Captain Kennedy Clark and Corporal Francis Stiles

This is the second Perry Miniatures 1815 vignette, the capture of the eagle of the 105st Line infantry regiment by Captain Alexander Kennedy Clark and/or Corporal Francis Stiles (or "Styles"), both of the 1st (Royal) Regiment of Dragoons (the "Royals").  Precisely what happened is disputed, and there is a good account of the controversy in Adkin's "Waterloo Companion".  The 105th formed part of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division of d'Erlon's I Corps, which was involved in the big early afternoon attack on Wellington's centre.  When the attack faltered, the brigade was charged by the Royals and 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons (part of the general charge of the Union Brigade, which saw the 45th Line's eagle captured by Sergeant Ewart).  Captain Clark initially took credit for the eagle's capture, saying that he saw a party carrying the eagle, attacked it and struck down the French officer who was carrying the flag.  But he couldn't quite reach the flag as it fell, his fingers only touching the fringe, and so he shouted at the nearby Corporal Stiles to pick it up and take it to the rear.  However, Stiles' version of events was different - he said that he was ordered to attack the colour party by his troop commander.

Clark was wounded at Waterloo and while he was recovering he became concerned that his capture of the eagle would not be recognised.  He wasn't aware that the regiment's colonel had already written to his superiors recommending Clark (and two other officers) for promotion.  Clark wrote to another colonel for help in having his achievement recognised and a regimental investigation began into what happened.  Statements were taken from soldiers who were in the vicinity at the time.  Private Anderson said that he saw Clark wound the French officer and the flag then fell across the heads of his and Clark's horses and towards Corporal Stiles.  Clark shouted out "secure the colour!" and Stiles managed to grab it before it fell on the ground.  Private Wilson corroborated this account, also saying that after Clark stabbed the officer the colour fell against the neck of Stiles' horse and Stiles carried it off to the rear.  Stiles asked his troop commander, Lieutenant Gunning, to provide his testimony of the incident.  Gunning stated that he spotted the colour party and ordered Stiles and others to attack.  Gunning further claimed (I think much later) to have been the person who wounded the officer holding the colour.  The result of the investigation appears to have been that Stiles received the immediate credit for the eagle's capture.  He was promoted to sergeant and eventually received a commission as ensign in the 6th West India Regiment.  Clark seems to have spent the rest of his life feeling aggrieved at what had happened, writing to the authorities (including Lord Uxbridge) some ten times to claim credit for the colour's capture.  Clark never received any formal recognition and the quick promotion he had sought to obtain on the back of the colour's capture eluded him.  He was promoted to major in 1825 and made lieutenant-general rank five years later.   In 1835 Clark was still claiming credit for the eagle's capture, in letters he wrote to William Siborne to assist the latter with his history of the Waterloo campaign.

Who's the chap with the flag?

 

Another mystery is the identity of the French officer who was carrying the colour.  The "porte-aigle" of the 105th was Jean Chantelat, who survived Waterloo but was wounded by a gunshot in the leg.  So at some stage some other officer must have taken charge of the eagle (one of the testimonies of the cavalrymen suggested that this was the 105th's commanding officer).  A further issue was raised in the 1830s, when Private Penfold of the Inniskilling Dragoons claimed that he capture an eagle which he then dropped and was picked up by a man from the Royals.   Who knows what really happened?  Maybe it's best remembered as a team effort - in 1838 the Royals were given the distinction of carrying the eagle on their guidons and I gather the Blues and Royals still wear an eagle badge on the left of their tunics.   

I think this is a terrific vignette.  It has more immediacy than the corresponding Ewart set, and you really sense the cavalrymen desperately reaching out trying to grab the colour before it hits the gound (if you'll pardon a Classical allusion, the set reminds me of that rather gory bit in Book II of the Aeneid when, during the sack of Troy, the Greek Pyrrhus is pursuing Priam's son, Polites, and eventually cuts him down right in front of Priam: "iam iamque manu tenet et premit hasta" - "now, even now, he holds him with his hand and presses him with his spear").  The drummer figure is a great touch - he suggests how terrifying it must have been to be ridden down by cavalry.  I found some conflicting sources on the dragoons' uniforms.  The stripe on Captain Clark's trousers is either yellow or red, depending on what source you use.  Apparently the Royals' horses were supposed to be blacks, but they had supply problems in 1814/15 and so I think it's legitimate to use bays.  I see that I forgot to add golden "N"s to the French officer's turnbacks, and I didn't bother trying to replicate the muddy/cornfield look of the Waterloo battlefield on the base - never mind!  

