Gareth Glover - An Eloquent Soldier: The Peninsular War Journals of Lieutenant Charles Crowe of the Inniskillings, 1812–14

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An Eloquent Soldier

This edition published in 2011 by Frontline Books,
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Limited, 47 Church Street,
Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS
www.frontline-books.com
email info@frontline-books.com

Gareth Glover, 2011

The right of Gareth Glover to be identified as Author of this Work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN: 978-1-84832-593-7

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without
the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation
to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP data record for this title is available from the British Library.

For more information on our books, please visit

www.frontline-books.com, email info@frontline-books.com

or write to us at the above address.

Typeset by Palindrome
in 10/12 Stempel Garamond

Printed in the UK by CPI Antony Rowe

Plates may be found between pages 1445

Black and white illustrations

(all authors collection)

The story of a junior officer in the Peninsular War, as told through the journals of Lieutenant Charles Crowe of the 48th (Northamptonshire) Regiment of Foot and later of the 27th (Inniskilling) Fusiliers, is a fascinating and absorbing tale. It may appear therefore very surprising that these journals have never been published in full before; and, indeed, without the diligence and sheer tenacity of Crowes very distant descendant, J. J. Heath-Caldwell, affectionately known as JJ, it is more than likely that they never would have been brought to print.

J. J. Heath-Caldwell was born and raised in New Zealand and had no contact with his fathers British relatives until as a young man he chose to visit Britain in 1980 for a one-year working holiday. His grandfather, Captain Cuthbert Heath-Caldwell DSC RN, had died the previous year, but JJs maiden aunt continued to live at the family home in Dorset. The family had sold their estate of Linley Wood in Staffordshire in 1949 and moved to a thatched cottage in Dorset, and all the relics of the family had been hung on every available wall; they filled every cupboard and shelf and numerous locked chests stacked high. Centuries of family history just lay there, gathering a thick layer of dust as it all sat in a time capsule, just waiting for someone to show an interest.

That person was JJ, who decided to remain and establish his career in Britain; and over the intervening years he has been working diligently to sort through this treasure trove as time and career have allowed. One book that particularly fascinated him was an old leather bound diary with the title emblazoned in gilt lettering on the spine Peninsular Campaign Volume 1. Finding the extraordinary story of this young man who went to fight against Napoleons army in Spain a riveting read, he was cut short as the volume ended in mid-campaign. There was clearly a second volume; his aunt could remember its existence but where was it now? A thorough search of the house revealed nothing and it appeared to have been lost forever. But JJs dogged spirit led to appeals being launched throughout the family and on the internet in what seemed a hopeless search for the missing journal. When all hope seemed to be at an end, an email from Australia announced that the second volume did exist and had just been quoted by Martin Cassidy in his book Marching with Wellington: with the Inniskillings in the Napoleonic Wars, published in 2003.

It seems that Volume Two was held by the Inniskilling Fusiliers Regimental Museum at Enniskillen Castle, where presumably it had been deposited on loan many years before. All sides felt that the journals should be reunited and after some negotiations, the museum handed their volume to JJ, who is determined to ensure they never get parted again.

Volume two formed the centrepiece of Martin Cassidys work, but size constraints meant that a great deal of the journal was omitted entirely or passages cropped; and unfortunately this has, in my view, damaged the integrity of the whole. This, now combined with the contents of Volume One, means that two-thirds of the present production has never previously been published.

The reader may wonder whether the profusion of military memoirs of this period already brought to print means that everything has already been said. Is there any point in publishing it? The answer on so many levels is an emphatic, Yes there is! The Inniskillings are a very famous regiment which fought with courage throughout the Peninsular War; indeed it was the only regiment in the British Army with three battalions that were all serving on foreign service in various parts of Spain. But, despite this, the only known memoirs from persons serving in this regiment are that of Francis Simcoe,* who died at the siege of Badajoz in April 1812, and that of Private Emerson, who again describes the scene at Badajoz and the carnage of Albuera, which he observed shortly after the battle. But that is the sum total of their accounts; there is no witness to their exploits at Salamanca, Vitoria, the Pyrenees, San Sebastian, the Nivelle, the Nive, Orthez and Toulouse; Charles Crowe fills that void almost completely.

At the same time there are actually no memoirs at all relating to the 48th (Northamptonshire) Regiment beyond the short journal for 1811 of Major William Brooke; hence the records of the eighteen months that Charles Crowe served with them are invaluable.

But there are more to the journals of Charles Crowe than this; for although the journals, as they survive, with their clean, tidy script, show that they were written when he was older, when memories had faded and blurred with time, it is nevertheless clear that they are actually fair copies taken from original journals written as events actually occurred while on campaign, interspersed with copies of the few letters he seems to have sent home to his parents. Their veracity is shown clearly by the fact that I have found very few instances where the official documents differ from Charless version of events, and on most of those occasions I have been able to prove pretty conclusively that Charless version of events seems the most likely. Certainly his version has a real feel of authenticity and I have found no reason to doubt him.

Charles Crowe wrote his journals purely for the fascination of his family, and he paints fine pen portraits of his fellow officers, of all ranks, all with candid honesty. He clearly disliked many of his colleagues and is not afraid to voice his views on each, from bullying superiors to insupportable prigs, from duel-happy ensigns to abject cowards, from gamblers and sots to rapists Charles pulls no punches.

He describes battle in a matter-of-fact, but feeling, way; the deaths of soldiers are described in lurid detail but not without honouring their memory and evident feeling for their loss.

His portraits of incidents are also enhanced by dialogue, the gist of which was presumably recorded at the time and padded out later. Indeed, at times his journals read like a novel: although clearly based on verifiable fact, is it going too far to describe him as the Dickens of the Army?

From his evidence, it becomes clear that the rigid class-difference between soldier and officer, so evident within barrack life where their paths rarely crossed, crumbled into a close familiarity on campaign that would not go unrecognised by soldiers today; the earthy banter between general and private was given and received, without a thought to the blind adherence to subordination we often now erroneously associate with this era. When you face death daily together, rigid convention is discarded as chaff to the wind. The journals of Charles Crowe will destroy at a stroke many of the rigid preconceptions of historians of this era of warfare. Many of the memoirs by officers that survive are from very senior officers, or those on their staff, where they were inevitably distanced from the ordinary soldier and the every day life of petty warfare, or from those of Guards officers, whose wealth and connections ensured a very comfortable lifestyle even when on campaign. These can therefore give a rose-tinted version of life for an officer at this time; a life that was completely alien and unrecognisable to junior regimental officers in the average line regiment such as Charles. This could be why on the few occasions Charles has cause to refer to Guards officers he does so with indignant disparagement.

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