OUR HIGHLAND REGIMENTS—_continued_.
The Highland regiments have always been distinguished for their
attachment to their native land. This feeling prevails more or less
among the inhabitants of all mountainous countries, where the grand and
the sublime in nature is so deeply imprinted on the mind in childhood
as, in all after years, to exercise a powerful influence upon the
imagination. It was for this reason that the national air of the Swiss,
the “_Ranz des vaches_,” was prohibited in armies composed partly of
natives of Switzerland, its familiar notes bringing back their snow-clad
mountains and deep glens so vividly to their remembrance that they
could no longer resist the temptation to desert in order to revisit the
scenes of their infancy. The same deeply-rooted feeling, as we have
seen, led the Highlanders at first to confine their services to the land
of their birth, and to break forth into mutiny when an unscrupulous
government attempted to break faith with them. Once embarked, however,
for foreign service, much as they longed for “the land of the mountain
and the flood,” a high principle of honour prevented them from deserting
their colours. Patiently they waited till permitted to return, when the
love of country sometimes displayed itself in a way that reminds the
classical reader of Ulysses’ return to his beloved Ithaca. Thus, when
the 42nd Highlanders landed at Port Patrick in 1775, after an absence
from Scotland of thirty-two years, many of the old soldiers leaped
on shore with enthusiasm and kissed the earth, which they grasped in
handfuls. This occurrence would be appreciated by the writers of _Punch_,
who, among other quips at the expense of the Scotch and their erratic
tendencies, inform us that the North British railway is the only one
which yields no returns. As a matter of fact, the exodus from the North
is only temporary, and side by side with the love of adventure and gain,
an ardent feeling of patriotism is to be found in the heart of every
Scotchman. This feeling it is that induces him to toil beneath the
burning sun of the tropics, and to visit the most distant parts of the
globe in search of that wealth which, once acquired, enables him to “go
back” to his native land and enjoy the fruits of his industry.
The warm desire to revisit the land of his birth enables the Highlander
to submit to the most trying privations without a murmur, and to resist
the strongest temptations to desert to the enemy. During the war carried
on by the English against Hyder Ali in India, more than a hundred men of
Macleod’s Highlanders fell into the hands of that bloodthirsty despot,
who tried in every way to induce them to enter his service. Finding that
his most liberal offers had no effect, he tried to break their spirit by
acts of cruelty. They were treated with every indignity; their only food
was unwholesome rice, doled out to them in quantities barely sufficient
to sustain life. They were exposed to the burning heat of the sun by day,
and to the unhealthy dews that descend by night. Daily their numbers
were reduced by disease; death stared them in the face. They had but to
renounce their religion and their country to obtain the amplest rewards
from the tyrant into whose hands they had fallen, but they preferred
death to dishonour. Such a fact is creditable to the Highlanders; more—it
is honourable to humanity itself. There is no spectacle so noble, says an
ancient writer, as that of a good man struggling against adversity; these
Highland prisoners had to engage in that struggle with little or no hope
of deliverance in their time of trouble.
This same regiment took part in the unfortunate expedition under General
Whitelock, which, in 1806, attempted to seize Buenos Ayres. It was owing
to no lack of bravery on the part of our soldiers that their efforts were
not crowned with success, but no amount of courage could compensate
for the incapacity or treachery of the officer in command. Our army had
to capitulate to the Spaniards, and remained in their power till peace
was concluded. During this interval the Spaniards began to tamper with
the Highlanders, and to hold out inducements to them to desert. These
allurements were not without their effect upon those of them who happened
to belong to the same religion. No less than thirty-five were induced
to go over to the enemy. An incident occurred on this occasion which
proves in the most striking manner the influence that home associations
still continue to exercise over the minds of the Highlanders. A soldier
named Donald Macdonald had almost yielded to the solicitations of the
Spaniards to remain at Buenos Ayres, and while he was still wavering a
comrade attempted to dissuade him from his purpose. Using no argument, he
appealed to his heart by singing that touching Highland melody, “Lochaber
no more.” The song awoke a thousand memories of home and country. The
tears started into poor Donald’s eyes, and as he wiped them away he
exclaimed, “Na, na! I canna stay! I’d maybe return to Lochaber nae mair.”
