I am unwilling to part with those whom I regard so much, without
bidding them adieu, and therefore request you will accept yourself,
and have the goodness to express to the other officers of the royal
engineers of the Valenciennes' staff and pontoon train, as well as
those who were attached to the late third division, my sincere good
wishes for their continued honour and welfare, and that you and they
and the officers and privates of the royal sappers and miners will
accept my thanks for the promptitude and correctness with which my
wishes were met by them, during the time I had the honour to have them
under my command.
I am, &c.,
(Signed) CHARLES COLVILLE.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir C. F. Smith, R.E.
Arming the corps efficiently had for years been a subject of
discussion and representation. Lord Mulgrave, the Master-General,
however, could not be persuaded of the necessity of the measure, and
under the opinion that a working corps ought not to be armed, sent
detachments to the Peninsula equipped only with swords. The evil of
this was greatly felt, as the sappers could not march across the
country without being guarded by other troops. For the same reason
the company attached to the light division, which was required for
the siege of Bayonne, was unable to join. Upwards of 400 sappers
were employed in that siege, and might, had they been equipped with
fire-arms, have rendered important assistance in repelling the
disastrous sortie.
Eleven companies were sent to the Netherlands in a similarly
defenceless state. Before moving them, Earl Mulgrave was ready to
abide by the views of the Duke of Wellington on the point, as his
Grace promised to consider the question when the first company
should arrive; but no farther notice appears to have been taken of
the subject, and the whole eleven companies landed without a
firelock.
When the alarming and unfounded reports of the retreat of the
British from Waterloo reached Malines, Major Tylden, with the
pontoon companies under his command, assumed a posture of defence;
but the attitude, from want of arms, was necessarily impotent and
embarrassing. This gave the Major a notion, when afterwards crossing
the plains of Waterloo, of arming the companies with muskets and
accoutrements scattered on the battle-field; the idea, however, from
some regimental considerations was not carried out.
On one occasion, near St. Denis, all the sappers of the army, nearly
1,000 strong, were assembled to witness an execution, and strange to
add, in that imposing force there was not a single fire-arm! At
another time there was an inspection of the pontoon train of eighty
pontoons and other carriages, with horses, drivers, and pontoneers,
occupying a line of road nearly two miles in length. The sappers
were present in their whole strength, but without a musket in their
ranks to show the quality of protection they could afford to the
immense charge intrusted to them. Fifty men with fire-arms could
easily have destroyed the whole force in ten minutes. These
instances and others equally striking, occurring in an enemy’s
country, were strongly brought under the notice of the higher
powers; but, where representations and remonstrances founded on the
necessities of the service failed to obtain attention, accidental
circumstances at last gained the desired object. At the great
reviews in France, the bridges required for the passage of the army
were thrown the evening previously, and the sappers consequently
were free for any other duty. Usually they were employed to
represent the enemy, and to show the line of the enemy’s position to
advantage it was considered best to effect it by musketry fire.
Orders were therefore given, on the 8th October, to supply the
companies with muskets and bayonets from the stores at Valenciennes;
and from this trivial incident may be dated the period from which
the corps was properly and uniformly armed.
To keep up the training and efficiency of the corps in France, Sir
James Carmichael Smyth issued to each non-commissioned officer and
fifty of the most steady and intelligent privates, books and useful
articles for their instruction and improvement. Schools were also
established for the men, and prizes liberally awarded for
industrious application and advancement. To perfect the corps in the
use of the firelock and marching evolutions, five serjeants from the
light infantry regiments in France were specially appointed to the
duty. Each company was also required to execute a certain portion of
field-work every year and reports of individual progress in
instruction were prepared weekly, which were carefully examined, and
promotion distributed according to merit. The pontoon train, which
was constantly in motion and sustained a high character for activity
and usefulness, was only expected to do half the work demanded from
the divisional companies; and this course of professional and
general education, based upon the system of Lieutenant-Colonel
Pasley, was scrupulously enforced until the companies quitted France
in November, 1818.
Notwithstanding all this attention on the part of the officers,
there was much misconduct prevalent in the sappers. During the
period that eleven companies were with the army, courts' martial
were very uncommon, and the punishments infinitely fewer than were
found necessary to keep only five companies in order. This suggests
a difficulty not easily explained; for, when the six companies were
removed from the country in 1816, the weeds from the other five were
sent to England, and their places supplied by privates of
unexceptionable character.
So rigid indeed had the drilling been enforced that at the last
reviews in the vicinity of Valenciennes, the correct manner in which
the royal sappers and miners were handled by Captain Harry D. Jones,
when representing the enemy, excited general approbation. Their
light infantry evolutions even emulated those of their old
companions in arms of the light division, whose only business was
that of constant exercise in the requirements of the parade and in
martial movements and combinations. The formation of “rallying
square” by the companies was particularly commended; and those who
did not justly appreciate their military attainments from the
semi-civil nature of their many employments—expected to see them
fly, as the cavalry, in its impetuous charges over the plain,
furiously approached their compact and immoveable phalanx.
While these disciplinary exercises were in operation, it happened
that the fourth company second battalion at Valenciennes, was
suddenly called upon to extinguish a fire in the town. So well
applied were their efforts in this humane service that the flames
were speedily suppressed amid the thankful shouts of the people.
This seemingly was not enough to mark their gratitude, and therefore
the mayor and corporation in full municipal costume bearing the
symbols of their offices, waited upon Captain Harry Jones to express
the deep acknowledgments of the inhabitants “to the officers and men
of the corps for their conduct on the occasion.” In his orders of
the 2nd November, Captain Jones added, “The activity displayed by
the non-commissioned officers and privates as well as the
cheerfulness with which they executed all orders reflects the
highest credit upon them. The bold conduct of private Thomas James
deserves to be particularly mentioned,” and he was appointed a lance
corporal.
Early in the year the high-fronted chaco was superseded by a black
felt cap of more military pretensions than was formerly worn. It was
embellished with yellow cords and tassels, which fell with chivalric
gaiety upon the left shoulder. The sergeants and staff sergeants
wore white heckle feathers, gold bands and cords, with gilt scales
and ornaments.-See Plate XII. 1823.
In March the drums throughout the corps were abolished and bugles
adopted. The rank of drummer was also changed to accord with the
alteration, and drum-major James Bailey, the first of the rank, was
now styled bugle-major.
The return of peace gave rise to a gradual reduction in the corps.
On the 16th August, 1816, twenty-five men per company were lopped
off. This took away 800 men, reducing the corps from 2,861 to 2,061
of all ranks. By the royal warrant of the 4th February, 1817, an
entire battalion was disbanded, and a further diminution of ten
privates and one drummer took place in each of the remaining
twenty-four companies. From the staff was taken one adjutant, one
sergeant-major, and one quartermaster-sergeant, and also the whole
of the sub-lieutenants, thirty-two in number.[238] The establishment
of the corps was thus decreased to twenty-four companies of 1,258 of
all ranks.[239]
-----
Footnote 238:
Generally the sub-lieutenants were commissioned into the corps
from the ranks of other regiments, as a patronage to the military
friends of the Master-General. Many of them had distinguished
themselves in the field, were good drills, and fine-looking
soldiers; but though considered at first to promise well, they
disappointed the expectations formed of their probable usefulness.
Wanting the necessary ability and weight, they were neither
respected in the army nor by the corps; and unable, therefore, to
give the satisfaction which was reasonably hoped for, the first
reduction ordered after the peace, embraced the abolition of the
rank.—Pasley’s Mil. Pol., pp. 18, 19, Introduction. Their removal
from the corps was, nevertheless, alluded to in terms of “extreme
regret” by Colonel Carmichael Smyth in his orders of the 22nd
April. In concluding his address at parting, he thus wrote, “With
the conduct of the whole of the sub-lieutenants Colonel Carmichael
Smyth has had every reason to be satisfied, but more particularly
with those who, having been longest under his command, he has had
more occasion of knowing. If, in the course of future service, he
should have any opportunity of being useful to them, he assures
them he will embrace it with pleasure.”
Footnote 239:
In addition to this total 180 men of the companies in France were
borne on the strength as supernumeraries, until December, 1818.
-----
In consequence of these orders, the companies at Dover and Spike
Island were withdrawn, as also the detachment at Guernsey. The force
at Gibraltar was reduced from four to three companies, and the
strength at Woolwich and Chatham was brought down to a fluctuating
establishment of five companies.
The company discontinued on the works at Spike Island, sailed for
Barbadoes on the 17th December, 1817, on board the ‘Thames of
London’ freight-ship, to relieve the old company which landed there
in January, 1794. The vessel encountered some very stormy weather on
the voyage, from the effects of which Lieutenant Rogers, R.E., who
commanded the company, died when near Madeira, and the charge of the
men devolved upon Captain Robert Duport of the royal artillery. Not
a single irregularity was committed by the sappers during the
voyage, and on their arrival in Carlisle Bay on the 18th January,
Lord Combermere, the governor, expressed in orders his high
satisfaction of their excellent conduct as reported to him by
Captain Duport.
On the landing of the new company, the old West India hands,
dwindled to twenty-eight in number including sergeants, were sent to
St. Lucia, and assisted in repairing the damage done by a recent
hurricane. In March following, they arrived in England and were
disbanded. In summing up their character, Colonel William Johnston,
of the engineers, thus wrote, “They are a drunken set, and require
to be thought of and provided for like babies;” but, nevertheless,
he urged that the sapper force in Barbadoes should be always
maintained complete, as it would act as a check upon the
contractors, and enable the estimates to be carried into execution
with more despatch, economy, and superiority of workmanship in
almost all the details, than if an equal number of artificers were
derived from the country.
A company of fifty strong, intended for the service of the palace of
the Lord High Commissioner at Corfu, embarked at Portsmouth on the
4th May, and after a month’s detention at Malta reached its
destination in August. The employment of the company was chiefly
confined to clearing away the rock, by blasting, for the foundations
of the palace, and in executing such other miscellaneous services as
were required. From local disagreements regarding the working pay of
the company, the men were precluded from taking part in the artistic
details of the palace, and eventually, from the same cause, it was
removed from the island.
Colonel Carmichael Smyth made his last general inspection of the
corps in France in May, and in complimenting the companies for the
excellency of their discipline, interior economy, and improvement in
the field duties, awarded to fifteen non-commissioned officers and
men—the most advanced in the course of instruction—a silver
penholder each as a token of his approbation.
