Rifles - Mark Urban [180]
103 ‘Our regiment gets terribly cut up’: Simmons, letter of 26 March.
– ‘Pillaging is expressly forbidden, and pillagers will be punished’: this order was dated 3 April and is reprinted in Fririon.
TEN Sabugal
104 ‘An eerie sound penetrated the early-morning fog’: Harry Smith described it.
– ‘Wellington issued orders for a large-scale attack’: the orders, written up by his Quarter Master General, are reproduced in Vol. IV of the 1852 Wellington’s Dispatches.
– ‘soon enough, they were wading up to their waists’: according to Simmons in a letter home. In his journal, oddly, Simmons says the water came up to their armpits.
105 ‘three companies of the 3rd Cacadores, generally reckoned the best Portuguese troops’: Verner argues they were not present, but they are referred to in Wellington’s Dispatches so I think we must assume they were.
106 ‘short-sighted old ass’: Smith.
– ‘A brigade of dragoons under Sir William Erskine, who were to have covered our right’: Kincaid, Adventures.
– ‘the whole of Right Wing formed one long skirmish line’: Simmons.
107 ‘the galling fire of the 95th Rifles at point blank [soon] compelled them to retire’: John Cox MS Journal, also the following quotation.
– ‘Beckwith, finding himself alone and unsupported, in close action, with only hundreds to oppose the enemy’s thousands’: Kincaid, Random Shots.
108 ‘Having come forward in columns, they could not now deploy into firing lines’: Cox and Simmons are quite specific about the French coming forward in columns. The point about not deploying into line derives from study of the ground and of the frontage that would have been required for this.
– ‘Now my lads, we’ll just go back a little if you please’: the Beckwith quotations in this section come from Simmons and Kincaid.
109 ‘Their officers are certainly very prodigal of life, often exposing themselves ridiculously’: Simmons.
– ‘Shoot that fellow, will you?’: these Beckwith quotations are from Smith.
109 ‘The regiments facing the British brigade in this part of the fight had eighteen officers shot’: Martinien and Oman.
110 ‘our loss is much less than one would have supposed possible, scarcely two hundred men’: letter of 4 April 1811 to Beresford, in Dispatches.
– ‘Of the five French colonels who led their regiments against the Light Division’: Martinien. The colonels of the 2ème Léger and 70ème Line both died of wounds received at Sabugal, the 6ème and 17ème Léger had their colonels wounded.
– ‘If anything brilliant has been done, it will be to a certain degree mortifying’: Craufurd letter, cited by Spurrier as ‘early April’.
111 ‘I consider the action that was fought by the Light Division’: Wellington’s dispatch to the Earl of Liverpool is dated 9 April 1811, in Dispatches.
– ‘it would be stupid to pretend to persuade you that I did not feel any regret that the events’: Craufurd to his wife, 13 April 1811, Spurrier.
– ‘On 11 April, Peter O’Hare was given an in-field promotion, or brevet, to the rank of major’: this data, and much else in the subsequent paragraphs, comes from the Challis Index, a biographical goldmine on Peninsular officers kept at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
113 ‘supposing I got into the most desirable Regt. in the service, I should be happy to leave it the moment I could get a step’: this letter is contained in The Pakenham Letters 1800 to 1815, privately printed 1914.
– ‘as to remaining an English full-pay lieutenant for ten or twelve years!’: letter from Charles Napier, quoted by William Napier.
– ‘Layton and Grant argued until, pistols being produced, they determined to fight a duel’: details of this fascinating case emerge from Green and the Rifle Brigade Chronicle, 1947.
114 ‘A contest of this kind had caused one officer of the 95th to leave the regiment’: Captain Travers – the case is described