The Cavaliers of Fortune

John Cameron, of Fassifern

K.T.S.,

COLONEL OF THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS; SLAIN AT QUATRE-BRAS, 1815.

From among the many distinguished Scottish officers who served under Wellington, if we could select one for the delineation of his career, it would be John Cameron of the House of Fassifern and Locheil.

This brave soldier was the eldest of the seven children of Ewen Cameron, Laird of Fassifern (i.e. the Point of Alders), and his wife, Lucy Campbell, of Barcaldine, whose father succeeded to the estate of Glenure on the death of her uncle, Colin Campbell, who was shot at the Ferry of Ballachulish, in Appin, by Allan Breac Stewart, otherwise known as Vic Ian, Vic Alaster,—a crime for which the Laird of Ardsheil was judicially murdered by the Duke of Argyle at the Castle of Inverary.

Ewen Cameron was the son of John the Tanister, a younger brother of the great Locheil, who commenced the insurrection of 1745; and it is said that this powerful chief, on being summoned by Prince Charles to attend his memorable lauding in Moidart on the 25th July, was predisposed to warn him against the projected rising of the clans.

“If such be your intention, Donald,” said John of Fassifern, “write your opinion to the Prince, but do not trust yourself within the fascination of his presence. I know you better than you know yourself, and foresee that you will be unable to refuse compliance.”

But Locheil preferred an interview with the Prince, and the event proved the truth of Fassifern’s prophecy. He joined him immediately with all the clan Cameron, and the gallant revolt of the clans immediately followed. Fassifern was taken prisoner after Culloden, and was long detained in the Castle of Edinburgh; there he was kept so close that the year 1752 arrived, yet he heard nothing of the barbarous execution of his brother, the amiable and unfortunate Dr. Archibald Cameron, until one evening a soldier brought him a kettle with hot water. He took off a paper which was twisted round the handle, and found it to be the “last speech and dying confession, &c., of the traitor Archibald Cameron.” He immediately ordered a suit of the deepest mourning, and on appearing in it before the authorities was brutally upbraided by the Lord Justice Clerk for putting on mourning for a traitor.

“Alas!” said Cameron, “that traitor was my dear brother!”

“A rebel!” retorted the judge, scornfully. He was exiled, but afterwards returned to die at Fassifern.

Colonel John Cameron, the grand-nephew of the Jacobite chief, was born in Argyleshire, at the farm of Inverscaddle (a house which belonged to his family before the acquisition of Fassifern), on the 16th of August, 1771, only twenty-five years after the battle of Culloden, and while those inhuman butcheries, for which the name of Cumberland is still abhorred in Scotland, were fresh in the memory of the people. According to the old custom, common to Scotland and Ireland, he was assigned to the care of a foster-mother named M’Millan, who dwelt in Glendescherie, on the shore of Locharkaig. Thus, born and bred among the Gael, while the clans were unchanged and uncorrupted, and when the glens were full of that gallant race, with all their old traditions and historic memories, their military pride, and peculiar prejudices, Cameron was reared as thorough a chieftain as if had lived in the days of James IV. Educated among his native mountains, sharing in the athletic sports of the people, and those in which his foster-brother, Ewan M’Millan, who was a fox-hunter in Croydart, and a year his elder, excelled, young Cameron grew up a handsome and hardy Highlander, and early became distinguished by that proud, fiery, and courageous temperament for which he was so well known among the troops of Lord Hill’s division, and which sometimes caused him to set the rules of discipline, and the aristocratic coldness of Wellington, alike at defiance, if they interfered with his native ideas of rank and self-esteem.

In the “Romance of War,” a work which has made his name familiar to the reading public, a faithful description of him will be found. He was above the middle height, had a pleasing, open countenance, curly brown hair, and bright blue eyes, which, when he was excited, filled with a dusky fire.

Arms were then the only occupation for a Highland gentleman; and thus in his twenty-second year, on the 8th of February, 1793, he obtained an ensigncy in the 26th, or Cameronian Regiment, commanded by Sir William Erskine. He never joined that corps; but on raising a sufficient number of men in Locheil, procured a lieutenantcy in an independent Highland company then being formed by Capt. A. Campbell, of Ardchattan. He was gazetted on the 3rd of April; but this company was either disbanded or incorporated with the old 93rd Regiment, to which he was appointed lieutenant on the 30th of October in the same year. He did not join this regiment either, but busied himself in raising a company to procure the rank of captain in a corps of Highlanders, which, in obedience to a letter of service, dated 10th February, 1794, the Duke of Gordon was raising for his son, the young Marquis of Huntly, then a captain in the Scottish Regiment of Guards. This battalion was to consist of 46 officers, 64 staff, and 1000 rank and file, to be raised among the clan of Gordon.