This year, the companies in France substituted yellow worsted
epaulettes for the plain shoulder-strap, the expense of which was
borne by the men themselves. Among the companies there were four
unepauletted privates who at all times fell in, like branded
castaways, in the rear of their company. The badges had been placed
on their shoulders, but, more mean than avaricious, they refused to
pay for them. Feeling none of that becoming pride which has always
been so largely developed among even the commonest soldiers, they
were publicly stripped of the epaulettes intended to give them
distinction, not allowed to disfigure the ranks with their presence,
and ultimately removed in contempt to England. The circumstances of
this curious proceeding are given in the following spirited order of
Colonel Carmichael Smyth.
“C. E. O. Head Quarters, Cambray, 30th May, 1818.
“The commanding engineer has received a report that four men of
Captain Stanway’s company, viz., privates—
Patrick O’Kean,
Andrew Graham,
James Ballingall,
James Scoble,
have refused to sign their accounts, alleging that they have no
right to pay for the additional fringe for their epaulettes, as
sanctioned by the commanding engineer’s orders of 4th April, 1818.
“Colonel Carmichael Smyth had not an idea that, in the whole of
the five companies in this country under his command, four men of
so sordid and mean a disposition would have been found. He holds
them up to the contempt of their comrades, as void of every
feeling that ought to actuate a soldier with pleasure or pride in
the character or appearance of the company to which they belong.
“He directs that the epaulettes may be forthwith cut off their
shoulders, and that they are in future to parade upon all
occasions in the rear of the company until an opportunity offers
to send them away from it altogether. They will be removed to
either the Gibraltar or West India company, being perfectly
unworthy of serving with this army.
“Colonel Carmichael Smyth feels confident that the
non-commissioned officers and men of the sapper companies with
this army must be sensible of their improved state of discipline,
regularity, and appearance, and how much in consequence, their own
individual happiness and respectability are increased. The
character, conduct, and appearance of a corps, reflects good or
evil upon every soldier belonging to it as the case may be.
“The sapper companies have fortunately established a respectable
character, and are well thought of in this army. The epaulettes
have been adopted as distinguishing them from the infantry. The
sapper’s duty requires much more intelligence, and much more
previous training, than that of a common infantry soldier. He is
better paid and better clothed, and ought to conceive himself
happy at being permitted to wear a distinction showing that he is
a sapper. Such, no doubt, will be the view taken of the subject by
every non-commissioned officer and sapper who feels any way
interested in the welfare and respectability of the corps.
“The sooner men who have not this feeling are got rid of the
better. They are unworthy of belonging to this army.
(Signed) “JOHN OLDFIELD.
“Major of Brigade.”
On the 19th June, private Alexander Milne of the corps was found in
a wheat-field, near Raismes, murdered! A number of the men of his
company had been in the habit of breaking out of their quarters
after tattoo roll-call, and spending the time of their absence in
gambling. Some were said to have been playing with the deceased on
the night of the murder. Strong suspicion attached to the
card-party, but as the perpetrator of the deed could not be
discovered, the Duke of Wellington, convinced that the murderer was
in the ranks of the corps, ordered _all_ the sappers and miners with
the army, both near and distant, to parade every hour of every day
from four in the morning till ten in the evening, as a punishment
for the crime; and as the order was never rescinded, it was
enforced—with only a slight relief—until the very hour the companies
quitted France.[240] Several of the officers and many of the men
were worn out and laid up with fevers by the rigour of the penalty,
and its execution fell with singular hardship upon one of the
companies which, quartered with the division encamped near St. Omer,
was, at the time, seventy miles away from the place of the murder!
-----
Footnote 240:
The orders issued for the infliction of this discipline were as
follows:—
“Head Quarters, Cambray, 25th June, 1818. In consequence of the
circumstances connected with the murder of Alexander Milne, of
Captain Peake’s company, which have appeared upon the proceedings
of a court of enquiry, the Field Marshal has directed that the
rolls of the royal sappers and miners may be called, until further
orders, in their several cantonments every hour from 4 in the
morning until 10 at night, all the officers being present; and
that a daily report thereof may be made to head-quarters.”
“Head-Quarters, Cambray, 18th July, 1818. In consequence of orders
from His Grace the Commander of the Forces, the rolls of the
several companies of royal sappers and miners will be called every
two hours from 4 in the morning until 10 at night, in place of
every hour as directed in the C. E. orders of the 25th ultimo.”
-----
Early in November, on the breaking up of the army of occupation, the
eighth company, second battalion, took charge of the pontoons and
stores to Antwerp, and the other four companies marched from Cambrai
to Calais, where, as arranged by General Power with the French
governor, they were encamped on the glacis on the east side of the
town. This was requisite, as by the treaty of the 3rd November,
1815, no troops of the army of occupation could be quartered within
any of the fortresses not specified in the treaty. At Calais the
companies remained about a week, assisting in the embarkation of the
army and the shipment of the cavalry horses. In this service the
sappers became so expert, that a regiment was embarked and many were
landed at Dover during the same tide. All the companies arrived in
England before the end of November. One sergeant and twenty men,
under Lieutenant Hayter, of the engineers, after the sailing of the
troops, guarded the military chest both at Calais and on the
passage, and rejoined their companies, when the important duty for
which they were selected was completed.
1819-1824.
Reduction in the corps—Distribution—Sergeant Thomas Brown, the
modeller—Reinforcement to the Cape, and services of the detachment
during the Kaffir war—Epidemic at Bermuda—Damages at Antigua
occasioned by a hurricane—Visit to Chatham of the Duke of
Clarence—Withdrawal of a detachment from Corfu—A private becomes a
peer—Draft to Bermuda—Second visit to Chatham of the Duke of
Clarence—Fever at Barbadoes—Death of Napoleon, and withdrawal of
company from St. Helena—Notice of private John Bennett—Movements
of the company in Canada—Trigonometrical operations under the
Board of Longitude—Feversham—Relief of the old Gibraltar
company—Breastplates—St. Nicholas' Island—Condition of company at
Barbadoes when inspected by the Engineer Commission—Scattered
state of the detachment at the Cape—Services of the detachment at
Corfu—Intelligence and usefulness of sergeant Hall and corporal
Lawson—Special services of corporal John Smith—Pontoon
trials—Sheerness—Notice of corporal Shorter—Forage-caps and
swords.
By the royal warrant of 20th March, 1819, the peace establishment of
the corps was further reduced, from twenty-four companies of 1,258
total, to twelve companies of 752. Of this number the staff embraced
one brigade-major, one adjutant, one quartermaster, two
sergeant-majors, two quartermaster-sergeants, and one bugle-major.
The organization of each company was fixed at the subjoined detail:—
1 colour-sergeant,
2 sergeants,
3 corporals,
3 second-corporals,
2 buglers,
51 privates.
——
Total 62;
and the whole were distributed, with regard to strength,
consistently with the relative wants of the several stations. These
stations were Woolwich, Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth;
Gibraltar, Corfu, Bermuda, Barbadoes, St. Helena, Kingston in Upper
Canada, and the Cape of Good Hope.[241]
-----
Footnote 241:
The companies at Newfoundland and at Halifax, Nova Scotia,
returned to England late in 1819. To the former company belonged
sergeant Thomas Brown, who was discharged from the corps in
November, 1819, after a service of twelve years. In 1821 the late
Sir William Congreve appointed him modeller at the royal military
repository, Woolwich, which situation he has held for thirty-six
years with great credit. In that period he has made 125 models,
chiefly of field artillery, pontoons, bridges, and miscellaneous
military subjects. The greatest number are deposited for
exhibition in the Rotunda, and the remainder in the rooms of
instruction for the officers and non-commissioned officers. Many
others also, which were defective or out of repair he has renewed
or remade. His principal works, considered with regard to the
skill and artistic excellence displayed in their construction, are
the model of a fortified half octagon, showing the approaches and
plan of attack, on a scale of 22½ feet to an inch, and a model of
St. James’s Park as it was at the celebration of the peace in
1814.
-----
A reinforcement of thirty men, under Lieutenant Rutherford, R.E.,
arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on the 24th July. In consequence of
hostilities with the Kaffirs the detachment marched 700 miles to the
south-eastern frontier. It traversed a wild and thickly-wooded
country, where there were neither bridges nor roads; and in the
absence of soldiers of the quartermaster-general’s department,
facilitated by their exertions the progress of the troops. In places
where civil artificers could not be procured at any rate of wages,
they executed various services and works of defence for the security
and tranquillity of the settlement. On one occasion they constructed
a temporary bridge, of chance materials, to span one of the
principal rivers of the country, which was swollen by floods, and
rendered deep, rapid, and dangerous. The bridge was thrown in six
hours, and the whole of the force, about 2,000 horse and foot, a
demi-battery of guns with ammunition waggons, about 100 baggage
waggons with commissariat supplies, camp equipage, &c., crossed in
perfect safety in three hours. “Without the assistance of these
sappers,” writes Colonel Holloway, R.E., “the river could not have
been passed without much delay, loss of property, and perhaps loss
of life;” and, “both on the frontier, and at the seat of government,
they were always found of the utmost benefit.” The detachment
returned to Cape Town in December, when the remnant of the old
party, which had been in the colony since 1806, quitted for England
and arrived at Woolwich on the 5th September, 1820.
An epidemic fever of a severe character raged at Bermuda during the
months of August and September, and out of a company of fifty-two
total, no less than one sergeant, twenty rank and file, three women,
and one child, fell victims to its virulence. Captain Cavalie S.
Mercer who commanded the company, was also numbered with the dead.
From Barbadoes, thirty non-commissioned officers and men, under the
command of Captain W. D. Smith, were detached to Antigua, in
November, and worked in the engineer department, repairing the
damage caused by a recent hurricane, until the January following,
when they returned to their former station. Small parties, of
fluctuating strength, were also detached to Trinidad, St. Lucia,
Tobago, and Demerara, and had charge of different working parties at
those islands for several years.
At Chatham on the 11th November, the Duke of Clarence reviewed the
corps under arms; and after witnessing various field operations,
including the firing of mines, the construction of flying saps, and
the manœuvring of pontoons, inspected the model and school rooms.
In the latter, he watched with great interest the system of
instruction as carried out by Lieutenant-Colonel Pasley; and in
expressing his perfect satisfaction with all he saw, added his
opinion, that the establishment was one of great public utility.
On the 14th of the same month, thirty-four non-commissioned officers
and men of the company at Corfu were withdrawn from the island in
the ‘Christiana’ transport, and sailed for England. On arriving at
Gibraltar, one sergeant and nineteen rank and file joined the
companies there under an order from General Sir George Don; and the
remaining twelve reached Chatham on the 2nd April, 1820. The conduct
of the company during its brief tour of duty at Corfu, was reported
to the Inspector-General of Fortifications in very favourable terms,
by Lieutenant-Colonel Whitmore, R.E.[242]
-----
Footnote 242:
To this company belonged private James Gordon, who lost an eye by
accident in mining for the foundation of the palace, and was
discharged at Woolwich 30th September, 1820, with a pension of
9_d._ a-day. Throughout his service of nine years he was a zealous
and exemplary soldier, and bore about him the stamp and evidences
of a loftier origin than his humble station gave reason to expect.
