Waterloo Days: The narrative of an Englishwoman resident at Brussels in June 1815

by Charlotte A. Eaton

The Belgic peasantry showed the most active and attentive humanity to these poor wounded men. They brought them the best food they could procure; they gave them water to drink—they ministered to all their wants—complied with all their wishes—and treated them as if they had been their own children.

An officer, with whom we are well acquainted, went over the field on the morning of the battle, and examined the ghastly heaps of dead in search of the body of a near relation; and after all the corpses were buried or burnt—in the same melancholy and fruitless search, many an Englishwoman, whom this day of glory had bereft of husband or son, wandered over this fatal field, wildly calling upon the names of those who were now no more. The very day before we visited it, the widow and the sister of a brave and lamented British officer had been here, harrowing up the souls of the beholders with their wild lamentations, vainly demanding where the remains of him they loved reposed, and accusing Heaven for denying them the consolation of weeping over his grave. I was myself, afterwards, a sorrowful witness of the dreadful effects of the unrestrained indulgence of this passionate and heart-breaking grief. In the instance to which I allude, sorrow had nearly driven reason from her seat, and melancholy verged upon madness.

I have forced myself to dwell upon these scenes of horror, with whatever pain to my own feelings, because in this favoured country, which the mercy of Heaven has hitherto preserved from being the theatre of war, and from experiencing the calamities which have visited other nations, I have sometimes thought that the blessings of that exemption are but imperfectly felt, and that the sufferings and the dangers of those whose valour and whose blood have been its security and glory, are but faintly understood, and coldly commiserated. I wished that those who had suffered in the cause of their country should be repaid by her gratitude, and that she should learn more justly to estimate "the price of victory." But it is impossible for me to describe, or for imagination to conceive, the horrors of Waterloo!

How gladly would I dwell upon the individual merits of those who fell upon this glorious field, had I but the power to snatch from oblivion one of the many names which ought to be enrolled in the proud list of their country's heroes! In the heat of such a battle, probably thousands have fallen, whose untold deeds surpass all that from childhood our hearts have worshipped. But that heroic valour and devoted patriotism, which in other days were confined to individuals and signalised their conduct—at Waterloo pervaded every breast. Every private soldier acted like a hero, and thus individual merit was lost in the general excellence, as the beams of the stars are undistinguished in the universal blaze of day.

But it is not only the unrivalled glory of my countrymen in arms, of which I am proud, it is the noble use which they have made of their triumph. It is not only their irresistible valour in battle, but their unexampled mercy and moderation in victory which exalts them above all other nations. It has been justly said by those whom they conquered, that no other army than the British could have won the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo: and no other army but the British, after such a battle and such a victory, after a long course of incessant warfare, after recent insults and wanton cruelties, and after ages of inveterate hostility and national animosity,—no other army but the British, in such circumstances, would have marched through the heart of that enemy's country, and entered that enemy's capital, as the British army marched through France and entered Paris.

We have only to remember what has invariably been the conduct of the French armies in their march through the countries they have conquered. We have only to picture to ourselves what would have been their conduct, if they had triumphantly marched through England, and we shall then be able to appreciate the meritorious moderation of the British army. No plundered towns, no burning villages, no ruined houses marked their course; no outrage, no cruelty nor violence disgraced their triumphant progress. The French people received from their enemies that mercy which was denied them by their own soldiers. There is not a spot on the earth, from the burning sands of Egypt to the frozen deserts of Russia—from the Black Sea to the Pillars of Hercules—from the coasts of the Baltic to the shores of the Mediterranean, where the name of Frenchman and of Napoleon Buonaparte is not dreaded and detested. Whereever the power of Buonaparte has been known, or his dominion felt, his name is uttered with execrations. Wherever he has gone, his path, like that of the pestiferous serpent, has been traced by misery and desolation. But it is a proud reflection to every British heart, that there is not a country of the civilised world where England is not mentioned with respect and gratitude, and the very name of Englishman coupled with blessings.

I am too sensible of my own incompetency, and too conscious of my want of knowledge, to attempt to give any account of the battle itself. The deeds of my countrymen I can only admire—I am not qualified to record them. Abler pens than mine must do justice to the events of this day of glory, which I cannot recal to memory without tears: but it was impossible to stand on the field where thousands of my gallant countrymen had fought and conquered, and bled and died—and where their heroic valour had won for England her latest, proudest wreath of glory—without mingled feelings of triumph, pity, enthusiasm, and admiration, which language is utterly unable to express.

I stood alone upon the spot so lately bathed in human blood—where more than two hundred thousand human beings had mingled together in mortal strife: I cast my eyes upon the ruined hovels immortalised by the glorious achievements of my gallant countrymen. I recalled to mind their invincible constancy—their undaunted intrepidity—their heroic self-devotion in the hour of trial—their magnanimity and mercy in the moment of victory: I cast my eyes upon the tremendous graves at my feet, filled with the mortal remains of heroes.—Silence and desolation now reigned on this wide field of carnage: the scattered relics of recent slaughter and devastation covered the sun-burnt ground; the gales of heaven, as they passed me, were tainted with the effluvia of death. I shuddered at the thought that, beneath the clay on which I stood, the best and bravest of human hearts reposed in death. Oh! surely in such a moment and on such a spot, "some human tears might fall and be forgiven!"

Alas! those for whom I mourned sleep in death—and in vain for them are the tears, the praise, or the gratitude of their country: but though their bodies may moulder in the tomb, and their ashes, mingled with the dust, be scattered unnoticed by the winds of winter, their names and their deeds shall never perish—they shall live for ever in the remembrance of their country, and the tears which pity—gratitude—admiration—wring from every British heart, shall hallow their bloody and honourable grave. On earth they shall receive the noblest meed of praise; and oh! may we not, without impiety or presumption, indulge the hope, that in heaven the crown of glory and immortality awaits those who fell in the field of honour, and who in the discharge of their last and noblest duty to their country, "resigned their spirit unto Him that gave it?"

It was with difficulty I could tear myself from the spot—but after casting one long and lingering look upon the wood-crowned hill of Hougoumont, the shattered walls of La Haye Sainte, the hamlet of La Belle Alliance, the woods of Frischermont, the broken hedge in front of which Sir Thomas Picton's division had been stationed, and which was doubly interesting from the remembrance that it was there that gallant and lamented general had fought and fallen; and after giving one last glance at the ever memorable tree beneath which I stood, I joined my brother and sister, who had been taking sketches at a little distance, and set off with them to Mont St. Jean—lightened of the load of my cuirass, which a little girl, who before the battle had been one of the inhabitants of La Haye Sainte, joyfully carried to the village for half a franc.