We know that a considerable mind has given forth his decision that if he
had the making of a people’s songs, he cared not who made their laws; and
the case of this Highlander, brought back to a sense of duty by one of
the songs of his infancy, proves that in certain natures an appeal to the
feelings is far more powerful than any appeal to the intellect. Nor has
“Lochaber no more” lost its magic power over the Highland heart. We have
seen many proofs of the contrary, one of which may be given. There is—or
at least there was recently—in the Scots Fusilier Guards a soldier of
the name of Roderick Ross, a native of Inverness-shire. Roderick had the
build of a giant, but the heart of a child; he stood six feet four inches
in his stockings, but was as soft and tender-hearted as a young maiden.
He was respected as a brave soldier who had done his duty well all
through the Crimea, but his friends the pipers of the regiment could not
always resist the temptation to amuse themselves by reviving, or rather
eliciting, his ardent love of country. The bagpipes begin to utter the
wailing notes of “Lochaber no more,” Roderick’s huge frame is agitated
like a mountain ash in a storm; tears spring to his eyes, and, unable to
control his emotion, he rushes from the room exclaiming, “I canna stand
‘Lochaber no more;’ it aye gars (makes) me think o’ deserting.”
To get back to Macleod’s Highlanders at Buenos Ayres. While a few went
over to the Spaniards, the regiment as a whole remained faithful to
their colours, and their fidelity called forth the warm approval of the
authorities. On their return home they were stationed at Cork, where
General Floyd, a veteran officer who had often witnessed their gallantry
in India, presented them with new colours, and referred in his address
to the temptations they had overcome. “You now stand on this parade,” he
said, “in defiance of the allurements held out to base desertion. You
are endeared to the army and to your country. You insure the esteem of
all true soldiers and good men.” The 42nd Highlanders were still more
distinguished for their attachment to their colours. Many of the privates
were gentlemen of birth and education, who preferred the profession of
arms to every other, and were possessed of as fine a sense of honour as
the officers under whom they served. In the war of American Independence
they were brought frequently into contact with the insurgents, and
exposed to those temptations to desert which many of our soldiers
formerly belonging to regiments now stationed in Canada have not been
able to resist. The 42nd passed through five campaigns with their honour
pure and unsullied; they had to endure many privations; their ranks were
thinned by the bullets of the enemy; they had no prospect of promotion in
the British service; they might have risen to the highest rank in that of
the insurgents. And yet not one of their number deserted; the regiment
remained free from this stain till it received a draft of an inferior
class of men from the 26th Regiment, a few of whom went over to the
enemy. These men, however, did not strictly belong to the 42nd, and never
possessed that _esprit de corps_ by which the Highlanders were animated.
We question whether it can be said of any other regiment at the present
day that it has passed through five campaigns without losing a single man
by desertion. Macdonald’s Highlanders, then known as the 76th Regiment,
could lay claim to the same honourable distinction; they passed through
the whole of the American campaign, and, though often tempted by the
insurgents to renounce their allegiance, they all remained true to their
colours. The same might be said of the Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment,
which was raised among the sons of the Gael in Canada in 1778, and took
an active part in the defence of Quebec against General Arnold. Even in
cases where a Highlander was tempted to desert his colours there seems
often to have remained a feeling of remorse which we should look for
in vain at the present day among those _bounty-lifters_ who live by
defrauding their country, and esteem perjury to be the most venial of
offences. This feeling of remorse manifested its presence and its power
in an effort to atone for the past offence such as can leave no doubt
regarding its sincerity, for their worst enemies will admit that when a
Highlander consents to part with his money, it may be taken for granted
that he is thoroughly in earnest. A soldier of the 91st or Argyleshire
Highlanders was tempted to desert. He embarked for America, and became
a settler there. Fortune smiled upon him in the land of his adoption,
but there was a weight upon his conscience he could not shake off. In
the midst of all his prosperity he never ceased to remember that he was
a perjured man, a deserter from the British army. He had not the moral
courage to return to his duty, and to submit to the punishment which his
offence merited, but some years after his desertion he sent home a letter
with a considerable sum of money to procure one or two men to enlist in
his former regiment, “as the only recompense he could make for breaking
his oath to his God and his allegiance to his king, which preyed on his
conscience in such a way that he had no rest night nor day.”