Singular events in life sometimes occur that make contrasts at
times appear almost fabulous. “The soldier turned peer,” has
hitherto been the player’s jest, but it has at last become a
veritable reality, for in September, 1848, this James Gordon, the
private soldier, succeeded, as heir to his grandfather, to the
titles of Viscount Kenmure and Lord Lochinvar.
-----
On the 5th June thirty-one men, chiefly masons and bricklayers,
under Lieutenant Skene, R.E., arrived at Bermuda, to replace the men
who had died during the epidemic. A party of variable strength, with
the exception of occasional periods of temporary withdrawal, was
permanently detached to execute the defences at Ireland Island.
In August the Duke of Clarence again visited Chatham, and a full
routine of military and field operations was carried on for his
inspection. With the works, the schools, and model rooms, his Royal
Highness expressed his approbation in language that was both
flattering to the corps and honourable to the institution.
In October the yellow fever again visited Barbadoes, but its
violence, contrasted with former visitations, was considerably
assuaged, and its fatality less felt among the population. Forty-six
of the corps were present during its prevalence, and though nearly
the whole of the number were attacked, only eleven died, and but
fifteen were invalided. The loss in the company, however, was
proportionally more severe than in any other corps in garrison, and
the deterioration in the general health of the men drew the
particular notice of the Commander of the Forces, who made repeated
comments on it in his reports to England. In consequence of these
reports, the company was relieved early in 1822, some months before
the completion of its tour of service. Its character while in the
West India command was flatteringly spoken of by Captain W. D.
Smith, R.E. In one of his communications he wrote, “Its conduct, I
have pride in saying, has been most exemplary.”
Napoleon died at St. Helena on the 5th May, and his remains were
deposited with quiet solemnity in an unpretending tomb, shadowed by
a willow, in Slane’s valley. The company of sappers at the station
took part in the funereal arrangements. The stone vault was built by
privates John Warren and James Andrews. The body was lowered into
its resting-place by two privates of the company, and other
privates, appointed for the duty, refilled the grave, and secured
all with plain Yorkshire slabs. Thus, without epitaph or memorial,
were entombed the ashes of the most extraordinary man of modern
times. As the necessity for retaining the company, now reduced, by
deaths and the withdrawal of a detachment in 1819, to twenty-five of
all ranks, no longer existed, it quitted the island and arrived at
Woolwich on the 14th September. Private John Bennett was detained
for three months after the removal of the company, and during that
period he was employed with the Clerk of Works, in giving over the
stores of the engineer department to the island storekeeper.[243]
-----
Footnote 243:
Was an excellent clerk, and became in time a
quartermaster-sergeant. After his discharge from the corps in
1843, he filled, for about ten years, important offices under the
Surveyor-General of Prisons, and died while steward of Dartmoor
Prison, in February, 1853, from a cold caught in that bleak
quarter. The season was a peculiarly bitter and stormy one, during
which three soldiers of the line, on escort duty, in crossing
Dartmoor Heath, perished in the snow.
-----
The company in Upper Canada changed its head-quarters in June, from
Kingston to Isle aux Noix, and afforded parties for service at
Quebec and Fort George, both of which were recalled to Isle aux Noix
in August. In November, 1822, the greater part of the company was
removed to Quebec, and the remainder were retained for the works at
Isle aux Noix.
From July to November, a sergeant and nine men, chiefly carpenters
and smiths, were employed by the Board of Longitude under Major
Colby and Captain Kater, in the operations for determining the
difference of longitude between the observatories at Paris and
Greenwich; and visited ten of the principal trigonometrical stations
in England. Besides attending to the laborious requirements of the
camp, the party erected poles, and constructed stages or platforms
wherever needed, on commanding sites and towers, for purposes of
observation; and were also intrusted with the care of the
philosophical instruments. In the professional operations of the
season they took no part.[244]
-----
Footnote 244:
Captain Kater, in his account of the operations published in the
‘Philosophical Transactions,’ 1828, p. 153, notices, by mistake,
this party as belonging to the royal artillery. There were, it is
true, two gunners of the regiment present, but they were employed
as servants to the officers.
-----
In June, one sergeant and thirty-nine rank and file under Captain
John Harper, R.E., were detached from Woolwich to Feversham, and
after destroying the powder-mills and premises connected with them,
returned to head-quarters in September.
The first company of the corps, which had been at Gibraltar since
1772 and was present at the celebrated siege a few years afterwards,
was removed, in the course of relief, from that fortress to Woolwich
in June.
Breast or belt-plates of brass, in place of buckles, were adopted
early in the year by permission of General Gother Mann. All ranks
wore a plate of uniform device and dimensions, and each soldier paid
for his own. The device consisted of the royal cipher, encircled by
the garter, bearing the name of the corps and surmounted by a crown.
A fluctuating detachment, not exceeding thirteen masons and miners
under a corporal, was detached in the autumn from Devonport to St.
Nicholas Island, and remained there for nearly four months repairing
the fortifications.
At the fall of the year the engineer commission to the West Indies,
composed of Colonel Sir James Carmichael Smyth, Major Fanshawe, and
Captain Oldfield inspected, in the course of their professional
tour, the fourth company of sappers stationed at Barbadoes under the
command of Captain Loyalty Peake. Its state was most creditable.
Since its arrival in the command it had only lost one man and that
from an accident. Whilst other troops quartered under the same roof
were withered and sickly, the sappers were healthy—a fact that was
ascribed to the attention of the officers, and the absence among the
men of those intemperate habits, which in a hot and enervating
climate, originate so many ailments.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
Royal Sappers & Miners Plate XII.
UNIFORM 1823. Printed by M & N Hanhart.
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The small detachment at the Cape of Good Hope was much dispersed at
this period. The men detached are traced at short intervals at Cape
Town, Kaffir Drift, Wiltshire, Port Elizabeth, and New Post Kat
River.
The Corfu detachment of seven men was removed to Gibraltar, in the
‘Frinsbury’ transport, in December, and arrived at the Rock on the
6th March, 1824, bearing with it records of its uniform exemplary
conduct and public utility. Being first-rate workmen, they were the
leading men of their trades, and some of the best work at the palace
was the result of their superior mechanical acquirements and skill.
Sergeant John Hall was overseer and master carpenter for four years,
and corporal Andrew Lawson, a man of considerable talent, was clerk
of works, and also directed the masons and bricklayers.[245] Captain
Streatfeild in parting with them, wrote “They are a very honest,
trustworthy set of men, and do honour to the corps.” “The worst
mechanic among them,” said Lieutenant G. Whitmore, “would be almost
invaluable in the corps.” Before the company quitted Corfu, four
deaths had occurred; four also took place in the small party that
remained, one of whom, private Gamaliel Ashton, a bricklayer, was
killed by falling from a scaffold while at work at the palace.[246]
-----
Footnote 245:
Such was the sense entertained of his services, that Sir Frederick
Adam, the Lord High Commissioner, after the detachment had reached
Malta, recalled him to Corfu to superintend the civil works on the
island. His position thus became anomalous, and, as far as
military law and usage are concerned, unexampled for privilege and
emolument. Besides his regimental pay, he received an allowance of
3_s._ 3_d._ a-day working pay, (afterwards increased to 4_s._
3_d._ a-day,) with a fine residence and free rations for his wife,
family, and a servant. He had also a horse and boats at his
command, was relieved from the performance of regimental duty, and
was permitted at all times to wear plain clothes. Throughout the
building of the palace, the Villa of Cardachio, and other
important civil buildings, he was the clerk of the works, and Sir
Frederic Adam took every occasion of applauding his talents and
exertions. In April, 1834, after removal to Woolwich, sergeant
Lawson was appointed clerk of works at Sierra Leone, where, after
a brief period of service, during which he was bereaved of his
wife, he died, leaving nine orphans to lament his loss. His eldest
son was nominated to the appointment as the fittest person in the
colony to discharge its professional duties, but the youth fell a
sacrifice to the climate four days after his father’s decease. The
eight remaining orphans were generously cared for by Sir Frederic
Mulcaster, the inspector-general of fortifications and the
executive of the corps at the Ordnance Office, who obtained from
the officers of royal engineers and the civil gentlemen of the
department sufficient means to free them from that distress, to
which the absence of this benevolent support would have inevitably
reduced them.
Footnote 246:
The remains of all were interred with unusual respectability, and
the spots where they lie have been marked by neat tomb-stones—a
graceful tribute from the survivors to the memory of the departed.
-----
Second-corporal John Smith was sent from Quebec in the summer to
examine the freestone quarries of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and
to report upon their capabilities and facilities for furnishing
stones of certain dimensions for the service of the department. He
started on his mission in a merchant schooner on the 7th August,
and, with Captain Melville Glenie, of the 60th rifles, was nearly
wrecked on the Beaumont shoals. The flag of distress and the shouts
of the passengers being unheeded, corporal Smith procured an old
musket and some powder, and having with some difficulty fired a few
rounds from it, the situation of the vessel was observed by some
pilots, who rescued the passengers. Next day the corporal
re-embarked on board another vessel, and landing at Miramichi,
visited the quarries there, and also at Remsheg, Pictou, Mergomish,
and Nipisiguit. Upwards of two months were spent in completing his
researches; and, returning to Quebec on the 16th October with
specimens of the building stones and slates taken by him from the
various quarries he had examined, he made a lucid report of their
capabilities, &c, and detailed the terms upon which the owners of
the properties were prepared to deal with the department. Colonel
Durnford, the commanding royal engineer, expressed his entire
satisfaction of the manner in which the duty was performed, and of
the intelligence evinced by the corporal in his descriptive
report.[247]
-----
Footnote 247:
Smith, afterwards a sergeant, was a first-rate mason and foreman,
and during his service of thirty two years, twenty-five of which
were abroad, his abilities, experience, and precision were found
of great benefit to the department. At Corfu, Vido, and Zante, he
was entrusted with very important duties. Subsequently to his
discharge in 1842 on a pension of 2_s._ 3½_d._ a-day, he
superintended, on the part of the Admiralty, the building of the
royal marine barracks at Woolwich by contract, and his vigilance
prevented the employment of any of those artifices so commonly
resorted to by contractors. He afterwards superintended for the
Duke of Buckingham the building of a circular redoubt, partly of
stone, for six guns, at his Grace’s ducal residence at Stowe: and
in the inscription on one of the piers, his name is thus
associated with the work:—
Richard Plantagenet
Duke of Buckingham & Chandos.
Robert Wilcox, Captain Royal Navy.
