Sir Richard Henegan, who served in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo

PASSING through the graveyard of St Brelade’s Church cemetery is a gravestone remembering “Sir Richard Henegan, who served in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo”.

BIRTH 28 Dec 1783
DEATH 28 Dec 1872 (aged 89)

The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was a military conflict between Napoleon's empire and the Spanish who were trying to take control of the Kingdom of Portugal, and the United Kingdom.

Chief among the military leaders was Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who also defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.

Henegan was Military Commissary in the Field Train, in charge of supplying ammunition to the British and Portuguese armies and was twice almost executed by Spanish guerrillas when away from his unit.

For his service during these campaigns he was awarded the title of Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order, a decoration founded by George III and handed out for distinguished services to the UK from 1815-1837.

He later wrote of his experiences in a memoir “Seven years Campaigning in the Peninsula and the Netherlands 1808-1815”, described as an “entertaining bustling narrative.”

At Waterloo he was commended for providing ‘a timely and important supply of ammunition towards the close of day’ despite having to transport it ‘over bad roads with but scanty means of transport

Extract from the Book

(Paintings are sourced independently by me, and are not in the book)

CHAPTER XXXI.

HISTORIANS have celebrated, and poets sung, the Field of Waterloo; and as far as it has been possible, have dilated upon the beginning, progress, and result of that eventful battle, until nothing has been left to add to the many glowing pictures they have transmitted to posterity. It is true that all have been subjected, more or less, to the charge of incorrectness, on some particular point or another, and have given rise to contradiction and controversy, nor is it possible that it should be otherwise, when it is considered that information on the details of battles must necessarily be gleaned from individuals, whose individual feelings are interested, and consequently are to be gratified.

Leaving therefore such points as admit of dispute to those who have already met on the hostile ground of controversy concerning them, it will perhaps be more interesting to look back upon the plains of Waterloo through that prism only, whose faithful accuracy time has tested; and which brings them to the view of all, as plains hallowed by the lifeblood of the brave: as plains, on which thousands of deep imbedded recollections linger still.

Vain indeed would be the efforts of the human pen, accurately as it might delineate the leading features of the contest on the plains of Waterloo, to trace even the faintest outline of the feelings that flowed from that vast fount of human suffering. How many have found refuge in the grave from the intensity of sorrow, that mingled with the name of Waterloo. How many have withered in the chill blight of memory, unable to force the sap of life from its strong tenement, and thus dragged on a miserable existence!

Others again—like the sapling that bows to the earth its young head as the raging storm sweeps over it, escaping annihilation by bending to the stroke-were laid prostrate by the sudden wrenching in twain of ardent affection. Sorrowing in deep despair over the field of Waterloo, their grief found at length extinction, in its own violence.

On the morning of the eventful 18th of June, the allies rose from their bivouac on the wet earth—for the night had been a tempestuous one—and prepared to face the formidable enemy that lay stretched, in masses of cavalry and infantry, along the opposite heights. This army, headed by Napoleon, numbered eighty thousand men, and was supported by a well-equipped artillery of two hundred and fifty guns. Moreover, it possessed the immense advantage of being composed of men of one nation; men, bound together by the pride of country, as well as by an enthusiastic feeling towards their sovereign and leader.

Whereas, of the allied army under Wellington's command, although but slightly inferior in point of numbers to the French, twenty five-thousand only were British soldiers. The rest were foreign troops; some of which were nobly brave others were rendered useful auxiliaries by the power of good example  while others again were to be trusted so cautiously, that their absence from the field would only have been felt as a security against treachery.

The hostile armies occupied heights running nearly parallel with each other. The distance that separated them was about twelve hundred yards, and the intermediate ground, or rather valley, formed by a gentle declivity on either side. was richly covered with luxuriant corn.

The allied forces stretched across the high roads that lead to Brussels from Charleroi and Nivelles, having in their rear, at a distance of about two miles, the Forest of Soignies. Their left extended to the hamlet of Ter la Haye, from whence a road leads to St. Lambert, by which a communication with the Prussians was maintained. In front of their left centre stood the farm-house and gardens of La Haye Sainte, and towards the centre of their right, the Château of Hougoumont.

The enemy's attack on the latter position at about eleven o'clock A.M., on the 18th, was the commencement of the battle of Waterloo.

 
At about that hour, a numerous host of tirailleurs advanced close to the wood and orchard of the château, followed by two massive columns of the 2nd corps of the French army, under Jerome Buonaparte. Pressing rapidly through the waving corn, these columns were next seen as rapidly pressing up the slopes that led to Hougoumont; but here they had to deal with British and German valour, and while a detachment of the guards that occupied the house poured upon the assailants a fire calculated to impair the ardour of the assault, the opening thunder of the battle pealed through the air from Cleeves's battery of nine-pounders, stationed on a height, at a distance of about three hundred yards to the left, and a little in advance of the front line.

The leading column was seen to lose its firmness, and to hurry onwards, when a second roar of artillery, from the battery of Captain Sandham, posted on a height that nearly faced the advancing foe, stopped its progress, by laying low the front ranks. Before the rear could fill up the gaps, Cleeves' guns were again at work, and as the two batteries threw, with deadly aim, their showers of spherical and case shot on front and flank, the columns wheeled round, and retired in precipitation and disorder.

Thus commenced the battle of Waterloo; a battle that differed from all others in the sacrifices demanded and conceded during its long continuance, of nine hours. Wellington had taken the best position left to him. It covered the capital of Belgium—it communicated on the left with the Prussians. The undulating nature of the ground was favourable for acting on the defensive until the arrival and co-operation of Blucher, and upon strict adherence to the defensive, the safety of Wellington depended.

