[311] Stewart’s Sketches.
[312] Stewart’s Sketches.
[313] One of these, a trumpeter, was brought to England by the 42d, and given over to the York Rangers, at the formation of that corps.
[314] General Stewart says that in the assault on the redoubts, when proceeding from the second to the third, he found a lad of seventeen years of age whom he had enlisted in August preceding, with his foot on the body of a French soldier, and his bayonet thrust through from ear to ear, attempting to twist off his head. Lieutenant Stewart touched him on the shoulder, and desired him to let the body alone. “Oh, the brigand,” said he, “I must take off his head.” When told that the man was already dead, and that he had better go and take the head off a living Frenchman, he answered, “You are very right, Sir; I did not think of that;” and immediately ran forward to the front of the attack. Yet such is the power of example, that this young man, so bold, turned pale and trembled, when, a few days after he had enlisted, he saw one of his companions covered with blood from a cut he had received in the head and face in some horseplay with his comrades.
[315] In one of the skirmishes in the woods between a party of the 42d and the enemy, Lieutenant-Colonel Graham (afterwards a lieutenant-general and governor of Stirling Castle) was wounded, and lay senseless on the ground. “His recovery from his wound,” says General Stewart, “was attended by some uncommon circumstances. The people believing him dead, rather dragged than carried him over the rough channel of the river, till they reached the sea-beach. Observing here that he was still alive, they put him in a blanket and proceeded in search of a surgeon. After travelling in this manner four miles, I met them, and directed the soldiers to carry him to a military post, occupied by a party of the 42d under my command. All the surgeons were out in the woods with the wounded soldiers, and none could be found. Colonel Graham was still insensible. A ball had entered his side, and passing through, had come out under his breast. Another, or perhaps the same ball, had shattered two of his fingers. No assistance could be got but that of a soldier’s wife, who had been long in the service, and was in the habit of attending sick and wounded soldiers. She washed his wounds, and bound them up in such a manner, that when a surgeon came and saw the way in which the operation had been performed, he said he could not have done it better, and would not unbind the dressing. The colonel soon afterwards opened his eyes, and though unable to speak for many hours, seemed sensible of what was passing around him. In this state he lay nearly three weeks, when he was carried to Kingston, and thence conveyed to England. He was still in a most exhausted state,—the wound in his side discharging matter from both orifices. He went to Edinburgh, with little hopes of recovery; but on the evening of the illumination for the victory of Camperdoun, the smoke of so many candles and flambeaux having affected his breathing, he coughed with great violence; and, in the exertion, threw up a piece of cloth, carried in and left by the ball in its passage through his body. From that day he recovered as by a charm.
“The soldier’s wife,” continues the General, “who was so useful to him in his extremity, was of a character rather uncommon. She had been long a follower of the camp, and had acquired some of its manners. While she was so good and useful a nurse in quarters, she was bold and fearless in the field. When the arrangements were made previously to the attack on the Vizie on the 10th of June, I directed that her husband, who was in my company, should remain behind to take charge of the men’s knapsacks, which they had thrown off to be light for the advance up the hill, as I did not wish to expose him to danger on account of his wife and family. He obeyed his orders, and remained with his charge; but his wife, believing, perhaps, that she was not included in these injunctions, pushed forward to the assault. When the enemy had been driven from the third redoubt, I was standing giving some directions to the men, and preparing to push on to the fourth and last redoubt, when I found myself tapped on the shoulder, and turning round, I saw my Amazonian friend standing with her clothes tucked up to her knees, and seizing my hand, ‘Well done, my Highland lad,’ she exclaimed, ‘see how the brigands scamper like so many deer!’—‘Come,’ added she, ‘let us drive them from yonder hill!’ On inquiry, I found that she had been in the hottest fire, cheering and animating the men; and when the action was over, she was as active as any of the surgeons in assisting the wounded.”
[316] Stewart’s Sketches.
[317] When the boats were about to start, two young French field officers, who were prisoners on board the Minotaur, Captain Louis, went up to the rigging “to witness, as they said, the last sight of their English friends. But when they saw the troops land, ascend the hill, and force the defenders at the top to fly, the love of their country and the honour of their arms overcame their new friendship: they burst into tears, and with a passionate exclamation of grief and surprise ran down below, and did not again appear on deck during the day.”—Stewart’s Sketches.
[318] “The great waste of ammunition,” says General Stewart, “and the comparatively little execution of musketry, unless directed by a steady hand, was exemplified on this occasion. Although the sea was as smooth as glass, with nothing to interrupt the aim of those who fired,—although the line of musketry was so numerous, that the soldiers compared the fall of the bullets on the water to boys throwing handfuls of pebbles into a mill-pond,—and although the spray raised by the cannon-shot and shells, when they struck the water, wet the soldiers in the boats,—yet, of the whole landing force, very few were hurt; and of the 42d one man only was killed, and Colonel James Stewart and a few soldiers wounded. The noise and foam raised by the shells and large and small shot, compared with the little effect thereby produced, afford evidence of the saving of lives by the invention of gunpowder; while the fire, noise, and force, with which the bullets flew, gave a greater sense of danger than in reality had any existence. That eight hundred and fifty men (one company of the Highlanders did not land in the first boats) should force a passage through such a shower of balls and bomb-shells, and only one man killed and five wounded, is certainly a striking fact.” Four-fifths of the loss of the Highlanders was sustained before they reached the top of the hill. General Stewart, who then commanded a company in the 42d, says that eleven of his men fell by the volley they received when mounting the ascent.
[319] Stewart’s Sketches.