Waterloo Witnesses by Kristine Hughes

Author:Kristine Hughes [Hughes, Kristine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, Napoleonic Wars, Biography & Autobiography, Modern, 19th Century
ISBN: 9781399003636
Google: zqUvEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
Published: 2021-06-09T01:04:49+00:00

Captain Cavalié Mercer, Commander G Troop, Royal Horse Artillery

It might have been, as nearly as I can recollect about 3:00 p.m., when Sir Augustus Fraser galloped up, crying out, ‘Left limber up, and as fast as you can.’ The words were scarcely uttered when my gallant troop stood as desired in column of subdivisions, left in front, pointing towards the main ridge. ‘At a gallop, march!’ and away we flew, as steadily and compactly as if at a review. I rode with Fraser, whose face was as black as a chimney-sweep’s from the smoke, and the jacket-sleeve of his right arm torn open by a musket-ball or case-shot, which had merely grazed his flesh. As we went along, he told me that the enemy had assembled an enormous mass of heavy cavalry in front of the point to which he was leading us (about one-third of the distance between Hougoumont and the Charleroi road), and that in all probability we should immediately be charged on gaining our position. ‘The Duke’s orders, however, are positive,’ he added, ‘that in the event of their persevering and charging home, you do not expose your men, but retire with them into the adjacent squares of infantry.’ As he spoke, we were ascending the reverse slope of the main position. We breathed a new atmosphere – the air was suffocatingly hot, resembling that issuing from an oven. We were enveloped in thick smoke, and, malgré the incessant roar of cannon and musketry, we could distinctly hear around us a mysterious humming noise, like that which one hears of a summer’s evening proceeding from myriads of black beetles; cannon-shot, too, ploughed the ground in all directions, and so thick was the hail of balls and bullets that it seemed dangerous to extend the arm lest it should be torn off.

[The French] turned to either flank and filed away rapidly to the rear. Retreat of the mass, however, was not so easy. Many facing about and trying to force their way through the body of the column, that part next to us became a complete mob, into which we kept a steady fire of case-shot from our six pieces. The effect is hardly conceivable, and to paint this scene of slaughter and confusion impossible. Every discharge was followed by the fall of numbers, whilst the survivors struggled with each other, and I actually saw them using the pommels of their swords to fight their way out of the mêlée. Some, rendered desperate at finding themselves thus pent up at the muzzles of our guns, as it were, and others carried away by their horses, maddened with wounds, dashed through our intervals – few thinking of using their swords, but pushing furiously onward, intent only on saving themselves. At last the rear of the column, wheeling about, opened a passage, and the whole swept away at a much more rapid pace than they had advanced, nor stopped until the swell of the ground covered them from our fire.

The

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.