“And, oh! loved warriors of the minstrel’s land!
Yonder your bonnets nod, your tartans wave!
The rugged form may mark the mountain band,
And harsher features, and a mien more grave.
But ne’er in battle throbbed a heart so brave,
As that which beats beneath the Scottish plaid;
And when the pibroch bids the battle rave,
And level for the charge your arms are laid,
Where lives the desperate foe that for such onset staid?”
WALCHEREN—PENINSULA—WATERLOO—1809–1862.
In 1809 the Ninety-second was engaged under the Earl of Chatham in the
unfortunate expedition to Walcheren, wherein a splendid army in a few
weeks was discomfited by the poisoned breath of the pestilence. Of 1000
men comprised in the Gordon Highlanders, only 300 returned effective to
England.
In 1810 the regiment embarked for the Peninsula, and joined the army of
Viscount Wellington in the lines of Torres Vedras. Brigaded with the
Fiftieth and Seventy-first regiments, under Major-General Howard, it
advanced with the army in pursuit of the French under Marshal Messena,
shared the glories of “Fuentes d’Onor,” accomplishing the fall of
Almeida.
The brigade was afterwards detached as part of the second division of
the army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Hill, which covered the
operations of the grand army under Wellington against the fortresses of
Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. This division, pursuing the enemy towards
Merida, overtook and surprised the bronzed veterans of the fifth French
corps, under General Gerard, when about to decamp from Arroyo del
Molinos. The honour of this feat of arms is mainly due to the
Seventy-first and Ninety-second Highlanders, who, during the raging of a
fearful tempest, and screened by a thick mist, charged into the village.
In the confusion the loss of the enemy was immense; of 3000 only 600
escaped to tell the tale of the catastrophe. It is said the enemy was
first made aware of his danger by the scream of the bagpipes as they
appropriately played—
“Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin’ yet?”
Driven out at the point of the bayonet, the French were utterly broken
and dispersed. Few events reflect greater credit upon the Gordon
Highlanders than this exploit.
It was the business of Lieut.-Gen. Hill so to engage the attention of
Marshal Soult, that he should be prevented assisting the army of Marshal
Marmont, opposed to Wellington. By the capture of Forts Napoleon and
Ragusa at “Almaraz,” gallantly accomplished by the brigade, the
separation of the two Marshals was effected, and each forced to follow
his own line of retreat, at every step widening the breach.
The battle of Salamanca having cleared the way, the British advanced to
Madrid; and, whilst Wellington proceeded against Burgos, Lord Hill
occupied the capital. Tho concentration of the French armies for the
relief of Burgos occasioned the abandonment of that enterprise, and, for
the last time, compelled our army to retire towards Portugal, evacuating
Madrid. “From the 27th October to the 20th November, we were exposed,”
says Lieut.-Col. Cameron, “to greater hardships than I thought the human
frame could bear. In most inclement weather, with the canopy of heaven
for our covering, wet, cold, and hungry, we were generally marching day
and night. Fifteen poor fellows of the Ninety-second fell down, and were
lost. My heart bled for them.”
On reaching Alba de Tormes, an old Roman town, defended by a ruined
wall, it was deemed necessary to make a stand against the pursuing
enemy, who, urged forward by the vigorous Soult, sorely pressed our
army. Here the brigade, entrusted with the honourable yet difficult duty
of maintaining the rear guard, behaved with extraordinary gallantry. The
scene is thus described by Lieut.-Col. Cameron:—“We did what we could to
improve our situation during the short time left us. I threw an old door
across the place where the gate once had been, and barricaded it with
sticks and stones.... We had not a single piece of ordnance. Just as the
clock of Alba struck two, the French columns moved to the attack, and,
from that time until night, we sustained a hurricane of shot and shell
from twenty pieces of cannon! Their riflemen threw themselves into
ditches and ravines round the walls, but their masses never forsook the
protection of their artillery, which was most dastardly for Soult, with
ten thousand men!”
“It is said, that on the 8th, a French officer of high rank approached
so close to the position of the Ninety-second that several muskets were
levelled at him, when Cameron, disdaining to take such an advantage,
promptly forbade the firing of a shot. It was Soult who was thus saved.”
Thus arrested, the French did not again disturb the retreat. Both armies
going into winter quarters, the campaign of 1812 terminated.