This anecdote leads us to notice another trait in the character of
our Highland soldiers; they were emphatically religious men, and they
were prepared to make any sacrifice for their faith. They were little
versed in theology, but, like Cromwell’s Ironsides at Dunbar, they put
their trust in God and kept their powder dry. The great mass of them
were Presbyterians, and in foreign and far-distant lands they continued
to worship as their fathers had worshipped. Soldiers at that period
were the most irreligious of men; they “swore terribly in Flanders”
and elsewhere. We may form some idea of their morals from Hogarth’s
well-known “March to Finchley.” Any display of religious feeling on the
part of a soldier excited such surprise as to prove its extreme rarity,
especially in the case of the Highlanders, who were esteemed at first to
be little better than savages. When the 42nd Regiment first visited the
metropolis, the Londoners were surprised to observe that officers and men
never sat down to table without first saying grace—a religious observance
which should be honoured, but which has become obsolete in our mess-rooms
at the present day. An English historian shows how surprised his
countrymen were “to see these savages, from the officer to the commonest
man, first stand up and pull off their bonnets, and then lift up their
eyes in the most solemn and devout manner, and mutter something in their
own gibberish, by way, I suppose, of saying grace, as if they had been
so many Christians.” Of course, in the eyes of this wiseacre, they could
not have been Christians, because they expressed their devotion in a
gibberish which, as he charitably implies, was as unintelligible to the
Deity as it was to himself; but we know how to judge these things by a
different standard, and we condemn the man who could write so narrowly.
At first a chaplain was attached to every regiment, and Dr. Carlisle,
of Inveresk, mentions in his memoirs, that one of these chaplains,
during an engagement in America, freely exposed himself to the fire of
the enemy, in order to encourage the young soldiers by his example. We
question whether such a display of clerical courage would meet with the
approval of the authorities at the War Office at the present day; certain
facts have come under our notice that would tend rather to an opposite
conclusion. These regimental chaplains had to mess with the officers, and
it was imagined that the presence of a clergyman would have an elevating
influence upon the latter; experience, however, soon proved that the
chaplains, instead of elevating the officers, were, through daily
contact, brought down to the same moral level, and it is a significant
fact that Burns, although his national spirit was great, considered them
fair game for his satire. About the commencement of the present century
chaplains were attached to brigades and not to regiments, and this
continued to be the case during the Peninsular war. It thus occasionally
happened that certain of our Highland regiments, when serving at remote
stations, had no provision made for their religious wants, and were left
entirely to their own resources. Some idea of their attachment to their
faith may be formed from the efforts they made to secure the services of
ministers of their own creed. “The Sutherland men, or 93rd Highlanders,”
says General Stewart, “were so well grounded in moral duties and
religious principles, that, when stationed at the Cape of Good Hope, and
anxious to enjoy the advantages of religious instruction agreeably to the
tenets of their national Church, and there being no religious service in
the garrison, except the customary one of reading prayers to the soldiers
on parade, the men of the 93rd formed themselves into a congregation,
engaged and paid a stipend (collected from the soldiers) to a clergyman
of the Church of Scotland (who had gone out with the intention of
teaching and preaching to the Caffres), and had divine service performed
conformably to the ritual of the Established Church. Their expenses
were so well regulated that, while contributing to the support of their
clergyman from the savings of their pay, they were enabled to promote
that social cheerfulness which is the true attribute of pure religion
and of a well-spent life.” There are few regiments in the service now
that would be prepared to make the same sacrifice, and if our chaplains
were dependent entirely on voluntary contributions they would soon be
reduced to a state of starvation, as church parade is usually the most
distasteful of all duties to a soldier. It deserves to be mentioned to
the honour of the 93rd Highlanders that they have always displayed the
same religious fervour and readiness to contribute to the support of a
clergyman of their own church. About twenty years ago the regiment was
stationed in a remote part of Canada, where they had no opportunity of
enjoying the instruction of one of their own ministers. To meet this
want they formed themselves into a congregation, and contributed a
sum sufficient for the support of a minister, who continued to labour
among them till they were ordered home. Many of our Highland regiments
are at present stationed in India, and it is satisfactory to add that
acting-chaplains, who are liberally paid by the Indian government, are
attached to each of them.
