Without going into the niceties of regimental detail, which were fully developed by 1809, it is necessary to give a certain attention to the dress of the army—we might almost add, to its occasional want of dress.

The Peninsular Army was fortunate in having started just late enough to be rid of the worst of the unpractical clothing—the legacy of the eighteenth century—which had afflicted the troops of the earlier years of the war. The odd hat, shaped something like a civilian beaver, with a shaving-brush at the side, which had been worn in Holland and Egypt, had just been superseded for the rank and file by a light felt shako, with brass plate in front,295 and a woollen tuft with the regimental colours (worn sometimes in front, sometimes at the side), and ornamented with white loops and tassels.296 This was a light head-dress, compared with what had gone before, and no less with the heavy, bell-topped leather shakos that were to come after. Wellington protested against an early attempt to introduce these, saying that he always knew his own troops at a distance, even when great-coated, by the fact that their shakos were narrower at the crown than the base, while the French headgear was always bell-topped, swelling out from the bottom to the crown, and the distinction was useful. The felt shako had a peak to protect the eyes from the sun, and a chin-strap. It was a serviceable head-dress, whose only fault was that, after long wear, and exposure to much rain, the felt became soft and might crease or bulge, and then dry into unsightly and lop-sided shapes.297

Down to 1811, officers of the line, except in rifle and light infantry corps, were wearing cocked hats, as had been the custom since the eighteenth century. The new clothing which came out in 1812 had shakos (of a more ornamental sort) for officers as well as men. The very sensible reason for the change was that obvious difference in dress between commissioned and non-commissioned ranks enabled the enemy’s marksmen to single out the officers, and to give them more than their fair share of bullets. The discarded cocked hat had been a stupid survival—a “burlesque of a chapeau usually topped by some extraordinary-looking feather,” says one wearer of it, while others wore it without any feather at all. The “cut-down” hat, exactly a span in height, was all the rage in the Lines of Torres Vedras during the winter of 1810–11.298 The felt shako was an enormous improvement in every way. After 1811, only generals and staff officers, engineers, doctors, commissaries, and drum-majors retained the cocked hat. The last case that I remember of its being used in the line was that of Lieutenant Maguire, of the 4th, who, leading the “forlorn hope” at the storm of San Sebastian (Aug., 1813) put on a cocked hat with a white feather “to make himself conspicuous and recognizable.” Clearly this head-dress was by that date wholly abnormal.299

Another evil which the Peninsular Army escaped also belonged to the head. Pigtails and hair-powder went out in 1808—an immense boon. As one who had endured them says, “The hair required to be soaped, floured, and frizzed, in order to be tortured into an uncouth shape, which gave the man acute pain, and robbed him of the power of turning his head easily, unless he brought his body round with it.” The grease and flour matted the hair, and inclined towards all sorts of scalp diseases. Wellington, who had discarded hair-powder and dressing long before most officers,300 must have been rejoiced when it became legally permissible to do without it in all ranks. It was not every one who agreed with him—a few old-fashioned men still wore pigtails and powder for some time in the Peninsula; but they soon died out.

In the same year, 1808, that these monstrosities vanished another affliction was relieved. Trousers of a blue-grey colour were substituted for breeches and gaiters, as service dress, just before the first brigades sailed, in 1808. The many-buttoned gaiters to the knee had been an intolerable nuisance; there was every temptation not to strip them off at all, when it took twelve minutes to button them up efficiently, more if they were wet through. Hence troops liable to be alarmed at any moment were tempted not to take them off at all for many days, which led to uncleanliness and diseases in the legs. Trousers were a great improvement—they were less tight, and could be easily slipped into and out of. Under the trousers short boots (often called shoes) were worn.

The coat for all ranks in the infantry was cut short in front, and had fairly small tails; it still preserved, more or less, the late eighteenth century cut in this respect, but differed from the earlier type in having the stiff upstanding collar supported by a leather stock, an evil device which constricted the neck and tended to apoplexy. On hard service, such as storming parties, the men unbuttoned their collars and threw their stocks aside.301 The most characteristic point that strikes the eye in pictures of the rank and file of the Peninsular period is the series of white stripes across the front of the coat, caused by the ornamental prolongation of the button guards. Bayonet and cartouche box were supported by the broad white leather cross-belts, ornamented with a brass plate with the regimental badge. The very heavy knapsack, normally of oilskin or glazed canvas, was supported by a separate attachment of straps passing under the arm-pits. The whole kit weighed some sixty pounds, when the canteen and haversack are taken into consideration. Officers had only a single leather belt coming from the right shoulder to the left hip, to sustain the sword, and wore their red silk sashes girt tight, in several turns around their waists.

