Barnard, these fellows are coming on; you must stop them by throwing yourselves into that wood’: FitzMaurice.

– ‘Ah! My boys, you are opening the ball in good style!’: Cope MS.

– ‘Why man! You are like a fine lady!’ Cope MS, as is the following quotation of Simmons about pushing Underwood through the hedge.

– ‘We were saluted by a fusillade of extreme violence’: Colonel Trefcon,
Carnet de Campagne du Colonel Trefcon
, Paris, 1914.

264 ‘Look at that glorious fellow, our comrade and brother soldier’: Cope MS.

265 ‘Oh Mr Simmons, the game is up with me, for this campaign anyhow’: Cope MS.

– ‘the news of this disastrous defeat of our allies was calculated to throw a damp on the prospects’: Leach,
Rough Sketches
.

267 ‘camp kettles were boiling away outside Barnard’s billet’: Kincaid,
Adventures
.

– ‘It was here that Captain Leach was initially posted with two companies’: dispositions pieced together from Leach,
Rough Sketches
, Simmons and the Cope MS.

268 ‘we perceived our adversaries bringing into position, on the heights opposite’: Leach,
Rough Sketches
.

– ‘the very first shot from the grand battery taking off a rifleman’s head’: this is described by Kincaid and Simmons in the Cope MS.

– ‘This rush and enthusiasm were becoming disastrous’: Capitaine Duthilt,
Memoires du Capitaine Duthilt
, Lille, 1909.

269 ‘French cuirassiers cantering up to a Hanoverian militia battalion’: Leach and Simmons.

– ‘many of the riflemen panicked’: this story emerges from Barnard’s letter quoted later in this chapter.

271 ‘Oh lift me up, I am suffocating!’: Cope MS which also says Fairfoot was crying. Simmons’s published letter says only that the sergeant became highly agitated.

272 ‘I regret to say that a
great
number of our men went to the rear without cause’: this letter, of 23 June 1815 addressed to Cameron, is deeply compromising in a way memoirs almost never were. It survives in copy form in the RGJ Archive, Box 1A, item 35. The copy, evidently made by Verner, was of an original in the Cameron family papers.

273 ‘
all
soldiers ran away sometimes’: Wellington’s remark was quoted by Croker in recounting dinner on 27 April 1828. ‘[Wellington was] very frank and amusing. He said all troops ran away – that he never minded; all he cared about was whether they would come back again, and he added that he always had a succession of lines for the purpose of rallying fugitives.’ It is contained in his two-volume set of reminiscences of the Duke.

275 ‘George Baller was another veteran of O’Hare’s company’: details from
Rifle Brigade Chronicle
, 1930.

279 ‘The bayonet may, in truth, be termed the grand mystifier of modern tactics’: this phrase was used by Mitchell in the
United Services Journal
and his book
Thoughts on Tactics and Military Organisation
, London, 1838. The quotations here come from the book.

280 ‘It is discipline, which is nothing but each man, shoulder-to-shoulder’: this letter by W.D.B. is in the
United Service Journal
, 1838, Part 3.

– ‘Our corps gained the reputation … not by aping the drill of grenadiers’: Leach,
Rough Sketches
.

281 ‘Kincaid for example arguing that skirmishing soldiers needed to be kept moving’: he did this in Random Shots, not the
United Services Journal
. The book was published in 1835 and the USJ bayonet debate took place in 1838–40.

284 ‘there, perhaps, never was, nor ever again will be, such a war brigade’: Kincaid,
Adventures
.

286 ‘the most celebrated old fighting corps in the Army or perhaps the world’: Major General G. Bell,
Rough Notes by an Old Soldier
, London, 1867.

– ‘A remarkable revival of curiosity in the events of the time of Napoleon has lately arisen’: Du Cane in his article on Molloy.

288 ‘new fangled school mastering’: Wellington made this remark in a letter to his friend Rev. Gleig.

In several cases the dates given are those of the edition used in the compilation of this book rather than of the first edition.