John Smith, Sergeant R^l Sappers and Miners.
In September and October trials of the pontoons, invented
respectively by Sir James Colleton and Lieutenant-Colonel Pasley,
were made in the open part of the Medway near the Gunwharf, and at
Rochester Bridge—on the 9th and 10th September, in the presence of a
committee of seven officers of the royal artillery and royal
engineers, Lieut.-General Cuppage, R.A., being the president; and on
the 1st October in the presence of his Royal Highness the Duke of
York. One or other of the rival systems was to supersede the use of
the old English tin pontoons. To work the buoy pontoons of Sir James
Colleton, seamen were lent from H.M.S. ‘Prince Regent.’ The third
and sixth companies were employed with Colonel Pasley’s decked
canoes. The manœuvres were exceedingly laborious, and the men
were exposed a greater part of each day to very heavy rains. They
not only, however, did everything to the satisfaction of his Royal
Highness and of the officers composing the committee, but several
distinguished naval officers declared it was impossible that any
operations with boats could have been better or more quickly
performed.[248]
-----
Footnote 248:
Pasley’s ‘Narrative of Operations with the New Pontoons,’ 1824.
Sir James Colleton’s ‘Buoy Pontoons.’
-----
From early in November to the 21st January, 1825, a party of ten
privates with second-corporal Robert Shorter, was employed at
Sheerness under the command of Lieutenant E. W. Durnford, R.E., in
boring to ascertain the nature of the strata with a view to
determine its practicability for building some permanent works of
defence. The borings were carried on at all the salient points of
the contemplated fortifications, ranging in depth from thirty to
sixty feet. Borings were also made on the Isle of Grain, and the men
of the party were occasionally employed at their trades in the
engineer department. Corporal Shorter registered the daily progress
and results of the operation;[249] but, although the intended works
were never undertaken, the borings were not without interest in
adding their quota of information to the cumulative discoveries of
geological research.
-----
Footnote 249:
Shorter was afterwards stationed for fourteen years at Corfu. For
seven of his twenty-seven years' service he filled the office of
quartermaster-sergeant, and was honoured with an annuity and medal
for his meritorious conduct. He retired from the sappers on being
appointed a Yeoman of the Queen’s Guard, and was the first
non-commissioned officer of the corps who received a nomination to
that ancient company. While he was all that could be desired in
his corps in respect to efficiency and intelligence, in private
life he was a thorough humourist, and the most simple incident,
with scarcely an element for merriment in it, became by his droll
inventorial recital, a subject of the richest amusement.
-----
The leather forage cap introduced in 1813, was this year superseded
by a dark blue cap, called the Kilmarnock bonnet, with a yellow band
manufactured in the web, and a peak and chin-strap. The crown was of
immense circumference. See Plate XIII. The corporals wore the
chevrons of their rank above the peak. The superior ranks had blue
cloth caps, with peaks, chin-straps, and gold lace bands. The
Kilmarnock bonnets were purchased by the men; the leather caps had
been supplied by the public.
About this period the army pattern sword for staff-sergeants and
sergeants was adopted in the corps; but the swords introduced for
the buglers were of the artillery pattern.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
Royal Sappers & Miners Plate XIII.
UNIFORM & WORKING DRESS, 1825 Printed by M & N Hanhart.
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1825-1826.
Dress—Curtailment of benefits by the change—Chacos—Survey of
Ireland—Formation of the first company for the duty—Establishment
of corps; company to Corfu—Second company for the survey—Efforts
to complete the companies raised for it—Pontoon trials in presence
of the Duke of Wellington—Western Africa—Third company for the
survey; additional working pay—Employments and strength of
the sappers in Ireland—Drummond Light; Slieve Snacht and
Divis—Endurance of private Alexander Smith—Wreck of ‘Shipley’
transport—Berbice; Corporal Sirrell at Antigua.
Early in the year the breeches, long gaiters, and shoes, ceased to
be worn by the corps, and in their stead were substituted light blue
trousers, with scarlet stripes, and short Wellington boots. The
coatee was stript of its frogging on the breast; and the skirts,
with the slashes sewn transversely on the loins, were lengthened to
the swell of the thigh. White turnbacks were added to the inner
edges of the skirts, and brass grenades united the turnbacks near
the bottom of the skirts. The working jacket was simply altered in
the collar from the open to the close Prussian fashion, and the
working trousers were dyed of a deeper grey.—See Plate XIII.
These alterations were followed by curtailments of benefits
heretofore enjoyed by the corps, inasmuch as the stockings, shirts,
and forage caps, annually issued with the clothing, ceased to be
provided at the public expense. The allowances for oil and emery,
and shoes, were also abolished; but in lieu of the one pair of shoes
formerly issued, and the compensation for a second pair, the corps
had the advantage of receiving, yearly, two pairs of short
Wellington boots.
The low chaco of 1817 gave place to one of about ten inches in
height, bearing a goose feather of a foot long in an exploded
grenade. The ornaments consisted of scales secured by lions' heads,
the garter and motto encircling the royal cipher surmounted by a
crown, and also a cluster of forked lightning, winged. For
protection to the neck in wet weather, a varnished canvas ear-cover
was attached to the back of the cap.—See Plate XIII. The ornaments
on the staff-sergeants' chacos were of excellent gilt, and a band of
rich silk, embossed with acorns and oak leaves around the top of the
cap, gave it an elegant appearance. The sergeants' ornaments were
manufactured of a metal resembling copper, and the black bands were
of plain narrow silk. Both ranks wore white heckle feathers.
In June, 1824, a committee of the House of Commons recommended the
trigonometrical survey of Ireland, with the view of apportioning
equally the local burdens, and obtaining a general valuation of the
whole country. The measure was sanctioned, and Colonel Thomas Colby,
R.E., was appointed to superintend the work. It being intended that
the survey should be conducted under military supervision, Major
William Reid suggested the advantage to be derived from the
co-operation of the royal sappers and miners in carrying out its
subordinate details. Colonel Colby after due reflection, the result
of a discussion of nearly six weeks' duration with Major Reid,
considering the plan to be not only practicable but desirable, made
known his wishes to the Duke of Wellington, then Master-General of
the Ordnance, and on the 1st December, 1824, his Grace obtained a
royal warrant for the formation of a company of sixty-two
non-commissioned officers and men, to be employed in the operations
of the survey in Ireland.[250]
-----
Footnote 250:
‘Report Army and Ordnance Expenditure,’ Minutes of Evidence, p.
617. ‘Naval and Military Gazette.’ Pasley’s ‘Mil. Policy,’
Introd., p. 37, 4th edit.
-----
This company was at once organized at Chatham; and the men, selected
from the most intelligent of the corps at the station, were
specially trained for the duty by Lieutenant-Colonel Pasley. It,
however, remained for Colonel Colby, in giving effect to his great
and comprehensive system, to develop and enlarge the acquirements
and efficiency of the men, by adapting them to the various details
and necessities of this novel service. In doing so he encountered
difficulties of no ordinary character; but eventually he succeeded
in achieving the end he sought, not without credit to the mass whom
he moulded and fashioned to the purpose, as well as great honour to
himself.
By the augmentation of this company the establishment of the corps
was increased to thirteen companies, of 814 of all ranks, including
the staff. The first detachment of one colour-sergeant and twenty
rank and file was conveyed to Dublin in March under the command of
Lieutenant Edward Vicars, R.E., and was soon removed from Mountjoy
to Dromore, where, in April, further reinforcements arrived,
completing the company to its establishment; and the whole were
distributed in small sections to Antrim, Belfast, Coleraine,
Dungiven, Londonderry, &c., from whence the corps, by degrees,
traced its progress all over Ireland. Major Reid was appointed to
command the _first_ survey company, which was numbered the
thirteenth.
On the 24th March, the sixth company, of sixty-two total, sailed for
Corfu on board the ‘Baltic’ merchant transport, and landed there on
the 14th May. This addition to the command was made at the instance
of the Ionian government for the purpose of executing the works and
fortifications at Corfu and Vido. By the warrant for raising this
company, dated 4th April, 1825, the corps mustered fourteen
companies, and counted 876 officers and soldiers of all ranks. All
the regimental and working disbursements of the company, and of
others arriving at the station in periodical relief, were for a
number of years paid from the Ionian exchequer.
While the instruction of the first survey company was still in
progress, steps were taken for the formation of another company for
the same service. The Duke of Wellington expressed his conviction of
the propriety of the measure from the satisfactory advancement
already made in the professional education of the company raised for
the duty early in the year. On the 4th April, 1825, therefore, his
Grace obtained another warrant for the employment of a second
company in the operations of the survey of Great Britain and
Ireland. This company was numbered the fourteenth; and being of the
same numerical organization as the other companies, viz., sixty-two
men, the establishment of the corps was raised from 876 to 938.
At Harwich, Hull, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Liverpool, Cornwall, Fort
George, as well as in London and Edinburgh, recruiting for these
companies was carried on very briskly. Recruiting at Dublin was also
permitted; and some draftsmen from the Dublin Society School were,
about this period, enlisted for the survey companies. The Military
Asylum at Chelsea and the Hibernian School were likewise canvassed
to procure eligible boys for training; but such was the
circumscribed nature of the education imparted to the children at
Chelsea, that of the number selected to join the companies, a few
only were found that gave promise of future aptitude and usefulness;
and of those who succeeded, none ever distinguished themselves by
their talents. From the Hibernian School ten boys were received, all
of whom were clever and intelligent; but one lad far outshone his
comrades, and in time, by his zeal, extensive mathematical
attainments, and varied acquirements, gained the highest position in
the sappers on the survey. The person alluded to is Quartermaster
William Young.
The fourteenth company quitted Chatham for the survey, and landed at
Belfast, its first head-quarters, on the 15th July.
On the 26th September, a trial of the capabilities of the pontoons
invented by Sir James Colleton, Colonel Pasley, and Major Blanshard,
took place at Chatham in the presence of the Duke of Wellington; and
the men of the corps employed on the occasion displayed much zeal,
spirit, and activity. Sergeant Jenkin Jones was particularly praised
for his conduct in managing the pontoons of Major Blanshard; and as
the Master-General arrived a day earlier than was expected, and
ordered at night the exhibition to take place the next morning, much
of the success of the efforts in favour of the cylindrical pontoons
is ascribed to the sergeant’s able and zealous arrangements and
personal exertions. This induced Colonel Pasley to recommend
sergeant Jones as a non-commissioned officer fit to be entrusted
with any difficult or important detached duty, which might save the
services of an officer. One private, William Berry, fell from a raft
during the trial, and was drowned.
