Random Shots from a Rifleman

by J. Kincaid

An Irishman, after the battle of Vimiera, in writing home to his friends, said, "We charged them over fifteen leagues of country, we never waited for the word of command, for we were all Irish!" And I think I could furnish a Highland anecdote or two of a similar tendency.

In the present day, the crack national regiments, officered as they are with their share of the elite of their country's youth, are not to be surpassed—but in war time I have never considered a crack national regiment equal to a crack mixed one.

The Irishman seems sworn never to drink water when he can get whiskey, unless he likes it better—the Scotchman, for a soldier, sometimes shews too much of the lawyer—the Englishman, too, has his besetting sin—but by mixing the three in due proportions, the evils are found to counteract each other. As regards personal bravery there is not a choice among them—and for the making of a perfect regiment I should therefore prescribe one-half English, and of Irish and Scotch a quarter each. Yet, as I said before, I love to see a national corps, and hope never to see a British army without them.

With regard to officers, I think I mentioned before that in war we had but a slender sprinkling of the aristocracy among us. The reason I consider a very sensible one, for whatever may be the sins with which they have, at different times, been charged, the want of pluck has never been reckoned among the number. But as there never was any scarcity of officers for the field, and consequently their country did not demand the sacrifice—they may very conscientiously stand acquitted for not going abroad, to fight and be starved, when they could live at home in peace and plenty.

I have often lamented however that a greater number had not been induced to try their fortunes on the tented field, for I have ever found that their presence and example tended to correct many existing evils. How it should have happened I leave to others, but I have rarely known one who was not beloved by those under him. They were not better officers, nor were they better or braver men than the soldiers of fortune,[G] with which they were mingled; but there was a degree of refinement in all their actions, even in mischief, which commanded the respect of the soldiers, while those who had been framed in rougher moulds, and left unpolished, were sometimes obliged to have recourse to harsh measures to enforce it. The example was therefore invaluable for its tendency to shew that habitual severity was not a necessary ingredient in the art of governing—and however individuals may affect to despise and condemn the higher orders, it is often because they feel that they sink in the comparison, and thus it is that they will ever have their cringers and imitators even among their abusers.

[G] Meaning soldiers of no fortune.

I have, without permission, taken the liberty of dedicating this volume to one of their number—not because he is one of them, but that he is what I have found him—a nobleman! I dedicate it to him, because, though personally unacquainted, I knew and admired him in war, as one of the most able and splendid assistants of the illustrious chief with whom he served—and, "though poor the offering be," I dedicate it to him in gratitude, that with no other recommendation than my public services, I have ever since the war experienced at his hands a degree of consideration and kindness which none but a great and a good man could have known how to offer.

It may appear to my reader that I have no small share of personal vanity to gratify in making this announcement, and I own it. I am proud that I should have been thought deserving of his lordship's notice, but I am still prouder that it is in my power to give myself as an example that men of rank in office are not all of them the heartless beings which many try to make them appear.

With the army assembled, and the baggage laden on a fine May morning, I shall place every infantry man on his legs, the dragoon in his saddle, and the followers on their donkeys, starting the whole cavalcade off on the high road to Salamanca, which, being a very uninteresting one, and without a shot to enliven the several days' march, I shall take advantage of the opportunity it affords to treat my young military readers to a dissertation on advanced guards—for we have been so long at peace that the customs of war in the like cases are liable to be forgotten, unless rubbed into existence from time to time by some such old foggy as I am, and for which posterity can never feel sufficiently thankful, as to see our army taking the field with the advanced guard on a plain, prescribed by the book of regulations, would bring every old soldier to what I for one am not prepared for—a premature end; as however well the said advanced guard may be calculated to find birds' nests in a barrack square or on a common parade, in the field it would worry an army to death.