The advantages of religious instruction were manifest in the absence of
crime and of most of those vices which have now become deeply rooted
in the British army. These gallant veterans devoted to religious
purposes the money which is now too often spent in dissipation, and
the advantages of the course were evident in the high moral tone which
existed among them. They knew the value of money, but they would not
retain a sixpence they did not consider to be their own. We find, for
example, in the case of a Highland regiment, that on landing in Ireland
they marched to Waterford the same day, where they received billet-money
on their entrance into the town. The same evening they received orders
to proceed at once to New Ross. Any other soldiers would have retained
their billet-money as their perquisite, but the Highlanders, with a
simple honesty which most men would be more disposed to admire than to
imitate, returned it to the billet-master. So correct was the conduct of
the men that in some regiments corporal punishment was almost unknown.
In the Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment only one man was brought to the
halberts during the time they were embodied. For the lengthened period
of forty years there were few courts-martial and no cases of flogging
in the 42nd Regiment. The value of this fact will be appreciated by
all who are familiar with the statistics of punishment in the British
army during the prevalence of war. It was only when a foreign element
was introduced in the shape of a draft from another regiment that crime
and its consequences became more frequent. The old soldiers refused to
associate with those who had been brought to the halberts; they looked
upon the latter as disgraced, whereas at the present day a soldier
suffers nothing in the estimation of his comrades though he may have
been guilty of almost every crime. _Would that one could revive that
high moral tone among our soldiers which led the 42nd Highlanders to
raise money sufficient to purchase the discharge of those ruffians whom
they esteemed to be a disgrace to the regiment._ The presence of such
men carried contamination with it, and soldiers who were proud of their
regiment and jealous of its honour were ready to make any sacrifice
to get quit of them. The remedy, as might have been expected, proved
insufficient. The infusion of the criminal element was too powerful to be
eliminated by any such means. The offering of a premium for vice tended
only to increase the evil which it was intended to remove, but such a
fact places in the most favourable light the high sense of honour by
which the men of the 42nd were influenced.
When punishment was inflicted upon the Highlanders themselves, it was
usually for insubordination. While devotedly attached to those officers
who treated them with justice and kindness, they were ever ready, as
we have shown, to resist any attempt to deprive them of their rights.
It unfortunately happened that they were sometimes placed under the
command of officers ignorant of their character and feelings, who tried
to carry matters with a high hand and to rule them by terror more than
by affection. In such cases the most lamentable consequences followed: a
spirit of insubordination sprang up, which the severest punishment failed
to repress. We find, for example, that the 75th Regiment, on landing
in India in 1780, was placed under the command of an officer whose
great ambition it was to introduce the Prussian system of discipline,
the nature of which may be learned from Carlyle’s “Life of Frederick
the Great.” Such a system may have been well adapted to the gigantic
foot-soldiers whom Frederick William delighted to see around him, but it
was subversive of all discipline when applied to a Highland regiment. The
proud spirit of the mountaineers refused to be smothered with pipeclay
or be shackled with red tape, and a mutiny would probably have ensued
if the martinet had not been removed to make place for another officer,
who, uniting firmness with due regard to the feelings of the men, soon
regained for the regiment its former high character. A striking contrast
to the temporary demoralisation produced in the 75th by the folly of the
commanding officer was presented by the 78th or Ross-shire Highlanders,
who were stationed in India about the same time under the command of
Colonel Mackenzie of Suddie, one of their clansmen. During six years
spent in different parts of the Bengal Presidency their conduct was so
exemplary as to call forth the warm approval of the authorities and to
produce a desire to imitate in other regiments the system which had
produced such excellent results.
