Rifles - Mark Urban [73]
The reputation gained by Craufurd’s division was not the result of effusive reports in the newspapers – excepting the language used by Wellington himself to describe the battles in his dispatches – but something rather more subtle. Letters home from men like Simmons were read by brothers sitting bored by the fireside and related to cousins or friends. The knowledge of the 95th’s deeds and the atmosphere within the regiment rippled outwards by correspondence and word of mouth, through Army families into wider society.
George’s brother Maud expressed interest in transferring from the 34th into the 95th. George tried to dissuade him, writing to their parents, ‘He is very comfortable in his present [corps], and not half so liable to be exposed to hardships. I have advised him to continue in his regiment.’ Maud already knew enough from his Army service to accept the advice. But among the ingénues in Britain or Ireland who thirsted for adventure, attempts to dissuade them by frank accounts of the dangers or of the months spent sleeping in the open only increased their desire to wear the green jacket. George and Maud’s teenage sibling Joseph, back home in Yorkshire for the moment, would prove just such a case.
Many young gentlemen set fathers, uncles or military friends of the family investigating whether they might join. At Headquarters, they were sensitive enough to the dangers of this service to try to dissuade one aristocrat from seeking a commission in a Light Division regiment; a staff officer wrote that ‘Lord Wellington conceives there he might be treated to more shots than his friends would wish.’ Instead, the general recommended that the young peer in question might consider the Fusiliers or Guards. Of course, many of the more humble applicants did not have the benefit of this private advice, nor were there great fortunes at stake if they bit the dust.
Now that the Light Division had won the admiration of the Peninsular Army and its commander, many of the officers already serving there, having no private funds or connections to fall back upon, became all the more determined to reap some reward for their service and to see off others whom they regarded as having inferior claims to advancement. This, as we shall see, made it increasingly difficult for newly arrived officers to fit in with the old veterans.
It also produced determination in men like Sidney Beckwith to see their best people receive just rewards. For Peter O’Hare, given a brevet in April, Wellington’s Fuentes dispatch contained more glorious news. His deeds in fighting off the French in the Turon valley drew a mention from his commander. That, in the formal system observed by Horse Guards, was an endorsement for promotion to the next suitable vacancy. Having gained an acting major’s rank in April, O’Hare got Wellington’s backing for a substantive post in May. This was a considerable coup, for an officer could soldier on for years with a brevet promotion without any actual change in his situation apart from the pay.
As for Simmons, Beckwith was determined to do something for him too. The commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 95th, had a duty to make up a quarterly list of officers suitable for promotion, noting as well the number of vacancies open to them. This was relayed to Wellington’s military secretary, who in turn would usually gain the general’s endorsement on the nod, and the papers made their way to London. Writing several weeks after Fuentes, Beckwith departed from the usual formality of these reports in order to plead the case of Simmons: ‘The last named officer, I beg leave in a particular manner to recommend to Lord Wellington’s notice. He has been constantly with his company, has been very severely wounded, and his zeal and gallantry have been conspicuous on all occasions.’ This was sufficient to win him promotion to lieutenant, at last, in July 1811.
The hot months of June and July were therefore a time of some satisfaction for the officers