One of Wellington’s most sensible traits was an intense dislike of worrying officers or men about details of uniform on active service. “Provided we brought our men into the field well appointed,” says Grattan of the 88th, “with their sixty rounds of ammunition each, he never looked to see whether trousers were black, blue, or grey: and as to ourselves, we might be rigged out in any colour of the rainbow if we fancied it.” The consequence was that scarcely any two officers were dressed alike! Some wore grey braided coats, others brown: some again liked blue; many (from choice, or perhaps necessity) stuck to the “old red rag.” Some wore long-skirted frock-coats, as better protection to the loins than the orthodox regimental cut. There are some curious records of the odd clothing in which officers finished a campaign. One records that he did the Burgos retreat in a garment improvised from the cassock of a priest, slit up and cut short and furnished with buttons. Another, a captain in the 29th, landing in Great Britain in a braided pelisse and a fancy waistcoat with silver buttons of Spanish filigree work, was taken for some sort of French prisoner by a worthy general, who congratulated him on being allowed such freedom in the place of his captivity.302 As to the men, they wore anything that could be got: a quantity of French trousers found at the capture of Madrid, in the Retiro fort, were issued to some corps. A more rough expedient was that of a colonel with a very ragged regiment in the winter of 1813–14, who allowed blankets to be cut up by the regimental tailors, to make up into trousers for such of the men as were absolutely disreputable in appearance. The battalion made some sensation when it marched into Mont-de-Marsan a few days later.303

All this did not vex Wellington’s soul in the least—from Picton’s tall beaver hat to the blanket-trousers, he saw and disregarded every detail. He himself was the most simply dressed man in the army, with his small cocked hat unornamented save by the English and Portuguese cockades, his blue, tight-buttoned frock-coat, and the short cloak with cape which has been immortalized by a score of statues and pictures.

I ought, perhaps, to mention that the winter-clothing for the infantry was a grey pepper-and-salt coloured great coat, of very thick cloth, with a cape reaching down to nearly the elbow, so as to give a double thickness of protection to the shoulders. There was also an oilskin cover to the felt shako, which could not always be easily adjusted to the latter, when it had got distorted in shape from much wear. Plate No. 8 gives an illustration of this costume.

When the Peninsular Army first started on its campaigns, the heavy dragoons were the most archaic-looking corps in it, for they still wore the broad and heavy cocked hats, which had prevailed in all armies during the middle years of George III., and jack boots up to the knee. This headgear, which after a single campaign in the tropical rains of the Peninsula always became sodden and shapeless, and hung down limply towards the shoulders, was fortunately abolished by a royal warrant of August, 1812, and during the following winter many of the heavy dragoon regiments received brass helmets of a classical shape, with a crest and plume, which, though rather heavy, were an immense improvement on their former shapeless hats. At the same time they were given instead of jack-boots (which had made skirmishing on foot almost impossible) grey cloth overalls, with a broad red stripe, and short boots. This was the dress of the heavies in 1813–14 and during the Waterloo campaign.

The light dragoons had gone to the Peninsula in 1808 with the black japanned helmet with a bearskin crest along its crown, which had been in use since the time of the American War. With it they wore blue coats with white froggings, and buckskin breeches with Hessian boots. The general effect was handsome, and in use the dress was not unpractical. General Foy mentions it with approval in his history. The French outposts were much puzzled when, at the commencement of the Vittoria campaign, the English vedettes and outposts appeared in a new uniform, which was introduced for light cavalry at the same time as the changes made for heavy cavalry just mentioned above. It was at first suspected that new regiments had been joining from England. The 1813 uniform substituted, for the black helmet with fur, a shako with a small upright plume, slightly bell-topped in shape, and with ornamental cord and tassels. It looks as if it had been suggested by the head-dress of the French chasseurs À cheval, and was much too like it to please Wellington. At the same time the blue jacket barred with white lace was changed for a blue coat, with a very broad plastron of the colour of the regimental facings in front, extending from collar to waist, and the buckskin breeches were replaced by tight-fitting breeches of webbing. This was the Waterloo uniform of all light dragoon regiments.

The large majority of the British cavalry regiments in the Peninsula were light dragoons: for the first three years of Wellington’s command there were only three heavy dragoon regiments in the field, and no British hussars. Of the latter, a new introduction in the national Army, there was one brigade present in 1808 during Sir John Moore’s operations,304 and the same regiments came out in 1813, to see the last year of the war.305 During the greater part of Wellington’s campaigns the only hussars present with the army were Hanoverians, the very efficient corps belonging to the King’s German Legion. The fantastic hussar uniform of the period, a development from a much simpler Hungarian original, is well known. Over a jacket fitting tight to the body, was worn the furred and braided pelisse, which was usually not completely put on, but flung back, so as to hang over the left shoulder. It flapped behind, and was a hindrance rather than a covering. On the legs long overalls were worn. The head-dress was a very large fur cap, or, as it would have been called later, a busby. I find very severe criticisms on this head-gear. One officer says, “These flimsy, muff-like appendages encumber the heads of our soldiers. The awkward cap, being constructed partly of pasteboard, soaks up a great quantity of wet during the violent rains of this country, and so becomes unbearably heavy and disagreeable, while it affords no protection to the wearer. At all times it can be cut down to his skull with the greatest ease.”306 The cause of its adoption seems to have been rather the Prince Regent’s eye for splendour in military costume than anything else. For strength and protection, no less than comfort, the light helmet of the early dragoons was universally preferred by critics. Later improvements made the busby more solid and less heavy, but in 1808 it was evidently a most unsatisfactory head-dress.

Artillery uniform may be described in a few words. That of the horse artillery was a close copy of that of the original light dragoon—black japanned helmet with fur crest, blue jacket laced with gold (instead of the dragoon’s silver) and buckskin breeches. Field artillery, on the other hand, were clothed almost exactly like infantry of the line, save that their coats were blue instead of red. Their tall felt shako and tuft, trousers, and coat with white stripes, were exactly similar to those of the linesmen. Engineer officers wore a dress like that of line officers before the shako came in, having a cocked hat down to the end of the war, and trousers. The rank and file of that department—Royal Military Artificers down to 1812,307 Royal Sappers and Miners after—had shako and blue coat down to 1813, but changed the latter for a red coat, like that of the line, in the last-named year. It was braided with yellow across the front instead of white, the only practical difference in appearance.

Doctors and commissaries down to the end of the war were wearing a cocked hat, like that of a general or a staff officer. Hence some queer mistakes, when these peaceful gentlemen were mistaken for combatant officers, the colour of their plume, the one differentiating point, failing to be observed in the dusk or in dirty weather. It is said that some young commissaries were prone to pass themselves off as staff officers on the Spanish and Portuguese peasantry, and even on local authorities. A ridiculous anecdote is told of Doctor Maurice Quill, the surgeon of the Connaught Rangers, who was the best-known humorist in the army.308 A general, who caught a glimpse of his cocked hat behind a hedge, took him for a staff-officer shirking, and hunted him for some time from cover to cover, the doctor meanwhile shouting back to him, “I’m off; seen plenty of fighting for one day.” It was only when he took refuge with his mules and medical panniers, that his irate pursuer discovered that he was not a combatant officer. Other wearers of the cocked hat were the drum-majors of the line, who are said to have had much adulation paid to them by the country-folk, because of their enormous gold-laced head-dress and lavish display of braiding, which caused them to be taken for brigadiers at the least.

The most distinctive infantry uniform in the whole army was that of the rifle battalions, whose sombre colours contrasted in the most marked way with the red of the British and the bright blue of the Portuguese line. The dress of the 5/60th and the two light battalions of the K.G.L. differed from that of the three battalions of the 95th, in that while both wore the dark rifle-green jacket, the three German units had grey-blue trousers not unlike those of the line, while the latter were in green from head to foot. All wore black shakos of a high shape, like those of other regiments, and with a green tuft or ball at the front. The accoutrements were all black, in order to avoid the showing of light or shining points on the body, when the men were dispersed in skirmishing. In the head-dress of the officers there was a certain variety, the 5/60th and 1st Light battalion K.G.L. having a tall shako similar to that of their rank and file, while those of the 95th and the 2nd Light battalion K.G.L. had a peculiar head-dress, something like that of an eighteenth-century hussar; it was a tall, narrow cap, much adorned with diagonal twists of braid, and destitute of the peak to shade the eyes which formed part of the normal shako; it had a green tuft at the front. The 95th officers for some time wore over their tight jackets a black furred and braided pelisse, in the hussar style—surely a most absurd and inconvenient encumbrance for men who were continually scrambling through hedges, and working among thick brushwood. When thrown back, as it seems generally to have been, it must have caught in every possible twig. The officers’ jackets were distinguished from the plain-breasted coat of the rank and file by having a great quantity of narrow braiding across the front: they all wore falling “wings,” instead of epaulettes. The Portuguese caÇador uniform, save that it was brown and not bottle-green, reproduced very closely the cut and form of that of the 5/60th.

A word as to armament naturally follows on notes concerning uniform. The weapon that mainly won the Peninsular victories was the “Tower musket” of the line battalions, the famous “Brown Bess.” It was a heavy flint-lock, fitted with a pan, and weighing about nine pounds. Its effective range was about 300 yards, but no accurate shooting could be relied upon at any range over 100. Indeed, the man who could hit an individual at that distance must not only have been a good shot, but have possessed a firelock of over average quality. Compared with the rifle, already a weapon of precision, it was but a haphazard sort of arm. At any distance over the 100 yards the firing-line relied upon the general effect of the volley that it gave, rather than on the shooting of each man. Nevertheless, the British musket was decidedly a stronger, better made and more accurate weapon than that used by Continental armies, and was much preferred by our Spanish and Portuguese allies to those of their own manufacture. Its calibre was sixteen, its missile was a round leaden bullet (a little heavier than the French ball, whose weight was twenty to the pound), and made up with a stout paper cartridge, of which each man normally carried sixty. In order to secure certain ignition by the snapping of the flint, the butt-end of the cartridge had to be torn open by the teeth, before it was placed in the musket barrel, and a splash of powder had to be thrown into the pan to catch the spark and communicate it to the cartridge. The latter was driven down the barrel by an iron ramrod. Raw recruits in a moment of excitement, firing too fast, are said not infrequently to have forgotten to withdraw the ramrod after loading, and to have shot it away—which left them helpless.

The greatest hindrance to good musketry was wet. Long-continued rain might penetrate the cartouch box, and damp all the powder, so that every cartridge missed fire. But even a sudden heavy squall might drench the particular cartridge that was being handled, and make its torn-open end incapable of ignition. Or it might wash the priming-powder out of the pan, or damp it into a paste, so that it could not catch fire. In either case, infantry fighting in a rainstorm could not count on any certain fire-effect; not one shot in four might go off, and troops surprised in open order by cavalry would be very helpless. Their only chance of salvation would be to form square and trust to the defensive power of the bayonet. The latter weapon was long, triangular, and rather heavy; its weight did not make accurate shooting easier, when it was fixed.

There was a somewhat lighter and more carefully made weapon for light infantry battalions, called the light infantry musket; except that its sights were more accurately seen to, and that its length was slightly less, I cannot find that it greatly differed from the normal Tower musket. The same may be said of the fusil, which was an older type of light musket, which had originally given its name to all fusiliers. The last time that it occurs in use, was when it was given during the latter years of the war to the experimental home battalions, into which boys under seventeen were drafted. To suit their short stature and younger muscles, fusils instead of full-sized muskets were served out to them.

Quite different from all muskets were the rifles served out to the 5/60th, the 95th, and the Light Battalions of the K.G.L. The pattern was called the Baker rifle, from its inventor. It was a short weapon with a barrel two and a half feet long, furnished with seven grooves within, which made a quarter-turn in the length of the barrel. Its calibre was a twenty bore, and it was stiff to load. An interesting letter from one of the majors of the 5/60th to the assistant adjutant-general at Cork, written just before the battalion sailed for Portugal, makes a demand for 450 small mallets, for the purpose of forcing the bullet down the barrel. “They should be made of hard wood, with a handle about six inches long, pierced with a hole at the extremity for fastening a string to it.” Major Davy adds that “the instrument is absolutely necessary,” and a mallet for every two men should be furnished.309 These tools, however, were in use only for a few months, were found not indispensable, and were finally withdrawn. But to ram the ball home was always a hard job, owing to the grooves. The rifleman carried no bayonet, his second weapon being a very short and curved sword, more useful for wood-chopping than anything else.

