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PAGE EARLY LIFE--THE PENINSULA 1

COLONIAL AND HOME SERVICE 22

CHINA AND INDIA 39

THE CRIMEA 82

THE INDIAN MUTINY--ORGANISATION--RELIEF OF LUCKNOW--DEFEAT OF GWALIOR CONTINGENT 110

THE STORMING OF LUCKNOW 144

THE CAMPAIGN IN ROHILCUND 173

THE CAMPAIGN IN CENTRAL INDIA 187

THE PACIFICATION OF OUDE--END OF THE MUTINY 198

FROM SIMLA TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY 212

EARLY LIFE--THE PENINSULA

The British Military Service is fertile in curious contrasts. Among the officers who sailed from England for the East in the spring of 1854 were three veterans who had soldiered under the Great Duke in Portugal and Spain. The fighting career of each of those men began almost simultaneously; the senior of the three first confronted an enemy's fire in 1807, the two others in the following year. In 1854 one of these officers, who was the son of a duke and who had himself been raised to the peerage, was the Commander-in-Chief of the expeditionary army. Lord Raglan was a lieutenant-colonel at the age of twenty-four, a colonel at twenty-seven, a major-general at thirty-seven. He had been colonel-in-chief of a regiment since 1830 and a lieutenant-general since 1838; and he was to become a field-marshal before the year was out. Another, who belonged, although irregularly, to an old and good family, whose father was a distinguished if unfortunate general, and who enjoyed the patronage and protection of one of our great houses, belonging though he did to an arm of the service in which promotion has always been exceptionally slow, was a lieutenant-colonel at thirty and a colonel at forty, and was now a lieutenant-general on the Staff and second in command of the expeditionary force. The third, who was the son of a Glasgow carpenter, sailed for the East, it is true, with the assurance of the command of a brigade; but, after a service of forty-six years, his army-rank then and for three months later, was still only that of colonel. Neither Lord Raglan nor Sir John Burgoyne had ever heard a shot fired in anger since the memorable year of Waterloo; but during the long peace both had been attaining step after step of promotion, and holding lucrative and not particularly arduous offices. Since the Peninsular days Colin Campbell had been soldiering his steadfast way round the world, taking campaigns and climates alike as they came to him in the way of duty,--now a brigade-major, now serving and conquering in the command of a division, now holding at the point of the bayonet the most dangerous frontier of British India against onslaught after onslaught of the turbulent hill-tribes beyond the border. He had fought not without honour, for his Sovereign had made him a Knight of the Bath and appointed him one of her own aides-de-camp. But there is a certain barrenness in honours when unaccompanied by promotion, and it had fallen to the lot of the son of the Glasgow carpenter to serve for eighteen years in the capacity of a field-officer commanding a regiment.

Yet even in the British military service the aphorism occasionally holds good, that everything comes to him who knows how to wait. Colin Campbell, the half-pay colonel of 1854, was a full general in 1858 and a peer of the realm in the same year; in 1862 he was gazetted a field-marshal. In less than nine years the half-pay colonel had attained the highest rank in the service,--a promotion of unique rapidity apart from that conferred on soldiers of royal blood. Along with Lord Clyde were gazetted field-marshals Sir Edward Blakeney and Lord Gough, both of whom were lieutenant-generals of some twenty years' standing when Colin Campbell was merely a colonel. Sir John Burgoyne, almost immeasurably his senior in 1854, did not become a field-marshal until 1868.

Colin Campbell was born in Glasgow on the 20th of October 1792, the eldest of the four children of John Macliver, the Glasgow carpenter, and his wife Agnes Campbell. How Colin Macliver came to bear the name of Colin Campbell will presently be told. The family had gone down in the world, but Colin Campbell came of good old stock on both sides of the house. His grandfather, Laird of Ardnave in the island of Islay, had been out in the Forty-five and so forfeited his estate. General Shadwell, the biographer of Colin Campbell, states that his mother was of a respectable family which had settled in Islay near two centuries ago with its chief, the ancestor of the existing Earls of Cawdor. But the Campbell who was the ancestor of the Cawdors was a son of the second Earl of Argyle who fell at Flodden in 1513, and he belonged to the first half of the sixteenth century; so that, since Colin Campbell's maternal family settled in Islay with its chief, it could reckon a longer existence than that ascribed to it by General Shadwell. Not a few of Colin Campbell's kinsmen had served in the army; and the uncle after whom he was christened had fallen as a subaltern in the war of the American Revolution.