What more striking proof can there be of the hallowing influence of home
associations on the mind of the Highlander? When serving in foreign
lands he never forgets his native village, his father’s home, and the
good name bequeathed to him as his only inheritance. His great ambition
is to do nothing to disgrace that name or to forfeit the good opinion
of the little community to which he expects some day to return. “What
will they say at home?” is the first thought that occurs to him after a
hard-fought field; and a feeling of honest pride springs up in his heart
as he thinks that the deeds of himself and his comrades will be talked
of in the circle he lived in before he became a soldier. Lord Clyde
and other generals knew how to turn this feeling to the best account,
and no man will ever make a good soldier who has no social ties and no
regard for public opinion. It is pleasing to add that the same honourable
feeling still subsists in the 78th, and that such men as Havelock and
Outram have borne testimony to the good effects produced by it. It
deterred the regiment, when first raised, from the commission of crime,
and thus saved them from the disgrace of corporal punishment. For many
years flogging was unknown; it was not till 1799 that an offence meriting
this punishment occurred. The miserable offender was at once tabooed by
his comrades, who felt themselves disgraced by his conduct, and avoided
him as if he had the plague-spot; so that, driven to despair, he might
have been tempted to lay violent hands on himself if the colonel had not
interposed in his behalf. Knowing that no change could be effected in the
feelings of the men, he deemed it best to send him home to England, where
his crime would be unknown, and he might thus have an opportunity of
retrieving his character. It happened as he expected: the man justified
the colonel’s decision and turned out an excellent soldier, whereas if
he had been allowed to remain in the regiment he would have been lost.
Thus justice tempered with mercy was the saving of this soldier, as it
had been of many others. Would that all commanding officers displayed the
same humane and considerate spirit in the treatment of those under their
command! The entries in the defaulters’ book would be fewer in number,
and the _morale_ of the British army higher than it is at the present day.
We have already alluded to the excellent character of the 93rd
Highlanders, who enjoyed the same immunity from punishment as the
78th. While other regiments became partially demoralised through the
admixture of improper characters, the Sutherland Highlanders remained
uncontaminated, and preserved a uniform line of good conduct. Punishment
is usually more frequent in the light infantry companies, because
the men are selected on account of their physical appearance without
reference to moral character. For a period of nineteen years no case of
punishment occurred in this or any other company of the 93rd, and this
regiment still retains that _esprit de corps_ which has been handed
down in the ranks, and is as powerful for good as the inheritance of
a noble name or the pride of ancestry. The Sutherland men, instead of
spending their leisure hours in drunkenness and debauchery, have devoted
them to those athletic sports which muscular Christianity has revived
among other classes. Every one will admit that it is better to brace the
physical frame by running, leaping, dancing, and tossing the kaber (manly
exercises in which the 93rd are still proficient), than to weaken it by
vicious indulgence. Wherever they have been stationed, at home or abroad,
their exemplary conduct has earned for them the confidence of those among
whom they lived, and procured for them admission into circles from which
the majority of soldiers are excluded. Colonel Cameron of Fassiefern
bears honourable testimony to the good conduct of the 92nd Highlanders.
In writing to his father during the Peninsular war he thus alludes to
his own clansmen who had followed him to the field:—“Not one of the poor
fellows who came with me has ever behaved ill; none of them is even a
questionable character.”
