Gibraltar

by Henry M. Field

With this recent history in mind, I could not look in the faces of the brave men who had made all these marches, and endured these fatigues, and fought these battles, without my heart beating fast. It beat faster still when I learned that the campaign in Egypt was only the last of a long series of campaigns, reaching over not only many years, but almost two centuries! The history of this regiment is worth the telling, if it were only to show of what stuff the British Army is made, and how the traditions of a particular corps, passing down from sire to son, remain its perpetual glory and inspiration.

The South Staffordshire Regiment is one of the oldest in the English Army, having been organized in the reign of Queen Anne, when the great Marlborough led her troops to foreign wars. But it does not appear to have fought under Marlborough, having been early transferred to the Western Hemisphere. After four years' service at home it was sent to the West Indies, where it remained nearly sixty years, its losses by death being made good by fresh recruits from England, so that its organization was kept intact. Returning home in 1765, it was stationed in Ireland till the cloud began to darken over the American Colonies, when it was one of the first corps despatched across the Atlantic. As an American, I could not but feel the respect due to a brave enemy on learning that this very regiment that I saw before me had fought at Bunker Hill! From Boston it was ordered to New York, where it remained till the close of the war. No doubt it often paraded on the Battery, as to-day it parades on the Alameda. After the war it was stationed several years in Nova Scotia.

From that time it has had a full century of glory, serving now in the West Indies, and now at the Cape of Good Hope, and then coming back across the Atlantic to the River Plate in South America, where it distinguished itself at the storming and capture of Monte Video, and afterward fought at Buenos Ayres. But the "storm centre" in the opening nineteenth century was to be, not in America, North or South, nor in Africa, but in Europe, in the wars of Napoleon. This regiment was with Sir John Moore when he fell at Corunna, and afterward followed the Iron Duke through Spain, fighting in the great battle of Salamanca, and later with Sir Thomas Graham at Vittoria, and in the siege and storming of San Sebastian. It was part of the army that crossed the Bidassoa, and made the campaign of 1813-14 in the South of France. After the fall of Napoleon it returned home, but on his return from Elba was immediately ordered back to the Continent, and arrived at Ostend, too late to take part in the Battle of Waterloo, but joined the army and marched with it to Paris.

When the great disturber of the peace of the Continent was sent to St. Helena, Europe had a long rest from war; but there was trouble in other parts of the world, and in 1819 the regiment was again at the Cape of Good Hope, fighting the Kaffirs; from which it went to India, and thence to Burmah, where it served in the war of 1824-26. This is the war which has been made familiar to American readers in the Life of the Missionary Judson, who was thrown into prison at Ava, (as the King made no distinction between Englishmen and Americans), confined in a dungeon, and chained to the vilest malefactors, in constant danger of death, till the advance of the British army up the Irrawaddi threw the tyrant into a panic of terror, when he sent for his prisoner to go to the British camp and make terms with the conquerors. England made peace, but the regiment was half destroyed, having lost in Burmah eleven officers and five hundred men.

The ten years of peace that followed were spent in Bengal. When at last the regiment was called home, it was stationed for a few years in the Ionian Islands, in Jamaica, Honduras, and Nova Scotia. Then came the Russian War, when it was sent to Turkey, and fought at the Alma and Inkerman, and through the long siege of Sebastopol. Only a single year of peace followed, and it was again ordered to India, where the outbreak of the mutiny threatened the loss of the Indian Empire, and by forced marches reached Cawnpore in time to defeat the Sepoy army; from which it marched to Lucknow, where it was part of the fiery host that stormed the Kaiser-Bagh, where it suffered fearful loss, but the siege was raised and Lucknow delivered; after which, in a campaign in Oude, it helped to stamp out the mutiny.

Its last campaign was in Egypt, where it went up the Nile as a part of the River Column, hauling its boats over the cataracts, and was the first regiment that reached Korti. From this point it kept along the course of the river toward Berber (while another column, mounted on camels, made the march across the desert), and with the Black Watch bore the brunt of the fighting in the battle of Kirbekan, in which the commander of the column and the colonel of the regiment both fell.[2]

Such is the story of a hundred and fifty years. Of the hundred and eighty-four years that the Regiment has been in existence, it has spent a hundred and thirty-four—all but fifty—in foreign service, in which it has fought in thirty-eight battles, and has left the bones of its dead in every quarter of the globe. Was there ever a Roman legion that could show a longer record of war and of glory?

And now this British legion, with a history antedating the possession of Gibraltar itself, (for it was organized in 1702, two years before the Rock was captured from Spain,) had been brought back to this historic ground, bringing with it its old battle-flags, that had floated on so many fields, which, worn by time and torn by shot and shell, it was now to surrender, to be taken back to England and hung in the oldest church in Staffordshire as the proud memorials of its glory, while it was to receive new colors, to be borne in future wars. The rents in its ranks had been filled by new recruits, so that it stood full a thousand strong, its burnished arms glistening as if those who bore them had never been in the heat of battle. In the hollow square in which it was drawn up were its mounted officers, waiting the arrival of the Governor, who presently rode upon the ground, with Major-General Walker, the Commander of the Infantry Brigade, at his side; followed by other officers, who took position in the rear, according to their rank. The band struck up "God save the Queen," and the troops, wheeling into column, began the "march past," moving with such firm and even tread that it seemed as if the regiment had but one body and one soul. After a series of evolutions it was again formed in a square, for a ceremony that was half military and half religious, for in such pageants the Church of England always lends its presence to the scene. I had read of military mass in the Russian army, when the troops drawn up in battle array, fall upon their knees, while the Czar, prostrating himself, prays apparently with the utmost devotion for the blessing of Almighty God upon the Russian arms! Something of the same effect was produced here, when the Bishop of Gibraltar in his robes came forward with his assistant clergy. At once the band ceased; the troops stood silent and reverent. The silence was first broken by the singing of a Hymn, whose rugged verse had a strange effect, as given by the Regimental Choir. I leave to my readers to imagine the power of these martial lines sung by those stentorian voices:

When Israel's Chief in days of yore,

Thy banner, Lord, flung out,