Sir J. W. Fortescue

“ In November, Clinton, in obedience to his orders, sent away half of his army to England and the West Indies. He was so sensible of the injury inflicted on his forces by the loss of some of his best troops, that he begged to be allowed to resign his command, and required some pressure to induce him to retain it. His difficulties were great enough, for everything was going wrong in New York. In December there was not a fortnight’s flour in store, and not a penny in the military chest. The clothing provided for the men proved to be bad, and was condemned right and left by their officers. ”

“ Suffice it that between bad luck and bad management both men and horses suffered very severely. Probably there never was a time excepting the winter of 1854 when the troop-horses of a British cavalry division were almost without exception hog-maned and rat-tailed, the poor creatures having eaten each other’s hair in the extremity of hunger. As to the men of the Seventeenth, it is enough to say that they shared the misery and hardship which was borne by the rest of the army, which was cruel enough. ”

“ Firearms were the rage of the day, and governed the whole system of cavalry [3] attack. Thus in action the front rank fired its two pistols, and filed away to load again in the rear, while the second and third ranks came up and did likewise. If the word were given to charge, the men advanced to the charge pistol in hand, fired, threw it in the enemy’s face, and then fell in with the sword. But though there was a very elaborate exercise for carbine and pistol, there was no such thing as sword exercise. ”

“ Then came further variations of wheeling, and wheeling about by half-ranks, thirds of ranks, and fours; each movement being executed of course to the halt on a fixed pivot, so that through all these intricate manœuvres the regiment practically never moved off its ground. No doubt when performed, as in smart regiments they were performed, like clockwork, these evolutions were very pretty—and of course, like all drill, they had a disciplinary as well as an æsthetic value; but it must be confessed that they left a blight upon the British cavalry for more than a century. ”

“ Every man of the forty-three that were present of Sir William Gordon’s troop killed two, and Gordon himself, galloping like the wind, killed four with his own sword, and knocked over as many more with his horse’s chest. He had, however, a narrow escape; a rebel, who was just about to fire at his back, being killed in the nick of time by Sergeant Cope. Tantia’s main army as usual turned and fled when the British infantry fairly advanced against them. Had Michel’s cavalry been more numerous he might have cut the whole of the rebels to pieces ”

“ But not a man of the army complained, and all, by Cornwallis’s own testimony, showed exemplary patience and spirit. Meanwhile the Americans gave him no rest. No sooner was his back turned on South Carolina than they attacked his posts right and left, making particular efforts against Lord Rawdon at Camden. In fact, in spite of all the hard work done and the hardships endured with invincible patience by the British troops, the state of the country was worse than ever—armed parties of Americans everywhere and all communications cut. ”

“ Nevertheless the white men were sufficiently persistent in their pursuit of Cudjoe to force him to abandon the Clarendon district; but this only made matters worse, inasmuch as it drove him to an impregnable fastness, whence there was no hope of dislodging him, in the Trelawney district farther to the north-west. This cockpit contained seven acres of fertile land and a spring of water. Its entrance was a defile half a mile long; its rear was barred by a succession of other cockpits, its flanks protected by lofty precipices. Here Cudjoe made his headquarters and laughed at the white men. ”

“ Light Dragoons thought a great deal of themselves, and were well looked after even on furlough. At the bottom of every furlough paper was a note requesting any officer who might read it to report to the regiment if the bearer were “unsoldierly in dress or manner.” We gather, from a stray order, “that soldiers shall wear their hair under their hats,” that even in those days men were bitten with the still prevailing fashion of making much of their hair; but we must hope that Hale’s regiment knew better than to yield to it. ”

“ Warned by the horns of the scouts that an enemy was approaching, the Maroons hid themselves in ambush behind rocks and trees, selected each his man, shot him down, and then vanished to some fresh position. Turn whither he might, the unlucky pursuer was met always by a fresh volley from an invisible foe, who never fired in vain. ”

“ The officer of the 18th, seeing that retreat through the defile would be fatal, dashed straight forward at a small party of Maroons which he saw ahead, broke through them, and galloping headlong through a breakneck country, brought the remains of his detachment safely to Lord Balcarres’s camp. Two officers and thirty-five men were killed, and many more wounded in this little affair; and the militia (who had not been under fire) were so far demoralised that they evacuated the new town and retired. That night (though Balcarres knew it not) every Maroon warrior got blind drunk. ”

