| Henry Goode. | Patrick Turner. |
| James Macdonald. | Samuel Mitchel. |
| Thomas Brereton. | George Elder. |
| Loftus Gray. | James Pendergast. |
| John Jenkins. | John Burton. |
The Regiment, as it has existed since, and as it has won lasting renown in so many fields, as ‘a Corps of Riflemen,’ ‘the Rifle Corps,’[17] ‘the 95th,’ and ‘the Rifle Brigade,’ was then and thus organised under Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart. For though Manningham was the colonel, and justly shares the honour of its formation, he seems seldom to have been present with it; for he was equerry to George III., and often at Court.
William Stewart was the fourth son of John, seventh Earl of Galloway, and at the early age of thirteen was appointed Ensign in the 42nd Regiment; but subsequently served in the 22nd and 67th, and with the former had seen service at the capture of the French West India Islands in 1793. We have seen that it was owing to Manningham’s and his suggestions that the Rifle Corps was formed; and after its embodiment he also addressed a long letter to the Adjutant-General on the discipline and internal economy of such a corps. His recommendations (which were adopted) were: that it should first be formed of volunteers from infantry battalions which best could spare them, and by men from the undrafted part of the Irish militia; and he added the (rather singular) opinion that Irishmen were preferable for Riflemen, as ‘perhaps from being less spoiled and more hardy than British soldiers, better calculated for light troops.’[18]
He now set himself vigorously to organise and discipline the Corps thus formed at his suggestions. The standing orders of the Regiment, which, though issued of course in Manningham’s name, were probably principally compiled by Stewart, testify not only to his capability for organising and disciplining it, but in a most remarkable way to his pre-eminence above and beyond the military ideas of his time. The germs, if not, indeed, the actual existence of most of the late improvements for the training and advantage of the soldier are found in these orders. The good-conduct medal; the medals for acts of valour in the field; the attention given and the methods adopted to secure accurate shooting, dividing men into classes according to their practice at the target, and instituting a class of Marksmen; the rules for a regimental school, and for periodical examination of its scholars; the institution of a library; the provision for lectures on military subjects, tactics and outpost duties; the encouragement of athletic exercises; these and many other plans, carried out in the British army only after the middle of the nineteenth century, are inculcated in the original standing orders, and were adopted in the Regiment from its formation.[19]
Sir Charles Napier, who was appointed to a lieutenancy in the Rifle Corps, December 25, 1800, and joined it at Blatchington, in his letters to his family, bears high testimony to Stewart’s ability in organising the Corps; though he seems not to have liked him, and eventually to have quarrelled with him. ‘Stewart makes it a rule to strike at the heads. With him the field-officers must first be steady, and then he goes downwards: hence the privates say: “We had better look sharp if he is so strict with the officers.”’[20]
In 1801 Colonel Stewart was selected to command the troops (the 49th Regiment and a company of the Rifle Corps) ordered to embark on board the fleet commanded by Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. And on February 28 Captain Beckwith’s[21] company, consisting of 1 captain, 2 first lieutenants, 1 second lieutenant, 5 sergeants, 2 buglers, 1 armourer, and 101 rank and file, embarked at Portsmouth on board H.M.S. ‘St. George,’ bearing the flag of Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson. On arrival in Yarmouth Roads the right platoon of Captain Beckwith’s Riflemen was shifted to the ‘London,’ Sir Hyde Parker’s flag-ship. But the men of the Rifle Corps seem to have been distributed, on arrival in the Baltic, among the ships of Nelson’s squadron, which on April 2 attacked and reduced the Danish fleet at Copenhagen.
In this action First Lieutenant and Adjutant Grant was killed ‘whilst gallantly fighting the quarter-deck guns of H.M.S. “Isis.”’ He was the first officer of the Regiment killed in action. He had volunteered for this service. His head was taken off by a cannon-ball as clean as if severed by a scimitar. Stewart recommended Second Lieutenant Pendergast, who was in the expedition, for the vacancy, and he was accordingly promoted on May 9. Two rank and file were also killed; and 1 sergeant and 5 rank and file wounded, of whom some subsequently died of their wounds.[22]
Lord Nelson, in his despatch, says: ‘The Honourable Colonel Stewart did me the favour to be on board the “Elephant;” and himself, with every officer and soldier under his orders, shared with pleasure the toils and dangers of the day.’
It is said in the Record of the 1st Battalion that ‘an appropriate medal was issued upon this occasion by Admiral Lord Nelson to the non-commissioned officers and several soldiers.’ I have not been able to find any trace of this medal, which does not seem to have been given to the officers. For it appears from a correspondence between Stewart (then Lieutenant-General Sir William Stewart), Earl St. Vincent, and Lord Sidmouth in 1821–2, that Nelson had been desirous of obtaining a medal for the captains of his squadron who were engaged at Copenhagen, and had recommended Stewart for one; but that Lords St. Vincent and Sidmouth opposed the issue of any such medal, on the ground that it would be a very invidious distinction from those captains who, being with Parker’s fleet, were not engaged. Stewart advanced a request for this medal in 1821, on the plea that, being a military man, his case was essentially different from that of the captains. But though his application was then supported by Earl St. Vincent, it was refused (in very flattering terms however) by Lord Sidmouth.[23]