His earliest schooling he received at the Glasgow High School, whence at the age of ten he was removed by his mother's brother, Colonel John Campbell, and placed by him in the Royal Military and Naval Academy at Gosport. Scarcely anything is on record regarding young Colin's school-days there. The first Lord Chelmsford was one of his schoolfellows; and there is a tradition that he spent his holidays with the worthy couple by whom the Academy was established, and by a descendant of whom it is still carried on. When barely fifteen and a half his uncle presented him to the Duke of York, then Commander-in-Chief, who promised him a commission; and supposing him to be, as he said, "another of the clan," put down his name as Colin Campbell, the name which he thenceforth bore. General Shadwell states that on leaving the Duke's presence with his uncle, young Colin made some comment on what he took to be a mistake on the Duke's part in regard to his surname, to which the shrewd uncle replied by telling him that "Campbell was a name which it would suit him, for professional reasons, to adopt." The youngster was wise in his generation, and does not appear to have had any compunction in dropping the not particularly euphonious surname of Macliver. On the 26th of May 1808 young Campbell received the commission of ensign in the Ninth Foot, now known as the Norfolk regiment; and within five weeks from the date of his first commission he was promoted to a lieutenancy in the same regiment.

Campbell was posted to the second battalion of the Ninth, commanded by Colonel Cameron, an officer of whom he always spoke with affectionate regard. The first battalion of the regiment had already sailed from Cork, and the second, which belonged to General Anstruther's brigade, took ship at Ramsgate for the Peninsula on July 20th. Reaching the open sandy beach at the mouth of the Maceira on the 19th of August, it was disembarked the same evening, and bivouacked on the beach. Campbell notes, "lay out that night for the first time in my life;" many a subsequent night did he lie out in divers regions! On the following day the battalion joined the army then encamped about the village of Vimiera. Wellesley had only landed on the 8th, but already he had been the victor in the skirmish of Obidos and the battle of Roleia; and now, on the 21st, he was again to defeat Junot on the heights of Vimiera.

Directly in front of the village of that name rose a rugged isolated height, with a flat summit commanding the ground in front and to the left. Here was posted Anstruther's brigade, its left resting on the village church and graveyard. Young Campbell was with the rear company of his battalion, which stood halted in open column of companies under the fierce fire of Laborde's artillery covering the impending assault of his infantry. The captain of Campbell's company, an officer inured to war, chose the occasion for leading the lad out to the front of the battalion and walking with him along the face of the leading company for several minutes, after which little piece of experience he sent him back to his company. In narrating the incident in after years Campbell was wont to add: "It was the greatest kindness that could have been shown to me at such a time, and through life I have been grateful for it." It is not unlikely that the gallant and considerate old soldier may have intended not alone to give to his young subaltern his baptism of fire, but also to brace the nerves of the men of a battalion which, although part of a regiment subsequently distinguished in many campaigns and battles, was now for the first time in its military life to confront an enemy and endure hostile fire.

The brigade was assailed at once in front and flank. The main French column, headed by Laborde in person and preceded by swarms of tirailleurs, mounted the face of the hill with great fury and loud shouts. So impetuous was the onset that the British skirmishers were driven in upon the lines, but steady volleys arrested the advance of the French, and they broke and fled without waiting for the impending bayonet charge. It would be interesting to know something of the impressions made on young Campbell by his first experience of actual war; but the curt entry in his memorandum is simply--"21st , was engaged at the battle of Vimiera."

At the end of the brief campaign Campbell was transferred to the first battalion of the Ninth, and had the good fortune to remain under the command of Colonel Cameron, who had also been transferred. In the beginning of October a despatch from England reached Lisbon, instructing Sir John Moore to take command of the British army intended to co-operate with the forces of Spain in an attempt to expel the French from the Peninsula. The disasters which befell the enterprise committed to Moore need not be recounted in detail because of the circumstance that a young lieutenant shared in them in common with the rest of the hapless force. The battalion in which Campbell was serving was among the earliest troops to be put in motion. It quitted its quarters at Quelus, near Lisbon on October 12th, and reached Salamanca on November 11th. When Moore's army was organised in divisions, the battalion formed part of Major-General Beresford's brigade belonging to the division commanded by Lieutenant-General Mackenzie Fraser. On reaching Salamanca Moore found that the Spanish armies which he had come to support were already destroyed, and that he himself was destitute alike of supplies and money. In this situation it was his original intention to retire into Portugal, which might have been his wisest course; but Moore was a man of a high and ardent nature. When on the point of taking the offensive in the hope of affording to the Spaniards breathing-time for organising a defence of the southern provinces, he became aware that French forces were converging on him from diverse points; and on the 24th of December began the memorable retreat, the disasters of which cannot be said to have been compensated for by the nominal victory of Coru?a.

