Chapter XXI

Embark for Ostend. Proceed to Brussels. We are appointed to Sir Thomas
Picton’s division. Battle of Quatre Bras. Ligny. Predictions and
foretellings _after_ things have occurred, no uncommon practice.
Fire-side tacticians and critics. The army falls back from Quatre
Bras to Waterloo. The cavalry are engaged.

CAMPAIGN OF 1815 IN FLANDERS.

As the war with America still continued, the 1st and 2d battalions of our corps were under orders for embarkation, early in the spring of 1815, for the Western World, whither a considerable part of our 3d battalion had already been sent, and formed a part of the expedition against New Orleans. Napoleon’s sudden flight from Elba, and his subsequent occupation of the throne of France, altered our destination; and by the end of April both our battalions were in Flanders. From Ostend we were conveyed without delay, in large boats by the canal, to Ghent, where we remained ten days, and thence proceeded to Brussels. There we were stationed in capital quarters for some weeks, until ordered out of them to take part in that battle which decided the fate of Europe.

During our stay in Brussels the 5th Division of the army was formed there, and consisted of the following regiments:—The 3d battalion of the 1st Royals, 28th, 32d, 42d Highlanders, 2d battalion 44th, 79th and 92d Highlanders, and 1st battalion 95th Rifle Corps. The 2d battalion of our corps, and two companies of the 3d battalion, were appointed to Sir Henry Clinton’s Division. Sir James Kempt and Sir Dennis Pack each commanded a brigade in the 5th Division, which had for its chief Sir Thomas Picton. He did not arrive at Brussels from England until the 15th of June, on which day there were various rumours in circulation as to the movements of the French army.

It was known that Napoleon had driven back the Prussian outposts, and it followed, as a matter of course, that affairs would, in all probability, be speedily brought to a crisis.

Soon after dark on the evening of the 15th the drums beat to arms, and the bugles sounded to assemble the division; but as the soldiers were billeted in every part of the city, the night was drawing to a close and morning beginning to dawn, by the time the whole of the troops were collected and formed. We then advanced by the road through the forest of Soignie, and halted near the village of Waterloo, where the troops of the Duke of Brunswick (which had been cantoned for some time in the vicinity of Brussels), joined us.

No one who has campaigned need be told, that a multiplicity of rumours, reports, speculations, and calculations, most of them vague, contradictory, and unfounded, are the forerunners of the advance of an army. “The enemy is in position at such a point with so many thousand men, his front covered by a deep and impassable river,” declares one; “the troops stationed at such a point must inevitably be overpowered and annihilated before assistance can arrive,” says a second; “we shall have a brush with their advanced guard in less than an hour,” declares a third; and so on: every man conjuring up something wherewith to throw a light, not only on the intended operations and movements of his own army, but, moreover, on those of the enemy. The _on dits_ on the present occasion were by no means few; but the heads of the many which had been thus racked and tormented with conjectures, were ere long to be otherwise employed.

BATTLE OF QUATRE BRAS

Our division and the Brunswick troops, after a halt of an hour or two near Waterloo, were directed to advance; and we arrived at Quatre Bras about two hours after mid-day. Long before we reached this point, which consists of a few houses at the junction of four roads, we were aware that something not of an amicable nature was in progress between the Belgian troops under the Prince of Orange and the French under Marshal Ney, as a number of wounded Belgians were proceeding towards Brussels, and an occasional cannonade was, moreover, heard in our front. The troops under the Prince of Orange had been driven back on Quatre Bras, after some resistance.

We found the Prince in possession of Quatre Bras, occupying also a wood on his right, and a farm-house in his front, as his advanced posts. The French were moving on in great force towards Quatre Bras, and to a wood on the left of the road, at the moment of the arrival of our division. The Duke of Wellington instantly directed our battalion to occupy and to defend this wood; and we kept possession of it throughout the day, in spite of the many attempts made by the enemy to dispossess us of it, who kept us constantly engaged until night.

The remainder of our division, during this period, were engaged on our right in a fierce and desperate struggle against some heavy bodies of infantry and cavalry. The approach of the latter force obliged the different regiments to form squares, which resisted, with the greatest steadiness and gallantry, the repeated attempts to charge and break them, and strewed the field with cuirassiers and horses. Neither the charges of their numerous and daring cavalry, nor the incessant fire of musketry, supported by a powerful artillery, enabled the French to gain one foot of ground, although, at the most moderate calculation, they outnumbered the British in the proportion of two to one. The Duke of Brunswick fell early in the action, whilst setting a glorious example to his troops, which were chiefly new levies.

The only cavalry which we had in the field were those belonging to the Duke of Brunswick, which were drawn up on the road towards the right of our division; and by their giving way, at the approach of the cuirassiers, the consequences would have been serious, had not the French cavalry received at that moment a destructive volley from a regiment of infantry (I think the 92d), which sent back those who escaped the fire fully as fast as they had advanced.

Several hours had been spent in this unequal contest; and although we were aware that reinforcements were marching from different points to our assistance, it was not until late in the afternoon that the head of Baron Charles Alten’s division was seen approaching; and a welcome sight it was. Supported by this division, which was ushered into the field by a cannonade from the enemy, we drove back their light troops, with whom we continued engaged until night.

The post occupied by our battalion having been given over to General Alten’s troops, we were ordered to rejoin our own division, which were lying down by their arms on the ground where they had been engaged throughout the day. Other troops of infantry reached Quatre Bras during the afternoon and evening of the 16th; and in the course of the night the whole, or the greatest part, of the cavalry joined us.

