Royal Horse Artillery.
Sergt. Daniel Dunnett.
Belonged to Capt. Whinyates’s Rocket Battery. The Waterloo historian (Siborne) gives the following:—“A party of horse artillery proceeded under Capt. Dansey along the Charleroi road, to the front of the centre of the Anglo-allied line, and came into action with rockets near the farm of La Haye Sainte, leaving its two guns in the rear under Lt. Wright. Capt. Dansey very soon received a severe wound which obliged him to retire; and the party, after firing a few rockets, fell back a little to where its horses were standing. It was then commanded by a sergeant (Daniel Dunnett), who, on perceiving the advance of the nearest French column towards the farm, dismounted his men as coolly and deliberately as if exercising on Woolwich Common, though without any support whatever, laid rockets on the ground, and discharged them in succession into the mass, every one of them appearing to take effect. The advance of the column was checked, and was not resumed until Dunnett, having expended all his rockets, retired with his party to rejoin the guns in rear.”
APPENDIX.
STAFF.
Col. C.H. Churchill was son of Maj.-Gen. Horace Churchill, and a descendant of the Earl of Orford. In a letter to his father from “Le Cateau, 24th June, 1815,” Churchill thus graphically describes Napoleon’s final effort at Waterloo:—
“It was about four o’clock. The enemy had made great efforts, but our troops foiled them everywhere. We could not follow him; he had retired rather than be beaten back. His position was very strong. About six o’clock we perceived formation columns, cavalry and infantry, formed in a great mass—the enemy’s artillery was brought to a more forward position—and again he began to cannonade us. He opened a fire, the most tremendous ever known, I believe, in the annals of war—250 pieces, very close, throwing shells and round shot, grape, and every instrument of destruction. It is really not exaggeration to say we could not ride quick over the ground for the bodies of men and horses. Under cover of this cannonade advanced Bonaparte at the head of his Imperial Guards; cavalry in a column on the left flank, and the Grenadiers of the Guard on their right flank. They advanced most steadily up to our line in one great mass. They halted and commenced firing. Our troops were literally mowed down. The fire was so great nothing could stand.” The writer then goes on to describe how he had two horses killed under him, and a third disabled by a shot in the knee before the advancing French columns were “licked back.” “The Prussians,” continues Churchill, “now came upon the enemy’s flank, and this obliged them to hurry their retreat.”
Sir De Lacy Evans.