Sergeant William Addison and second-corporal James White embarked at
Portsmouth on board the ‘Despatch’ in November for the coast of
Africa, and were employed under the direction of Captain R. Boteler,
R.E., in surveying the British dependencies and forts at Sierra
Leone and the Gold Coast. The corporal died on the service, and the
sergeant landed at Portsmouth 10th August, 1826, and rejoined his
corps.
A third survey company, of sixty-two non-commissioned officers and
men, was formed in December, under a royal warrant, dated 20th
October, 1825, and was numbered the sixteenth. The establishment of
the corps was thus augmented from 938 to 1,000 officers and
soldiers. The rates of working pay authorized by the successive
warrants were limited to the three ordinary classes of 6_d._, 9_d._,
and 1_s._ a-day; but extraordinary powers were granted to Colonel
Colby, of awarding increased rates, proportionate to the attainments
and exertions of the men, up to 2_s._ a-day. The maximum allowance
was rarely bestowed, and then only upon non-commissioned officers,
whose undoubted talents and services rendered them deserving of the
distinction which the exclusiveness conferred.
By the end of the year the effective men on the survey counted 109
of all ranks, who were chiefly dispersed in the field. Several were
employed in offices as draftsmen and computers; but at this early
period very few were intrusted with any particular responsibility.
Civilian assistants, for the most part, were second to the officers,
and aided in superintending the management of the districts; but in
the field, the sappers took the lead as surveyors, never working as
chainmen, or subordinately to the civilians. As the duty was new,
their qualifications required tact and practice before a fair return
of progress could be realized. In August very few had proved
themselves of sufficiently matured acquirements to merit advancement
to Colonel Colby’s classes, and five only of the number had
graduated as far as 1_s._ 4_d._ a-day.
The third survey company proceeded to Ireland in September. In
December the total force there numbered 129 of all ranks, and 61 men
were under training at Chatham.
At the close of the year a party of the corps was attached to
Captain Drummond to assist him in carrying on experiments and
observations with his lamp and heliostat. The observing station was
on Divis Mountain, near Belfast, and the season was fearfully
inclement. Frequently the mountain and the camp were enveloped in
snow, and the blowing of a keen cold wind made their situation
anything but agreeable. On two or three occasions a storm visited
their desolate location, and carried away in its blast, tents,
baggage, and stores. Still the men were sturdy in frame, willing in
disposition, and exerted themselves in the discharge of their duties
under trials of no ordinary character. A few men of the party,
thirteen in number, were removed to Slieve Snacht in Donegal, to
exhibit the light, that it might be observed from Divis. The
distance between the heights was sixty-six miles. The camp on Snacht
was at an altitude of 2,000 feet, and the party peculiarly exposed.
Few in number, they were ill able to buffet with the tempests of
those cold regions; “and the tents were so frequently blown down,”
and had become so shattered and torn, “that, after the first few
days, they abandoned them, and constructed huts of rough stones,
filling the interstices with turf.” On this bleak mountain the
success of the light was first proved. At night the lamp was
directed on Divis. It was then dark, and both the camps were covered
with snow. The wind blew piercingly over the mountain tops, and
almost flayed the faces of the men as they worked. But it was on
that stormy night that the light, first seen by the sapper sentry,
“burst into view with surpassing splendour,” and afterwards became
one of the most useful agencies in the prosecution of the
survey.[251]
-----
Footnote 251:
‘Prof. Papers,’ iv.; preface, pp. xiv. xvii.
-----
Of this mountain party one man in particular was noticed for his
hardihood and endurance. This was private Alexander Smith. In the
morning he would leave the camp, and, after journeying about twenty
miles, return to the height weighed down with a mule’s load, and on
gaining the summit, would after relieving himself of his burden,
resume his work in the camp, without exhibiting any symptoms of
fatigue, or evincing a desire for rest. On one occasion, having been
at Buncrana, about ten miles from the station, he was returning late
with his freight, comprising a side of mutton, a jar of spirits, a
number of lesser articles, and a bag of letters. Wrapped up in his
greatcoat, and his cap pulled over his ears, he commenced to pick
his way up the ascent; but the tempest beat against him, the
piercing wind opposed his progress, and the snow covered alike the
lone traveller and the waste. As he encountered this war of
elements, darkness closed upon him, and, losing his track, he passed
the night exposed to the pitiless storm, wandering about on the
mountain. At day-break he crawled into the camp—a picture that gave
a melancholy interest to the wild landscape around; but such was his
endurance, and such his fortitude, that beyond the pain of numbness,
he felt no inconvenience from the sufferings and exertions of that
dreadful night. The devotion of this man was the admiration of
Captain Drummond, and his promotion to second-corporal was the
reward of his willing zeal. Ultimately he reached the rank of
sergeant, and was discharged in October, 1839, from a chest
complaint, which traced its origin to his labours and exposure on
Slieve Snacht.
The third company, of sixty strong, under Lieutenant Gregory, R.E.,
embarked at Woolwich, 26th February, on board the ‘Shipley’
transport for the West Indies, and was wrecked on the morning of the
19th April on the Cobbler’s Rocks near Barbadoes. The ship had made
the land at half-past ten o’clock the preceding evening, and,
hauling up to S.S.E., the agent on board counselled that the ship
should stand off till 3 o’clock. Soon after 12 at night, the master,
contrary to the naval officer’s advice, ordered the ship to stand
for the land, and went to bed, leaving in charge a man who soon
became intoxicated and fell asleep. Thus left to herself, the vessel
got out of her course, and about 3 A.M. dashed with a frightful
crash upon the reef. At this time it was pitch dark, and the
frequency of the shocks split and tore the ship in every direction.
While the crew and the sappers were getting tackle ready to hoist
the long-boat out, the cook-house caught fire, but it was promptly
extinguished with wet blankets and sails. The freshness of the wind
driving the sea against the shore, and the steepness of the cliffs
which were higher than the ship’s royal mainmast, made it
impracticable to land a boat; but the boatswain, taking with him a
deep sea-line, gained a craggy pinnacle on the rocks, and throwing
it to a black fisherman on the top, who chanced to reach the spot at
the moment, a six-inch tow-line was quickly passed to him, by which
the troops, with their wives and families, in slings and cradles,
worked themselves to the summit of the precipice. In ten minutes
after the ‘Shipley’ became a total wreck, and the company lost its
entire baggage, equipment, &c. Lieutenant Gregory was the last to
quit the sinking ship. Being almost naked and barefooted, a number
of greatcoats and ample land-carriage were sent for the company; and
in this state, under an oppressive sun, they reached their quarters
at St. Anne’s on the evening of the 19th April.[252]
A party of this company was constantly detached to Berbice for the
service of the engineer department; and second-corporal Thomas
Sirrell, an able artificer, superintended the construction of the
iron hospital at Antigua, where he died. To acquire a knowledge of
the application of iron to be used in the erection of barracks in
the West Indies, he had been specially employed for six months under
Lieutenant Brandreth in the foundries at Birmingham.
-----
Footnote 252:
‘Morning Herald,’ June 5, 1826.
-----
1827-1829.
Augmentation—Reinforcement to Bermuda—Companies for Rideau
Canal—Reinforcement to the Cape—Monument to the memory of
General Wolfe—Increase to the survey companies—Supernumerary
promotions—Measurement of Lough Foyle base—Suggestion of sergeant
Sim for measuring across the river Roe—Survey companies inspected
by Major-General Sir James C. Smyth; opinion of their services by
Sir Henry Hardinge—Sergeant-major Townsend—Demolition of the
Glacière Bastion at Quebec—Banquet to fifth company by Lord
Dalhousie—Service of the sappers at the citadel of Quebec—Notice
of sergeants Dunnett and John Smith—Works to be executed by
contract—Trial of pontoons, and exertions of corporal James
Forbes—Epidemic at Gibraltar—Island of Ascension; corporal
Beal—Forage-caps—Company withdrawn from Nova Scotia—Party to
Sandhurst College, and usefulness of corporal Forbes.
Great inconvenience was felt in carrying on the public works abroad,
from the inadequacy of the strength of the corps to supply the
number of workmen for services in which their employment would have
been useful and economical; and as very heavy expenses had been
incurred, in having recourse to a greater proportion of civil
workmen, at high wages, than would otherwise have been necessary,
General Gother Mann, in July, 1826, submitted some suggestions on
the subject to the Master-General and Board, and obtained their
authority to carry out his plans.
In December, consequently, orders were given for the formation of a
company of 81 strong, for employment on the works at Bermuda, and
for augmenting the company already there from 51 to 70 privates. The
company was accordingly formed in January, 1827, and with the
reinforcement to complete the other company, sailed from Devonport
in the ‘Hebe’ freightship, and landed at Bermuda on the 25th of May.
The sappers at the station were then divided between St. George’s
and Ireland Island.
A royal warrant, dated 26th March, 1827, confirmed the raising of
the company for Bermuda, and ordered a further augmentation of two
companies of eighty-one strong each for the works of the Rideau
Canal in Canada. The fifteenth and seventeenth companies were
appointed for this service under Captains Victor and Savage, R.E.
The former landed there from the ‘Southworth’ transport on the 1st
of June, and the latter from the ‘Haydon,’ on the 17th of
September.[253] The establishment of the corps now reached nineteen
companies, and counted, of all ranks, 1,262.
-----
Footnote 253:
On the removal of the fifteenth company to Canada in March, the
Portsmouth station was without a company until November, 1827,
when the eleventh company was sent there from Chatham.
The sappers at the Cape of Good Hope were reinforced to thirty of
all ranks by the arrival of one sergeant and eleven privates in
August. At this period the men were chiefly employed at Cape Town
and Graham’s Town. Occasionally, men are traced at Wynberg, Franch
Hoek, and Simon’s Town. The detachment rendered essential aid in the
execution of the services of the engineer department, and the
necessity for maintaining its numerical efficiency was represented
by Major General Bourke and Lord Charles Somerset.
The fifth company at Quebec, on the 15th of November, 1827, was
present at the laying of the foundation stone of the monument
erected to the memory of General Wolfe. All the masonic tools
required for the ceremony were made by men of the company, and the
stone was lowered into its bed by some selected masons with
colour-sergeant Dunnett. The formal laying of the stone was
accomplished by the Earl of Dalhousie and Mr. James Thompson, a
venerable man in the ninety-fifth year of his age, the only survivor
in Canada of the memorable battle of Quebec, in which Wolfe fell. A
few days afterwards, the silver trowel used on the occasion was
generously presented by his lordship to sergeant Dunnett.
Great interest was taken by the Duke of Wellington in the survey of
Ireland, and he was anxious that it should be prosecuted with all
possible despatch. Augmenting and completing the three companies
being considered the most important means to facilitate that object,
his Grace and the Honourable Board, on the 1st January, sanctioned
an increase to the survey companies of nineteen privates each, and
on the 13th of March, a further addition of thirty privates; both of
which augmented the survey force from 186 to 273 of all ranks, and
the establishment of the corps from 1,262 to 1,349 officers and men.