In the hardships and horrors of that midwinter retreat young Campbell bore his share. Little, if any fighting came in his way, since the division to which his battalion belonged was for the most part in front. During the retreat it experienced a loss of one hundred and fifty men; but they are all specified as having died on the march or having been taken prisoners by the enemy. Nor had it the good fortune to take part in the battle of Coru?a, having been stationed in the town during the fighting. There fell to a fatigue party detailed from it the melancholy duty of digging on the rampart of Coru?a the grave of Moore, wherein under the fire of the French guns he was laid in his "martial cloak" by his sorrowing Staff in the gray winter's dawn. Beresford's brigade, to which Campbell's battalion belonged, covered the embarkation and was the last to quit a shore of melancholy memory. General Shadwell writes that, "To give some idea of the discomforts of the retreat, Lord Clyde used to relate how for some time before reaching Coru?a he had to march with bare feet, the soles of his boots being completely worn away. He had no means of replacing them, and when he got on board ship he was unable to remove them, as from constant wear and his inability to take them off the leather had adhered so closely to the flesh of the legs that he was obliged to steep them in water as hot as he could bear and have the leather cut away in strips--a painful operation, as in the process pieces of the skin were brought away with it."

After a stay in England of little more than six months Campbell's battalion was again sent on foreign service, an item of the fine army of forty thousand men under the command of the Earl of Chatham. The main object of the undertaking, which is known as the Walcheren Expedition, whose story occupies one of the darkest pages of our military history, was to reduce the fortress of Antwerp and destroy the French fleet lying under its shelter, in the hope of disconcerting Napoleon and creating a diversion in favour of Austria. But opportunities were lost, time was squandered, and the expedition ended in disastrous failure. Montresor's brigade, to which Campbell's battalion belonged, disembarked on the island of South Beveland in the beginning of August, to be the gradual prey of fever and ague in the pestilential marshes of the island. Nothing was achieved save the barren capture of the fortress of Flushing; and towards the end of September most of the land forces of the expedition, including Campbell's battalion, returned to England. Over one-sixth of the original army of forty thousand men had been buried in the swamps of Walcheren and South Beveland; the survivors carried home with them the seeds of the "Walcheren fever," which affected them more or less for the rest of their lives. Colin Campbell was an intermittent sufferer from it almost if not quite to the end of his life.

The second battalion of the Ninth had been in garrison at Gibraltar since July, 1809, and to it Colin Campbell was transferred some time in the course of the following year. In the beginning of 1811 the French Marshal Victor was blockading Cadiz, and General Graham determined on an attempt in concert with a Spanish force to march on his rear and break the blockade. Landing at Tarifa he picked up a detachment, which included the flank companies of the Ninth in which Campbell was serving. Graham's division of British troops was now somewhat over four thousand strong, and the Spanish army of La Pe?a was at least thrice that strength. The allied force reached the heights of Barrosa on March 5th. Graham anxiously desired to hold that position, recognising its value; but he had ceded the command to La Pe?a, who gave him the order to quit it and move forward. In the conviction that La Pe?a himself would remain there, he obeyed, leaving on Barrosa as baggage-guard the flank companies of the Ninth and Eighty-Second regiments under Major Brown. Graham had not gone far when La Pe?a abandoned the Barrosa position with the mass of his force. Victor had been watching events under cover of a forest, his three divisions well in hand; and now he saw his opportunity. Villatte was to stand fast; Laval to intercept the return of the British division to the height; Ruffin to seize the height, sweep from it the allied rear-guard left there, and disperse the baggage and followers. Major Brown held together the flank companies he commanded, and withdrew slowly into the plain. Graham promptly faced about and made haste to attack. Brown had sent to Graham for orders, and was told that he was to fight; and the gallant Brown, unsupported as he was, charged headlong on Ruffin's front. Half his detachment went down under the enemy's first fire; but he maintained the fight staunchly until Dilke's division came up, when the whole, Dilke's people and Brown's stanch flank companies, "with little order indeed, but in a fierce mood," in Napier's words, rushed upwards to close quarters. The struggle lasted for an hour and a half and was "most violent and bloody"; only the unconquerable spirit of the British soldiers averted disaster and accomplished the victory. Many a fierce fight was Colin Campbell to take part in, but none more violent and bloody than this one on the heights of Barrosa. His record of his own share in it is characteristically brief and modest: "At the battle of Barrosa Lord Lynedoch was pleased to take favourable notice of my conduct when left in command of the two flank companies of my regiment, all the other officers being wounded."

