FOOTNOTES:
[1] Consisting of the first battalions of the Fifth, Thirty-Sixth, Forty-Fifth, and Eighty-Eighth Foot; five companies of the Rifle Corps, two squadrons of the Sixth Dragoon Guards, and two companies of artillery.
[2] It may not be improper, in this place, to notice and correct an erroneous report which became prevalent in England, that the troops engaged in the assault of Buenos Ayres were ordered, not only to advance unloaded, but actually to take the flints out of their muskets. The fact is, that two companies of the Eighty-Eighth only were thus deprived of every means of offence or defence except their bayonets; they had been on a piquet the night before at “White’s House,” and, consequently, joined their corps in the morning with loaded arms; the order to draw their charges occasioning some delay, General Gower, who was present, became impatient, and directed those who had not drawn to take their flints out. The consequence was, that several of these men were killed in the streets while in the act of screwing in new flints.
[3] General Reid was head of an ancient Scotch family, and served as a Lieutenant in Loudon’s Highlanders in 1745. In 1759 he was appointed Major of the Forty-Second, in which regiment he continued until 1771. In 1780 he was appointed Colonel of the Ninety-Fifth Foot, a newly-raised regiment, and continued to command it until it was disbanded in 1783. In 1794, as stated in the text, he became Colonel of the Connaught Rangers. His commissions as a General Officer were, Major-General 19th October, 1781; Lieutenant-General 12th October, 1793; and General 1st January, 1798.
[4] Colonel Napier.
[5] Ibid.
[6] 17th October.—He was succeeded by Captain Robert B. M‘Gregor.
[7] The French army had recently been reinforced by their victorious troops from Germany.
[8] Lieutenant-General Sir John A. Wallace, Bart., and K.C.B.
[9] Robert Cahill was transferred as Serjeant to the Thirty-First regiment, for the purpose of being Pay-Serjeant to Captain Bray, who exchanged from the Eighty-Eighth, with Captain Hutton. Cahill was on board the Kent East Indiaman, when she took fire in the Bay of Biscay, and from the account given by Captain Bray, his conduct and extraordinary exertions on that trying occasion were most exemplary and conspicuous. Having lost his Medal (which was of the First Class) and all his necessaries, the Non-Commissioned Officers and Privates of the Light Company (in which Company Cahill served during the whole of the Peninsular war) made a subscription amongst them of Five Pounds to purchase him a kit, which sum was sent to him by Lieutenant and Adjutant Souter, who at the same time made him the present of a Medal, which he forwarded through the Horse Guards.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Some wide tables in the Appendix have had { and } bracketing removed, and a horizontal separator inserted instead.