At the commencement of the survey, all promotion was suspended for a
time, to enable Colonel Colby to select the ablest men for
preferment. He found great difficulty in choosing individuals
qualified for it; but in less than two years after, so satisfactory
was the improvement made in the attainments and efficiency of the
companies, that the Colonel felt it essential to create by
authority, supernumerary appointments as a reward for past diligence
and an incitement to future exertion. This measure was the more
necessary, as the most important part of the work was performed by
the non-commissioned officers, who were mostly detached in charge of
small parties of the corps with an equal number of civil chainmen.
Each non-commissioned officer was thus the chief executive of a
certain portion of work, and was responsible for its correct and
rapid execution to the officers of the divisions. On the 17th of
January, the supernumerary appointments were sanctioned by the Duke
of Wellington without limit as to number, and Colonel Colby
made ample use of the reward. The advantage enjoyed by the
supernumeraries extended only to pay, they receiving the rate of the
rank to which they were appointed. Service in the supernumerary
grades did not reckon for their benefit towards pension.
From the 6th of September, 1827, to the 20th of November, 1828, with
occasional intervals of cessation, a detachment varying from two
sergeants and twenty-three rank and file, to two sergeants and six
rank and file, were employed on the measurement of Lough Foyle base
in the county of Londonderry. A strong detachment of the royal
artillery was also employed on this service. The duties of the
sappers did not extend to the scientific and more precise details of
the operation, but were limited to those subsidiary services which
were essential to the rigid execution of the former. Their
attention, in fact, was confined to the labours of the camp, the
placement of the triangular frames, pickets, trestles, and such
other incidental services as were indispensable to obtain an exact
level alignment for the application of the measuring bars. A
non-commissioned officer invariably attended to the adjusting
screws; another frequently registered the observations, another
attended to the set of the rollers and the regulation of the plates;
and a fourth, with a few men, erected the base tents, moved them
forward to the succeeding series of bars, and looked to the security
of the apparatus for the night.[254] All these duties, though of a
subordinate nature, nevertheless required the exercise of
intelligence, and much careful attention on the part of those
employed.
-----
Footnote 254:
Yolland’s ‘Lough Foyle Base,’ p. 25-27.
In connexion with the base operations, the name of sergeant Thomas
Sim of the corps, is noticed with credit. Carrying the measurement
across the river Roe, about 450 feet broad, was, through his
ingenuity, found a more simple matter than had been expected. After
giving a good deal of consideration to the subject, the sergeant
proposed a plan, which enabled the measurement to be completed in
one day and verified the next. This was accomplished, by driving,
with the assistance of a small pile engine, stout pickets to the
depth of about six feet into the sand and clay, in the exact line of
the base, then placing on the heads of the pickets, by means of a
mortice, a stretcher perfectly horizontal, and finally, laying upon
the upper surfaces of the stretchers, a simple rectangular frame,
with two cross pieces to support the feet of the camels or
tripods.[255]
-----
Footnote 255:
Ibid., p. 28.
-----
By the month of August, the force of the sappers in Ireland amounted
to 26 non-commissioned officers, 227 privates, 6 buglers and 11
boys, total 270. In September, the survey companies were inspected
by Major-General Sir James Carmichael Smyth, royal engineers, and in
his report he stated, “when the detached nature of the duty is
considered, and how the soldier is necessarily left to himself, the
appearance of the men under arms, as well as the zeal and goodwill
they evince in the performance of a duty so new and so laborious,
are very much to their credit.” In March previously, Sir Henry
Hardinge, in his evidence before the Select Committee on Public
Income and Expenditure, spoke of the services of the corps on the
survey, as being cheap and successful. To put the question fairly at
issue, certain districts of the same nature were conducted, some by
engineers with sappers and miners; others, with engineer officers
and civil persons and it was satisfactorily proved, that the
progress made by the sappers under military authority, was greater
than that made by the civil surveyors, and the cheapness
commensurate.[256]
-----
Footnote 256:
‘Second Report Ordnance Estimates,’ 1828, printed 12th June, 1828,
p. 71, 72.
-----
On the 24th of January, sergeant-major Thomas Townsend was
removed from the corps as second lieutenant and adjutant to the
second battalion, 60th royal rifles, through the intercession of
Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzgerald who commanded that regiment, and
in the lapse of years became a captain. In 1844, he retired from
the regiment by the sale of his commission, and obtained a
barrack-mastership under the Ordnance.
To proceed with the formation of a new citadel at Quebec, it became
necessary to remove a portion of the old French works called the
Glacière Bastion, comprising the face and flank, about 260 feet in
length and 25 feet in height, to give place to a new counterguard
intended to cover the escarp of both faces of Dalhousie Bastion from
the high ground on the plains of Abraham. This was done by mining,
in which service the fifth company of the corps was employed. The
whole operations being completed with the desired efficiency by the
19th of February, the Earl of Dalhousie, then Governor-General,
accompanied by his staff and a vast assemblage of civil and military
persons, attended to witness the demolition. The mines were to have
been fired at three points to insure the entire mass coming down at
once, but the sapper[257] stationed at the third mine, without
waiting for the necessary signals, applied his match to the charge,
and the whole of the mines, twenty in number, were simultaneously
exploded, crumbling the escarp to pieces, without projecting a stone
fifty feet from its original position, and levelling at one crash
the whole of the work. The effect produced far surpassed the
expectations of the officers employed. Of the services of the
company, the commanding royal engineer, in his orders of the day,
thus expressed himself: “To colour-sergeant Dunnett, sergeant Young,
acting-sergeant Smith, and the non-commissioned officers and
privates of the fifth company, Colonel Durnford begs that Captain
Melhuish will convey his high approbation of the zeal and ability
with which they have performed this portion of practical duty, and
to assure them, that a report of it shall be made to the
Inspector-General of Fortifications, in order that the success of
the operations may be recorded to the credit of the fifth
company.”[258] To mark his sense of the services of the sappers on
the occasion, the Earl of Dalhousie, in a style of rare munificence,
entertained them with a ball and supper on the evening of the 7th of
March, in the casemated barracks erected by themselves in the
citadel. All the wives, families, and friends of the company
attended. Sir Noel and Lady Hill, the Honourable Colonel and Mrs.
Gore, Captain Maule, aide-de-camp to his Excellency, the officers of
royal engineers and artillery, and several officers of the garrison
were present. After supper, the officers of the company and
gentlemen visitors took their stations at the head of the table, and
at the call of Captain Melhuish, the usual toasts were disposed of.
After due honour had been paid to the toast for the health of the
Earl of Dalhousie, Captain Maule then rose and spoke as follows:—
“Sergeant Dunnett and soldiers of the fifth company of royal sappers
and miners, nothing will be more agreeable to me, than the duty of
reporting to his lordship, the Commander of the Forces, the manner
in which you have drunk his health. The trait in a soldier’s
character, which above all others, recommends him to the notice of
his General, is a cordial co-operation on his part, heart and hand,
in the undertaking of his officers more immediately placed over him.
The fifth company of royal sappers and miners have ever eminently
displayed this feeling, but on no occasion more conspicuously than
lately in the demolition of the old fortifications. The skill with
which this work was devised, the zeal and rapidity with which it was
executed, and the magnificent result, will long remain a memorial of
all employed in it; and if I may judge from the manner in which you
have done honour to his lordship’s health, this mark of his
approbation has not been bestowed on men who will soon forget it. I
beg all present will join me in drinking the health of Captain
Melhuish, the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates of
the fifth company of royal sappers and miners.”
-----
Footnote 257:
Corporal Daniel Brown.
Footnote 258:
‘Memoir of a Practice in Mining at Quebec.’
-----
Thanks being returned for the company by Captain Melhuish, sergeant
Dunnett, in a most soldierlike manner, gave the health of the ladies
and gentlemen who had honoured the company with their presence. Soon
after, the company retired to the ball-room, accompanied by the
officers and their ladies, and the festive entertainment was kept up
with spirit and propriety until five o’clock the next morning.[259]
-----
Footnote 259:
‘Quebec Mercury,’ February, 1828.
-----
In the erection of the citadel at Quebec, the sappers were
constantly engaged, and some of its chief work was executed by them.
The superintendence was carried on by the non-commissioned
officers—colour-sergeant Dunnett[260] and acting-sergeant John
Smith[261] being the principal foremen. Soon after the arrival of
the company, Mr. Hare,[262] the foreman of works at Quebec, died;
and on the completion of the works at Kingston, the master mason
there was sent to Quebec; but so efficiently had the masons' and
bricklayers' work been executed under military supervision, that
Colonel Durnford, the commanding royal engineer, ordered the
recently-arrived master mason to attend to the repairs of the old
fortifications and buildings, and not to interfere with the
superintendents at the new citadel. The company quitted Quebec in
October, 1831, with an excellent character, both as workmen and
soldiers. Only five men had deserted during the period of the
station, two of whom were recovered to the service and pardoned by
the Earl of Dalhousie. This was another proof of his lordship’s high
estimation of the services and conduct of the company.
-----
Footnote 260:
Was the principal military foreman, and had under his charge from
100 to 200 masons, with their labourers. In the arrangement and
management of this working force he displayed much tact and
judgment, and his work was always laid out and executed with
exactness and success. For his services he received a gratuity and
medal and a pension of 1_s._ 10½_d._ a-day in April, 1834. He was
soon afterwards appointed foreman of masons in Canada, where he
died.
Footnote 261:
See page 260.
Footnote 262:
Joseph Hare had formerly been a sergeant in the corps, and on his
discharge in October, 1822, was appointed foreman of masons at
Quebec.
-----
A select committee on public income and expenditure sat early this
year to scrutinize the Ordnance estimates. By this committee the
duties and services of the corps were considered. In the report upon
the evidence adduced, the committee strongly recommended that all
work which admitted of being measured should be done by contract,
and that the sappers and miners employed on buildings at day-work
should be diminished.[263] The effect of this measure was simply to
confine the labours of the corps to the repairs and fortifications,
and occasionally to building, without reducing its numerical
establishment.
-----
Footnote 263:
‘Second Report Ordnance Est.,’ 1828, printed 12th June, 1828, p.
25.
-----
Another trial of pontoons took place at Chatham in July, and the
exertions of the detachment employed on the occasion under Captain
J. S. Macauley, R.E., were warmly acknowledged by Sir James
Colleton, one of the competitors. Captain White of the royal staff
corps, who was engaged on the part of Sir James, thus wrote of the
sappers:—“During my long acquaintance with military men, I never
witnessed in any troops a greater determination to perform to the
utmost of their power the duty on which they were placed. Where all
have done their duty with such energy, I cannot make any distinction
in conveying to you my good wishes towards them, except in the
conduct of corporal James Forbes, who appears to me to be a
first-rate non-commissioned officer, and who has on this occasion
done his duty in a manner highly creditable to himself.”[264]
-----
Footnote 264:
See page 296.
