“Though my perishing ranks should be strew’d in their gore,
Like ocean-weeds heaped on a surf-beaten shore,
Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,
While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe!
And, leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.”
PENINSULA—WATERLOO—CRIMEA—INDIA—1808–1862.
In 1808 the Seventy-ninth was included in the army of Sir John Moore,
which endeavoured to aid the Spaniards and Portuguese to rescue their
country from the crushing tyranny of France. But what could 25,000 men,
however brave, do against 300,000 veterans, concentrated under the
command of experienced officers, and now advanced to destroy the daring
handful of British who had presumed to penetrate the heart of the
Peninsula? We have already described the masterly man[oe]uvres which
extricated our army from a position of great peril when in presence of
so powerful a foe, and at the battle of Corunna gloriously arrested the
further pursuit of the French. The Cameron Highlanders were brigaded
with the Thirty-sixth and Eighty-second regiments, under
Brigadier-General Fane, but not actively engaged.
On the return of the regiment to England, it was shortly ordered to
Holland, there to be engaged in a new effort for the deliverance of that
country. Landed with the army of the Earl of Chatham in Walcheren, it
was soon found impracticable to force the position of the French, who,
nearer their own resources than in Spain, were not so easily overcome.
Fever breaking out among the troops, so thinned the ranks, that of near
40,000 effectives, scarce a half returned fit for duty.
Long and sorely had our soldiers struggled to overcome the gigantic
tyranny of France, but like the many-headed monster of heathen fiction,
no sooner was one head wounded, than a new one appeared to challenge the
attack. So, scarcely had we succeeded in one quarter ere the foe arose
in terrible strength in another. Thus we find our armies, sometimes in
Flanders, sometimes in the Peninsula, sometimes in Egypt, sometimes in
India, and sometimes in America, waging a desperate and incessant war
with this Gorgon-headed enemy.
In 1810 we once more return to Spain, where happily more permanent
results were to be achieved. Thither the Seventy-ninth had gone to join
the army of Lord Wellington.
At the battle of Fuentes d’Onor (Fountain of Honour) the conduct of the
regiment was beyond all praise. Occupying that village with the
Seventy-first Highlanders and Twenty-fourth Foot, the Seventy-ninth was
exposed to the most furious assaults of strong columns of French.
Occasionally driven out of the village, yet always returning to recover
it—which an indomitable perseverance ever accomplished—triumphing over
all opposition, this key of the position was ultimately retained. These
regiments thus deservedly acquired the largest share of the glory
flowing from such a victory.
From the battle of Salamanca it advanced with the army which occupied
Madrid. In the subsequent siege of the strong castle of Burgos, the
valour of the regiment was most conspicuous, and in the several assaults
its losses were very considerable. Unfortunately, the approach of a
powerful relieving force snatched the anticipated prize from our grasp,
arresting the further progress of the siege, and necessitating the
retreat of the British towards Portugal.
Although for the present retiring, the effects of these campaigns were
very different upon the combatants. The British, elated with hope,
incited to perseverance, brought a new and living energy into the field
when the rest of the winter had passed away and the operations of the
war been resumed in the spring. On the other hand, the French—depressed
by the evil tidings of the Grand Army in Russia; tired, moreover, with
incessant yet fruitless fightings; disunited by discontent, privation,
and jealousy—when the season once more invited action, found their
armies dispirited and disorganised. No wonder, then, that the forward
march of the British led to a series of victories ever gracing our arms,
until, surmounting the natural barriers of the Pyrenees, our troops
descended into the plains of France in the day of that country’s
humiliation. In the various actions of the “Pyrenees,” the Seventy-ninth
was not seriously engaged.
It was present at the passage of the “Nivelle” and the “Nive.” On the
latter occasion it was specially distinguished for its well-directed
fire, which caused great havoc in the dense masses of the enemy which
strove to defend the passage.