4 figures.  Painted November-December 2015.  Flag from GMB.

 

 

 

 

Sergeant Charles Ewart

The final 1815 post for a short while is the Perry Miniatures Sergeant Ewart vignette.  Ewart, of course, captured the eagle of the French 45th Ligne at Waterloo. Charles Ewart was born in 1769 in Kilmarnock, Scotland. Twenty years later he enlisted in the 2nd Royal North British Dragoons, better known as the Scots Greys.  Accounts from his fellow cavalrymen relate that Ewart was renowned for his strength and skill as a swordsmen, as well as being six feet and four inches tall.  His first experience of combat was in the Flanders Campaign of 1783-85, during which Ewart was briefly captured by the French before being rescued by some Austrian allies.  For his part in that campaign Ewart was promoted to sergeant.  The regiment then took no part in the Napoleonic Wars until it joined reinforcements sent out to Belgium in 1815 in response to Napoleon's escape from Elba.  Ewart's own account of his exploits at Waterloo is well known, but it seems appropriate to include it here:

"It was in the first charge I took the eagle from the enemy: he and I had a hard contest for it; he made a thrust at my groin, I parried it off and cut him down through the head. After this a lancer came at me; I threw the lance off by my right side, and cut him through the chin and upward through the teeth.
Next, a foot-soldier fired at me and charged me with his bayonet, which I also had the good luck to parry, and then I cut him down through the head; thus ended the contest.
As I was about to follow my regiment, the general [General Ponsonby] said,’My brave fellow, take that to the rear; you have done enough till you get quit of it’. which I was obliged to do, but with great reluctance.
I retired to a height, and stood there for upwards of an hour, which gave a general view of the field, but I cannot express the horrors I beheld. The bodies of my brave comrades were lying so thick upon the field that it was scarcely possible to pass, and horses innumerable. I took the eagle into Brussels amid the acclamations of thousands of spectators who saw it."

What colour was Ewart's hair?  No idea, so I painted it brown

 

The Scots Greys remained with the occupying forces in until 1816 and early that year he was promoted to Ensign in the 5th Royal Veteran Battalion.  Ewart, who was in his mid-forties at Waterloo, retired from the army when his regiment was disbanded later in 1816 (the Royal Veteran Battalions were raised after1802 with men who were considered no longer fit for active duty but who could act as garrison troops; most were disbanded in 1814 but were then re-raised before final disbandment in 1816).  Ewart seems to have spent his time as a fencing instructor and giving after-dinner speeches.  He died in 1846, at the age of 77.   In 1936 his remains were discovered in Manchester and were then reinterred at Edinburgh Castle, where the Scots Greys' regimental museum is located.

This set is a bit fiddly to put together.  Ewart's left hand is attached to the separate eagle/flag pole and I noticed immediately that there wasn't enough space between the hand and the eagle to accommodate my GMB flag.  So I had to cut the pole in half and add some metal rod to lengthen the pole.  I then realised that the flag was too big to sit over Ewart's left shoulder, as it appears on the Perry website, so I re-positioned the flag pole to sit across Ewart's body, which has the advantage of plaing the flag itself more "centre stage", I think (I have no idea how the chap who painted the set on the website did the flag - I'd love to know).  It was only after I'd started painting the figures that I realised that what I had thought was Ewart's sword (the blade isn't attached to the Ewart figure) was actually the French lancer's dropped sword...so where was Ewart's?  It then occured to me that what I had thrown away assuming it was a bit of flash on the sprue that held the lancer's sword and  lance was in fact the missing sword blade; so I had to rummage around in the kitchen bin to find it!  Once the figures were painted I had several goes at positioning them on the base.  I think the set is better suited to a rectangular base than a round one, as there isn't quite enough space for the lancer to go past Ewart.  The lancer, incidentally, is from the 3rd regiment of line lancers.  The French cavalry counter-attack against the Union Brigade's charge included the 3rd and 4th lancers from Jaquinot's 1st Cavalry Division.  I chose the 3rd because I preferred their pink facings to the crimson of the 4th.  The lance pennant is from Adolfo Ramos. It was only once I'd taken these photos that I realised Ewart's sword is looking rather clean and bloodless, so I'll need to rectify that this evening.