From the lands of Fassifern and Locheil Cameron drew a company, principally of his own name and kindred, all hardy and handsome young Highlanders, among whom were his foster-brother, Ewen M’Millan, who never left him; three Camerons, Ewen, Alaster, and Angus, whom he made sergeants; Ewen Kennedy, for whom he procured an ensigncy, and another, who died a lieutenant. With these, all clad in their native tartans, he marched from the Braes of Lochaber to Castle Gordon, in Strathspey, where he was introduced to Alexander, Duke of Gordon, the Cock o’ the North, by his uncle, the Rev. Dr. Ross, of Kilmanivaig, the worthy author of the statistical account of that parish. He at once received a company in the duke’s own regiment, to which he was appointed on the 13th of February, 1794, and with which he attended the grand muster of the whole at Aberdeen on the 24th of June, when the corps was named the Gordon Highlanders, or 100th Regiment, afterwards and now the 92nd. The uniform coats and vests were scarlet, faced with yellow, and laced with silver to suit the epaulettes. The kilts and plaids were in one piece, each containing twelve yards of Gordon tartan; the claymores, dirks, buckles, and sporrans were mounted with silver; the bonnets were plumed with black ostrich feathers, and encircled by the old fess checque of the House of Stuart. The men were all Highlanders; scarcely one of them, and but very few of the officers, could speak English; the enthusiasm was so great in Badenoch that, in some instances, fathers and sons joined its ranks together.

At that time, when the French Revolution menaced Europe with anarchy, and the Convention declared war against Britain and Holland, the number of Highlanders in our service is almost incredible. During a period of fifty years the clans furnished eighty-six battalions of infantry, some of which were twelve hundred strong.3

How many could the Highlands raise now? Centralization, corruption, and local tyranny of the most infamous description have turned their beautiful glens into a silent wilderness, and the very place where Cameron raised his company of soldiers is now desolate and bare. “I can point,” says the author of a letter to the Marquis of Breadalbane, on his late ruthless clearings, “to a place where thirty recruits that manned the 92nd in Egypt came from—men before whom Napoleon’s Invincibles bit the dust—and now only two families reside there together. I was lately informed by a grazier that on his form a hundred swordsmen could be gathered at their country’s call, and now there are only himself and two shepherds.” The brave Gael, who crowded in tens of thousands to the British ranks, saw not the reward that was coming; evictions and wholesale clearings of the Scottish poor were then unknown. God gave the land to the people—they believed it was theirs but the feudal charters have decided otherwise, and the clans have been swept from Lochness to Locheil, and from Locheil to the shores of Lochlomond. The hills and the valleys are there, but the tribes have departed, and who can restore them?

Cameron of Fassifern embarked with his regiment at Fort George, in Ardersier, for Southampton, where, as kilted corps were unusual then in England, its arrival created a great sensation. From thence the battalion sailed for Gibraltar, under the command of Huntly, its colonel commandant, and disembarked at the Rock on the 27th of October. It was on this occasion that Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, composed her now popular song, “The Blue Bells of Scotland.”

At Gibraltar a coolness ensued between Cameron and the marquis, and from that hour they never were friends. The former having had a dispute at the mess with a Captain M’Pherson on some point of Highland etiquette, high words and a duel followed. Captain, afterwards Colonel Mitchel, C.B., and Knight of St. Anne of Russia, was Cameron’s second. Happily nothing serious resulted; and next day at the mess Lord Huntly drank wine with them all, begging that in future no more such quarrels might occur, and concluded by saying—

“I may be pardoned in requiring this, as, I believe, all the gentlemen here are the tenants of my father.”

“No, marquis,” said Fassifern, loftily; “by Heaven, here is one who is no tenant of the house of Gordon.”

The young marquis frowned; he did not reply, but never forgot the haughty retort.

In sentiments and character, even in manner, Fassifern belonged to a past age—to a period of time beyond our own; for the stern pride, the Spartan spirit of clanship, with all the wild associations of the Gael, deeply imbued his mind, and gave a decision to his manner and a freshness to his enthusiasm. Proud and fiery, like all his race, he had the defect of being quick and hasty in his speech; but he never called aloud the name of an officer on parade, though more than one was reprehended by him in terms of severity, which, when the gust of passion was past, his generous spirit told him had been too great. He was a rigid disciplinarian, strict even to a fault, and yet withal he possessed a charm which won him the affection and respect of all his regiment. To English officers who did not understand him, to Wellington in particular, his pride seemed perhaps mere petulance, and his Highland chivalry (the result of his education) eccentricity: but of these more anon.