-----
An epidemic fever of nearly equal severity to the one of 1804 raged
at Gibraltar in September and October. The greater part of the
sappers at the Rock were seized with the complaint and nineteen
died. Being quartered in the barracks near the unhealthy district
and in the vicinity of the line of drains, the companies furnished
the first victims to the disease;[265] and to lessen the mortality
which this circumstance was likely to induce, they were, for a time,
encamped on a rocky flat below Windmill Hill. The deaths at the
fortress during the prevalence of the fever were 507 military and
1,700 civilians.[266]
-----
Footnote 265:
‘United Service Journal,’ i. 1831, p. 235.
Footnote 266:
Martin’s ‘British Colonies,’ v. p. 79.
-----
Lieutenant H. R. Brandreth, R.E., early in 1829 proceeded to
Ascension, and having made a survey of the island, returned to
England and reported on its capabilities for defence and eligibility
for an Admiralty station. Lance-corporal William Beal was attached
to that officer and employed under him from March to September. His
duty was chiefly that of a clerk, but he also assisted in making the
measurements of the survey, and in collecting geological specimens
to illustrate the character of the strata. In the discharge of these
services, his zeal and intelligence were found very useful, and on
his return he was deservedly promoted to be second-corporal.
In June the forage caps were somewhat altered. The yellow band was
abolished, and hoops and stiffening were forbidden. The cap was now
of plain blue web, with leather peak and chin strap. The sergeants'
caps were of plain blue cloth, hooped and stiffened, with three
chevrons of gold lace in front over the peak. The staff-sergeants
retained the gold bands.
Nova Scotia, which ceased to be a station for the corps in 1819, was
again opened for a company this year, which landed from the ‘Sophia’
transport on the 10th June, 1829. A company of the corps has ever
since been employed there in carrying on the ordinary works and
fortifications, and in the erection of the citadel.
Twelve privates under corporal James Forbes, were, in September, for
the first time, sent to Sandhurst to afford practical instruction in
sapping, mining, &c., to the gentlemen cadets at the Royal Military
College. The term extended over September and October, and the party
returned to Chatham with the highest character. Much praise was
awarded to corporal Forbes for his exertions and attainments, and
his promotion to the rank of sergeant followed in consequence. From
that time a detachment has, during each term, been attached to the
college for the same useful purpose, and has invariably performed
its duties with credit and effect.
1830-1832.
The chaco—Brigade-Major Rice Jones—Island of Ascension—Notice of
corporal Beal—Detachment to the Tower of London—Chatham during the
Reform agitation—Staff appointments—Sergeant M‘Laren the first
medallist in the corps—Terrific hurricane at Barbadoes;
distinguished conduct of colour-sergeant Harris and corporal
Muir—Subaqueous destruction of the ‘Arethusa’ at Barbadoes—Return
of a detachment to the Tower of London—Rideau canal; services of
the sappers in its construction; casualties; and disbandment of
the companies—Costume—First detachment to the Mauritius—Notice of
corporal Reed—Pendennis Castle.
The chaco was altered this year to one of a reduced form, and
decorated with yellow lines and tassels, which fell upon the
shoulders and looped to the centre of the breast. The brasses
comprised a radiated star with three guns, carriages, and sponges,
surmounted by a crown. The scales were, for the first time, worn
under the chin, and a goose feather ten inches long, was held
upright by an exploded shell. The ear-cover was removed, and a
patent leather band was substituted.—See Plate XIV., 1832. The
sergeants and staff-sergeants had chacos of a superior description
with ornaments of fine gilt, bearing guns, carriages, and sponges of
silver. The lines and tassels were of gold cord, and were worn only
at reviews or on special occasions. Oil-skin covers were sometimes
worn by the officers, and oil-skin cases for the feather by all
ranks in rainy weather. Worsted mitts were also adopted at this time
instead of leather gloves. The sergeants and the staff wore white
Berlin gloves.
Major Frank Stanway, R.E., was appointed brigade-major to the corps
on the 8th June, vice Lieutenant-Colonel Rice Jones removed on
promotion. The post had been held by Colonel Jones for seventeen
years. Under his guidance, a successful check was given to those
deep-rooted habits of indiscipline which had characterized the
corps, and cramped its efficiency. This was not accomplished without
encountering many obstacles; but firm in his purpose, and decided in
his bearing and orders, he soon reaped the reward of his
perseverance and diligence; and when the custom of the service
required that he should relinquish his charge, he delivered the
corps to his successor in a state that reflected upon him the
highest honour.
Second-corporal William Beal returned to Ascension in August with
Captain Brandreth, and continued with him till September, 1831.
During this period he assisted in marking out the sites of the
principal works proposed to be erected for the improvement and
establishment of the colony as a naval victualling station, and
performed his duty in an able and satisfactory manner.[267]
-----
Footnote 267:
Was educated for a Baptist minister; but an introduction to Dr.
Olinthus Gregory failing to realize his hopes, he enlisted in the
corps in 1828. His intelligence caused him to be chosen for the
two surveys of Ascension. He afterwards served at Bermuda, and at
Halifax, Nova Scotia. At the former station he was wounded by the
accidental firing of a mine whilst blasting rock, and submitted to
the amputation of portions of his fingers with stoical composure.
Wherever he went he took with him a small but valuable library,
and was well read in the latest issues from the press. Byron,
Carlyle, and some abstruse German writers, were his favourite
authors. No man in his condition of life was, perhaps, as
conversant with the roots and eccentricities of the English
language as Beal, and his mental endowments rendered him capable
of grasping any subject, however deep, and turning it to profit
both in his duties and in his daily intercourse with men. Late in
his service he attained proficiency as a draughtsman, and later
still, an enterprising engineer in London submitted a plan for a
system of sewers in the metropolis, which was accompanied by a
report drawn up by this sergeant. He left the corps in April,
1849, with a pension of 2_s._; and the knowledge and experience he
had acquired by application and travel, are now being employed,
with advantage to his interests, in one of the settlements on the
Rideau Canal in Canada.
-----
Reform was, at this period, the turbulent cry of the country, and
masses of the people in consequence of its delay, assumed a menacing
attitude. Anticipating an outbreak in the metropolis, one sergeant,
two corporals, and twenty-eight privates under the command of
Lieutenant George Page, R.E., marched to the Tower on the 8th
November. The two following days the detachment was under arms with
the other troops to put down any attempt at insurrection, but both
days passed off without any demonstration requiring the interference
of the military. After constructing some temporary works in and
about the Tower, the party returned to Woolwich 22nd January, 1831.
At Chatham during the same period, Colonel Sir Archibald Christie,
the commandant, did the corps the honour of confiding to it the
charge of the magazines within the lines. Repeatedly the guards were
approached by suspicious persons; and on one occasion private John
Herkes was fired at by an unseen hand, but the ball missed him and
perforated the sentry-box. The vigilance of the men and the
strictness with which they discharged their duty, gained them the
highest credit.
Captain Edward Matson was appointed brigade-major to the corps on
the 14th February, vice Major Stanway who resigned; and Captain
Joshua Jebb was commissioned as adjutant to the establishment at
Chatham from the same date in the room of Captain Matson.
Colour-sergeant James McLaren was the first soldier of the corps who
received the gratuity and medal. The distinction was conferred upon
him in April, and well he merited it, both on account of his
excellent conduct and his good services at St. Sebastian, Algiers,
New Orleans, and the Cape of Good Hope. He only survived the receipt
of his honours a few days.
Barbadoes was visited by a hurricane at midnight on the 11th August,
and its results far exceeded in magnitude the fearful storms of 1675
and 1780. The loss of life on this occasion was calculated at 2,500,
and the wounded at 5,000 persons; while the value of property
destroyed, exclusive of losses by the government and the shipping,
was estimated at more than a million and a half of money. But in
this universal devastation the military suffered but little. The
company of sappers was quartered in the barracks at the
parade-ground. The lower part, occupied by the artillery, lost only
the jalousie windows; while the upper part, where the sappers were
located, was considerably cracked, the roof uncovered, and several
of the rafters broken, by the falling of the parapet upon them.
Still with all this danger no accident happened which affected life
or limb.[268] At the hospital the consequences were different.
Strongly built and appearing to defy the most powerful storm, that
building was blown down, and private Charles Shambrook crushed to
death in the fall.[269] During the hurricane it is recorded, that
colour-sergeant Joseph Harris signalized himself at the hospital of
the 36th regiment by his praiseworthy exertions in rescuing
sufferers from the ruins; and his skilful and zealous conduct was
applauded by the officers who assisted him.[270] Corporal Andrew
Muir of the corps also, at great risk to his life, distinguished
himself by his activity in every part where his assistance was
required, and being a very powerful man, was eminently successful in
relieving his suffering fellow-soldiers of various corps.[271]
-----
Footnote 268:
‘Account of the fatal Hurricane at Barbadoes in 1831,’ p. 89.
Footnote 269:
Opposite the General Hospital, a monumental tomb, erected by his
surviving comrades, marks the spot where the mangled remains of
poor Shambrook were interred. Ibid., p. 95.
Footnote 270:
Ibid., p. 94.
Footnote 271:
Ibid., p. 97.
-----
Soon after the hurricane, the ‘Arethusa,’ of Liverpool, a ship of
350 tons, was blown to pieces by gunpowder in the harbour of
Barbadoes, by colour-sergeant Harris and a party of the 19th company
under the direction of Major, now Colonel Sir William Reid. The
destruction of the ship was effected by a number of successive small
charges of gunpowder applied to the ship’s bottom as near the keel
as possible, and fired at high water;[272] and as it has not been
discovered, in the history of engineering, that the entire
demolition of a wreck was ever accomplished by these means, it is
therefore memorable that the royal sappers and miners were the first
who ever destroyed a sunken wreck by submarine mining.[273]
-----
Footnote 272:
‘Prof. Papers, Royal Engineers,’ ii. p. 36. ‘United Service
Journal,’ iii. 1838, p. 37.
Footnote 273:
‘United Service Journal,’ ii. 1839, p. 183, 184.
-----
On the 7th October, the House of Lords threw out the Reform Bill,
and as consequent riots had occurred in various parts of the
country, it was expected that an attack would be made on the Tower
of London. To assist in repelling any attempt upon that fortress,
two sergeants and thirty-three rank and file under the command of
Lieutenant John Williams, R.E., were sent there on the 8th November,
but after being under arms for a week, they returned to Woolwich,
without any necessity arising for the employment of their services.