Late in the same year Campbell saw some casual service while temporarily attached to the Spanish army commanded by Ballasteros in the south of Spain. In the disturbed state of the surrounding region many Spanish families of rank were glad to find quiet shelter within the fortress of Gibraltar, and their society was eagerly sought by young Campbell, who was anxious to take the opportunity of improving himself in the French and Spanish languages. When in December, 1811, a French force under Laval undertook what proved an abortive and final attempt to reduce the fortified town of Tarifa, he accompanied the light company of his battalion to take part in the vigorous and successful defence of the place, a result achieved by the courage and devotion of the British garrison sent to hold it by General Campbell, the wise and energetic governor of Gibraltar, and by the skill and resource of Sir Charles Smith the chief engineer.

At the close of 1812 Colin Campbell had just turned his twentieth year, and had been a soldier for four and a half years, during which time he had seen no small variety of service. Vimiera and Barrosa had been stiff fights, but neither belonged to the category of "big wars" which are said to "make ambition virtue." Young Campbell had virtue, and certainly did not lack honest ambition. In a sense he had as yet not been very fortunate. In a period when interest was almost everything, he had absolutely none. While he had been on a side track of the great war, his more fortunate comrades of the first battalion had fought at Busaco and Salamanca under the eye of the Great Captain himself. But the time had now come when he, too, was to belong to the army which Wellington was to lead to final and decisive victory. He accompanied a draft from the second battalion of his regiment which in January 1813 was sent to join the first battalion lying in its winter cantonments in the vicinity of Lamego on the lower Douro, and to his great joy found himself again under the command of his original chief, Colonel Cameron. In its winter quarters the allied army had recovered the cohesion and discipline so sadly impaired during the retreat from Burgos in the preceding autumn, and, strengthened by large reinforcements, was now in fine form and high heart. The advance began in the middle of May, when Wellington's army, seventy thousand strong, swept onward on a broad front, turning the positions of the French and driving them before it towards the Pyrenees. Of the three corps constituting that army Sir Thomas Graham's had the left, consisting of the first, third, and fifth divisions, to the second brigade of which, commanded by General Hay, belonged the first battalion of the Ninth, to the light company of which Colin Campbell was posted. The march of Graham's corps through the difficult mountainous region of Tras-os-Montes and onward to Vittoria was exceptionally arduous, but the obstacles were skilfully surmounted. Of the part taken by his battalion on this advance Colin Campbell kept a minute daily record, which has been preserved. He acted as orderly officer to Lieutenant-Colonel Crawford of his battalion, who commanded the flank companies of the third and fifth divisions in the operation of crossing the Esla at Almandra on May 31st. Continuing its march towards the north-east Graham's corps crossed the Ebro with some skirmishing, and on the morning of the 18th of June its advance debouched from the defile of Astri and marched on Osma, where the French General Reille with two divisions was unexpectedly met. Reille occupied the heights of Astalitz. The light companies of the first brigade were sent against the enemy, who were evincing an intent to retreat, and Campbell accompanied his company. He notes as follows:--"This being our first encounter of the campaign, the men were ardent and eager, and pressed the French most wickedly. When the enemy began their movement to the rear, they were constrained to hurry the pace of their columns, notwithstanding the cloud of skirmishers which covered their retreat. Lord Wellington came up about half-past three. We continued the pursuit until dusk, when we were relieved by the light troops of the fourth division. The ground on which we skirmished was so thickly wooded and so rugged and uneven, that when we were relieved by the fourth division, and the light companies were ordered to return to their respective regiments, I found myself incapable of further exertion from fatigue and exhaustion, occasioned by six hours of almost continuous skirmishing."

On the 20th Wellington's army moved down into the basin of Vittoria. King Joseph's dispositions for the battle of Vittoria, which was fought on June 21st, were distinctly bad. His right flank at Gamara Mayor was too distant to be supported by the main body of his army, yet the safe retreat of the latter in the event of defeat depended on the staunchness of this isolated wing. Graham, moving southward from Murguia by the Bilbao road, was to attack Reille who commanded the French right, and to attempt the passage of the Zadora at Gamara Mayor and Ariaga; should he succeed, the French would be turned, and in great part enclosed between the Puebla mountains on one side and the Zadora on the other by the corps of Hill and Wellington.