“ So ended the first war service of the 17th Light Dragoons. It will have been remarked that since 1779 little has been said of the headquarters of the regiment stationed at New York. The answer is that there is little or nothing to say, no operations of any importance having been undertaken in the North after the capture of Charleston. Yet it is certain that the duties of foraging, patrolling, and reconnaissance must have kept the men in New York perpetually engaged in trifling skirmishes and petty actions, whereof all record has naturally perished. ”

“ The squadron became the unit, and the word Troop was abolished—abolished, that is to say, in hope rather than in deed; for words which have the sanction of two centuries of use are not so easily expunged. When troops of cavalry first came into existence in England they were at least sixty men strong; when they were first organised by Statute they were one hundred men strong. Squadrons, again, were not compounds, but fractions of troops. Be that as it may, however, the old word Troop was for the time abolished, though not for long, and that of Squadron took its place. ”

“ Tantia Topee had 5000 men and 6 guns. His advanced guard alone was visible when Michel moved out to meet him, 9th Oct. and he himself was quite unaware of Michel’s proximity. Tantia’s position, as it happened, was strong; his advanced guard having reached an elevated village, surrounded by high scrubby jungle, in which it was impossible for infantry to perceive an enemy, while his guns commanded the ground over which the British must advance. With unusual boldness Tantia sent his cavalry forward and menaced both flanks of the British. ”

“ Tucker had accompanied the regiment from England as a volunteer; he went back with it to England as a cornet. Incidents of this kind must have been frequent round New York; and as seventeen men of the Seventeenth, exclusive of those taken at Yorktown, were prisoners in the hands of the Americans at the close of the war, there can be no doubt that the garrison duty in that city was not mere ordinary routine.
A few odd facts remain to be noted respecting the officers. The first of these, gleaned from General Clinton’s letter-book of 1780, is rather pathetic. ”

“ The troop of the Seventeenth was sent with Tarleton’s legion to Port Royal, a little to the north of Savannah, where it was landed and quartered at Beaufort, at the head of the harbour. With great difficulty it procured forty or fifty inferior horses; and after a time was ordered to join some reinforcements that were marching up from Savannah, and advance up country with them to unite with Clinton’s army before Charleston. Meanwhile the people of the country, knowing that the British had lost their horses, equipped themselves as cavalry to harass the column on the march. ”

“ In an instant the handful of men dashed into the jungle, heedless of what might be there, and was in the midst of the Velliattees. Order of any kind on such ground was impossible, so every man worked for himself; and with such effect did the lances play that when the Seventeenth finally emerged from the jungle they left over eighty of the rebels dead on the ground. ”

“ After wasting three days in the vain attempt to capture Chunderi from Scindia’s garrison, Tantia moved south about twenty miles to Mungrowlee—as fate ordained it, straight into the jaws of his pursuers. Michel having marched since daybreak thirty-five miles north-eastward from Seronge, was in the act of pitching his camp at Mungrowlee, when a lancer of the picquet galloped in with the report that the rebels were close at hand. ”

“ He came to the Seventeenth at a time when such a commander was especially valuable, for the slack period of the British army, perhaps inevitable after the exertions of the great war, was telling heavily on the cavalry. The drill was stiff, unpractical, and obsolete—designed, apparently, to assimilate the movements of cavalry and infantry as far as possible to each other. It was so useful (this was the pretext alleged) for officers to be able to handle horse and foot with equal facility. ”

“ The bare existence of such a community was a standing menace at such a time. There was evidence that French agents were at work in Jamaica; and it was remarkable that just at this time the negroes on nine plantations, where the managers were known to be men of unusual clemency, showed symptoms of unrest and discontent. It is evident from Balcarres’s despatches that he had negro insurrection, so to speak, on the brain, and it is certain that he was ambitious of military glory; but he cannot be blamed at such a time for acting forcibly and swiftly. ”

“ In this same year the Lancers’ tunic was embellished with a plastron of the colour of the regimental facings,—a change which made the dress of the Seventeenth, by general admission, the smartest in the Army. The plastron being an essential feature in the uniform of the German Uhlan, is presumably imitated from Napoleon’s Polish Lancers. No one will quarrel with so smart a dress; but it is nevertheless a little curious that the whole world should go to Poland for its Lancer fashions. ”

“ But the principal distinction of the new regiment was the badge, chosen by Colonel Hale and approved by the King, of the Death’s Head and the motto “Or Glory,”—the significance of which lies not so much in claptrap sentiment, as in the fact that it is, as it were, a perpetual commemoration of the death of Wolfe. It is difficult for us to realise, after the lapse of nearly a century and a half, how powerfully the story of that death seized at the time upon the minds of men.
Two days after the settlement of the dress, a warrant was issued for the arming of Colonel Hale’s Light Dragoons ”