The exemplary conduct of the Highlanders is to be attributed partly to
the admirable arrangements connected with the internal economy of the
different regiments. Their messes were managed by the non-commissioned
officers, or old soldiers who had charge of the barrack-room; it was so
arranged that those who belonged to the same glen or district, or were
connected by the ties of friendship or blood, should occupy the same room
and be seated at the same table. Such distinctions are ignored at the
present day, so that the man of education and refinement who has been
forced into the army by poverty or misconduct is obliged to associate by
day and by night with the vilest of his species, and to have his sense of
propriety outraged by their conduct and conversation. Need we wonder that
he should soon be brought down to the moral level of those around him?
In the Highland regiments this evil was avoided; every barrack-room was
like a large family establishment, the occupants of which spoke the same
language, wore the same dress, belonged to the same clan, and cherished
the hope of returning to the same glen. Public opinion was as powerful
for good in such a community as in civil life; all had an equal interest
in sustaining the good fame of the mess to which they belonged. After
defraying all the necessary expenses for breakfast, dinner, and other
necessaries during the week, the surplus pay was placed in a stock purse
and carefully guarded. When it reached a certain amount it was lent out
at interest; the system of savings-banks had not yet been introduced into
the army. When a soldier left the regiment he had usually sufficient
money to establish himself in some kind of business, the profits of
which, added to his pension, enabled him to spend the remainder of his
days in comfort. So long as he remained in the regiment he had always
enough to procure the usual necessaries, and to remit something to his
friends in the old country, when they stood in need of such assistance.
Large sums of money thus reached the North, and must have been acceptable
in every way to those who received them. We have already shown how the
Sutherland men, while stationed at the Cape of Good Hope, supported a
minister of their own religion from their limited pay. While attentive
to the duties of religion, they were not deaf to the voice of nature.
They remembered those who had first taught them to respect religion, and
acknowledged the obligation by ministering to their wants. All remitted
something to the old folks at home—in several cases individual soldiers
sent as much as £20 each. When the regiment landed at Plymouth in 1814,
after eight years’ service at the Cape, upwards of £500 were deposited in
one bank to be remitted to Sutherlandshire; this was exclusive of sums
forwarded through the post-office and through officers proceeding to the
North. Before the Poor Law was introduced into Scotland, it was the great
ambition of the poorest of the peasantry to accept no public relief; this
feeling was common to all, and the greatest sacrifices were made by sons
and daughters to prevent parents from _coming on the board_—_i.e._, from
accepting assistance from the offertories made at the different churches
for the benefit of the indigent. This feeling accompanied the Highland
soldier to distant lands, and led him to submit to many privations in
order to save money for the support of his parents, who were thus enabled
to retain their self-esteem and to enjoy the respect of the community in
which they lived.
On examining the papers of the late Sir Ewen Cameron of Fassiefern, the
father of Colonel Cameron of the 92nd Highlanders, it was found that
large sums of money had been remitted from different parts of the world
by soldiers for the support of their parents. Writing from Alexandria,
24th August, 1801, to his father, Colonel Cameron thus alludes to this
trait in the character of his men:—“I wrote you before leaving Newport,
inclosing a bill on Charles Erskine for money belonging to _Ewen dubh
Taillear_ (black Hugh the Tailor), and from Marmorice Bay, a letter with
money for _Ewen dubh Coul_ (black Hugh of Coul); also money for the two
Macphies.” Writing on the 14th December, 1809, after his return from the
disastrous expedition to Walcheren, Colonel Cameron says—“The Bo-man’s
(cattle-herd’s) son has begged of me to forward you (inclosed) one half
of ten-pound note to assist his father’s family. The other half he will
forward to his brother by next post. He is a very _siccer_ (steady) lad.”
It is a pleasing duty to commemorate the filial affection of those
gallant old soldiers who have now gone the way of all flesh, and to
testify from our own experience that in the ranks of our Highland
regiments there are still men possessed of the same frugal habits and
the same dutiful attachment to their parents as the Bo-man’s son. If
the number has diminished of late years, it is because the feeling of
honest pride which led the children to provide for their parents has been
weakened through the operation of that Poor Law which has effected so
many important changes in the social condition of the lowly.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]