Graham approached the valley of the Zadora about noon. Before moving forward on the village of Abechuco, it became necessary to force across the river the enemy's troops holding the heights on the left and covering the bridges of Ariaza and Gamara Mayor. This was accomplished after a short but sharp fight in which Colin Campbell participated. Sarrut's French division retired across the stream, and the British troops occupied the ground from which the enemy had been driven. Campbell thus describes the sequel:--"While we were halted the enemy occupied Gamara Mayor in considerable force, placed two guns at the principal entrance into the village, threw a cloud of skirmishers in front among the cornfields, and occupied with six pieces of artillery the heights immediately behind the village on the left bank. About 5 P.M. an order arrived from Lord Wellington to press the enemy in our front. It was the extreme right of their line; and the lower road leading to France, by which alone they could retire their artillery and baggage, ran close to Gamara Mayor. The left brigade moved down in contiguous columns of companies, and our light companies were sent to cover the right flank of this attack. The regiments, exposed to a heavy fire of musketry and artillery, did not take a musket from the shoulder until they carried the village. The enemy brought forward his reserves, and made many desperate efforts to retake the bridge, but could not succeed. This was repeated until the bridge became so heaped with dead and wounded that they were rolled over the parapet into the river below. Our light companies were closed upon the Ninth, and brought into the village to support the second brigade. We were presently ordered to the left to cover that flank of the village, and we occupied the bank of the river, on the opposite side of which was the enemy. After three hours' hard fighting they retired, leaving their guns in our possession. Crossing the Zadora in pursuit, we followed them about a league, and encamped near Metanco." The French left and centre had been driven in, and Graham had closed to the enemy their retreat by the Bayonne road, so that there remained to them only the road leading towards Pampeluna, which was all but utterly blocked by vehicles and fugitives. In the words of one of themselves, the French at Vittoria lost all their equipages, all their guns, all their treasure, all their stores, all their papers, so that no man could prove even how much pay was due to him; generals and subordinate officers alike were reduced to the clothes on their backs, and most of them were barefooted.

Graham was in command of the operations, his force amounting to about ten thousand men. The obvious preliminary was the capture of the redoubt and convent of San Bartolomeo. An attack on this position, made on the 14th of July after an artillery preparation, had failed with heavy loss. A second attempt made on the 17th was more successful, three days of unintermitting artillery fire having reduced the convent to ruins and silenced the redoubt. The attack was made in two columns, the right one of which Colin Campbell accompanied with his own, the light company. The chief fighting of the day was done by his regiment, which stormed both convent and redoubt and after some hard fighting drove the French out of the adjacent suburb of San Martino and occupied what fire had spared of it. In this affair the Ninth lost upwards of seventy officers and soldiers. Campbell's laconic entry in his journal for this day is simply, "Convent taken." But he must have distinguished himself conspicuously, since in Graham's despatch to Lord Wellington, among "the officers whose gallantry was most conspicuous in leading on their men to overcome the variety of obstacles exposed to them" was mentioned "Lieutenant Colin Campbell of the Ninth Foot."

