History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery Vol. 2: Compiled from the Original RecordsDuncan, Francis
History
History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery Vol. 2: Compiled from the Original Records
Duncan, Francis
Great Britain. Army. Royal Regiment of Artillery
The troop of Horse Artillery which accompanied the force was that
commanded by Captain A. Macdonald, and is now D Battery, A Brigade. The
sixteen companies will be found enumerated in the various tables of the
battalions. General Macleod took Captain--afterwards Sir
Robert--Gardiner as his Brigade-Major; and it is from the private
diaries of these officers that the main Regimental incidents connected
[Sidenote: Sir J. T. Jones’s ‘Sieges.’] with this Expedition have been
obtained. Captain Drummond was the General’s Aide-de-camp. The field
officers who accompanied the Artillery were Colonel Terrot,
Lieut.-Colonels Dixon, Franklin, Cookson, and Wood, and Majors
Griffiths, Dixon, and Waller. The immense battering train included 70
guns and 74 mortars; and we learn that not merely was a large supply of
Congreve’s rockets taken for [Sidenote: A.-A.-Gen. to Colonel Neville,
18 July, 1809.] employment as siege weapons, but also that every man in
the Regiment who had been trained to the use of rockets was ordered to
embark with the army.
The name of nearly every Artillery officer with the Expedition will
appear in the course of the narrative. In the meantime the following
numerical return of the force under General Macleod’s command will be
found worthy of perusal. (_See opposite page._)
The Second Division of the army, which General Macleod accompanied,
sailed from the Downs on Saturday, the 29th July, 1809, and anchored the
same evening in the Stein Diep. On the following day they weighed
anchor, and moved into the Room Pot, where they found the First
Division, and where orders were at once given for the troops to land in
light marching order. At 4 P.M. the first six battalions landed, without
opposition, at the Bree Zand, and during the night the remainder of the
troops, under the command of Sir Eyre Coote, continued to disembark,
with the several brigades of Artillery attached to them,--the last named
being under the command of Colonel Terrot. The following detail shows
the Artillery attached to this part of the army:--
Captain Marsh’s Light 6-pr. Brigade, attached to Lieut-Gen. Frazer.
” Webber Smith’s ” ” Major-Gen. Graham.
” Massey’s ” ” Lieut.-Gen. Lord Paget.
There was also a Heavy Brigade under Captain S. Adye.
About 3 P.M. the reserve, under Sir John Hope, proceeded to South
Beveland (immediately adjoining Walcheren), accompanied by Captain
Wilmot’s Light 6-pounder Brigade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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