With the first dawn of spring Wellington was again on the move. Having
re-organised his army, and been strengthened by considerable
reinforcements from home, with 78,000 excellent troops, he proceeded to
drive the enemy before him. The French, on the other hand, discouraged
by evil news from Russia, and denied that assistance they needed,
because of the more urgent necessities of the Grand Army, could not be
expected to act with the same energy as heretofore, yet did they exceed
these anticipations.
At “Vittoria” King Joseph and Marshal Jourdan having gathered together
their utmost disposable force, ventured to try the fate of battle,
hoping to check the progress of the British, or at least secure a safe
retreat, laden, as they were, with the spoil of the Peninsula. But the
battle of Vittoria fatally disappointed them, and rescued the treasures
of Spain from their avaricious grasp. In this battle, the Ninety-second
Highlanders, having been ordered to seize the heights whereon the
village of Puebla was perched, and hold the position to the last, with
persevering valour overcame a determined resistance, pressed up the
sides of the mountain, entered the village with an impetuous charge,
and, after a fierce struggle, drove the enemy out.
Having gained this great victory, the British now addressed themselves
to the Herculean task of forcing a passage through the defiles of the
“Pyrenees” into France. Notwithstanding the stupendous efforts of
Marshal Soult to retrieve the losses of Vittoria and defend these
natural barriers of his country, the British still pressed “forward.” On
the 20th July, 1813, whilst the brigade was threading its way through
the pass of Maya, it was vigorously attacked by a corps of 15,000
French, who, forcing back that “fierce and formidable old regiment, the
Fiftieth,” upon the Seventy-first and Ninety-second Highlanders, very
nearly drove them out of the pass. These, however, for _ten hours_ stood
the shock of this formidable assault. “So dreadful was the slaughter,
especially of the Ninety-second, that it is said the advancing enemy was
actually stopped by the heaped mass of dead and dying. Never did
soldiers fight better—seldom so well. The stern valour of the
Ninety-second would have graced Thermopylae.” Of 750 Gordon Highlanders
who were engaged, only 400 survived it scatheless, but these returned in
the truest sense “conquering heroes,” having, when every cartridge was
expended, and in presence of succour, decided the victory as their own
by a desperate charge. Throughout the many conflicts which it needed to
clear a passage through the Pyrenees, and thereafter drive so terrible a
foe successively across the “Nivelle” and the “Nive,” the Ninety-second
always displayed the same desperate resolution and valour.
At the sanguinary action of St Pierre, which raged with exceeding fury
for three hours, cumbering a little space of one mile with more than
5000 dead and dying, the Ninety-second impetuously charged and destroyed
two regiments of the enemy. Pressing onwards, the Highlanders were
arrested by a fearful storm of artillery, and forced to retreat upon
their comrades of the Seventy-first; who likewise yielding to the iron
tempest, both found shelter and rallied behind their brethren in brigade
of the Fiftieth. “Then its gallant colonel (Cameron) once more led it
down the road, with colours flying and music playing, resolved to give
the shock to whatever stood in the way. A small force was the
Ninety-second compared with the heavy mass in its front, but that mass
faced about and retired across the valley. How gloriously did that
regiment come forth again to charge, with their colours flying and their
national music playing as if going to a review! This was to understand
war. The man who in that moment, and immediately after a repulse,
thought of such military pomp, was by nature a soldier.”
Excepting at the battle of Toulouse, the Ninety-second was daily engaged
with the enemy, and always with equal credit.
The abdication and exile of Napoleon spread the calm of peace over the
face of Europe. Alas! that it should have been but as some sweet vision
of the night, doomed to be dissipated by the dawn of the morrow, when
the sterner realities of life, its toils and its wars, anew presented
themselves. The night which had shrouded the destiny of imperial France
was succeeded by a new day happily; but, as a brief winter’s day, when
for a moment a glimpse of sunshine shone upon the spirit of the old
empire, as it seemed to revive beneath the influence of the great
Magician, who was wont to conjure up kingdoms and dynasties by the mere
fiat of his will. Soon we shall find the day-dream of ambition eclipsed
in a darker night. Already, we can almost read the mysterious writing,
prophetically pointing to Waterloo, as more surely sealing the fate of
imperial France.
In 1815 the rude blast of war once more summoned the Ninety-second to
the field, as the gathering hosts of France and the Allies accepted the
dread arbitration of war on the chivalric field of Flanders.
