A British Rifle Man: The Journals and Correspondence of Major George Simmons, Rifle Brigade, During the Peninsular War and the Campaign of WaterlooSimmons, George
History
A British Rifle Man: The Journals and Correspondence of Major George Simmons, Rifle Brigade, During the Peninsular War and the Campaign of Waterloo
Simmons, George
Peninsular War, 1807-1814; Waterloo, Battle of, Waterloo, Belgium, 1815
minutes after found our fellows and the enemy hotly engaged near me.
Their skirmishers were beaten back and the column stopped. Two men
dragged me away to the farm of Mont St. Jean, a little to the rear,
where Mr. Robson extracted a musket-ball from my breast.
[Waterloo Journal ends. The preceding was apparently written in
Brussels between 1st and 3rd July 1815.]
Letter No. XXV
[Undated but bearing post-mark of 1st July.]
Bruxelles, _1815_
My dear Parents—Through the blessings of Almighty God I am at last
able to give you some account of myself, which I never expected to be
able to do in this world. On the 16th of June, after passing a long
tranquillity at this place, our Division marched at 4 o'clock in the
morning. We moved forward 20 miles and gave the French battle. A more
bloody or obstinately contested thing had seldom or never been seen.
This convinced me that the French would fight for Buonaparte. The
darkness of the night only separated us.
The following day was passed principally in reconnoitring and squibbing
at one another; nothing done of consequence. Towards noon retired to a
position. Our cavalry and the French had some charging and sabring each
other. The rain fell in torrents, and continued raining all the night.
On the 18th the French seemed to be very busy moving immense columns
opposite us preparatory to an attack. About noon they commenced a
cannonade, from, I daresay, 150 pieces of cannon, which was very soon
answered by us. Immense columns in imposing masses now moved towards
us. If you could have seen the proud and fierce appearance of the
British at that tremendous moment, there was not one eye but gleamed
with joy. The onset was terrible. After four hours' exposure to it
I received the dangerous wound which laid me amongst many others in
the mud. Most of the men with me were killed, so it was some time
before any officer noticed me, and not until I had been trampled over
many times. The next place I found myself in was where the men and
officers had been collected for the surgeon. A good surgeon, a friend
of mine, instantly came to examine my wound. My breast was dreadfully
swelled. He made a deep cut under the right pap, and dislodged from
the breast-bone a musket-ball. I was suffocating with the injury my
lungs had sustained. He took a quart of blood from my arm. I now began
to feel my miseries. Sergeant Fairfoot was also here wounded in the
arm. He got me everything he could, and said he would go and knock
some French prisoner off his horse for me in order to get me off. The
balls were riddling the house we were in. He got me a horse. They
tried to lift me upon it, but I fainted; some other officer took it.
In consequence of a movement the French made with all their forces,
our people were obliged to retire. If I stayed I must be a prisoner,
and being a prisoner was the same as being lost. Poor Fairfoot was
in great agitation. He came with another horse. I remember some Life
Guardsmen helped me on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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