Arvers, Capitaine P.,
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Ligne
, Paris, 1876

Baker, Ezekiel, 33
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with Rifle Guns
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Bell, Major General G.,
Rough Notes by an Old Soldier
, London, 1867

Blakiston, Major J.,
Twelve Years’ Military Adventure
, London, 1829

de Brack, Colonel F.,
Light Cavalry Outposts
, reprinted in English translation by Brown and Buckland (Ken Trotman), 2002

Beaufroy, Captain Henry,
Scloppetaria: or Considerations on the Nature and
Use of Rifled Barrel Guns
, London, 1808 (Beaufroy has been identified as author; the work was published as being ‘by a Corporal of Riflemen’)

Boyle, Colonel Gerald Edmund,
The Rifle Brigade Century
, London 1905

Campbell, Colonel Neil,
A Course of Drill and Instruction in the Movements
and Duties of Light Infantry
, London, 1808 (Campbell, an early member of the 95th who later served with Wellesley in Denmark, was asked by the general to produce this volume to create some sort of standard drill for light companies from line battalions)

Clerc, Commandant,
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Occidentales 1813–1814
, Paris 1894.

Cooke, John,
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, ed. Eileen Hathaway, Shinglepicker Press, 2000

Colville, John,
The Portrait of a General
, Salisbury, 1980

Cooper, Sergeant J.,
Rough Notes on Seven Campaigns
, Carlisle 1869.

Cope, Sir William,
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, London, 1877

Costello, Edward,
The True Story of a Peninsular Rifleman
(edited version of his earlier memoir), Shinglepicker Press, 1997

Craufurd, Rev. Alexander,
General Craufurd and his Light Division
, London 1891.

Croker, John Wilson,
The Croker Papers
, London 1885

Cross, Captain John,
A System of Drill and Manoeuvres as Practised in the
52nd Light Infantry Regiment
, London, 1823.

Derrecagaix, General,
Le Marechal de France Comte
Harispe, 1768–1855
, Paris, 1916

Duhesme, Comte P. G.,
Essai Historique sur l’Infanterie Legère
, Paris, 1814

Dumay, Capitaine,
Historique du 66e Regiment d’Infanterie (1672–1900)
, Tours, 1900

Dumas, Lt Colonel J. B.,
Neuf Mois de Campagnes a la Suite du Marechal
Soult, Paris,
c
.1900

Dundas, Colonel D.,
Principles of Military Movements
,
Chiefly Applied to
Infantry
, London, 1788

Dupuy, Capitaine R.,
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1887
, Paris, 1887.

Duthilt, Capitaine,
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, Lille, 1909

Ehwald (sometimes sp. Ewald), Colonel Von,
A Treatise upon the Duties of
Light Troops
, London, 1803

Fare, Charles,
Lettres d’Un Jeune Officier à Sa Mère 1803–1814
, Paris, 1889

Fernyhough, Thomas,
Military Memoirs of Four Brothers
, London, 1829

Fitzclarence, Lord,
Manual of Outpost Duties
, London, 1849

FitzMaurice, F. M.,
Recollections of a Rifleman’s Wife at Home and Abroad
, London 1851

FitzMaurice, J.,
Biographical Sketch of Major General John FitzMaurice,
Italy, 1908

Foster, William C.,
Sir Thomas Mitchell and His World, 1792-1855
, New South Wales Institution of Surveyors

Fririon, François-Nicholas,
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, Paris, 1841

Fuller, J. F. C.,
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, London, 1924

Gassendi, Comte Jean Jacques,
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France
, Paris, 1809

Gates, David,
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, London, 1987

Girod de L’Ain, Capitaine M.,
Le General Eble
, Paris, 1893

Gleig, ‘Account of Robert Craufurd’s Funeral’, first published in
The Gem
, 1829, reprinted in
A Memoir of the Late Major General Robert Craufurd
, privately published, 1842

Glover, Michael, ed.,
A Gentleman Volunteer: The Letters of George
Hennell
, London, 1979

Godbert, Capitaine H.,
Historique du 70ème Regiment d’Infanterie de Ligne,
1792–1815
, Leguyers, 1890

Grattan, William,
Adventures with the Connaught Rangers
, London, 1853

Green, William,
A Brief Outline of Travels and Adventures of William
Green
, Coventry, 1857

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, Vol. ix:
Modern
Studies of the War in Spain and Portugal, 1808–1814
, London, 1999

Hall, John A.,
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, Vol. viii:
The Biographical
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, London, 1998

Harris, Benjamin,
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, ed. Eileen Hathaway, Shinglepicker Press, 1995.

