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With the wound which struck him down on the Croix des
Bouquets on the 7th of October 1813 Colin Campbell’s active service in
his original regiment ended, and on the 9th of November in the same year
he was promoted to a captaincy without purchase in the Sixtieth Rifles.
Still enfeebled by his wounds, he came home before the end of the year
with the strongest recommendations to the Horse Guards from the
commanders under whom he had served in the field,—recommendations which
do not appear to have availed him materially. He made good his claim to
a temporary wound-pension of £100 a year, but the application made on
his behalf for staff-employment with Sir Thomas Graham in Holland was
not successful.
One would fain gain some introspection into the nature,
character, and tendencies of this young soldier, who in his twenty-first
year was already a veteran of war after more than five years of pretty
constant active service. It would he pleasant to have opportunities for
regarding him as something other than a mere military lay-figure,—to
attain to some conversance with his habits, his tastes, his attitude
towards his comrades, his
relations with his family, the character of such study
and reading as he could find time for, and so forth. But the means for
doing this are altogether lacking. Lord Clyde was a very modest man, and
it was with reluctance that he allowed his papers to he used for the
purposes of a memoir. He, however, left it hy his will to the discretion
of his trustees to dispose of his papers, with the characteristic
injunction: “If a short memoir should appear to them to be absolutely
necessary and indispensable (which I should regret and hope may be
avoided), then it should be limited as much as possible to the modest
recital of the services of an old soldier.” The trustees, seventeen
years after Lord Clyde’s death, judged wisely in sanctioning the
compilation of a memoir, the material available for which was confided
to the late General Shadwell who had been long and intimately associated
with Lord Clyde both at home and on campaign. General Shadwell’s
biography of his chief is a most careful and accurate work; but probably
because of a lack of such material as, for instance, familiar
correspondence affords, it somewhat fails to furnish an adequate
presentment of Colin Campbell as he was during the long years before he
emerged from comparative obscurity, and became gradually a marked and
characteristic figure familiar to and cherished by his
fellow-countrymen.
Campbell served with a battalion of the Sixtieth in Nova
Scotia from October, 1814, to July, 1815, when ill-health caused by his
wounds compelled him to return to Europe. After a course of thermal
treatment in southern France he served for two years at Gibraltar, and
early in 1819 followed to Barbadoes the Twenty-First
Fusiliers to which regiment he had been transferred. The
next seven years of his life be passed in the West Indies,—the first two
years of the seven in Barbadoes, the latter five in Demerara, where he
served as aide-de-camp and brigade-major to the Governor, General
Murray. The tropical climate of the West Indies agreed with him, and
notwithstanding recrudescences of Walcheren feyer and frequent
annoyances from his wounds he was able to enjoy life and relish the
society of the colony. During his soldiering in Spain he and his friend
and comrade Seward had perforce lived on their pay, and had firmly
avoided incurring debt With his captain’s pay and his wound-pension
Campbell found himself no longer obliged to live penuriously, and indeed
was able to assist his father by a considerable annual payment. And now
in Demerara with his staff-appoint-ment he was so well off that, in his
disregard for money, he carelessly allowed his pension to lapse, a
neglect which he had bitter reason to regret later. His friend General
Murray was succeeded in the Demerara command by General Sir Benjamin
D’Urban, a distinguished Peninsular officer, between whom and his
brigade-major there was speedily engendered a mutual esteem and
affection. Probably, indeed, those years in Demerara were the
pleasantest of Colin Campbell’s life. Comfortable (and we may be sure
efficient) in his staff-position, and the right hand man of a chief who
loved him, he was happy in his regiment and welcome everywhere in
society. When in November, 1825, the opportunity presented itself for
his promotion by purchase to a majority in his regiment, it was the
spontaneous generosity of a colonial friend which mainly
enabled him to buy the step. The promotion was of the
greatest professional importance to him, and indeed may be considered
the turning-point of his career; but it required him to vacate his
pleasant appointment and to take leave of the chief whose friendship he
so warmly cherished. Returning to England in 1826 to join the depot of
his regiment, he took home with him the strongest recommendations from
Sir Benjamin D’Urban to the authorities at the Horse Guards; but he
continued to serve with his regiment at home until the autumn of 1832 in
the rank of major, although through the kindness of a relative the money
was ready for the purchase of his promotion to the rank of
lieu-tenant-colonel.
General Shadwell furnishes us with an interesting sketch
of Colin Campbell’s personal aspect from a portrait taken of him in his
uniform at this period of his career. “ A profusion of curly brown hair,
a well-shaped mouth and a wide brow, already foreshadowing the deep
lines which became so marked a feature of his countenance in later
years, convey the idea of manliness and vigour. His height was about
five feet nine, his frame well knit and powerful; and but that his
shoulders were too broad for his height, his figure was that of a
symmetrically-made man. To an agreeable presence he added the charm of
engaging manners, which, according to the testimony of those who were
familiar with him at this period, rendered him popular both at the
dinner-table and in the drawing-room.”
After several disappointments, in October, 1832, through
the good offices of Lord Fitzroy Somerset he was gazetted to an
unattached lieutenant-colonelcy by purchase. The promotion cost him
£1300 and relegated him for a time to half-pay, “after,” to use his own
words, “a period of nearly twenty-five years on full pay- —viz. upwards
of five years as a subaltern, nearly thirteen as captain, and seven as
major.” His time being now at his own disposal, his active and energetic
temperament would not allow him to vegetate in idleness. He determined
to watch the operations of the siege of Antwerp conducted by a French
force under Marshal Gerard against the resolute hut scanty Dutch
garrison, which under the energetic command of General Chasse was
holding tho citadel and outworks of the historic Flemish city. He kept a
detailed and technical journal of the siege operations and of Chassis
obstinate defence, from which he compiled reports for the Horse Guards;
and for these he was afterwards thanked by Lord Hill and Lord Fitzroy
Somerset. It was an experience which must have been of service to him
when he came to hold high command; as he wrote at the time, “ To have
been present at and to have witnessed the operations of a siege
commenced and carried on to the crowning of the crest of the glacis, and
the establishment of the breaching and counter batteries thereon and the
descent of the ditch completed, has given me great satisfaction.” After
the capitulation of Antwerp Campbell wintered in tho quaint old city of
Marburg in Hesse-Cassel, with the twofold purpose of acquiring the
German language and of living economically. The summer and autumn of
1833 he spent in Germany, but was in England during most of 1834
undergoing disappointment after disappointment. His means he found
wholly inadequate for a London life, yet it was clear that it would he
unwise to absent himself from proximity to the authorities. “Doing
nothing and expecting nothing” is one dreary note of this period. Indeed
inaction, which he detested, and the dregs in his constitution of the
old pestilential Walcheren mischief, were combining to make Colin
Campbell morbid and desponding. Yet, considering all things, he had
attained better advancement than many of his old Peninsular comrades.
Take, for example, George Bell of the Royals, a fellow subaltern with
Campbell in Hay’s brigade of Graham’s corps in the Vittoria campaign.
Bell was a younger soldier than Campbell by three years, but he had seen
infinitely more service than his senior. Bell “was engaged in the action
of Arroyo de Molino, the final siege of Badajos, capture of Fort
Napoleon and bridge at Almaraz, in the retreat from Burgos and Madrid,
the battles of Vittoria, the Pyrenees, Pass of Maya and Roneevalles, the
Nive, Bayonne, St. Pierre, Orthes, Tarbes, and Toulouse, with many other
affairs and skirmishes; and he possessed the Peninsular War medal with
seven clasps for as many pitched battles.” Since the Peninsular War he
had fought in India and the Burmese War and had served in the West
Indies. And whereas Colin Campbell was a lieutenant-colonel in 1832
George Bell was still a captain in 1839. To complete the contrast, while
Campbell was a peer and a full general in the middle of 1858 Bell was
still a colonel, after having fought throughout the Crimean War in the
command of a battalion. If the former despaired of fortune when a
lieutenant-colonel after twenty-seven years of service, how bitterly
must the latter have known the hope deferred that maketh the heart sick
when still a colonel after forty-eight years of continuous service!
In the early part of 1835 Colin Campbell, still
despondent, was in London “living in very scanty hopes of employment.”
But in May of that year be was offered and accepted the command of the
Ninety-Eighth regiment. Its service companies were at the Cape, but as
the regiment had nearly completed its period of foreign service it was
finally determined that it was not necessary that he should join it
there. How poor he was when he had the good fortune to revert to
full-pay, may be gathered from his hesitation to become a member of the
United Service Club. “My debts and embarrassments” he records
“indisposed me to entering it;” but a wise friend insisted upon his
taking up his election and hacked his insistence by advancing the
entrance fees. The dep6t of the Ninety-Eighth was at Devonport,
commanded by Captain Henry Eyre, afterwards General, and Colonel of the
Fifty-Ninth regiment; an officer between whom and Colin Campbell there
soon began a friendship which ripened into a most affectionate and
enduring intimacy. By dint of questioning this officer regarding the
minutest details of the regiment, its new chief was already familiar
with its interior economy before its arrival at Portsmouth in the summer
of 1837. He then assumed command, and at once set about putting in
practice the sound principles on which he himself had been trained in
the Ninth regiment,—principles which were the legacy of Sir John Moore
to the British army. In the camp at Shorncliffe that great soldier had
introduced a system of instruction and interior economy which, in the
words of General Shadwell, had produced in the regiments serving under
his command an excellence that had borne the test of trial in the varied
phases of the great Peninsular struggle, and had left a permanent mark
on the service at large. Campbell’s anxious and successful endeavour was
to make the Ninety-Eighth a well disciplined, thoroughly instructed and
trustworthy regiment. The material to his hand was good. He found the
depot in fine order; the service companies brought home by Major Gregory
required merely the weeding out of some hard drinkers whose example was
prejudicial to the younger soldiers and whom the colonel was able to
obtain permission to discharge.
Colin Campbell had a genuine liking for and a thorough
knowledge of the private soldier. Throughout life he was by no means
slow to wrath when occasion stirred it, and sometimes, indeed, when the
incentive was inadequate, for hob Highland blood ran in his veins; and
when his face flushed and his gray eyes scintillated with passion, he
was not a man with whom it were wise to argue. The slack officer and the
bad soldier found no sympathy from a chief whose rebukes were strong and
whose punishments were stem; but he had a true comradeship with those in
whom he recognised some of that zeal of which he himself had perhaps an
excess. Himself ever sedulous in the fulfilment of duty and sparing
himself in nothing, he required of his officers a scrupulous attention
to their duties in everything regarding the instruction, well-being, and
conduct of their men. General Shadwell writes: “Frugal in his habits by
nature and force of circumstances, Colonel Campbell laid stress on the
observance of economy in the officers’ mess, believing a well-ordered
establishment of this kind to be the best index of a good regiment.
Regarding the mess as one of the principal levers of discipline, he made
a rule of attending it even when the frequent return of his fever and
ague rendered late dinners a physical discomfort. Cramped in his means,
he denied himself many little comforts in order that he might have the
wherewithal to return hospitality and be able to set an example to his
brother officers in the punctual discharge of his mess liabilities. His
intercourse with his officers off duty was unrestrained and of the most
friendly character. He sympathised with them in their occupations and
sports, and though the instruction and discipline of the regiment was
carried on with great, strictness, the best feeling pervaded all ranks.”
In the ordinary tour of duty the Ninety-Eighth removed
from Portsmouth to Weedon, and thence it proceeded to Manchester which
was in what was then known as the Northern District command, now
subdivided into the North-Eastern and North-Western Districts. In those
days there were no railways, and the long marches by road, in many
respects advantageous though they were, and worthy as they are, at least
to some extent, of being reverted to at present, certainly tested
severely the discipline of regiments. An officer who took part in the
marches of the Ninety-Eighth thus records his recollections:—“The
regiment was in such a high state of discipline in these marches through
the length and breadth of the land, that none of those occurrences which
have since been the subject of complaint took place. Day after day I had
seen the regiment turn out without a man missing; and drunkenness was
very trifling considering how popular the army then was, and how
liberally the men were treated. The fact was that Colin Campbell
appealed to the reason and feelings of his men, and made it a point of
honour with them to be present and sober in their billets at tattoo and
at morning parade for the march. He could invite, as well as compel
obedience.”
In April, 1839, the command of the troops in the Northern
District, which then comprised eleven counties, was entrusted to Sir
Charles Napier. For some time previous the disquiet among the
manufacturing population in this wide region had occasioned great
anxiety to the Government; and it seemed that the Chartist movement
might culminate in actual insurrection. An outbreak was apprehended
almost momentarily, and might occur at any point; so that all over the
north magistrates were nervously calling for military protection. Napier
had at his disposition a force of barely four thousand men; and those
were so dispersed that on assuming command he found them broken up into
no fewer than twenty-six detachments, spread over half England. Those
scattered handfuls of soldiers were worse than useless; their weakness
was dangerous and actually invited to mischief. Fortified by the cordial
support of the Home Secretary Napier insisted on three points: the
concentration of his troops, and, where detachments had to he granted,
proper quarters for them so as to keep the soldiers together; that
magistrates instead of clamouring for troops should rally loyal citizens
around them for self-defence; that the army was to be regarded as a
force of ultimate reserve, and that therefore it was the duty of
Government to establish throughout the country a strong police force,—a
measure which was soon to he dealt with by Sir Robert Peel.
Napier had been in command of the district for some three
months before he and Colin Campbell met, although in the interval they
had corresponded officially and thus may have come to know something of
each other. Napier, at least, had gauged the character of his
subordinate officer. In July he had ordered the Ninety-Eighth from Hull
to Newcastle-on-Tyne. Things were then at about their worst, and Napier
wrote: “Great anxiety about the colliers in the north. I have sent
Campbell, Ninety-Eighth, there from Hull. The colliers had better be
quiet; they will have a hardy soldier to deal with; yet he will be
gentle and just, or he should not be there.” During its march the
Ninety-Eighth was halted in billets over Sunday in York. It chanced that
Napier during a tour of inspection arrived there by coach about noon,
and alighted at the inn where the hurried coach-dinner was served.
Ascertaining that Colonel Campbell was quartered in the house, the
General promptly introduced himself. Mentioning the number of minutes
allotted for the meal, he asked if it would be possible to collect the
men under arms before the coach went on. With perfect confidence Colin
Campbell replied in the affirmative. The “assembly” was sounded; and as
the men were gathering from their billets Napier, as he ate,
cross-examined the colonel of the Ninety-Eighth regarding the internal
economy of the regiment. He then inspected the troops, and on finishing
the last company as the horses were being put to, he mounted the box
with the remark, “That’s what I call inspecting a regiment.” “It was,”
comments General Shadwell, “what some commanding officers might term
sharp practice; but it was a satisfactory test of the discipline and
order which Colin Campbell had perfected in the Ninety-Eighth.” And he
adds that this hurried meeting “formed an important epoch in Campbell’s
career. From that moment he conceived an esteem and respect for the
noble soldier under whose command he had been so fortunate as to find
himself placed, sentiments which speedily developed into a feeling of
affectionate regard well-nigh amounting to veneration.”
The arrival of the regiment at Newcastle was welcomed by
the magistrates, colliery owners, and county gentlemen of
Northumberland, who in their apprehension of a Chartist rising leaned
upon its commanding officer for the maintenance of order. At no period
of his career did Colin Campbell evince greater wisdom and shrewdness
than during this critical and sensitive time. Neither rash nor weak, he
reassured the apprehensive and awed the disaffected. He visited in
person many of. the Chartist meetings, and was not slow to discern that
the movement included a large proportion of supporters who advocated
moral in preference to physical methods for the accomplishment of their
objects. He became convinced that no serious rising would take place,
yet he took every precaution to meet such a contingency. The regiment
was carefully trained in street firing, and such dispositions as would
be requisite in the event of the troops being called upon to act were
sedulously practised. The Ninety-Eighth were loyal to a man, and their
discipline was faultless. Once the Chartists seized a D
drummer-boy of the regiment and forced him to beat his
drum at the head of a procession. The cry rose that the soldiers were
fraternising with the mob and a magistrate hurried to the barracks with
the ominous tidings. Campbell immediately answered—“Come, and I will
show how the soldiers feel in the matter, midnight though it is!”
Ordering the bugler to sound the “assembly” he took the magistrate into
the barrack-yard. From the barrack-rooms came rushing out the soldiers
armed and accoutred, venting vehement imprecations on the malcontents;
and Campbell grimly called the magistrate’s attention to the wholesome
views expressed by a local “Geordie” of the regiment, who frankly
signified his readiness to “stick his own grandmother if she were out.”
But midnight alertes on scant provocation Campbell steadfastly
discountenanced. His most sedulous care was for the health of his men.
He habitually dispensed with all superfluous and needless guards, and he
resolutely cut down sentry - duty which he did not consider absolutely
necessary for the protection of public property or the requirements of
the service. In this solicitude for the well-being of the soldier
Campbell was stoutly upheld by Sir Charles Napier. Holding though he did
to his conviction that no rising would occur, he nevertheless could not
resist an urgent application from the magistracy of Durham for military
assistance, and he took upon himself to despatch a detachment to that
town, reporting his having done so to the general commanding the
district. Napier approved of his conduct, but enjoined on him the
exaction from the Durham authorities of the stipulation specified in the
following terms:—“If the detachment is to remain at Durham, the
magistrates must furnish a barrack with everything requisite for the
men, and this barrack must be so situated that the communication with
the open country can be maintained— that is to say, on the outskirt of
the town. It must also be perfectly comfortable for the soldiers, and
the officers’ quarters attached to it. Unless these conditions be
complied with, you must inform the magistrates that I must positively
order the detachment back to Newcastle. I will not have troops in
billets.”
The disaffection in the north gradually died down as
Colin Campbell had prognosticated; and his wise and judicious conduct
during the troublous time was fully acknowledged by the authorities.
From the Home Office came the following approval of his behaviour. “Lord
John Russell desires to express to you the satisfaction he has received
from the report of the Newcastle on-Tyne magistrates of the prompt and
valuable services which you have constantly rendered them since the
commencement of their intercourse with you. Lord John Russell has not
failed to make known to Lord Hill” (the Commander-in-Chief) “the
testimony borne by the magistrates to your valuable services, and Lord
John requests that you will accept his best thanks for your exertions,
and for the zeal manifested by you in supporting the Civil authorities,
and in the preservation of the public peace.” Lord Fitzroy Somerset
conveyed to Campbell Lord Hill’s satisfaction in learning that “ his
conduct had met with the unqualified approbation of Her Majesty’s
Government;” and the magistrates of the county tendered him their
acknowledgment of the cordial and efficient manner in which he and the
troops under his command had co-operated with the civil power in the
preservation of the public peace.
It is the experience of all soldiers that a regiment
broken up in detachments tends to fall into slackness as well in
discipline as in drill. But throughout his command of the Ninety-Eighth
Colin Campbell had the invaluable advantage of having exceptionally good
and zealous officers serving under him. Alike at headquarters and on
detachment discipline was rigid without being unduly severe; and when
the regiment was together at Newcastle its drill was admirable,—“so
steady, so perfect in battalion movements, so rapid and intelligent in
light infantry exercise.” It was when the regiment was stationed at
Newcastle that Campbell taught it to advance firing in line, which was a
specially difficult movement with the old muzzle-loader of the period,
but which on two subsequent occasions he brought into practice against
the enemy with particularly advantageous results.
The Ninety-Eighth had been serving for more than two
years in the Northern District, and a move was imminent in the summer of
1841. But it would seem to have been considered that the regiment before
leaving the north should receive new colours, and those were presented
to it by Sir Charles Napier on the 12th of May on the Newcastle
racecourse in presence of a great assemblage gathered to witness the
ceremony. Sir Charles addressed the regiment in a long oration in the
true Napier vein, in the course of which he paid an almost ruthless
compliment to Colin Campbell. The episode, if somewhat theatrical, must
have had a stirring effect. In the course of his address the General
said:
“Of the abilities for command which your chief possesses,
your own magnificent regiment is a proof. Of his gallantry in action
hear what history says, for I like to read to you of such deeds and of
such men; it stimulates young soldiers to deeds of similar daring.” Then
he read from his brother’s History of the Peninsular War the account of
Lieutenant Campbell’s conduct in the breach of San Sebastian: "Major
Fraser," he read in his sonorous tones, “was killed in the flaming
ruins; the intrepid Jones stood there a while longer amidst a few heroic
soldiers hoping for aid: but none came, and he and those with him were
struck down. The engineer Machel had been killed early, and the men
bearing the ladders fell or were dispersed. Thus the rear of the column
was in absolute confusion before the head was beatea It was in vain that
Colonel Greville of the Thirty-Eighth, Colonel Cameron of the Ninth,
Captain Archimbeau of the Royals, and many other regimental officers,
exerted themselves to rally their disciplined troops and refill tho
breach; it was in vain that Lieutenant Campbell, breaking through the
tumultuous crowd with the survivors of his chosen detachment, mounted
the ruins—twice he ascended, twice he was wounded, and all around him
died, "There,” continued Sir Charles—"there stands the Lieutenant
Campbell of whom I have been reading; and well I know that, if need be,
the soldiers of the Ninety Eighth will follow him as boldly as did those
gallant men of the glorious Ninth who fell fighting around him in the
breaches of San Sebastian!”
In July the Ninety-Eighth left Newcastle for Ireland,
where, however, it remained only a few months, its term of home service
being nearly completed. The original intention was that it should be
sent to the Mauritius. Colin Campbell worked hard to have its
destination altered to Bermuda, in the belief that the strained
relations then existing between Great Britain and the United States
would result in war, in which event the regiment at Bermuda would be
advantageously situated. But the roster of service, he found, could not
be dislocated to meet his desire; and all that he could accomplish was
the permission on arrival at Mauritius to effect an exchange with the
officer commanding the Eighty-Seventh, then garrisoning the island,
should that officer desire to remain there, and to return to Great
Britain in command of that regiment. Later he had reason to believe that
the Ninety-Eighth was intended for service in China; but that this was
so he did not ascertain for certain until the middle of October, when he
was informed that the service companies were destined to take part in
the hostilities against China which had been in progress with more or
less vigour for the last two years, and which were intended to be
prosecuted to a final issue when Lord Ellenborough, in the beginning of
1842, should succeed Lord Auckland as Governor-General of India. |
