[353] Kinglake’s Crimea, v. ii. p. 252.
[354] Letters from Headquarters.
[355] Kinglake’s Crimea, v. ii. p. 443.
[356] We shall take the liberty of quoting here the same author’s sketch of Campbell’s career:—
“Whilst Ensign Campbell was passing from boyhood to man’s estate, he was made partaker in the great transactions which were then beginning to work out the liberation of Europe. In the May of 1808 he received his first commission—a commission in the 9th Foot; and a few weeks afterwards—then too young to carry the colours—he was serving with his regiment upon the heights of Vimieira. There the lad saw the turning of a tide in human affairs; saw the opening of the mighty strife between ‘Column’ and ‘Line;’ saw France, long unmatched upon the Continent, retreat before British infantry; saw the first of Napoleon’s stumbles, and the fame of Sir Arthur Wellesley beginning to dawn over Europe.
“He was in Sir John Moore’s campaign, and at its closing scene—Corunna. He was with the Walcheren expedition; and afterwards, returning to the Peninsula, he was at the battle of Barossa, the defence of Tarifa, the relief of Taragona, and the combats at Malaga and Osma. He led a forlorn hope at the storming of St Sebastian, and was there wounded twice; he was at Vittoria; he was at the passage of the Bidassoa; he took part in the American war of 1814; he served in the West Indies; he served in the Chinese war of 1842. These occasions he had so well used that his quality as a soldier was perfectly well known. He had been praised and praised again and again; but since he was not so connected as to be able to move the dispensers of military rank, he gained promotion slowly, and it was not until the second Sikh war that he had a command as a general: even then he had no rank in the army above that of a colonel. At Chilianwalla he commanded a division. Marching in person with one of his two brigades, he had gained the heights on the extreme right of the Sikh position, and then bringing round the left shoulder, he had rolled up the enemy’s line and won the day; but since his other brigade (being separated from him by a long distance) had wanted his personal control, and fallen into trouble, the brilliancy of the general result which he had achieved did not save him altogether from criticism. That day he was wounded for the fourth time. He commanded a division at the great battle of Gujerat; and, being charged to press the enemy’s retreat, he had so executed his task that 158 guns and the ruin of the foe were the fruit of the victory. In 1851 and the following year he commanded against the hill-tribes. It was he who forced the Kohat Pass. It was he who, with only a few horsemen and some guns, at Punj Pao, compelled the submission of the combined tribes then acting against him with a force of 8000 men. It was he who, at Ishakote, with a force of less than 3000 men, was able to end the strife; and when he had brought to submission all those beyond the Indus who were in arms against the Government, he instantly gave proof of the breadth and scope of his mind as well as of the force of his character; for he withstood the angry impatience of men in authority over him, and insisted that he must be suffered to deal with the conquered people in the spirit of a politic and merciful ruler.
“After serving with all this glory for some forty-four years, he came back to England; but between the Queen and him there stood a dense crowd of families—men, women, and children—extending further than the eye could reach, and armed with strange precedents which made it out to be right that people who had seen no service should be invested with high command, and that Sir Colin Campbell should be only a colonel. Yet he was of so fine a nature that, although he did not always avoid great bursts of anger, there was no ignoble bitterness in his sense of wrong. He awaited the time when perhaps he might have high command, and be able to serve his country in a sphere proportioned to his strength. His friends, however, were angry for his sake; and along with their strong devotion towards him there was bred a fierce hatred of a system of military dispensation which could keep in the background a man thus tried and thus known.
“Upon the breaking-out of the war with Russia, Sir Colin was appointed—not to the command of a division, but of a brigade. It was not till the June of 1854 that his rank in the army became higher than that of a colonel.”
[357] Kinglake’s Crimea, vol. ii. pp. 474-79.
[358] Kinglake’s Crimea, vol. ii. pp. 481-86.