After receiving its colours on Windmill Hill, the regiment embarked for Corsica, and on the 11th of July, 1795, landed at Bastia, where, under the influence of Paoli, the allies had landed in the preceding year, and united the birthplace of Bonaparte to the British dominions. After suppressing a rebellion in Corte, a town in the centre of the isle, and forming the secret expedition under their major, Alexander Napier, of Blackstone, to reduce Porto Ferrajo in Elba, the Highlanders returned to Gibraltar, where General de Burgh publicly testified his approbation of their conduct.

Cameron who was now, by the death of Major Donald M’Donald, of Boisdale, senior captain, accompanied the regiment to Portsmouth, where it landed in May, and from whence it went to Dublin in June, 1798. Here he became attached to a young lady possessed of great personal attractions, and announced to his father his intention of marrying. But old Ewen Cameron had imbibed some curious prejudices against the Irish, for a false rumour had gained credence in the Highlands that Prince Charles had been betrayed at Culloden by his two Irish followers, Sullivan and Sheridan. There was great consternation in Fassifern and the Braes of Lochaber when it was announced that the young laird was about to wed a stranger; and however absurd this prejudice may appear, old Fassifern set all his wits to work, and contrived to have the engagement broken off completely. A quarrel ensued between the lovers; rumour speaks of another duel with some one; but from that time to the hour of his death, Cameron was never known to form another serious attachment.

At this time the Irish were in arms; Vinegar Hill was valiantly fought and lost by them; the Highlanders were kept incessantly on the march, and their belts were never off. During these operations, when encamped near Moat, they were re-numbered as the 92nd Regiment of the line.

After being quartered in Athlone, on the 15th June, 1799, Cameron embarked with the regiment for the camp at Barham Downs, where the troops destined for the expedition to Holland were assembling under Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercrombie. The Gordon Highlanders were brigaded with the 1st Royal Scots, 25th, or Scots Borderers; the 49th and Cameron Highlanders, under Brigadier Sir John Moore. The troops sailed from Ramsgate, landed near the Helder, and on that evening the Gordon Highlanders, after having fifteen men drowned, fought bravely at the battle of the Sandhills. Here they and Cameron first saw the French, for whom he felt an hereditary abhorrence, having been reared to believe, like every Highlander, that they had trifled, forty years before, with the best interests of Scotland, and betrayed Prince Charles and the clans to England.

He served at the head of his company in all the operations under the gallant Moore—during the advance to Oude Sluys, the action at Crabhenden, where Captain Ramsay of Dalhousie was wounded; the engagement with General Brune; the attack on Alkmaar; the retreat to Zuype; and the battle of Egmont-op-Zee, where it is probable that his French antipathy received an additional incentive, by the infliction of a severe wound. In that decisive charge, by which twenty pieces of cannon were retaken from the enemy, a ball struck one of his knees; and as he was falling, the arm of the faithful M’Millan was the first to support him. Here the Marquis of Huntly was wounded in the shoulder; and neither he nor Cameron ever fully recovered the effect of these bullets. In this affair the Highlanders had 288 officers and men killed and wounded.

Among the latter was the henchman Ewen, who lost an ear. Rendered furious by the wound, regardless of Cameron’s orders, he rushed among the French, and drove his bayonet, with a ball at the same moment, through the body of the soldier who had wounded him. Returning to his company, he said in Gaelic, to Cameron—

“You see what yonder son of the devil has done to me,” and pointed to his ear, which was dripping with blood.

“He served you rightly,” said Cameron, in the same language; “why did you skirmish so far in front?”

“Dioul!” muttered Ewen; “he won’t take my other ear.”

Here Sir John Moore was severely wounded, and Cameron desired two Highlanders to carry him to the rear. Moore afterwards offered 20l. to the soldiers who carried him off. The reward was proffered to the regiment on parade, and it is a noble trait of it, that no man ever stepped forward to claim the fee. On being created a K.B., and requiring supporters for his arms, Moore addressed the following interesting letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Napier, then commanding the regiment:—

“Richmond, 17th Nov. 1804.

