History of the Scottish Regiments in the British Army

by Archibald K. Murray

“Officers! be the friends and guardians of these brave fellows committed to your charge!

“Soldiers! give your confidence to your officers. They have shared with you the chances of war; they have bravely bled along with you; they will always do honour to themselves and you. Preserve your regiments reputation for valour in the field, and regularity in quarters.”

Spain and Portugal having been despoiled of their independence by the perfidious usurpation of France, Britain—allied with the patriots of the Peninsula in the struggle going on for the emancipation of these kingdoms from the thraldom of Napoleon—sent an army to Portugal, which included the first battalion of the Seventy-first, and under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, effected a landing in Mondego Bay in 1808. Through the victories of “Roleia” and “Vimiera,” commemorated upon the colours of the regiment, the convention of Cintra was achieved, which expelled the French under Marshal Junot, Duke of Abrantes, from Portugal. At Vimiera, the Grenadier company of the Seventy-first, under Captain Forbes, captured a battery of five guns and a howitzer, which every attempt of the enemy failed to recover. On the same occasion George Clarke, the piper of the regiment, was specially commended for his gallantry in resolutely continuing at his post, although severely wounded, cheering his countrymen by the wild inspiring music of the bag-pipe. Corporal MʻKay, at the same battle, was fortunate enough to receive the sword of the French General Brennier. Advancing upon Madrid, associated in brigade with the Thirty-sixth and Ninety-second regiments, the Seventy-first was ultimately joined to the army of Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, which had promised to relieve the citizens of that metropolis from the intolerant yoke of France. The corps was with the British army in the disastrous yet glorious retreat, terminated in the victory of Corunna, possessing a melancholy interest from the death of the hero whose genius had accomplished it, and which delivered a British army from a situation of imminent peril.

Embarked, the regiment returned to England, and in 1809—a year to be mournfully remembered, as fatal to the wearing of the kilt in the army—it was ordered to lay aside the Highland garb, and was uniformed as a light infantry regiment. Every care was in consequence bestowed to promote its efficiency. Strengthened, it was associated with the Sixty-eighth and Eighty-fifth regiments in the light brigade, and was ordered to accompany the army in the ill-advised expedition, which wasted a splendid armament in a vain attempt to obtain a footing in Flanders. The good conduct of the regiment was nevertheless most conspicuous in the various actions of the brief campaign.

Returning to England towards the close of the year, in the spring of 1810, the first, second, third, fourth, sixth, and tenth companies were selected to reinforce the army of Lieutenant-General Viscount Wellington, then fighting in Portugal. It arrived at a very critical period in the history of the war, when Marshal Massena, pressing our troops with overwhelming numbers, they were retreating towards the impregnable lines of Torres Vedras, defeating the sanguine hopes of the French general. The Seventy-first, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. Henry Cadogan, was brigaded with the Fiftieth and Ninety-second regiments under Major-General Sir William Erskine. Whilst maintaining these formidable defences, the following incident is related of Sir Adam Ferguson, who was so posted with his company that the French artillery might operate with fatal effect upon his men, but, for better security, they were ordered to lie prostrate on the ground. While in this attitude the captain, kneeling at their head, read aloud the description of the battle, as introducing our present chapter, and as selected from Sir Walter Scott’s “Lady of the Lake.” The little volume had just come into the camp as a stranger, but was soon welcomed as a friend. The listening soldiers, charmed with the poet’s tale, only interrupted the reading by an occasional and joyous huzzah whenever the French shot struck the bank close above them. Wearied, disappointed, and distressed by ravages of disease amongst his troops, the French Marshal was constrained in turn to retreat—a retreat which, but for the unslumbering vigilance of his pursuers, promised to be as successful as the ability with which it was conducted merited, worthy the genius of Massena—justly esteemed the right hand of Napoleon.

In 1811 the regiment was joined by its other companies. In the action of Fuentes d’Onor it was warmly engaged; repeatedly and powerfully assailed by the enemy, it was all but overpowered in the defence of the village, when, happily, the Seventy-fourth and Eighty-Eighth regiments arrived to its support, and so the post was retained. The corps was afterwards detached as a reinforcement to the army of Marshal Sir William Beresford, and subsequently, in the army of Lieutenant-General Rowland (afterwards Viscount) Hill, was employed in the southern provinces of the Peninsula, keeping in check the French under Marshal Soult, and otherwise covering the operations of the grand army of Wellington. It helped to disperse and destroy a considerable detachment of the enemy which had been surprised at Arroyo-del-Molinos. It was more especially commended for the exceeding gallantry it displayed in the capture of Fort Napoleon, embraced in the action and commemorated in the word “Almaraz.” At the battle of Vittoria it suffered very severely in the loss of nearly 400 men and officers; but the most grievous loss was felt in the death of its Lieutenant-Colonel, the Hon. Henry Cadogan, who largely enjoyed the esteem of the soldiers. He “fell mortally wounded while leading his men to the charge, and being unable to accompany the battalion, requested to be carried to a neighbouring eminence, from which he might take a last farewell of them and the field. In his dying moments he earnestly inquired if the French were beaten; and on being told by an officer of the regiment, who stood by supporting him, that they had given way at all points, he ejaculated, ‘God bless my brave countrymen,’ and immediately expired.” The Marquis of Wellington thus gave effect to his own regrets in the official dispatch communicating his fall:—“In him His Majesty has lost an officer of great zeal and tried gallantry, who had already acquired the respect and regard of the whole profession, and of whom it might be expected, that if he had lived he would have rendered the most important services to his country.”

In all the after battles and actions, which resulted in the expulsion of the French from Spain, and their repeated defeats and ultimate rout on their native plains, the Seventy-first bore an honourable part, returning to Britain in 1814, richly laden with a harvest of glory. A short interval of peace soon recruited the “precious remnant” of the regiment, and so restored its strength as enabled it once more to go on foreign service. Ordered to embark for America, it was fortunately detained by tempestuous weather, and so privileged to win laurels on a mightier field. Napoleon having escaped from his honourable exile in Elba, by his presence in France, overturning the ricketty government of the Bourbon, involved that bleeding country in a universal war, since it brought down the combined wrath of Europe, whose allied armies now hastened to arrest and punish the ambitious man who had proved himself so dire a curse to Christendom. Upon the plains of Waterloo the die for empire was cast and lost. In that great battle the Seventy-first had a part, forming with the first battalion of the Fifty-second, and the second and third battalions of the Ninety-fifth, or Rifles—a light infantry brigade which sustained the charge of three regiments of French cavalry: one of cuirassiers, one of grenadiers-à-cheval, and one of lancers. It also withstood the shock of the grand final charge of the Old Imperial Guard, witnessing the discomfiture of these choice troops, so long the citadel of imperial strength, now reeling, broken, dying, dead—of whom, borrowing the words, it may well be said—

“They never feared the face of man.”

This great victory having ruined irretrievably the fortunes of Napoleon, the allied army, rapidly advancing, entered Paris a second time, and there dictated the terms of peace. The Seventy-first remained in France as part of the “army of occupation;” and whilst stationed at the village of Rombly in 1816, its soldiers were presented with the Waterloo medals by Colonel Reynell, who thus, addressing the regiment, said:—“These honourable rewards bestowed by your Sovereign for your share in the great and glorious exertions of the army of His Grace the Duke of Wellington upon the field of Waterloo, when the utmost efforts of the army of France, directed by Napoleon, reputed to be the first captain of the age, were not only paralysed at the moment, but blasted beyond the power of even a second struggle.