J. Kincaid

“ Rogers's case was desperate—he had no breath left to explain that he had no pretensions to the honour of being an officer, for he would have been cut down in the act of attempting it: he was, therefore, once more forced to start for another heat with the round shot, and, like a hunted devil, got across the bridge, he knew not how; but he was helm up for England the same day, and the army never saw him more. ”

“ The rear of a battle is generally a queer place—the day is won and lost there a dozen times, unknown to the actual combatants—fellows who have never seen an enemy in the field, are there to be seen flourishing their drawn swords, and "cutting such fantastic tricks before high heaven, as make angels weep," while others are flying as if pursued by legions of demons; and, in short, while every thing is going on in front with the order and precision of a field-day, in rear every thing is confusion worse confounded. ”

“ Poor Rogers was thus placed in a situation which fully justified him in thinking, as most young soldiers do, that every ball was aimed at himself. He was half distracted; it was certain death to stop where he was, neither flank offered him the smallest shelter, and he had not wind enough left in his bellows to clear the tenth part of the space between him and comparative safety; but, where life is at stake, the imagination is fertile, and it immediately occurred to him that by dowsing the cocked hat he would make himself a less conspicuous object ”

“ For, knowing, as every one does, what the best ship's crew would be afloat in the wide world of waters without a master, they may, on the same principle, bear in mind that there can no more be an efficient army without a good general, than there can be an efficient general without a good army, for the one is part and parcel of the other—they cannot exist singly! ”

“ When an officer, as I have already mentioned, with a presentiment of death upon him, resigned a safe duty to take a desperate one—when my own servant, rather than remain behind, gave up his situation and took his place in the ranks—when another man of ours (resolved to win or to die,) thrust himself beneath the chained sword blades, and there suffered the enemy to dash his brains out with the ends of their muskets—these, I say, out of as many thousand instances of the kind which may be furnished, will shew that there was no want of daring leaders or desperate followers. ”

“ In speaking of distance, however, it must not be forgotten that in war the opposing bodies come together with wonderful celerity; for, although197 soldiers do not see so far as severed lovers, who, by transmitting their looks at each other through the moon or some favoured star, contrive to kill space more quickly, yet the soldier, who has no great stomach for the battle, and sees his enemy in the morning almost out of sight, begins to reckon himself secure for that day, must be rather astonished when he finds how soon a cannon-ball makes up the difference between them! ”

“ Packenham, (the gallant Sir Edward,) who was then adjutant-general, led the brigade of the third division, which restored the battle in the village. He came to us immediately after, faint with excitement, where we were standing in reserve, and asked if any officer could oblige him with some wine or brandy—a calabash was unslung for his use, and after taking a small sip out of it, and eulogizing, in the handsomest manner, the conduct of the troops, he left us to renew his exertions wherever they might be wanted. He was as gallant a spirit as ever went into a field! ”

“ It is not unusual to meet, in the society of the present day, some old Peninsular trump, with the270 rank very probably of a field officer, and with a face as polished, and its upper story as well furnished as the figure-head of his sword hilt, gravely asserting that all the merit which the Duke of Wellington has acquired from his victories was due to the troops! And having plundered the Commander-in-Chief of his glory, and divided it among the followers, he, as an officer of those same followers, very complacently claims a field officer's allowance in the division of the spoil. ”

“ Nothing shows the spirit of daring and inherent bravery of the British soldier so much as in the calling for a body of volunteers for any desperate service. In other armies, as Napier justly remarks, the humblest helmet may catch a beam of glory; but in ours, while the subaltern commanding the forlorn hope may look for death or a company, and the field-officer commanding the stormers an additional step by brevet, to the other officers and soldiers who volunteer on that desperate service, no hope is held out—no reward given ”

“ I have often seen half the number of troops put to death, without half the bluster and confusion which takes place in a sham fight in the Phœnix-Park of Dublin.
The man who blusters at a field day is not the man who does it on the field of battle: on the contrary his thoughts there are generally too big for utterance, and he would gladly squeeze himself into a nutshell if he could. The man who makes a noise on the field of battle is generally a good one, but all rules have their exceptions, for I have seen one or two thorough good ones, who were blusterers in both situations ”

“ That the last laird of Abbots-Haugh had lived like a right good country gentleman all of the olden days, the manner of his death will testify, for though his living history is lost in the depth of time, his death is still alive in the recollections of our existing great grandfathers. He was, to the best of my belief, wifeless and relationless, nevertheless, when the time approached that "the old man he must die," he did as all prudent men do, made his temporal arrangements previous to the settling of that last debt which he owed to nature. ”

“ When my wounded friend took post on the road-side, it was in the midst of a panic amongst the followers of the army, caused by an imaginary charge of cavalry—he tried in vain, for a length of time, to attract the notice of somebody, when his eyes were at length regaled by a staff surgeon of his acquaintance, who approached amid the crowd of fugitives, and, having no doubt but he would at length receive the requisite attention, he hailed him by name as soon as he came within reach. ”