“My dear Napier,—I have been for some days on leave in London, and received your letters there. I am here with my mother for a day, and return this night to Sandgate. My reason for troubling you for a drawing is, that, as a Knight of the Bath, I am entitled to supporters. I have chosen a light-infantry soldier for one, being colonel of the 1st Light Infantry regiment; and a Highland soldier for the other, in gratitude to, and in commemoration of, two soldiers of the 92nd, who, in the action of the 2nd October, raised me from the ground, when I was lying on my face, wounded and stunned (they must have thought me dead), and helped me out of the field. As my senses were returning, I heard one of them say, ‘Here is the general; let us take him away,’ upon which they stooped and raised me by the arm. I never could discover who they were, and therefore concluded they must have been killed. I hope the 92nd will not have any objection (as I have commanded them, and as they rendered me such a service) to my taking one of the corps as a supporter. I do not care for the drawing being elegant; all I want is the correct uniform and appointments. Any person who can draw a figure tolerably, but will dress him correctly, with arms, accoutrements, and in parade order, will answer every purpose, as I want it for a model only, from which a painter may draw another. If you are at a loss for a person to do this, I dare say Lieutenant-Colonel Birch would do it, or get one of the officers of the department to do so, if you sent a man properly dressed to Colchester; but I think your own quarters will produce some one sufficiently expert. I received your letter by Captain (Peter) Grant, before I left Sandgate: he seems a very gentlemanly young man. I do not think I can recommend a proper adjutant to you at present. Remember me kindly to my friends of the 92nd, and believe me, my dear Napier, sincerely, &c.,

“John Moore.4

“Lieut.-Col. Napier, of Blackstone.”

After the convention at Alkmaar, and the cessation of hostilities, the regiment embarked near the Helder, and landed at Yarmouth on the 29th October. Though still suffering from his wound, Cameron obtained the temporary command of a light infantry corps under Lord Hopeton. This provisional battalion was exercised on Barham Downs, where he won the reputation of a zealous and able officer. He came home on leave to his native glen, kindly bringing with him Ewen M’Millan, who had a craving to visit his old mother by the shore of Locharkaig.

They rejoined the Highlanders soon after, and the next scene of Cameron’s service was in Egypt. Before embarking, his regiment was supplied with yellow knapsacks, having a red thistle painted on the backs of them.

Fassifern accompanied his regiment on General Maitland’s futile expedition to the Isle de Houat, from whence, with other regiments destined for the Mediterranean, they embarked under Lord Dalhousie’s orders; and after touching at Port-Mahon in Minorca, passed on to the attack of Cadiz, which was abandoned, in consequence of a pestilence that infected the coast. The expedition then sailed for Malta; and from thence to the Bay of Marmora, on the coast of Asiatic Turkey, where Abercrombie had concentrated 15,000 men to expel the French from Egypt. He had six regiments of dragoons, and forty battalions of infantry, seven of which were foreign.

Fassifern served with distinction in all the operations of the Egyptian campaign, including the landing effected under a desperate cannonade on the shore of Aboukir; the bloody contest round the Tower of Mandora, where his company occupied a conspicuous position in front of the line, as skirmishers, and where his colonel, Erskine of Cardross, received a mortal wound, and of his comrades there were 109 officers and men killed and wounded. The intrepid conduct of his regiment was particularly mentioned in the dispatches of Abercrombie, whose guard of honour was daily furnished from its ranks. Cameron was at the battle of Alexandria, where, on the 21st March, 1801, he received a wound under the left eye, and saw the brave Abercrombie receive his death shot.

The troops then advanced to Rosetta; and by the time when the Gordon Highlanders entered Grand Cairo—“the Queen of Cities”—the capital of Moaz El Kehira, their shoes were completely worn away. Quarter-master Wallace was ordered to procure an immediate supply; but there was one gigantic grenadier from Speyside, for whom a suitable pair of brogues could not be found in all Grand Cairo.

For his services in Egypt, Cameron received a gold medal from the Grand Seignior; and on the promotion of Major Napier to the lieutenant-colonelcy, he obtained the majority on the 5th April, 1801; and seven months afterwards, on the conclusion of that convention, by which Grand Cairo was surrendered, the Highlanders were ordered home to Scotland, and were quartered in Glasgow.

About this time a dispute occurred among the officers. Some of them, who were Lowlanders, insisted that the Gaelic, which was generally spoken at the mess, should be abolished there. It was put to the vote, and by an overwhelming majority, the Celts secured its retention; but in those days, there were in the regiment twelve gentlemen of the clan Donald, all kinsmen, who invariably voted together in everything, and could carry any point they pleased. These factions were known as the national and anti-national parties.