In this campaign the Ninety-second was brigaded with the First Royal
Scots, the Forty-second Royal Highlanders, and the Forty-fourth Foot,
under Major-General Sir Denis Pack, and placed in the famous fifth
division of Lieut.-General Sir T. Picton. The same tide of imperial
power, which rose upon the Prussians at Ligny, rolled along towards
Quatre Bras, and dashed its stormy billows in foaming wrath upon the
living rocks of British valour there. As the Gordon Highlanders
encountered the furious onset of the corps of Marshal Ney, Wellington
himself was in their midst, and beheld their splendid valour. Concealed
in a ditch by the road-side, they waited the charge of the French
cavalry, as it ventured to sweep past them in pursuit of the
Brunswickers. Here, however, the pursuit was stayed by a fatal volley
from the Highlanders. At length the Duke gave the word, as he observed
the enemy pushing along the Charleroi Road, “Now, Cameron,” said he,
“now is your time; you must charge these fellows, and take care of that
road.” Soon the massive columns of the foe were broken and hurled back
in confusion, as the Ninety-second emerged from the awful conflict a
bleeding yet victorious remnant, having lost its brave commander,
Lieut.-Colonel Cameron, and nearly 300 comrades. Colonel Cameron was
deeply lamented by the regiment, and the whole army. Temporarily buried
in the vicinity of the field of his latest glory, his remains were
afterwards removed, by his family, to the churchyard of Kilmallie, where
his sacred dust now reposes beside the chieftains of Lochiel. No funeral
in the Highlands was ever so honoured—the great, the noble, the brave,
and upwards of 3000 Highlanders were there to pay the last tribute of
respect to the beloved soldier, now no more.
[Illustration: FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WAR.]
But the great event of these “hundred days” was at hand, as the 18th of
June dawned upon the plains of Waterloo.
It was late in the day ere the Gordon Highlanders were brought into
action to recover the farm-house of La Haye Sainte, lost by the
Belgians, and which the First Royal Scots and Forty-fourth regiments had
failed to regain, from a column of 3000 French. At this critical moment
Major-General Sir Denis Pack said, “Ninety-second, you must charge, for
all the troops to your right and left have given way.” Although
mustering scarce 300 men, with characteristic dauntlessness, the
Highlanders rushed impetuously to the attack, and in another moment
seemed lost amid the dark masses of the foe. As if moved to help their
countrymen, the Scots Greys came to their aid, or rather to witness and
complete the victory the Highlanders had already won. Together, shouting
“Scotland for ever,” these splendid corps renewed the assault, which
utterly ruined the column of the enemy, the survivors being only too
glad to seek refuge in flight. Sir Denis Pack having witnessed this
magnificent charge and its glorious effects, commending the
Ninety-second, said, “You have saved the day, Highlanders.” Meanwhile,
beholding with unfeigned regret the discomfiture of his troops, the
Emperor, at the same time, felt constrained to admire the valour of the
Highlanders, which had so signally triumphed, exclaiming, “the brave
Scots.”
And on the plains of Waterloo
The world confess’d the _bravest few_
Were kilted men frae Scotland.
Pursuing the enemy, the allies entered Paris in triumph, and thence, on
the surrender of Napoleon, dictated peace.
Returning to England, the regiment was employed in various home
garrisons, until the year 1819, when it was removed to the West Indies.
During its sojourn there it was almost destroyed by the dreadful ravages
of fever among its soldiers, and returned to England a mere skeleton in
1827. In 1834 it was removed to Gibraltar, and thence, in 1836, to
Malta. Whilst stationed at Malta, it was reviewed by Prince Maximilian
of Bavaria, and further honoured in furnishing a Guard to Her Majesty
the Queen Dowager whilst resident in the island. In 1841 it was removed
to the West Indies, and two years later returned home. In 1851 it
proceeded to Corfu. Removed to Gibraltar in 1853, it embarked thence to
the Crimea, arriving a few days after the fall of Sebastopol. Returning
to Gibraltar in 1856, in 1858 it was despatched, _via_ overland route,
to Bombay. In the suppression of the Indian mutiny it was engaged at
Rajghpur, Mongrowlie, and Sindwah. It still remains in India.
[Illustration:
THE NINETY-THIRD SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS.
MONUMENT IN GLASGOW CATHEDRAL TO ITS “CRIMEAN HEROES.”
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE NINETY-THIRD FOOT;
OR,
SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS.