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MACKINNON, COLONEL
DANIEL.—This brave soldier, who acquired high military reputation in the
Peninsular war and at Waterloo, was born in 1791, and was second son of
William Mackinnon, chieftain of the ancient clan of that name in the
Western Highlands of Scotland. This chieftainship, however, had dwindled
into a mere lairdship, in consequence of the abolition of the
patriarchal government in the Highlands, and Daniel, whose energies a
century earlier might have been wasted in some petty feud or spreagh,
was reserved to be one of the honoured heroes in a great European
warfare. At the early age of fourteen he entered the army as ensign in
the Coldstream Guards, and quickly won the esteem of his brother
officers by his activity, cheerfulness, and kind disposition, which was
further increased when he had an opportunity of showing his valour in
the field. His first service, however, was nothing more than a little
harmless marching and countermarching; for his regiment, which was
ordered to Bremen in 1805, to co-operate with the Prussians and their
allies, never came in sight of the enemy. After its return, the
Coldstream in 1807 was sent with the armament against Copenhagen, where
the land-service was not in requisition. Two years more elapsed of mere
parade and warlike demonstration, which, however, was brought to an end
when Mackinnon embarked with his regiment for the Peninsula in 1809,
after he had attained the rank of lieutenant in the Guards.
The military life of an
officer so young as Mackinnon, and holding his sub-ordinate rank, can be
nothing else than a record of personal daring and hair-breadth escapes:
he obeys the commands and fulfils the wishes of his superiors, through
every difficulty and at whatever risk, and thus establishes his claim to
be a commander in turn. Such was the case with the subject of this brief
notice. He was appointed aide-de-camp to General Stopford, who commanded
the Guards, and had thus an opportunity of distinguishing himself
through the whole course of that terrible and eventful war from 1809 to
1814. And these opportunities were neither shunned nor neglected, so
that the bivouac and the mess-table were enlivened with tales of his
personal prowess and daring. On one occasion, his supreme contempt of
danger partook of the ludicrous. While our army was passing a defile,
and debouching from it, there was one spot in which part of the troops
were exposed to a very heavy fire. But in this post of peculiar peril,
Captain Mackinnon was found performing the duties of the toilet, and
lathering and shaving his chin, as coolly as if he had been fifty miles
from the scene of action. No sight was better calculated to animate
dispirited soldiers; they rushed immediately to the onset, and drove the
French before them. No wonder that the soldiers loved and were ready to
follow an officer who, let the risk be what it might, was ready to
encounter or abide his full share. But he was equally endeared to his
brother officers, by his overflowing kindness and invincible good
nature, so that, during the whole of these trying campaigns, in which
patience was tempted to the uttermost, he never gave offence, or adopted
a subject of quarrel. Some of these veterans still survive, by whom the
amiable qualities of the gallant Celt are affectionately remembered.
After having taken part
in every battle from Talavera to Toulouse, the peace of 1814 released
Mackinnon from active military duty. It is pleasing also to add, that
his services had been appreciated, for he was at once raised from the
rank of captain to that of lieutenant-colonel in the Coldstream
regiment. Relying upon the promise of a lasting peace, he returned to
England, but was suddenly roused, like many of his brethren upon leave
of absence, by the escape of Bonaparte from Elba, and the astounding
events that followed in quick succession. Napoleon was once more upon
the throne of France, and a fresh war was inevitable. Knowing this,
Colonel Mackinnon hurried to Ramsgate to join his regiment, now
quartered in Brussels, but not finding the expected vessel ready to
sail, he threw himself, with another officer, into an open boat, and
reached Ostend in time to join in the engagements of the 16th and 17th
of June, and finally, in the great battle of Waterloo.
Of the many hundreds of
episodes that constitute this great military assize of the nations, and
out of which so many volumes of history and biography have been
constructed, and amidst the mélée of wonderful charges and brave
deeds that occurred every moment, and over every part of the field, we
must limit our attention to a thousandth part of the great event, and
attend exclusively to the movements of Mackinnon. Amidst the fire, he
had three horses shot under him. In one of these volleys by which he was
successively brought down, he was himself shot in the knee, his sword
flew from his hand, and in falling, he alighted upon a prostrate French
officer, who was wounded like himself. Mackinnon immediately took
possession of the Frenchman’s sword, with an apology for using it, as he
had lost his own, mounted a fresh horse, and continued to charge at the
head of his regiment, until he was detached with 250 of his Coldstreams,
and 1st regiment of Guards, for the defence of the farm of Hougoumont.
This was the key of Wellington’s position, and Mackinnon was ordered to
defend it to the last extremity. And well do the records of Waterloo
testify how faithfully this command was obeyed. For a considerable
period, the whole interest of the conflict was converged round this farm
and its outhouses, the possession of which was of the utmost importance
to Napoleon, so that mass after mass of French grenadiers was hurled
against it in rapid succession, with golden promises to the first who
entered; but as fast as they approached the walls, the close, steady
fire from within tore their ranks into shreds, and strewed the ground
with the dead and wounded; and as fast as they fell back, Mackinnon and
his little band sallied from their defences, piled up the dead bodies in
front of the doors as a rampart, and hurried back to their posts as soon
as a fresh inundation of fire and steel came sweeping down upon them.
Again and again was this manoeuvre successfully performed, but in the
midst of imminent peril, by which the brave band of defenders was
reduced to a handful. Still, the utmost efforts of Napoleon upon this
point were defeated, and Hougoumont was saved. At last the farm-house
was relieved, and Mackinnon with his party joined the British army, now
assailants in their turn. But the wound which he had previously received
in his knee from a musket-shot, and which he had disregarded during the
whole of the action, now occasioned such pain, accompanied with loss of
blood, that he fainted, and was carried off the field in a litter to
Brussels, where he was treated with the utmost courtesy and kindness.
The wound was healed, but the buoyant activity which had hitherto made
exercise a necessary of life to him was broken. As for the sword, which
he had appropriated to his own use at such a curious crisis, he not only
fulfilled his promise, by using it gallantly in the defence of
Hougoumont, and through the whole action, but ever afterwards wore it on
field-days and parade, as a fair trophy of Waterloo.
Thus, at the early age of
twenty-four, the military career of this intrepid soldier was closed by
the return of universal peace—not, however, without a ten years’
service, and having won by his merits a rank which few soldiers so young
are privileged to occupy. He still continued to hold his commission in
the army; and a majority in the Coldstream having become vacant, he was
induced to purchase it, by which he obtained the rank of a full colonel
in the service, and the ultimate command of the regiment.
From the foregoing
account, it could scarcely be expected that Colonel Mackinnon should
also obtain distinction in authorship. Entering the army at the raw age
of fourteen, when a stripling’s education is still imperfect, and
returning to domestic life at a period when few are willing to resume
their half-conned lessons, and become schoolboys anew, we are apt to
ask, how and where he could have acquired those capacities that would
enable him to produce a well-written book? But this, by no means the
easiest or least glorious of his achievements, he has certainly
accomplished. Soon after the accession of William IV., his majesty was
desirous that a full history of the Coldstream Guards should be written,
and he selected no other than the gallant colonel of the regiment to be
its historian. Such a choice, and the able manner in which it was
fulfilled, show that Mackinnon must have possessed higher qualities than
those of a mere swordier however brave, and that he must have cultivated
them with much careful application after his final return to England.
For this, indeed, if nothing more than recreation had been his motive,
there was an especial inducement, arising from his wound received at
Waterloo, by which he was prevented from more active enjoyments.
Although such a task required no small amount of historical and
antiquarian research, the origin of the Coldstreams dating so far back
as the year 1650, he ably discharged it by his work in two volumes,
entitled "The Origin and Services of the Coldstream Guards," [volume
1 & volume 2] published
in 1833, and dedicated by permission to his Majesty. In this work he has
traced the actions of this distinguished brigade in England and Scotland
during the wars of the Commonwealth, Restoration, and Revolution; its
services in Ireland, in Holland, and upon the continent; and finally in
the Peninsula, and at Waterloo; and while he has shown a thorough
acquaintanceship with the history of these various wars, his work is
pervaded throughout not only with the high chivalrous magnanimity of a
British soldier, but the exactness of a careful thinker, and the taste
of a correct and eloquent writer.
The rest of Colonel
Mackinnon’s life may be briefly summed up, as it was one of peace and
domestic enjoyment. After he had settled in England, he married Miss
Dent, the eldest daughter of Mr. Dent, M.P. for Pool, a young lady of
great attractions, but who brought him no family. With her he led a
happy and retired life, surrounded by the society of those who loved
him; and cheered, as we may well think, by those studies which he turned
to such an honourable account. It was thought that, from his strong
robust frame and healthy constitution, he would have survived to a good
old age; but the sedentary life to which his wound confined him, proved
too much for a system so dependent upon active and exciting exercise.
After having scarcely ever felt a day’s illness, he died at Hertford
Street, May Fair, London, on the 22d of June, 1836, being only forty-six
years old. |