After the short peace of Amiens, war was declared again; and when the army was increased, the Gordon Highlanders were strengthened by the addition of a second battalion, and Major Cameron marched with it to Weely in England, to join the force mustered to oppose the expected invasion by Napoleon. The invasion ended in smoke; but the battalion remained cantoned in England until 1807, and in the preceding year lined the streets of London during the funeral of Nelson. Fassifern embarked with them at Harwich on the Danish expedition, under Lord Cathcart; and, for the first time, served under Wellington—then Sir Arthur Wellesley—at the attack on Kioge, where Lieutenant-Colonel Napier, at the head of the Highlanders, charged the Danes, who were routed with the loss of their artillery.

After the bombardment of Copenhagen, and the return of the troops to Britain, Major Cameron, in consideration, of his services, received a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy on the 25th April, 1808; a full lieutenant-colonelcy on the 23rd June following; and was shortly afterwards ordered on the Swedish expedition under Sir John Moore, who led 10,000 men to assist Gustavus Adolphus IV., a gallant but fiery and intractable prince, against whom Russia and France had united their arms. The violent temper of the Swedish monarch rendered this undertaking completely futile, and, without achieving anything, the expedition returned to Britain.

As junior lieutenant-colonel, Cameron now remained with the second battalion at home; while the first, under Lieutenant-Colonel Napier, accompanied Sir John Moore a third time on that fatal service, from which he never returned. In 1809, the gallant Napier fell with his leader at Corunna, and then Fassifern obtained the command of the first battalion, committing the second, in February, to the care of Lieutenant-Colonel Lamond, of Lamond. Thus, at the early age of thirty-seven, and after only fifteen years’ service, he found himself at the head of one of the finest Scottish regiments in the service of his country.

In July, with the right wing of the first battalion, he embarked on board H.M.S. Superb, 74, at Harwich, on the great expedition under the Earl of Chatham, in Sir William Erskine’s brigade. He was at the landing on Breesand in Walcheren, and the occupation of Ter Goes on South Beveland. He landed with 998 Highlanders; but so fatal was the Dutch pestilence, that in October only 250 of them were on parade; and the grenadier company, which was entirely recruited from Aberdeenshire, was reduced to two sergeants and three privates. Cameron deeply regretted the loss of his men. The first who died was a fine young clansman, whom he had brought with him from Lochaber, and he attended his funeral in the churchyard of a neighbouring village. After addressing the soldiers on the merits of the deceased, “Cover him up with the greenest sods,” said he, “for he was a brave lad, a good soldier, and true Highlander!”

On its return from this disastrous service, his battalion occupied Woodbridge Barracks in England. At this time an Englishman obtained an ensigncy in the corps, which Cameron considered an innovation; for while, on one hand, he disliked the French, from old associations, on the other, he was not, for the same reason, over partial to Englishmen, and was wont to affirm, “that a Southern in the kilt reminded him of a hog in armour.” Unfortunately for himself, Ensign Mudge (for such was the name of the new acquisition) had no particular love for the kilt, at which he railed on all occasions, in very coarse terms, and once particularly at an Artillery hall in Woolwich, which so roused Cameron’s Highland ire, that he vowed, “if such remarks were ever made again by Ensign Mudge, he would bring him to a general court-martial!” At this time, the officers of the 42nd wore the kilt constantly by their own desire.

Undeterred by Cameron’s threat, Mudge wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, stating that his health would not permit him to wear a dress so unchristian and uncivilized. Sir David Dundas addressed an answer, not to him, but to Fassifern, stating that his Majesty had no further use for the services of poor Mr. Mudge, on whom this result, which Cameron and his Highlanders hailed with satisfaction, fell like a thunderclap.

While at Woodbridge, he invited to the mess Dr. Moore (the venerable father of the hero of Corunna), who afterwards addressed to him a letter, expressing his high sense “of the kind and social reception” he had met with from him and his officers. After this, in July, 1810, the battalion marched to Canterbury, previous to embarkation for Spain; Cameron obtained a short leave of absence, and so much had he become attached to the corps, that he wept when he left it even temporarily. On revisiting his native glen, his aged father, then in his seventieth year (the old laird was born in 1740), expressed great reluctance to part with him again, for, like a true Highlander, he had some dark forebodings of the future.