The Commander-in-Chief desired judicious speed, and the operations were hurried on unduly by men who were too impetuous to adhere to the scheme sanctioned by their chief. After a four days' bombardment of the place the assault was ordered for the early morning of the 25th. The storming-party consisted of a battalion of the Royals, with the task of carrying the great breach; of the Thirty-Eighth, told off to assail the lesser breach further to the right; and of the Ninth, to act in support of the Royals. Colin Campbell had a special position and a special duty, of a kind seldom entrusted to a subaltern and markedly indicative of the estimation which he had thus early earned. He was placed in the centre of the Royals with twenty men of his company, having the light company of the Royals as his immediate support and under his orders, and accompanied by a ladder-party under an engineer officer. His specific orders were on reaching the crest of the breach to gain the ramparts on the left, sweep the curtain to the high work in the centre of the main front, and there establish himself. The signal for an advance to the assault was given prematurely, while it was still dark, by the explosion of a mine, and the head of the storming-party moved out of the trenches promptly but in straggling order. The space between the exit from the parallel and the breach, some three hundred yards, was very rugged, broken by projecting rocks, pools, seaweed and other impediments. These difficulties, the darkness, and the withering fire from the ramparts, increased the tendency to disorder, and presently Campbell was not surprised to find an actual check. The halted mass had opened fire and there was no moving it forward. He pushed on past the halted body having there lost some men of his detachment; and reached the breach, the lower part of which he observed to be thickly strewn with killed and wounded. "There were," to quote from his journal, "a few individual officers spread on the face of the breach, but nothing more. These were cheering, and gallantly exposing themselves to the close and destructive fire directed on them from the round tower and other defences. In going up I passed Jones of the Engineers who was wounded; and on gaining the top I was shot through the right hip and tumbled to the bottom. Finding on rising that I was not disabled from moving, and observing two officers of the Royals who were exerting themselves to lead some of their men from under the line-wall near to the breach, I went to assist their endeavours and again went up the breach with them, when I was shot through the inside part of the left thigh." In the language of the brilliant historian of the Peninsular War--"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." The assault failed; and the siege of San Sebastian was temporarily exchanged for a blockade. There was much angry discussion and recrimination as to the causes of the disastrous issue. It was remarked that no general or staff officer had quitted the trenches, and that what leading there was devolved entirely on the regimental officers. They, at least, had fought well and exposed themselves freely, and none had behaved himself more gallantly than Colin Campbell. This was heartily and handsomely acknowledged by Graham when he thus wrote in his despatch to Lord Wellington describing the assault:--"I beg to recommend to you Lieutenant Campbell of the Ninth, who led the forlorn hope, and who was severely wounded in the breach." Such a recognition, barren of immediate results though it was, Colin Campbell probably thought cheaply earned at the cost of a mere couple of bullet-holes. These, however, hindered him from participating in the desperate fighting of the final and successful assault on San Sebastian; and, indeed, when after the surrender of the place his division departed, he had to remain an invalid in the shattered town. He was now about to perpetrate the only breach of military discipline ever laid to his charge. Having heard of the early prospect of a battle, he and a brother officer who had also been wounded took the liberty of deserting from hospital for the purpose of joining their regiment. How long it took them to limp from San Sebastian to Oryarzun is not specified; but they reached the regiment on October 6th just in time to join the midnight march to the left bank of the Bidassoa opposite Andaya, and on the following morning to wade the river and enter France. The British cannonade awoke the French to find their country invaded by an enemy and hostile cannon-balls falling in their bivouacs.

From Andaya the division in which Colin Campbell marched sprang up the slopes to assail the key of the position, the Croix des Bouquets. To that stronghold reinforcements were hurrying, and attacks on it had already been made in vain; "But," in the burning words of Napier, "at this moment Cameron arrived with the Ninth regiment, and rushed with great vehemence to the summit of the first height. The French infantry opened ranks to let the guns retire, and then retreated themselves at full speed to a second rise where they could only be approached in a narrow front. Cameron quickly threw his men into a single column and bore against this new position, which curving inwards enabled the French to pour a concentrated fire upon his regiment; nor did his violent course seem to dismay them until he was within ten yards, when, appalled by the furious shout and charge of the Ninth, they gave way and the ridges of the Croix des Bouquets were won as far as the royal road." The regiment in this encounter lost nearly one hundred men; and Colin Campbell, who commanded the light company in its front, was now again severely wounded. The breach of discipline he had committed in discharging himself from the hospital his colonel condoned with no sterner punishment than a severe reprimand, on account of his gallant conduct in the first action fought on French soil.

COLONIAL AND HOME SERVICE

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 be 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 be used for the purposes of a memoir. He, however, left it by 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 , 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 he 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 fever 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-appointment 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 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 dep?t 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 lieutenant-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."

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 hot 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 stern; 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 be 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 be 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 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 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.

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.

CHINA AND INDIA

The time fixed by the treaty of Nanking for the evacuation of the island of Chusan by the British troops was now approaching, and on May 10th the Chinese authorities resumed jurisdiction over the island. Until then Campbell's duties had not been purely military, the entire civil charge of Chusan having been vested in his hands. The most friendly relations existed between the British Brigadier and the Chinese Commissioners. Arrangements were made without a trace of friction for the preservation of the European burial-grounds and in regard to other matters. Campbell was the recipient of an interesting letter from the Commissioners, passages in which deserve to be quoted:--"While observing and maintaining the treaty, you have behaved with the utmost kindness and the greatest liberality towards our own people, and have restrained by strict regulations the military of your honourable country.... The very cottagers have enjoyed tranquillity and protection, and have not been exposed to the calamity of wandering about without a home. All this is owing to the excellent and vigorous administration of you, the Honourable Brigadier.... Now that you are about to return to your own country crowned with honour, we wish you every happiness."