It will easily be credited, that, not having had one moment’s sleep on the night of the 15th, and the whole of the 16th having been spent in marching and in engagements with the enemy, very little time was requisite to invoke the sleepy god, as about eleven at night we lay down by our arms for that purpose. But our slumbers were not destined to be of long duration; as we were suddenly broad awake and standing to our arms in consequence of the pickets of both armies blazing away at each other, from some unknown cause, which kept us on the alert until day dawned.

Whilst we were employed on the 16th at Quatre Bras, in the manner which I have attempted to describe, the Prussian army, under Marshal Blucher, was furiously attacked by the French under Napoleon in person, at the village of Ligny, some miles to our left. The tremendous and unceasing fire of artillery, and the constant roll of musketry, announced that a deadly conflict was going forward, which did not terminate until after dark. We were in anxious suspense as to the result of this battle; nor was the disheartening fact known to us until the morning of the 17th, that the Prussians had been completely defeated, and obliged to fall back from Ligny with a heavy loss.

The man of candour will not deny, be he ever so determined a fire-eater, that the news of this disastrous defeat of our allies was calculated to throw a damp on the prospects of the campaign; and notwithstanding I have heard some few individuals since declare that they never entertained the smallest doubt of our success, I never believed them. Nothing is more easy than to prognosticate occurrences which have already taken place. This may be a _bull_, but it is nevertheless a system which I have seen adopted by individuals from both sides of the Irish channel.

It is now time to notice the retrograde movement which the British army was obliged to make from Quatre Bras to the position at Waterloo on the 17th June, in consequence of the defeat, and subsequent retreat of the Prussians from Ligny, on the night of the 16th. Before I make the attempt, a word or two on another point may not be altogether amiss.

I have often been heartily tired of, and out of all patience with, the one engrossing question, ever uppermost, and ready to be let fly at any one who happened to have served with the Waterloo army, either by non-combatants, or by those who have never given themselves the trouble to investigate the real position of affairs at that period,—“Pray, sir, was not the Duke of Wellington taken quite by surprise, whilst he was at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball at Brussels, by the sudden irruption of Bonaparte’s army into Flanders?” Now, as every officer stationed in Brussels with Sir T. Picton’s division knew, I presume, on the 15th of June, that the French army was in motion on the frontiers of Flanders, and that Prince Blucher’s advanced posts had been engaged, it is utterly impossible but that those facts should have been known to the Duke of Wellington long before we could possibly have been informed of them.

I conclude, that those fire-side and feather-bed tacticians would have had the Duke of Wellington, the moment he heard of the affairs which had taken place at the Prussian outposts, mount his horse, draw his sword, and give the word of command himself to the troops in Brussels, to fix bayonets, shoulder arms, and march. I have never, however, distinctly understood to what particular point, or on which of the different roads by which Bonaparte had the option of penetrating into Flanders, these _savans_ deemed it judicious that the duke should have ordered a concentration of his army, before he had obtained certain intelligence of the enemy’s intentions. A very small share of intellect is necessary to comprehend that the British commander was obliged to canton the different divisions of his army along an extensive frontier, not only with a view of watching the roads by which his adversary might advance, but, moreover, for the purpose of more easily supplying them with provisions, particularly his cavalry and artillery. It would consequently have been a specimen of generalship not very creditable to him, had he directed his army to assemble at any one particular point as long as a doubt existed of the movements of his opponent, or whilst his intentions remained unfathomed.

It is doubtless a pleasant and edifying occupation, while sitting by an English fire-side, to criticise and calumniate that commander, who, in spite of his being “taken by surprise,” contrived to gain the most splendid and decisive victory ever achieved by the British army or any other. Leaving those critics to rub their shins by a coal fire, and to finish half a dozen of port (on the qualities of which I should infinitely prefer their opinion than on the campaign of 1815 in Flanders), I must return to Quatre Bras.

The retreat of the Prussians from Ligny having rendered a corresponding movement on our part necessary, the Duke of Wellington put his army in motion about ten o’clock on the morning of the 17th, towards the position at Waterloo.

Our battalion, which was the last of the infantry that left the field at Quatre Bras, retired with the cavalry, who covered the retreat of the army. Tremendous rain commenced falling before we reached Genappe, where we were ordered to take such shelter as the houses on each side of the street at the entrance of the town afforded. Some shots which we heard exchanged between the advanced cavalry of the two armies, obliged us instantly to leave the hovels in which we had taken momentary refuge from the storm; and, as the cavalry very soon afterwards entered Genappe, we retired through the town with them. Our cavalry having formed on the most favourable ground beyond Genappe, became engaged with the Lancers and other corps of the French cavalry as they debouched from the town; and notwithstanding some loss was sustained on our side, and the enemy pressed and rather roughly handled the rear-guard, the household brigade, by their resolute and gallant conduct, soon retrieved matters, and drove back the French cavalry in such style, as made them keep at a much more respectable distance during the remainder of the day. The march from Genappe to Waterloo was little better than a mud-bath, owing to the deluge of rain which continued to fall.

About two or three hours before dark we reached that position which has been rendered so memorable for the sanguinary contest which took place on it the following day. The French occupied a ridge of heights opposite to us, and kept up an occasional cannonade until dark.

The two preceding days and nights having been spent in marching, fighting, and without sleep, the floods of rain that descended the whole night of the 17th, which we passed on the position lying down by our arms, did not disturb our repose. For myself, at least, I can answer, that I never in my whole life slept more soundly, although thoroughly drenched to the skin before I lay down on the ground, which was like a snipe-marsh.