His three sisters were married: Mary, to M’Donald of Glencoe; Jean, to Roderick M’Neill of Barra; and Catherine, to Cluny M’Pherson; his eldest brother Duncan was practising as a writer to the signet, in the capital; and Peter, the second, was away to India in command of the Balcarras. The old laird was almost alone at Fassifern; he represented to the colonel, that, though he was only thirty-nine years of age, he had received two wounds, from one of which he still suffered; that he had been many times engaged with the enemy, and had seen enough of war. He urged him to settle at home and to marry; offering him his second estate of Arthurstone, in Angus; but the love of his profession was too strong in the heroic heart of Cameron, and he rejoined his battalion, then under the command of Major Archibald M’Donell (of the family of Keppoch), at the far-famed Lines of Torres Vedras.

To make his regiment as efficient as possible, he ordered that no officer who had been less than ten years in the service should ride on the march; this diminished the number of useless horses which every regiment then possessed; while to increase the number of bayonets, he turned the whole of the band into the ranks; thus, throughout the whole Peninsular War, he retained only the bagpipes, drums, and fifes. His regiment belonged to the 1st Brigade, or General Howard’s, in the 2nd Division of Infantry, or Lord Hill’s, with the 50th, under Colonel Stuart, and the 71st Highlanders, under Colonel Cadogan, with both of whom his fiery temper and jealousy on points of etiquette soon involved him in a coolness that lasted till they were both removed by death. The Highlanders entered Spain by the way of Albergaria, and their peculiar garb soon changed the constant cry of “Live the English,” to “Viva los Escotos! Viva Don Juan Cameron, y sus valiante Escotos! Viva!”

This was when following up the retreating Massena. Notwithstanding all efforts of that general to restore the barbarities of ancient warfare, much good feeling prevailed between the French and British when out of the field. Of this, one anecdote will suffice.

A French picket in front of Cameron’s regiment, were about to slay a bullock for their dinner, when the animal broke loose, and dashed across the neutral ground, where a Highlander killed it by a single ball, and his comrades proceeded immediately to cut up their prize in view of the hungry and disappointed foe, who sent over two soldiers, waving white handkerchiefs. Under these extempore flags of truce, they brought a message from their officer, saying that he was “sure Scottish soldiers were too generous to deprive his men of the only provisions they had seen for some days.” The Highlanders sent them back with half the beef, several loaves of bread, and a bottle of rum. After this, they became so familiar that some of our pickets went over and drank with those of the enemy, until Wellington’s order forbade it as unsafe and improper.

Cameron distinguished himself by his activity, at the head of his gallant Highlanders, in all the arduous operations of that sanguinary war. He led his regiment at Fuentes d’Onor, where it was on the right, covering a brigade of nine pounders, when it endured a severe cannonade, and had thirty-seven officers and men killed and wounded. Major Peter Grant had his arm torn off by a cannon-shot, but he survived to die lately, at a good old age, amongst his kindred in Strathspey.

The regiment was then 897 strong. Cameron was at the second siege of Badajoz, and at the surprise of Gerard’s division, on the 28th of October, 1811, when, on a dark, rainy morning, and under cover of a dense mist, Sir Rowland Hill’s troops attacked the village of Arroya del Molinos, or the Mills-of-the-King. In this brilliant affair, Fassifern attacked the two retreating squares of the French with his Highlanders, and breaking through one, sword in hand, formed on the other side of the Puebla, and completed the overthrow of Marshal Gerard, who had all his artillery, baggage, money, officers, horses, and 1,400 men taken. In the charge through the village, Cameron received a wound in the sword hand, and Captain M’Pherson, with whom he fought the duel at Gibraltar, was shot by his side. On this occasion the Highlanders had a parody made on the old song of “Johnny Cope,” for Gerard, until he heard the pipers of the 92nd playing that popular air, believed the attack to be a mere exchange of shots between his videttes and the guerillas. Cameron’s wound was a narrow escape, and is thus mentioned by an eye-witness:5

“The captain of the grenadier company having been wounded early in the action, the senior lieutenant, on assuming the command of it, made a false movement; on perceiving which, the colonel, greatly irritated, repeated his former orders in a voice of thunder, and, as was his usual custom when displeased, struck his left breast with his right hand, which then grasped the hilt of his sword. The last syllable of his orders had just been delivered, when a bullet, despatched by one of the enemy’s riflemen, struck the first joint of his middle finger, shattered the bone, passed through the handle of the sword, and struck his breast so violently, that he relinquished the command of the battalion to Major Mitchell, in the full conviction that the ball had passed into his body. On being undeceived, the gallant colonel instantly rejoined his battalion, and, with his middle finger dangling by a small piece of skin only, remained at the head of his Highlanders to the close of the engagement.”