“ The rebels were now reported to be seven miles ahead, and it was determined, somewhat unfortunately, to march up to their encampment at once. As the British approached they were fired on by a rebel picquet; so that they could then do nothing more than lie down and wait till daylight. A small picquet of infantry, who had been riding on camels at the head of the column, was posted by the staff officer, and the Seventeenth then lay down on the ground, with their bridles in their hands. In a few moments every man was sound asleep. ”

“ But in addition to these a troop of the regiment under its own officers was frequently joined to it, which though in contemporary accounts generally included in the term “Cavalry of the legion,” was distinct from it and careful to preserve its individuality.
With the change in the composition of the army came simultaneously a change in the plan of campaign, by a return to the scheme, already tried once at the outbreak of the war, of an expedition to the Carolinas; where it was hoped that the loyalists were numerous and ready to rally round the army. ”

“ The fact is rendered certain by the mention of twenty-five men in the melancholy roll of the capitulation of Yorktown, which twenty-five I take to be the remnant of the small body that was permanently attached to Tarleton’s legion. Moreover, it was not likely that Cornwallis, who was badly in want of light troops, would have left them to do garrison work with Rawdon. The loose expression “legion-cavalry” is so often used to cover the whole of the mounted force under Tarleton’s command, that it is frequently difficult to distinguish the detachment of the Seventeenth from the irregulars. ”

“ Next day, Lord Raglan having been obliged, in deference to the French, to abandon his plan of attacking Sebastopol from the north, the army executed the flank march which brought it round from the north to the south side of the city. The march lay through difficult wooded ground; and the cavalry, which had been pushed forward to cover the advance, was misguided by a staff-officer. The result was that Lord Raglan and his escort were the first to come upon the rear-guard of the Russian army, which was likewise, though unknown to the English, executing a flank march across the British front. ”

“ The result was a quasi-civil war of the most barbarous kind—in fact, a turning loose of all the worst characters in the West Indies on the track of massacre and plunder. The garrisons of the British islands were so weak that in some cases, as in St. Lucia, they were overpowered and in others pressed to extremity. Grenada being the island wherewith the Seventeenth was engaged, it is necessary to glance at the course of the revolt therein.
Grenada, like most of the West Indian Islands, is simply a rugged, confused mass of volcanic hills, rising at their highest to three thousand feet. ”

“ Every one, including Lord Lucan, expected to see the Light Brigade fall down on the Russian flank, and smash it completely. But Lord Cardigan judged that his instructions forbade him to attack, and refused to move. Every man in the Brigade was waiting for the order to charge, and Lord Cardigan himself cursed loudly at his own inaction. Captain Morris, doing duty with his regiment for the first time since it had landed in the Crimea, begged and prayed his Brigadier to let loose, if not the whole Brigade, at any rate the Seventeenth Lancers ”

“ We must conceive of the regiment’s life as best we may during this period, for we have no information to help us. Colonel Blaquiere, we have no doubt, paid visits to the outlying troops from time to time, and probably was able now and again to get them together for work in the field, particularly when an inspecting officer’s visit was at hand. We know, from the inspection returns, that the Seventeenth advanced and gained the flank of the enemy every year, in a fashion which commanded [29] the admiration of all beholders. ”

“ Within the past year he has served with credit under General Amherst at the capture of Cape Breton and Louisburg, and in these days of August, while Burgoyne is raising his regiment, he is before Quebec with General Wolfe. Three months more pass away, and on the 13th of October Colonel John Hale suddenly arrives in London. He is the bearer of despatches which are to set all England aflame with pride and sorrow; for on the 13th of September was fought the battle on the plains of Abraham which decided the capture of Quebec and the conquest of Canada. ”

“ After weeks of hard work the small British force had lost two field officers and seventy men killed in action alone, to say nothing of wounded, and men dead from sickness and fatigue, while not a single Maroon was certainly known to have been killed. The situation was becoming serious: the negroes had begun to join the Maroons; the French might come at any moment; and then there would be every likelihood of a general revolt of the blacks against the whites, such as had already taken place in the Windward Islands. Walpole soon altered the whole plan of operations. ”

“ Michel at once sent off the cavalry to his extreme right in order to cut off the enemy from their ascertained destination. By chance the rebel artillery found the range of the British at once, and by three or four lucky shots caused some slight loss to the Seventeenth while executing this movement. The English guns, with a strong escort, occupied Michel’s centre. As at Mungrowlee, the rebels made a show of taking the initiative, their infantry advancing against the guns while their horse hovered about the flank of the British cavalry, which charged them with great effect. ”