At the battle of Toulouse, in the brigade of General Pack, with the
Forty-second Royal Highlanders and the Ninety-first (Argyllshire)
Regiment, the Seventy-ninth was engaged in a desperate attack which
carried a redoubt strongly situated, and resolutely defended, on the
crest of a series of heights on the right of the position. A French
officer, witnessing the advance of the Highlanders, exclaimed, “My God!
how firm these _sans culottes_ are!” Another French officer in
conversation said of them, “Ah! these are brave soldiers. I should not
like to meet them unless well supported. I put them to the proof on that
day, for I led the division of more than 5000 men which attempted to
retake the redoubt.” A British officer, high in command, thus yields his
testimony to the valour of the brigade: “I saw your old friends the
Highlanders in a most perilous position; and had I not known their
firmness, I should have trembled for the result.”
On the abdication of Napoleon, peace for a time dispelled the
thunder-storm of war, and permitted the return of the regiment to
Britain. His escape from Elba again threatened to crush out the reviving
spirit of liberty beneath the iron heel of his sanguinary tyranny.
Happily for Europe and for France, the convulsive effort by which he
strove to redeem and avenge the past was utterly defeated by his total
discomfiture at Waterloo, for ever dissipating his dream of conquest,
and closing his ambitious career.
Purposing to sever the British from the Prussians, and beat each in
detail ere the Austrian and Russian armies could arrive from Germany to
resume the war, Napoleon, by one of those rapid marches for which he was
so famous, suddenly falling upon and defeating the Prussians at Ligny,
turned with the full weight of his power against the British, who were
already engaged in a desperate struggle with the corps of Marshal Ney at
Quatre Bras—fitly introducing the grander event of Waterloo. Although
impetuously assailed by an immensely superior force, and suffering a
loss of more than 300 men, the Seventy-ninth behaved with the utmost
heroism.
“And wild and high the ‘Cameron’s gathering’ rose!
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills
Have heard—and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years;
And Evan’s, Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s ears!”
In the subsequent battle of Waterloo, it was included in the fifth
division under Sir Thomas Picton, and in the fifth brigade of the army
under Sir James Kempt. Here it was associated with the Twenty-eighth,
Thirty-second, and Ninety-fifth (Rifles) regiments, and posted in
defence of a hedge which the Belgian troops had abandoned early in the
fight. Against this position three powerful columns of the enemy
advanced. “At this moment General Picton was killed, and General Kempt
severely wounded; but the latter never left the field. Like his old
commander, Sir Ralph Abercromby, he allowed no personal consideration to
interfere with his duty; and although unable to sit on horseback from
the severity of the wound, he would not allow himself to be carried away
from his soldiers, whose situation, pressed by a brave and powerful
enemy, required every assistance from his presence and talents. The
enemy, anxious to gain the position behind the hedge, repeated their
attempts, but every attempt was repulsed.” The honourable conduct of the
regiment on this occasion, as a matter of history, has been justly
celebrated.
Occupying France for a while, the Seventy-ninth returned to Britain in
1818, and has long been peacefully employed.
In 1854, when the aggressions of Russia called upon the nations “to
defend the right,” the Seventy-ninth, with the Forty-second Royal
Highlanders and the Ninety-third Sutherland Highlanders, formed the
original Highland Brigade in the army of the Crimea.
At the battle of the Alma, co-operating with the Guards, this brigade,
under Sir Colin Campbell, won a great renown. It was selected, with the
other Highland regiments, under Sir Colin Campbell, to renew the attack
upon the Redan. Fortunately, the retirement of the garrison to the other
side of the harbour afforded a bloodless victory. The regiment was
engaged in the successful expedition against Kertch.
Released by the conclusion of peace from the toils of war on the distant
plains of the Crimea, the regiment returned home. Shortly thereafter,
the outbreak of the Indian mutiny required its presence in that far-off
province of our empire. Accordingly, embarked, it arrived there in 1858,
and joined the army marching upon Lucknow. On the suppression of the
revolt, it was retained in India; and we doubt not the presence of such
staunch defenders of the British constitution will command peace—the
military fire of “auld langsyne” still burning in the bosom of the
Cameron.
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THE NINETY-SECOND FOOT;
OR,
GORDON HIGHLANDERS.