When the French were completely driven out, and when Hill’s division was on the march for San Pedro, Cameron, who had lost much blood, was conducted by Ewen M’Millan to a house in Arroya, to have the wound dressed, and the finger, which yet dangled by a sinew, cut off. On entering, they found it occupied by a noisy and tipsy party of Spanish dragoons, who, notwithstanding the rank and wound of Fassifern, endeavoured to eject him. High words ensued, and a dragoon dared to aim a blow at his head with a sabre. Cameron instinctively raised his wounded hand for protection, and had his right arm cut to the bone. Rendered furious by the sight of his master’s blood, M’Millan levelled his musket at the head of the insolent Spaniard, and would have shot him dead; but Cameron, who was aware that the Conde de Penne Villamur’s dragoons occupied the whole village, exclaimed—

“Desist, Ewen, for God’s sake do not fire!” and struck up his foster-brother’s musket, the bullet from which pierced the ceiling. He never could discover the perpetrator of this severe wound, from the effects of which he suffered long.

During the harassing marches of Hill’s division in the desolate Estramadura, his native hardihood never flinched, though the miseries endured by the troops were excessive in that naked district, where they were constantly in arrears of pay, bivouacking without tents or fires, or cantoned in roofless and ruined towns, marching day and night in the wet and chill of winter, or the heat of the summer solano, when the white dust blew down the mountain passes, and the air became thick with flies; when the soil of the vast plains cracked and rent; when the perspiration rose in hazy steam above the marching columns; when comrades fought like tigers around the wayside wells and casual pools, to fill their canteens at the puddle through which, perhaps, the advanced guard had passed an hour before; when years of hardship, danger, starvation, and rags were to be endured, Fassifern never had a day’s illness or absence from parade; nor did his hardy Gordon Highlanders ever lose a man by fatigue, save upon two occasions.

These exceptions were Lieutenants Marshall and Hill, two fine young officers; the first of whom died in a wretched bullock car—died of sheer starvation, as he was being conveyed into Badajoz; and the second, unable to keep up with his men, perished of the same awful death among the mountains, between Talavera and Toledo. It is said that, on many occasions, Fassifern would have starved also, but for the vigorous efforts of his foster-brother and henchman, Ewen M’Millan, who, despite Lord Wellington’s orders, plundered the Dons without mercy, when the comfort of his chieftain and master required him to do so.

After incessant skirmishes and daily marches along the banks of the Tagus, and after a desperate affair of outposts at La Nava, on the 18th May, 1812, Hill marched to destroy the forts erected by the French at the bridge of Almarez. The 50th, and a wing of the 71st Highlanders, formed one column, which was destined to attack Fort Napoleon; Cameron with his regiment, and the remainder of the 71st, had orders to support the attack, and storm the tête-du-pont. Both columns were amply provided with scaling-ladders. As the troops descended a rut of the sierra, in Indian file, about midnight, Mr. Irvine, a gentleman volunteer, left his ranks to obtain a draught of water. This was contrary to express orders; and such was Cameron’s strictness, that he dismissed him from the regiment on the instant, and the poor fellow was left alone among the mountains of Romangordo.

Being proud of his own regiment, Cameron had a great jealousy of the 71st Highlanders; and when the attack commenced, on some of their bullets, in the twilight and confusion, whistling over his own ranks, he called aloud—

“Seventy-first! what the devil are you about? Do you wish the ninety-second to return your fire?”

Fort Napoleon was stormed in gallant style. Captain Candler, of the 50th, was shot through the head; but the French were driven towards the tête-du-pont. Then Cameron entered it with them pell-mell, with bayonets charged, muskets clubbed, swords and sledge-hammers. But the commandant of Fort Ragusa, on the opposite side, cut the pontoon bridge, and thus the whole garrison of Fort Napoleon found the deep Tagus before them, and the foe behind.

Eager to capture Ragusa, many of Cameron’s men flung themselves into the river, and daringly swam across. Privates Gall and Somerville were the first men who brought over the pontoon bridge. On gaining possession of the platforms, which were literally ankle-deep in brains and blood, the 1st brigade slued round the cannon upon the French, and blew their heads off in scores, as they crowded into the square of the little fortress, where the 71st Highlanders captured a standard of the Corps Etranger.