Late in December, second-corporal Edward Deane and private James
Andrews, accompanied Captain C. Grierson to Western Africa, where
they were employed in surveying the coast and the town of Bathurst.
On this duty they were found particularly useful, and rejoined at
Woolwich in June, 1832.
The Rideau Canal, began in 1827, was finished in the winter of 1831,
connecting the trade and commerce of the two provinces of Canada, on
which, by means of locks and dams, vessels are raised to a summit
level of 283 feet in eighty-four miles, and again descend 165 feet
in forty-three miles.[274] The object of the undertaking was, in the
event of a war with the United States, to have a secure water
communication open between the lakes and Lower Canada.[275] Two
companies of the corps were employed on this service under the
command of Lieut.-Colonel By of the engineers, whose name was given
to the town which rose up in the wild spot selected for the
headquarters. The earliest hut in Bytown, now a flourishing
settlement, was built by the sappers. For the first summer they were
encamped on a height near the Ottawa, but before the winter set in
were removed into temporary barracks erected by themselves. Most of
the work of the canal was executed by contract, but in some parts of
the line where the engineering difficulties were great, sapper
labour was chiefly resorted to—the non-commissioned officers acting
as foremen of trades and overseers. Parties were detached during the
progress of the canal to Merrick’s Mills, Isthmus of Mud Lake, Upper
Narrows, rivers Tay and Richmond, Jones' Falls, Claffey’s Mills,
Newborough, and Isthmus of Rideau Lake.
Footnote 274:
Speech of Major Selwyn, R.E. ‘Graham’s Town Journal,’ 1842.
Footnote 275:
‘Prof. Papers, Royal Engineers,’ v. p. 157.
-----
Among the chief services rendered by the companies it is recorded,
that a party levelled and cleared the channel of the river between
Black Rapids and the head of Long Island. Over the canal they built
a bridge connecting upper and lower Bytown, which still bears the
designation of the “Sappers' bridge.” In the construction of the
first eight locks at the Ottawa, the companies participated to an
important extent, and Sir Henry Hardinge, in his evidence before the
Select Committee in March, 1828, alluded to their employment at some
of the most difficult parts of the work towards the Ottawa.[276] No
less difficult was the work executed by them at Hog’s bank. The dam
there had been commenced by the contractor, but he ultimately
abandoned the undertaking. Sixty men of the corps were withdrawn
from the Ottawa to recommence it, and, with some hundred labourers,
were employed at the dam all the winter of 1828 and 1829. Before the
breaking up of the frost, the masonry was nearly completed with a
base of 25 feet; but on the 6th April, 1829, the water found its way
through the frozen earth, and making a breach in the dam, carried
away everything opposed to it. This was the second failure. Still a
third time it was attempted, and under the superintendence of
Captain Victor of the royal engineers, a strong framework of timber
was formed in front of the breach, supported and strengthened by
enormous masses of clay, stone, and gravel, with a base of 250 feet,
which successfully overcame the difficulty; and the dam, in 1837,
was the most substantial work on the whole line of canal.[277]
-----
Footnote 276:
‘Select Report Ordnance Est.,’ printed 12th June, 1828, p. 82.
Footnote 277:
‘Prof. Papers, Royal Engineers,’ i. p. 86.
-----
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
Royal Sappers & Miners Plate XIV.
UNIFORM 1832 Printed by M & N Hanhart.
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the completion of the work, which cost upwards of a million of
money, the two companies were disbanded in December. Their united
strength on leaving England was 160, and the casualties during their
period of service at the canal were as follows:—
Deserted 35 Of whom two were apprehended and
transported.
Transported 1
Died 16
Killed 5 By blasting rock, either in the
quarries or the canal.
Drowned 1
71 Thirty-seven at the Isthmus of Rideau
Discharged Lake, and thirty-four at
Bytown.[278]
Invalids, and remnant of }
companies returned to } 31
England } ___
Total 160
-----
Footnote 278:
Most of these men received 100 acres of land each as a reward for
their services and good conduct, and several were provided with
appointments on the canal.
-----
By the reduction of these companies the establishment of the corps
fell from 1,349 to 1,187 of all ranks.
A material alteration was made in the clothing this year by changing
the colour of the coatee from scarlet to the infantry red, and the
style and decoration of the dress were also modified, to correspond
with the form of lacing adopted generally in the line.—See Plate
XIV.
The coatee of the bugle-major remained in all respects the same as
before. The buglers also retained the scarlet, but the style of
wearing the lace accorded with that of the privates. For the working
dress, a round jacket with bell buttons bearing the corps device,
was established, instead of the jacket with short skirts. Of both
uniform and working trousers, the colour was changed from light blue
to dark Oxford mixture; but the uniform trousers as formerly, were
much finer than the working ones. The red stripe down the outer seam
was two inches broad on the former, and half an inch wide on the
latter. Laced boots were also introduced this year in place of the
short Wellingtons, issued for the first time in 1825. The leather
stock hitherto supplied by the public, was now made an article of
necessaries and provided at the cost of the soldier.
A detachment of seven masons and bricklayers under corporal John
Reed, embarked for the Mauritius on the 25th May and arrived there
in the ‘Arab,’ transport, on the 13th November. This was the first
party of the corps that had ever landed at the Isle of France. On
board ship, great irregularity prevailed among the troops; but
corporal Reed’s party behaved in so exemplary a manner, that the
report of their creditable conduct was made the subject of a general
order to the corps.[279] The detachment was sent to the island at
the recommendation of Lieutenant-Colonel Fyers of the royal
engineers, for the purpose of leading and instructing the native
artificers, and were quartered in some old slave huts at the Caudon.
The first work undertaken by the sappers was the tower at Black
River. While this was in progress, a reinforcement of one
colour-sergeant, and twenty-two rank and file, under the command of
Captain C. Grierson, R.E., landed from the ‘Royal George,’
freightship on the 22nd January, 1833, and afterwards assisted in
the works at Black River, and also in the erection of two martello
towers at Grand River. When these were completed, the services of
the entire detachment were chiefly confined to the building of the
citadel on the Petite Montagne.
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Footnote 279:
Corporal Reed, when returning home an invalid from the Mauritius,
was wrecked on the 17th July, 1836, in the barque ‘Doncaster,’ on
the reef L’Agulhas, 70 miles S.E. of the Cape of Good Hope, and
perished with his wife and family of four children.
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In May six rank and file were detached from Plymouth to Pendennis
Castle. In June of the next year the party was increased to two
sergeants and eighteen rank and file, who were employed there until
August in repairing the barracks and strengthening the ramparts.
1833-1836.
Inspection at Chatham by Lord Hill—Pontoon experiments—Withdrawal
of companies from the ports—Reduction of the corps, and
reorganization of the companies—Recall of companies from
abroad—Purfleet—Trigonometrical survey of west coast of
England—Draft to the Cape—Review at Chatham by Lord Hill—Motto to
the corps—Reinforcement to the Mauritius—Inspection at Woolwich by
Sir Frederick Mulcaster—Mortality from cholera; services of
corporals Hopkins and Ritchley—Entertainment to the detachment at
the Mauritius by Sir William Nicolay—Triangulation of the
west coast of Scotland—Kaffir war—Appointments of ten
foremen of works—Death of Quartermaster Galloway—Succeeded
by sergeant-major Hilton—Sergeant Forbes—Notice of his
father—Lieutenant Dashwood—Euphrates expedition—Labours of
the party—Sergeant Sim—Generosity of Colonel Chesney,
R.A.—Additional smiths to the expedition—Loss of the ‘Tigris’
steamer—Descent of the Euphrates—Sappers with the expedition
employed as engineers—Corporal Greenhill—Approbation of
the services of the party—Triangulation of west coast of
Scotland—Addiscombe—Expedition to Spain—Character of the
detachment that accompanied it—Passages; action in front of San
Sebastian—Reinforcement to Spain—Final trial of Pontoons—Mission
to Constantinople.
The corps at Chatham, consisting of two companies and a detachment,
were inspected by Lord Hill, the Commander-in-Chief, on the 16th
August, 1833, and his Lordship was pleased to express his
approbation of their efficiency and appearance.
On the 20th of the same month, some experimental practice was
carried on with Major Blanshard’s cylindrical pontoons on the
canal in the royal arsenal at Woolwich, in the presence of
Lieutenant-General Sir James Kempt, the Master-General. In these
trials two non-commissioned officers and twenty-four privates from
Chatham assisted, and their activity and energy elicited the
thanks of the inventor and the commendation of the Master-General.
On the recommendation of a committee appointed by the
Master-General, the company at Plymouth with the detachment at
Pendennis, was removed to Woolwich on the 18th August, 1833, and the
company at Portsmouth was also transferred to head-quarters on the
29th of the same month. For nearly fifty years a company had been
quartered at each of those ports, and their withdrawal was caused by
some approaching alterations in the construction and distribution of
the corps.
The expediency of reducing it, and remodelling the organization of
the companies, had been under consideration for months; and it was
believed that even after providing an adequate establishment of
sappers and miners proportionate to the strength of the infantry,
the numbers of the corps might be so diminished as to lessen its
expense 5,000_l._ annually. Major-General Pilkington, the
Inspector-General of Fortifications, laid down the rule that 100
sappers was a fair number to be attached to 4,000 infantry, subject,
however, to augmentation in particular cases, according to the
nature of the country in which operations might be carried on. On
these data, Sir James Kempt ordered, on the 30th August, 1833, the
companies of the corps to be compressed from seventeen into twelve,
and the establishment to be reduced from 1,187 to 1,070 of all
ranks.
Under the same order, the eight general service and three survey
companies were composed of the following ranks and numbers:—
Colour- Ser- Cor- 2nd Bugl. Priv. Total. General
sergeant. geants. porals. corp. Total.
1 2 3 3 2 80 91 for 11 Comps.=
1,001
The Corfu Comp- }
any, paid by }
the Ionian Gov- }
ernment, was } 1 2 3 3 2 51 62 62
unchanged in }
its establish- }
ment, and }
consisted of } _____
1,063
The Staff, including Brigade-major, Adjutant, Quartermaster, }
2 Sergeant-majors, 1 Quartermaster-sergeant,[280] and } 7
1 Bugle-major, amounted to }
_____
Making of all ranks a total of 1,070
=====
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Footnote 280:
One quartermaster-sergeant was now reduced, and Francis Allen, who
held the rank for twenty-two years, was discharged in October,
1833, and pensioned at 2_s._ 8½_d._ a-day, having completed a
service of more than forty years. One of his sons, formerly in the
corps, is foreman of works at Alderney, and another, until
recently, was clerk of works in the royal engineer department,
London district.
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