4 figures. Painted May 2015.  Flag by GMB.



 

 

 

 

 

 



King's German Legion, 2nd Light Battalion

I confess that I painted these ages ago but failed to prepare a post. The 2nd KGL Light Battalion needs little introduction. It was in Colonel Baron Ompteda's 2nd KBL Brigade and formed the core of the La Haye Sainte garrison at Waterloo. The KGL battalions were understrength in the 1815 campaign because experienced troops had been stripped out to join newly raised Hanoverian units. This resulted in KGL battalions having 6 companies rather than 10 - 4 centre companies and the standard 2 flank ones. The line battalions had a couple of uniform distinctions from their regular British counterparts, which I will discuss when I post about the 5th Line Battalion. The 2 light battalions had similar uniforms, but with different headgear and a few other distinctions.

Major Baring's 2nd Light Battalion, 463 officers and men, was stationed in the farmhouse (so about 23 figures at 1:20). It was reinforced by companies from the KGL 1st Light Battalion and 5th Line Battalion and the 2nd Nassau Regiment. The story of the La Haye Sainte defence is too well known to warrant comment here. Suffice to say that the battle was hard fought and the battalion lost half its number. It was after 6pm, when the men had run out of ammunition, that the garrison was forced to abandon its position. Major Baring was one of the last men out of the farmhouse and related how those left behind received short thrift from the French, who were keen to avenge the losses they had suffered trying to invest the position. It was to assist the fleeing garrison that the Prince of Orange and the divisional commander Sir Charles Alten ordered Ompteda to march the 5th and 8th KGL Line Regiments in line towards La Haye Sainte, with disasterous consequences.

These three Perry Miniatures packs give you 18 figures, a few less than the 1:20 requirement. I did think about buying another pack to make up numbers, but decided that it probably would be difficult on the tabletop to squeeze 23 figures into a scale model of La Haye Sainte. Centre companies had muskets whilst the flank companies carried rifles. The Perries give you 1 pack of firing line figures with muskets and 1 pack of skirmishing figures with rifles. The command pack has 2 officers and then buglers and NCOs who all have rifles - you don't, therefore, have any command figures suitable for the centre companies other than the officers. My unit consequently has too many rifle-carrying figures; I should really add another pack of musket-armed infantry but as stated above I think 24 figures would be too many for the scale size of the position (especially once you add the Nassauers and other reinforcements). With that position in mind, I decided to base all the "skirmishing" figures on single bases and the centre company musket-men on standard 2-figure skirmish bases. The uniforms are similar to those of the 95th Rifles, albeit with different headgear. I used the Foundry "French Chasseur a Cheval Green 71" palette for the tunics, with sparing use of the final highlight to ensure the uniform remained quite dark. One uniform distinction I found in Mike Chappell's excellent Osprey MAA books on the KGL is that the musicians had red collars and cuffs. (Incidentally, I also have the very old Otto Von Pivka MAA book on the KGL in a rare hardcover binding, which includes a long passage quoted from Baring's recollections of the La Haye Sainte battle.) These are nice figures, quite fiddly to paint but pretty dynamic and with interesting uniforms. Perry have just released a pack of mounted light infantry officers which includes a KGL figure; I am awaiting receipt of that and will paint the KGL chap as soon as it arrives. I have the light company of the 5th KGL line already finished and I'm tempted to paint up a couple of Nassauers. Then all I will need is a model of La Haye Sainte itself!

I'm sorry for the lack of posts of late, simply a result of too much other stuff to do. My painting time has shrunk and I'm not sure that weekly posts will be possible in the future, but we'll see. I'm trying to complete 8 figures a week but that is going to be a struggle. I'm currently working on the KGL 5th Line Battalion and have some AWI and Carlist War units half-finished. I'll try to expedite the completion of those, following which there are more French Napoleonics and AWI cavalry to do. And what's this I see...plastic Zulus?


18 figures. Painted September-October 2011.