Rifles - Mark Urban [169]
10 Above: a fine view of Ciudad Rodrigo just after the siege, done in watercolour by Lieutenant Thomas Mitchell of the 95th. Two brother officers stand in the foreground; the right-hand breach in the walls was assaulted by the 3rd Division and the left by the Light Division. Bottom: the Great Breach at Badajoz, painted by Atkinson who, unlike Mitchell, was not present.
11 Mitchell’s view of Fuentes d’Onoro. ‘Q’ shows the Light Division covering the withdrawal of the 7th Division, which took up new positions at ‘R’. Once Wellington had pulled back his right flank, the 1st and Light Divisions occupied positions at ‘T’. It was from there that Guards and 95th skirmishers went into the Turon valley.
12 Vitoria. The Light Division’s attacks are marked ‘D’, Barnard’s Brigade being the lefthand one which found its way around the hairpin bend in the Zadorra river. Wellington’s grand design can be seen with the arrival of the flanking columns, ‘F’ (3rd and 7th Divisions). The main French defensive line, ‘B’, was pushed pack as the British broke their centre at Arinez.
13 Wellington breaches the French Pyrenean defensive line at Nivelle with attacks by the 3rd, 4th, 7th and Light Divisions, marked ‘L’. They fought through their initial objectives to positions marked ‘N’.
14 Top: a later portrayal by Simkin of the 95th fighting in the Pyrenees. Already, a certain mythologising of events shows through, for example with the pristine uniforms. Bottom: the Battle of the Nive, showing Arcangues and Bassussary, scene of several Light Division fights in November and December 1813.
15 Top: Morning at Waterloo by Aylward: Kincaid, Simmons and Barnard were probably all witnesses to this scene as riflemen offered a morning brew to the passing Wellington. Bottom: the fierce fighting in La Haye Sainte involved mostly riflemen of the King’s German Legion but also, just behind the wall pictured here, Leach’s companies of the 1st/95th.
Notes on Sources
ONE Departures
1 ‘Just before 6 a.m.’: general descriptive detail of the embarkation has come from several eyewitnesses, including George Simmons, A British Rifleman, Greenhill edition, 1986; William Green, A Brief Outline of Travels and Adventures of William Green, Coventry, 1857; and notes from the manuscript journals of Jonathan Leach and some other officers held at the Royal Green Jacket Museum in Winchester.
– ‘This, my dear parents, is the happiest moment of my life’: Simmons’s letter is one of those, along with his campaign journal, reproduced in A British Rifleman.
– ‘the commanding officer’s intent’: so says Simmons.
2 ‘Private Robert Fairfoot marched in the ranks’: details of Fairfoot’s background come from various official documents in the Public Record Office, Kew. His age and other information are in WO 25/559, details of his Surrey Militia service in WO 13/2089 to 13/2095.
3 ‘One of the old hands commented contemptuously’: Green.
– ‘assert they were headed to help the Austrians’: Simmons’s letter says the destination is a ‘profound secret’, although it is supposed to be Portugal or Austria.
– ‘There had been wives on the last expedition’: their fates are suggested by Benjamin Harris, a 1st Battalion rifleman who served in the Corunna campaign of 1808/9 but did not embark with the others on 25 May 1809. I have used the edition of Harris’s memoirs edited and published by Eileen Hathaway’s Shinglepicker Press in 1995 as A Dorset Rifleman.
– ‘It was such a parting scene’: Green.
4 ‘O’Hare’s 3rd Company … went aboard the Fortune’: Simmons.
– ‘For some of the men, like Private Joseph Almond’: details of Almond’s service have been extracted from the pay and muster lists, WO 12/9522, WO 17/217, WO 25/2139.
4 ‘some of the young officers took the opportunity to go ashore’: including Captain Jonathan Leach, Rough Sketches of An Old Soldier,