The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign WarsGrant, James
History
The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign Wars
Grant, James
British -- Foreign countries; Great Britain -- History, Military
Fassifern raised his bonnet, set spurs to his horse, the whole regiment
sprang over the ditch which bounded the road, and with bayonets
charged, dashed through the smoke upon the enemy, and routed them.
Officers and men fell fast on every side; but on went the 92nd until
the gable of the two-storied house at the corner of the Charleroi road
broke the centre of their line. Then they formed up in two wings, rank
entire, with the house in the centre; and Cameron sent forward his
cousin Ewen Ross, with the light company, into a wood of olives to
skirmish, where he received a severe wound in the groin. At that time
the grape-shot of the French artillery was sweeping the corn-field
between the wood and the farm-house, and shredding away the ripe ears
like flakes of snow in the wind. A body of French, who occupied the
upper story, were firing briskly from the windows; and others who lined
a thick thorn hedge, defended the avenues to the building.
Here it was that the brave Cameron, of Fassifern, fell; but the
accounts of his death, as related by Siborne and others, are not
strictly correct in detail. He had led his Highlanders close to the
hedge, when a shot from the house passed through his belly, entering on
the left side, and passing out on the right, tearing the intestines,
and inflicting a mortal wound. At the same moment his horse sank under
him, pierced by four musket balls.
The regiment gave a wild cheer, burst in the gates of the garden, and
fearfully was he avenged by the charged bayonet and clubbed musket;
but ere this Captain William Grant, Lieutenants Chisholm, Becher, and
M'Pherson were killed, and soon after were barbarously stripped by the
French. Nineteen officers of the 92nd were wounded, and 280 rank and
file killed and wounded. The aged mother of Chisholm received a widow's
pension from the Government, and Campbell, the adjutant, brought his
claymore and watch home to her in Strathglass, as mementos of that dark
day at Les Quatre Bras.
"The warlike and lamented Colonel Cameron," says his cousin Lieutenant
Ewen Ross (92nd), who was wounded on that day by his side, and whose
letter is now before me, "Cameron, than whom there was not a braver
or better officer in the best or bravest of armies, was left to the
chance care of his orderly sergeant, William Grant, who with a private
of the 4th company led him carefully and slowly to a square of office
houses at Quatre Bras. His horse being perforated by four musket balls,
could carry him no further, and was then shot. The colonel was then
carried in a blanket to Gemappe by Sergeant Grant, Colin Mackenzie the
drum-major, two drummers named MacLean, and three MacRaes belonging to
the band."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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