Hay, Captain William,
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, London, 1901

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, London, 1994

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, Spellmount, 2002

James, C.,
A Collection of the Charges, Opinions and Sentences of General
Courts Martial
, London, 1820

Kincaid, John,
Random Shots from a Rifleman
, London, 1835

MacDonald, John,
Instructions for the Conduct of Infantry
, London (a translation of French regulations, but contains an introduction)

Larpent, F.,
Private Journal of F. Seymour Larpent, Judge Advocate General
, London, 1853

Leach, Jonathan,
Rough Sketches of an Old Soldier
, London, 1831

–
Recollections and Reflections Relative to the Duties of Troops Composing
the Advanced Corps of an Army
, London, 1835

–
Sketch of the Field Services of the Rifle Brigade from its Formation to the
Battle of Waterloo
, London, 1838

–
Rambles Along the Styx
, London, 1847

Liddell Hart, B. H., ed.,
The Letters of Private Wheeler
, London, 1951

Macdonald, J.,
Rules and Regulation of the Field Exercise
, 1803 (a translation of the French 1791 regulations but contains interesting remarks on

French light troop tactics by the translator)

Mannigham, Colonel Coote,
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Regiment, 1803
, first published in the
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, 1896, republished by Ken Trotman, 2002.

Marbot, Baron J.,
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, Paris, 1892

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Blessés
pendant les
Guerres
de l’Empire
, Paris, 1899

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Moore Smith, G. C.,
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Smith
, London, 1901

–
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, London, 1903

Muir, Rory,
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, New Haven and London, 1996

–
Salamanca 1812
, New Haven and London, 2001 Nafziger, George,
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, London, 1995

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France
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–
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, 4 Vols., London, 1857

Oman, Sir Charles,
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, 7 Vols., Oxford, 1902–30

–
Wellington’s Army 1809–1814
, London, 1913

Rottenburg, Colonel, Regulations for the Exercise of Riflemen and Light
Infantry and Instructions for Their Conduct in the Field
, London, 1803 (a translated and slightly edited version of the first regulations produced five years earlier by the Commanding Officer of the new 5th/60th; Rottenburg’s name does not appear, although he was undoubtedly the author)

Pelet, Jean Jacques,
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,
ed. Donald Horward, Minneapolis, 1973

Simmons, George,
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, Greenhill edition, 1986.

Six,
Georges, Dictionnaire Biographique des Generaux et Amiraux Français
de la Revolution et de l’Empire, 1792–1814
, Paris, 1934

Sontag, Colonel, Hints for Non-Commissioned Officer on Actual Service, London, 1803

Stevens, Crosbie, ‘The Rifle Brigade 1800–1870: A Study of Social, Cultural and Religious Activity’, PhD thesis, Sheffield University, 1996

Stewart, Sir William,
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, privately printed, 1871

Surtees, William,
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, 1973 reprint of 1833 edition

Torrens, Major General Sir Henry,
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Army
, London, 1824

Trefcon, Colonel,
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, Paris, 1914

Var, Le Commandant, ed.,
Campagnes du Capitaine Marcel
, Paris, 1913

Vassais, Capitaine J. G.,
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(1672–1912),
Paris, 1913

Verner, Willoughby,
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, 1912–19.

Weddeburne, Sergeant William,
Observations on the Exercise of Riflemen,
Norwich, 1804

Wellesley, Arthur, Duke of Wellington, Dispatches of the Duke of Wellington, London, 1852

Wyld, James,
Maps and Plans Showing the Principal Movements
,
Battles,
and Sieges
…, London, 1840

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His Majesty’s Forces
, London, 1792

General Orders
,
Spain and Portugal
, London, 1811–14

The Standing Orders of the Light Division
, Dublin, 1844

The Pakenham Letters 1800 to 1815
, privately printed, 1914