Ibid. 8 Oct. 1815.
Yet again, at the request of the Duke of Wellington, the following officers obtained permission to accept from the Emperor of Russia the Order of St. Anne, “in testimony of His Majesty’s approbation of their services and conduct, particularly in the late battles fought in the Netherlands:”
| Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. May, | K.C.B., | R.H.A. |
| Lieut.-Colonel Sir H. Ross, | ” | ” |
| Lieut.-Colonel Sir R. Gardiner, | ” | ” |
| Lieut.-Colonel R. Bull, | ” | ” |
| Major A. Macdonald, | ” | ” |
It is unnecessary to add that the boon service granted for the battle of Waterloo, and the Waterloo medals, were given to the Artillery present, without exception. It would, therefore, appear that for a corps which did not deserve to be rewarded, it did not fare badly; and that its merits were only called in question when pensions based on an unpopular precedent were asked for. It is also impossible that the Duke could have been so generous in his original recommendations, had he known of his own personal observation, that which he stated in his letter of the 21st December, and which must now receive grave consideration; the asserted flight from the field of battle of many of the Artillerymen with their limbers, &c.
In ascertaining the unmistakable inaccuracy of this cruel and hasty assertion, which must have been made by the Duke of Wellington on the most worthless evidence, the advantage of the late publication of the letter has become apparent. Much of the evidence, which will be adduced to rebut it, was not written with the view of meeting such an accusation, but is merely extracted from the simple narrative of a battle, in which the facts are stated without any idea of their being questioned. Had the Duke’s letter been published while the writers of many of the letters to be quoted were alive, their answers would not have had half the historical value they now possess, for they would have been regarded as the pleadings of interested defendants. The statements of disinterested historians will conclude this brief argument.
When the celebrated charges of the French cavalry at Waterloo took place, the English guns lined the crest of the position, and the Infantry was formed in squares in their rear. The order given by the Duke was that the Artillerymen should stand to their guns as long as possible, and then take refuge in the Infantry squares; and that the limbers should be sent behind the squares. This order was carried to the various batteries by Sir John Bloomfield, and was obeyed to the letter. “The idea of six limbers,” writes Colonel Gardiner, “with six horses in each limber, going into a Communicated by Sir J. Bloomfield. suare of Infantry, was of course an impossibility, and never contemplated.” The gunners had cartouche-bags slung round them, containing ammunition, and invariably, with the exception of those of Captain Mercer’s troop, took refuge in the adjacent squares, or under the bayonets of the kneeling ranks. When the cavalry retired, on each occasion the gunners ran out, and, as a rule, the guns were in action against the retreating cavalry before they had gone sixty yards. The delay of a few moments occurred once or twice, while shot were being brought from the limbers; and Sir John Bloomfield remembers an expression of impatience escaping the Duke on one of these occasions. Nor was it unnatural. “To lose,” writes Colonel Gardiner, “an opportunity of inflicting destruction on the French cavalry, directly they turned their backs, and before they could get out of the range of canister, must have been very tantalizing.” But that the delay ever exceeded a few moments, or that a single limber ever left the ground, Sir John Bloomfield is confident is an utter delusion. Such an occurrence as is described in the Duke’s letter could not have happened without being well known. The Duke himself said, “It is known to many;” and yet Sir John lived for three years with the headquarter staff in Paris, and never heard even an insinuation on the subject. Another Waterloo survivor writes on this point: General B. Cuppage, R.A., to the Author. “I never did hear, nor any one else, of the artillery misbehaving at Waterloo. Sir Alexander Dickson took me with him into Brussels after the battle. We saw every officer who came in, and the action was in every part the constant theme of conversation, both in our private, as well as more general moments. Had anything bearing such a term taken place, it would certainly have been canvassed. I was in daily conversation with our wounded in the town. Surely I may say, but that the Duke of Wellington says it, it is as cruel as it is unjust.”
If known to many, it could hardly have escaped the commanding officer of the corps most interested. The fact that Sir George Wood did not write his despatches to the Ordnance until the 24th June,—that during the six days’ interval since the battle he had been constantly with the Duke,—and yet that he could write as follows, proves most clearly that the Duke himself cannot have been aware of what he afterwards wrote to Lord Mulgrave, and that his letter must have been based on subsequent malicious and worthless testimony. The wording of Sir George Wood’s letters have an almost providential bearing on the point at issue; and could not have been used, had there been even a doubt as to the conduct of the Corps.
Dated Le Cateau, 24 June, 1815.
“I beg leave,” he wrote, “to call the attention of His Lordship the Master-General to the skill and intrepidity so eminently displayed by the British and German Artillery. The accompanying return of their loss will show how much they participated in the action, and I can assure His Lordship the Master-General, that, notwithstanding their being outnumbered by the Artillery of the enemy, their merits never shone more conspicuous than on this occasion. It now remains for me to express with much pleasure and satisfaction that every officer and man in the field of battle did their duty.”
With his despatch, Sir George wrote a private letter to General Macleod, in which the following passage occurs: Ibid. “I do assure you, I have not words to express the extreme good conduct of the Corps. All exerted themselves, both officers and men, and such a conflict of guns never was in the memory of man.”