Here then was no field for the display of skilful generalship, and tactical knowledge. The one great essential to a Commander so placed, was firmness, and fortunately for the allies, Wellington possessed that attribute in no small degree. The one great essential for soldiers so placed, was blind obedience—which is a habit rather than a principle and was so rigidly inculcated in the British army by the Duke of Wellington, that he well knew how far he could depend upon its practice in the field.

 
Necessity demanded that the position of the allies at Waterloo should be maintained, though rivers of blood should flow from its defenders. And more than this; necessity demanded that brave men should stand passively to be slain, nor slay in turn, until, like automatons, their faculties were put into movement by a superior power. This it was, that made the bloody field of Waterloo one, over which angels might have wept

No retaliation was offered by the brave, the young, the haughty, as mutilated and bleeding, their comrades fell in heaps around them. The flashing eye and panting heart, told what the spirit longed to do; but confidence in their leader, and blind obedience to his will, were stronger even than revenge, and like lambs they stood the slaughter, until the word of command roused them to be lions.

During this contest, the French varied their modes of attack, sometimes by advancing columns of infantry, flanked by cavalry, and under cover of a powerful artillery. At such times, our gunners, posted on the rising ground, would throw their missiles, with tremendous effect, among the closely wedged masses, and if driven from their guns to seek shelter in the squares, our heavy cavalry rushed down the slopes, and, with their powerful horses, rode down the mailed squadrons of the foe; while our infantry deploying into line-generally only two deep-would steadily ascend the slope that sheltered it from the enemy's batteries, and facing the advancing mass, until within sometimes only twenty yards, would greet them with a well directed volley. 

The next moment, the order to charge” would be responded to by a true British “hurrah,” and before the enemy could fly back to his position, the guns, that had been momentarily abandoned, were again at work. Our infantry would then steadily resume its place behind the slopes, often lying down to avoid the fire; and the cavalry having driven back to their own territory the French squadrons, would resume its station, ready to repulse, in the same manner, similar attacks.

At other times, the French cuirassiers advanced in heavy masses, covered by their artillery. As they boldly ascended the slopes, exposed to a murderous fire from the batteries, our gunners were again driven to seek shelter in the squares, or under the limbers of their guns, where many were lanced and sabred.

The slopes that at morning's dawn had worn their covering of freshest verdure, were at evening's close, heaped depositories of dead men's bodies. The corn that had waved in rich luxuriance, was now trampled to the earth from whence it sprung, stanching with its heavy fruitfulness, many a stream that flowed from the death-gaps of the brave. The clearness of a summer sky was screened by a thick and lurid atmosphere that pressed upon the field of carnage, as gloom presses on the hearts of men, who think themselves sacrificed in vain. And such was, for a time, the thought of many who lived to see the evening hour on the field of Waterloo.

It was nearly seven o'clock, when a thrill of renewed hope and joyful excitement revived the fagged and drooping spirits of our diminished squares and exhausted squadrons. The hour had at length arrived when fortitude and forbearance were to meet with their reward; and as Blucher's guns boomed in the distance, each man felt that the signal of revenge was given in that glad sound. On Napoleon's ear, the echo fell as the knell of departing glory. One hope and one alone remained. The Imperial Guard had never yet been vanquished.

This veteran band of fifteen thousand men, which had taken little part in the contest of the day, was now ordered to charge the British line; and with noble intrepidity, these renowned warriors, headed by the chivalrous Ney, rushed with fresh and unimpaired vigour to our slopes.

As they advanced, a tremendous fire from our artillery poured destruction into their ranks ; yet, still pressing forward, they gallantly made their way to the ridge that concealed the British guards. The fate of Europe hung upon the crisis; and fortune held in reserve for Wellington, at that moment, the proudest distinction of his military life.

“Up, guards, and at them,” are words that will thrill through the hearts of men, long after who spoke them, and they, who responded to them, are passed away.

The guards sprung up from their recumbent position at the welcome command, and poured a volley into the advancing column that stopped effectually its progress. Panic-stricken, the Imperial veterans staggered, as a second well-directed fire took fatal effect among them; and as the British guards charged with overwhelming fury down the hill, these old soldiers durst not meet the shock, but turned and fled in wild disorder, pursued by the victorious guards and Adam's light brigade.

Vainly did some of the vieille garde, in reserve at the bottom of the descent, try to reform the routed columns.

Our cavalry, headed by the noble Uxbridge, dashed among them, driving them onwards into the thick confusion, that now began to envelope, in every direction, the French army.

 
By this time, the Prussians were pressing heavily on the right flank of the enemy; and Wellington, no longer restrained by the stern necessity of prudence, which had been so dearly practised throughout the long day of tumult and anxiety, ordered his whole line to advance upon the foe.

The brave allies, forgetting past tribulation in present glory, advanced with loud cheers to the attack; and the last effulgent rays of a setting sun shone on the conqueror, Wellington, as he led the general charge. With desperate valour, the warriors of the Imperial guard endeavoured to check the tide of victory by making a stand worthy of their high repute. Vain effort ! Onwards, like a tempestuous torrent, rushed the victorious allies, sweeping before them, in one blended mass, a confused and broken multitude, while the Prussian cavalry, animated by a spirit of deadly hatred, followed up the pursuit with eager ferocity, repaying with interest, upon the flying remains of la grande armée, their long standing debt of revenge.

On the ground where stood, on the morning of the 18th, this formidable army of Napoleon, the junction of the allies with the Prussians was consummated at close of day, by the meeting of Wellington and Blucher, and by the mingling together of British and Prussian voices in one heartfelt cry of “victory."