“ In these days of invention, when every suggestion for ameliorating the condition of the soldier is thankfully received, I, as one, who have suffered severely by outward thawings and inward gnawings, beg to found my claim to the gratitude of posterity, by proposing that, when a regiment is ordered on active service, the drummers shall deposit their sheep-skins and their cat-o'-nine tails in the regimental store-room, leaving one cat only in the keeping of the drum major. And in lieu thereof that each drummer be armed with a tin drum full of "hot, all hot!" ”

“ There is nothing on earth so splendid—nothing so amusing to a military soul as this assembling of an army for active service—to see fifty thousand men all actuated by one common spirit of enterprize, and the cause their country's! And to see the manner, too, in which it acts on the national characters enlisted307 in it—the grave-looking, but merry-hearted Englishman—the canny, cautious, and calculating Scotchman, and the devil-may-care nonchalance of the Irish. ”

“ In place of harassing the men with perpetual flank patroles, blistering their feet over the loose stones with shoes full of sand, and expending their valuable wind, which is so much wanted towards the end of the day, in scrambling over uneven ground, let me recommend the advanced guard to confine itself to the high road until patrolling becomes necessary, which, in a forest, will be from the time they enter until they leave it, unless they can trust to the information that the enemy are otherwise engaged. ”

“ I think I see a regiment of those writers who are just now taking the cat by the tail, parading for a day's march under that immortal chief—that he furnishes them with an ink-bottle for a canteen, fills their knapsacks with foolscap, their mouths with mouldy biscuit, and starts them off with sloped pens. ”

“ Head-aches and heart-aches were unknown amongst them, and whether they slept under a roof, a tent, or the open sky, or whether they amused themselves with a refreshing bath in a stream, or amused the enemy with a shot, was all a matter of indifference.227 I do not eulogize our own men at the expense of others, for although the light division stood on that particular post alone, our chief confidence originated in the hope and belief that every division in the army was animated by the same spirit. ”

“ The most difficult and at the same time the most important duty to teach a young soldier on first coming into active service, is how to take care of himself. It is one which, in the first instance, requires the unwearied attention of the officer, but he is amply repaid in the long run, for when the principle is once instilled into him, it is duly appreciated, and he requires no further trouble. ”

“ Where soldiers are to be ruled, there is more logic in nine tails of a cat than in the mouths of a hundred orators; it requires very little argument to prove, and I'll defy the most eloquent preacher, (with the unknown tongue to boot,) to persuade a regiment to ford a river where there is a bridge to conduct them over dry-shod, or to prevent them drinking when they are in that river if they happen to feel thirsty, let him promise them what he will as a reward for their obedience. ”

“ The troops of all arms composing the rear guard conducted themselves admirably throughout the whole of that retreat, for although the enemy did not press them so much as they might have done, yet they were at all times in close contact, and many times in actual combat, and it was impossible to say which was the most distinguished—the splendid service of the horse artillery, the dashing conduct of the dragoons, or the unconquerable steadiness and bravery of the infantry. ”

“ At the commencement of the battle of Waterloo, three companies of our riflemen held a sand bank, in front of the position, and abreast of La Haye Saint, which we clung to most tenaciously, and it was not until we were stormed in front and turned in both flanks that we finally left it. Previous to doing so, however, a French officer rushed out of their ranks and made a dash at one of ours, but neglecting the prudent precaution of calculating the chances of success before striking the first blow, it cost him his life. ”

“ The prejudice against will-making by soldiers on service is so strong, that had H. been a rich man in place of a poor one, he must have died on the spot for doing what was accounted infinitely more desperate than storming a breach; but his poverty seemed to have been his salvation, for he was only half killed,—a ball entered under his eye, passed down the roof of the mouth, through the palate, entered again at the collar-bone, and was cut out at the shoulder-blade. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fourteen summers had not yet passed over her youthful countenance, which was of a delicate freshness, more English than Spanish—her face though not perhaps rigidly beautiful, was nevertheless so remarkably handsome, and so irresistibly attractive, surmounting a figure cast in nature's fairest mould, that to look at her was to love her—and I did love her ”

“ But a nearer approach shews that the day of its glory has long departed, the winds are howling through the glassless casements, the roof is plastered by the pigeons, the pigs and the poultry are galloping at large over the ruins of the garden-wall, luxuriating in its once costly shrubbery, and a turkey is most likely seen at the hall-door, staring the visitor impertinently in the face, and blustering as if he would say, "if you want me you must down with the dust." ”

“ Aurora did not throw off her night-cap at the usual hour, and when she could no longer delay the ceremony she shed such an abundance of dewy tears that Sabugal, with its steel-clad heights, remained invisible to the naked eye at the distance of a few hundred yards, which interfered materially with that punctuality in the combined movements so necessary to ensure the complete success of our enterprize. Leaving, therefore, to those concerned to account for their delays, my object in renewing this battle is to pay a last tribute to the memory of Sir Sidney Beckwith, the hero of that day. ”

“ I have often seen the hunted devil look round in astonishment, but I do not think he ever saw the wit of the thing, and for that matter I don't know that my readers will feel that they are much wiser, but it was nevertheless amusing to us; and not without its use, for the soldiers enjoyed the joke, which, though trifling, helped to keep up that larking spirit among them, which contributed so much towards the superiority and the glory of our arms. ”