Notwithstanding occasional attacks of ague which rendered him liable to depression and irritation, Campbell appears to have been fairly happy during his stay in Chusan. He writes on the eve of his departure of "'my last walk' in Chusan, where I have passed many days in quiet and peace, and where I have been enabled to save a little money, with which I hope to render my last days somewhat comfortable. My health upon the whole is pretty good; and altogether I have every reason to be thankful to God for sending me to a situation wherein I have been enabled to accomplish so much for my own benefit and the comfort of others, whilst my duty kept me absent from them." The latter allusion was to his father and sister, for both of whom he had been able to make provision in the event of his predeceasing them. Having left England heavily embarrassed, the increase of his emoluments during his stay in China had enabled him to relieve himself of liabilities, and this without being at all niggardly in the hospitalities which he dispensed.

Next day he started for Lahore, "feeling," as he records in his restrained yet sincere manner, "more than I expected when taking leave of the officers who happened to be at my quarters at the moment of my departure." He had a pleasant meeting at Cawnpore with his old West Indian comrades of the Twenty-First Fusiliers; and on the road between Kurnal and Meerut he had an interview with the Governor-General. Lord Hardinge received him with the frank kindness of an old Peninsular man to a comrade, described Henry Lawrence, the British Resident in the Punjaub, as "the King of the country, clever and good-natured, but hot-tempered," and gave Campbell to understand that if any part of the force in the Punjaub should be called upon to take the field, he should have a command. A few days later he reached Saharunpore, the headquarters for the time of Lord Gough, the Commander-in-Chief, also an old Peninsular man, whom he found most cordial and friendly. The old Chief asked him whether he could be of any service to him. Colin Campbell, sedulous as ever for the welfare of the Ninety-Eighth, replied that he had no favour to ask for himself, but that his lordship would give him pleasure by removing his regiment nearer to the frontier as early as might be, away from its present station which afforded the men so many temptations to drink. On his arrival at Lahore in the end of February, 1847, he was cordially received by Henry Lawrence, whose guest at the Residency he became until he should find accommodation for himself.

Campbell came into the Punjaub at a very interesting period. The issue of the war of 1845-46 had placed that vast territory at the mercy of the British Government, and Lord Hardinge might have incorporated it with the Company's dominions. But he desired to avoid the last resource of annexation; and although he considered it necessary to punish the Sikh nation for past offences and to prevent the recurrence of aggression, he professed his intention to perform those duties without suppressing the political existence of the Punjaub State. The Treaty of Lahore accorded a nominally independent sovereignty to the boy Prince Dhulip Singh, a British Representative was in residence at Lahore, and the Sikh army was being reorganised and limited to a specified strength. Within a few months Lall Singh, who had been appointed Prime Minister, had been deposed, and a fresh treaty was signed in December, 1846, which provided that a council of regency composed of eight leading Sikh chiefs should be appointed to act under the control and guidance of the British Resident, who was to exercise unlimited influence in all matters of internal administration and external policy. British troops were to be stationed in various forts and quarters throughout the country, maintained from the revenues of the State. The management was to continue for eight years until the Maharaja Dhulip Singh should reach his majority. The treaty conferred on the Resident unprecedented powers, and Major Henry Lawrence, an officer of the Company's artillery, became in effect the successor of Runjeet Singh.

In the end of 1847 Henry Lawrence left Lahore and went home to England in the same ship with Lord Hardinge. A week before they sailed from Calcutta Hardinge's successor, Lord Dalhousie, arrived there and took the oaths as Governor-General,--a potentate at whose hands a few years later Colin Campbell was to receive treatment which caused the high-spirited soldier to resign the command he held and leave India. In the Lahore Residency Henry Lawrence was succeeded temporarily by his brother John, who in March, 1848, gave place to Sir Frederick Currie, a member of the Supreme Council. The position was one which required the experience and military knowledge of a soldier, but Sir Frederick Currie was a civilian. In January Sir John Littler had been succeeded in the Punjaub divisional command by Major-General Whish, an officer of the Company's service, an appointment which disappointed Colin Campbell who had hoped for the independent command of the Lahore brigade.

