As a lieutenant in the 15th Light Dragoons—now 15th Hussars—my great-uncle Edward Knight was in command of Sir John Moore’s escort at Corunna. He was close by, when Moore was hit, and he helped to bury him, 17 January 1809; and in after years he inveighed against the celebrated poem on the Burial. It was not like that, and “had no damned poetry in it.”
He went through the rest of the Peninsular War; and, as a major, he took over the command of the 11th Portuguese Dragoons at the battle of Vittoria, 21 June 1813. He received the gold medal and several foreign decorations, and retired with brevet of lieutenant-colonel. His brother Henry Knight went through the whole of the Peninsular War, 1808 to 1814, as paymaster of the 5th battalion of the King’s German Legion; and he was at the battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815, as was his brother John Knight, then paymaster of the 2nd battalion. They were both in La Haye Sainte; and the position was shown me carefully, when I visited the battlefield, 13 August 1868. The buildings had been loopholed; and I was told that it was very unpleasant inside, when the enemy put their muskets through the loopholes and began to fire in.
John and Henry had the Waterloo medal, and Henry also had the Gwalior star, as he was at the battle of Punniar, 29 December 1843. He was then in the 9th Lancers, to which he was transferred in 1819. He was with his old battalion at the taking of Copenhagen, 7 September 1807; and curiously his brother Christopher Knight was there also, as a midshipman on the Minotaur.
These four great-uncles of mine saw a great deal of hard fighting without ever being wounded; but I find it recorded of Christopher at the bombardment of Algiers, 27 August 1816, that “the gallant officer had the misfortune to be severely contused.” When the old wooden ships were hit by heavy shot, great chunks of wood came flying off inside; and, if you were hit by one of these, you were not wounded but contused.
Edward had a son Godfrey Knight, a captain in the 64th—now Staffordshires—who was in the Indian Mutiny and Persian War. When he came to stay with us, his anecdotes outshone Aladdin and Sindbad in my youthful mind: the Jinn seemed tame beside the Gwalior Rebels as described by him. And he loomed up pretty large himself, when I saw him in his uniform with medals and clasps. He wore the long whiskers of that period with eye-glass and moustaches; and the eye-glass seemed to be a fixture, but in an action in the Mutiny, “unfawt’nately I dwopped my glass, and the demm’d Pandies nearly got me, haw!” He died at sea on his way out again, 24 August 1862. Troop-ships still took three months on the voyage, going by the Cape.
Amongst old letters here, I found one from a distant relative, Lucknow, 1 May 1857:—“The Bengal Army has been in a sad state lately owing to an idea that Government were issuing cartridges in the making up of which cows and pigs fat was used, the mere handling of which (to them) impurities would destroy their caste. From what I have heard from excellent authority there is no doubt of some objectionable material having been used, and it was shameful of the Government attempting to issue them. I was told by our Brigadier (but as a secret) that the propriety of doing so had been canvassed in Council, so whatever happens lies on their shoulders. I could hardly have believed any old Indians would have been so foolish. The matter is now dying away, and the men practising at the Enfield Rifle schools have ghee served out to them to grease the wads.” On 30 May the Mutiny reached Lucknow. His horse was shot under him that evening, and the Brigadier was killed not two yards off; but he came safely through the Siege.
There are many letters from my old nurse. After leaving us, she went into the service of a family in France. She writes to me from Sully, 25 January 1871:—“I must begin by telling you of our flight. I am writing in a very old castle on the borders of the Loire. The marquis, thinking we were in danger, sent us off here; there were three carriages, all the horses, and the pack of hounds. We had to pass thro’ a black forest at night, we were stopped from time to time by French guards; they looked terrifying on horseback with their long white cloaks. You may guess that we did not arrive at the end of our journey without sundry frights. We are with a friend of the family, and have been here more than two months, and no means of leaving.
“The castle is surrounded by water, two of the towers are in complete ruins, what is left of them is covered in ivy. The part we inhabit is in good condition, the rooms are very ancient, the walls and the ceilings are fresco, the dining-room is hung with tapestry, also the best bedrooms, the staircases are of stone, ropes passed thro’ iron rings in the walls supply the place of banisters, the walls are five feet thick; it will stand the cannon of the enemy, I have no fear in this good old place. The picture gallery is very interesting to visit, of course all family portraits, at the end of that is the old theatre; it is now converted into an ambulance for the wounded.
“We had been quiet a few days when the terrible battle of Bellegarde began not far from here, the poor wounded soldiers both French and Prussians were brought here in carts; the first two days they were about fifty and increased in number every day. It is well for your tender heart that you were not here, you could not have endured to witness their sufferings.
“Now for another scene we had General Bourbaki with his army encamped before the castle. How I wished you were here then. I looked out of my window, the moon was in its full, showing its bright light over the scene, the whole of the park was covered in tents, among the trees we could see the fires and the soldiers sitting around them in their different costumes; they had with them 150 cannons all arranged in order ready for an attack.