[110] The following nine non-commissioned officers of the 2nd Battalion volunteered for the forlorn hope: Sergeant Bowley, wounded Sergeant Spencer ” Comerford, ” ” Tuite ” Derby, killed Corporal Larkins, wounded ” Ecke, ” ” Nesbitt, ” ” Fairfoot,[111] wounded [111] Afterwards Quartermaster. [112] This anecdote, which I had often heard in the 1st Battalion, was related to me with graphic distinctness by Colonel Smith. As may be imagined, his relation differed somewhat from the story, which, passing through many mouths, I had heard in the Battalion. It was strange to hear it from the lips of one of the actors in it, when the other had slept more than sixty years in the breach at Rodrigo. [113] The following non-commissioned officers of the 2nd Battalion volunteered for the forlorn hope: Sergeant Cairns Corporal Coward, wounded ” Fairfoot, wounded ” Derby, killed ” Kennedy, ” ” McCordell, wounded ” Taggart, ” ” Nesbitt. ” Tuite [114] He was appointed to a second-lieutenancy in the Regiment May 9 following. He left it in 1814, and died at Sligo, March 1874. [115] Book xvi. chap. v. This incident is also mentioned by Kincaid. It is to be regretted that the name of this heroic Rifleman has not been preserved. [116] Kincaid, ‘Random Shots,’ p. 288. CHAPTER IV. Soon after the capture of Badajos the command of the Light Division was given to Baron Charles Alten, and the two Brigades of which it consisted were commanded, one by Barnard, and afterwards by Sir James Kempt, and the other by General Vandeleur. On Craufurd’s death and Vandeleur’s wound at Ciudad Rodrigo, the command of the Division had devolved on Barnard. How well he handled it, and how gallantly he led it at Badajos, has already been recorded. I may here note that Barnard, who had hitherto commanded the 3rd Battalion, soon after this period was transferred to the command of the 1st Battalion, in Beckwith’s place, who had, as already noted, gone home on account of his health, and did not again return to the Peninsula. He was one of the original officers of the Regiment, and a most excellent Rifleman. In here parting from him as a regimental officer, I may add Kincaid’s testimony to his merits. ‘He was,’ he says, ‘one of the ablest of outpost generals. Few officers knew so well how to make the most of a small force. His courage, coupled with his thorough knowledge of the soldier’s character, was of that cool, intrepid kind, that would at any time convert a routed rabble into an orderly, effective force. A better officer probably never led a brigade into the field.’[117]