Sergeants were not yet armed like the rank and file, except in the rifle battalions, where they carried the normal weapon of the “Baker” type. In the Guards and line alike they had a seven-foot spear with a cross-piece below the head, to prevent over-penetration after a thrust.310 The names of pike and halberd were used for it indifferently, though the former was the more correct, the original halberd having been a cut-and-thrust weapon with an edge as well as a point. In addition, the sergeant carried a brass-hilted sword at his left side. I have never found any mention of its being used, the halberd being always the preferred weapon—though in action a sergeant often picked up a dead man’s musket, and joined in the firing.311 But, en revanche, I have found a confession by a newly made sergeant of his having caught it between his legs, and had a nasty fall, on his first appearance with the three stripes. The weapon was slightly curved, and meant for cutting rather than thrusting.

On the other hand, the infantry officer’s sword was quite straight and rather light, a thrusting weapon essentially. There are many complaints that it was too slight for its work—e.g. it had no chance against a French cavalry sword, which would always batter it down, when the two clashed in stroke and parry. I have found it called a “toasting-fork,” and other insulting names. Many officers provided themselves with foreign weapons of a heavier make, and better adapted for cutting; no objection was made to this departure from the regulations. Mounted and staff officers carried a different sword—a curved broad-bladed sabre, of the type of that used by light cavalry. Rifle officers also used a curved sabre, of a rather short make, and not the straight infantry sword.

Heavy cavalry used the broad-sword with steel hilt and guard, straight and very heavy. It could be used for the thrust as well as for the cut, but it would seem that the British dragoons (unlike the French cuirassiers) always preferred the edge to the point. The sabre of the light dragoon and the hussar was a markedly curved weapon, very broad in the blade, and only suitable for the stroke, though very occasionally we hear of a thrust being made.312 From the enormous proportion of wounded to killed in engagements where the French and English light cavalry met, it is clear that the sabres of both sides were better suited to maim than to slay. The thrusting sword of the cuirassiers had a much more terrible reputation.

The rank and file of the Royal Sappers and Miners carried muskets and bayonets like infantry of the line, and their sergeants the regulation halberd. Horse artillery gunners had sabres of the light dragoon type; but field artillery only very short curved swords, like those of the rifle regiments. The drivers, who were organized as a separate corps, had no weapons at all, in order that their attention might not be distracted from their horses. This seems to have been a very doubtful expedient, leaving them absolutely helpless if attacked by hostile cavalry. It may have originated from the fact that the driver, far into the eighteenth century, had not been a soldier at all, but a “waggoner,” a civilian without uniform or arms. It was only in 1794 that the corps of Artillery Drivers was formed upon this rather unpromising basis.

This is probably the place in which mention should be made of the standards under which the army fought.313 Cavalry banners or guidons had just gone out—if used at all in the Peninsular War, it was only in its first year. Reports from the later years show that all regiments had left them either at their depÔt in England, or in some cases at Lisbon. But infantry regiments, with few exceptions, took their flags into the field, as was the custom with their successors down to the last generation. It was only in the 1880’s that they finally ceased to be displayed on active service. The Rifles, always destined to fight in extended order, never had colours, and the regimental annals of some Light Infantry corps (the 68th and 71st) show that for similar reasons they had left their standards behind in England. But this was not the case with all Light Infantry: the famous 43rd and 52nd carried them all through the war.

Of the two battalion colours the one or “King’s Colour” was a large Union Jack, with the regiment’s number on a shield or medallion, often encompassed with a wreath, and sometimes also with the badge of the corps, when such existed. The second or Regimental colour was of the same hue as the facings of the corps, and only had a small Union Jack in its upper left corner, next the pole. On the plain silk of the main surface of the flag were disposed the number of the regiment, often in a wreath, and its badges and battle-honours, where such existed. Since facings had many hues, the main effect of the two flags was very different, the large Union Jack of the King’s Colour being contrasted with the yellow, green, crimson, or white, etc., of the Regimental Colour.

The colours were borne in battle by the two junior ensigns of the battalion, who had assigned to them for protection several colour-sergeants. It was the duty of these non-commissioned officers to take charge of the flag if the proper bearer were slain or hurt, and in many battles both colours came out of action in sergeants’ hands. The post of colour-sergeant was honourable but dangerous, for the enemy’s fire always beat hardest about the standards in the centre of the battalion line. Sergeant Lawrence of the 40th notes, in his simple diary, that at Waterloo he was ordered to the colours late in the day, because both the ensigns and all the colour-sergeants had been hit. “Though used to warfare as any one, this was a job I did not like. There had been before me that day fourteen sergeants already killed or wounded around them, and both staff and colours were almost cut to pieces.”314 This was, of course, very exceptional carnage; but the posts of junior ensign and colour-sergeant were always exceptionally dangerous.