The deceptive quietude of the Punjaub was now to be exposed. When Sir Frederick Currie reached Lahore, he found there Moolraj the Governor of Mooltan, a man of vast wealth who had come to offer the resignation of his position for reasons that were chiefly personal. Moolraj stipulated for some conditions which were not conceded, and ultimately he resigned without any other condition than that of saving his honour in the eyes of his own people. A new Governor was appointed in his place, who set out for Mooltan accompanied by Mr. Vans Agnew of the Bengal Civil Service and Mr. Agnew's assistant, Lieutenant Anderson of the Bombay Army. Moolraj marched with the escort of the new Governor, to whom, on the day after the arrival of the party in Mooltan, he formally surrendered the fort. After the ceremony Agnew and Anderson started on their return to camp, Moolraj riding alongside the two English gentlemen. At the gate of the fortress Agnew was suddenly attacked,--run through by a spear and slashed by sword-cuts. At the same moment Anderson was cut down and desperately wounded. Moolraj galloped off, leaving the Englishmen to their fate. Khan Singh's people carried them into a temple wherein two days later they were brutally slaughtered; their bodies were cut to pieces and their heads thrown down at the feet of Moolraj. What share Moolraj had taken in this treacherous butchery was never clearly ascertained; but every indication pointed to his complicity. This much is certain, that on the morning after the assassination he transferred his family and treasure into the fort, and placed himself at the head of the insurrectionary movement by issuing a proclamation summoning all the inhabitants of the province, of every creed, to make common cause in a religious war against the Feringhees.

News of the outrage and rising at Mooltan reached Lahore on April 24th. It was emphatically a time for prompt action, if an outbreak was to be crushed which else might grow into a general revolt throughout the Punjaub. It was extremely unlikely that the fort of Mooltan was equipped for an early and stubborn defence. To maintain our prestige was essential, for it was by prestige and promptitude only that we have maintained our pre-eminence in India. Sir Henry Lawrence would have marched the Lahore brigade on Mooltan without an hour's hesitation. Lord Hardinge would have ordered up the troops and siege-train from Ferozepore and the strong force collected at Bukkur; and would have invested Mooltan before Moolraj could have made any adequate preparations for prolonged defence. Marches through Scinde, from the north-western frontier, and from Lahore, could not have been made in the hot season without casualties; but, in the words of Marshman, "our Empire in India had been acquired and maintained, not by fair-weather campaigns, but by taking the field on every emergency and at any season."

On the first tidings from Mooltan Sir Frederick Currie ordered a strong brigade of all arms to prepare for a march on that stronghold, being of opinion that the citadel, described in poor Agnew's report as the strongest fort he had seen in India, would not maintain a defence when a British force should present itself before it, but that the garrison would immediately abandon Moolraj to his fate. Colin Campbell, on the other hand, held that since the fort of Mooltan was very strong it was to be anticipated that Moolraj would obstinately defend it; in which case a brigade sent to Mooltan would be obliged to remain inactive before it while siege-guns were being brought up, or, as seemed more probable, should no reinforcements arrive in support, it would have to retrace its steps followed and harassed by Moolraj's active and troublesome rabble. Eventually, in great measure because of the arguments advanced by Campbell, the movement from Lahore on Mooltan was countermanded; and the Commander-in-Chief, with the concurrence of the Governor-General, intimated his resolve to postpone military operations until the cold weather, when he would take the field in person.

Meanwhile a casual subaltern, for whom swift marches and hard fighting in hot weather had no terrors, struck in on his own responsibility. Gathering in the wild trans-Indus district of Bunnoo some fifteen hundred men with a couple of guns, Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes marched towards Mooltan. Colonel Cortland with two thousand Pathans and six guns hastened to join him; and on May 20th the united force defeated Moolraj's army six thousand strong. The loyal Nawab of Bhawalpore sent a strong force of his warlike Daudputras across the Sutlej to join hands with Edwardes and Cortland; and the junction had just been accomplished on the field of Kinairi some twenty miles from Mooltan, when the allies, about nine thousand strong, were attacked by Moolraj with a force of about equal magnitude. After half a day's hard fighting the enemy fled in confusion from the field. Edwardes and Cortland moved up nearer to Mooltan, their force now raised to a strength of about eighteen thousand; and there was a moment when Moolraj seemed willing to surrender if his life were spared. But he rallied his nerves and came out on July 1st with twelve thousand men to give battle on the plain of Sudusain within sight of the walls of Mooltan. After another obstinate fight his troops were thoroughly beaten and fled headlong into the city. "Now," wrote Edwardes to the Resident, "is the time to strike; I have got to the end of my tether. If," added the gallant and clear-sighted subaltern, "you would only send, with a few regular regiments, a few heavy guns and a mortar battery, we could close Moolraj's account in a fortnight, and obviate the necessity of assembling fifty thousand men in October."

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