The dead, 436 in number, were thrown into the ditch; the ramparts, with eighteen cannon, were hurled over them; the stone towers were blown up; the barracks and storehouses burned down; and the whole place laid bare. In the general pillage which ensued, a Highlander became mutinous to Cameron, who raised his claymore to cut him down; but the descending blow was turned aside by a sergeant, named Taylor, who kindly interposed his pike between them. Even when the gust of passion passed away, Cameron could not forgive the affront of Taylor’s interference before his men, and was headstrong enough to resent it in the following manner: When the sergeants drew lots for the command of a firing party to shoot a deserter at Coria, Taylor escaped this hateful ballot, but nevertheless Cameron ordered him to take charge of the execution. Taylor gave him a glance full of reproach, and burst into tears, yet he obeyed, and shot the culprit dead. Then Cameron repented the casual malevolence which is sometimes to be found even yet among the Celts, when an affront has been given them. At Merida, he was pall-bearer during the grand military funeral generously bestowed on the commandant of Almarez, who had been slain there by an officer of the 71st Highlanders, and who was buried with the honours due to a British officer of the same rank.

Cameron’s native dislike to receive orders from seniors, his jealousy of the 71st, and Old Half-hundred, involved him in many quarrels with Colonels Cadogan and Stuart, and even in an angry correspondence with Wellington. It was then currently rumoured in the Highland regiments, that the great Duke had some dislike to their nation. The Gordon Highlanders added, that he viewed coldly old Sir William Stuart, Fassifern, and Major Mitchell, from whom they averred that he withheld many honours to which they were entitled. What amount of truth these rumours contained, it is now impossible to learn. High words ensued on one occasion between the colonel and his great leader, to whom he said:—

“My Lord Marquis, thank God! I am beholden to no man for my bread—not even to the service, for I have a comfortable home to retire to whenever I please.”

The real source of this bitterness of feeling is unknown; but it continued during the whole war.

On one occasion his pride revolted at General Howard for keeping the regiment too long under arms before inspection! and he sent Lieutenant Grant to the Brigadier’s billet with a brief message, “that the regiment awaited him.”

On another occasion, it chanced that by mistake he and a Spanish colonel were billeted on the same mansion, and as it was thought too small to accommodate both, he resolved to turn out the Don who was already in possession of the premises. On Cameron arriving with the colours, which were borne by his cousin, Ewen Ross, and another ensign, and were escorted by four sergeants with their pikes, the Spanish colonel appeared in the doorway with his Toledo drawn and pistols cocked. Fassifern drew his claymore. “Forward, gentlemen,” said he; “at all risks I command you to lodge the colours!”

The sergeants charged with their pikes, and we know not how the affair might have ended, had not Villamur’s corps of Spanish horse turned the corner of the street; this forced the rash chieftain to parley with the cavalier, and share his quarters in peace.

After the night of blood at Almarez, Cameron and his Highlanders marched by Fuente del Maistre, Los Santos, the hill of Albuera, and many other places, bivouacking with their brigade wherever night found them, preparatory to the attack on the forts at Salamanca, and the battle there, which was fought, while Hill’s division covered Lord Wellington’s rear. After joining the grand army on these contested plains, the Highlanders were reviewed by their great general. Rations had been served out that morning; the sheep-heads had been assigned to the 92nd, and when they marched past by open column of companies, every sixth man carried a sheep’s head in his left hand.

When Wellington entered Madrid, the Highlanders of Cameron for one night occupied the Escuriel, in the chapel of which the remains of a king and queen of Scotland (Malcolm III. and St. Margaret) are said to lie, having been conveyed to Spain in 1560. After Cameron marched to Aranjuez, his cousin, Ewen Ross, had a narrow escape from a terrible death. Having been ordered to the rear with sick and wounded from the brigade, and having no less than twelve waggons-full of officers, he reached Badajoz, after encountering many difficulties, and there found that various outrages committed by the detachment of Lieutenant H——, of the 28th, were laid to the charge of his party, such as shooting and plundering the paisanos, robbing them of burros, wine, and provisions. Lack of Spanish prevented the gallant Highlander from explaining that he was not the guilty person; and the Marquis del Palacio, governor of Badajoz, illegally tried him by a Spanish court-martial, and unscrupulously sentenced him to death! Then fearing to carry this sentence into execution, he sent him, under an escort of Portuguese horse, to Elvas, where an English officer saved him from a rabble who were bent on his destruction, and he was enabled to rejoin Cameron in safety. On this march he saved from starvation Mr. Irvine, the poor volunteer, whom he found in a state of destitution near Truxillo.

Cameron and his Highlanders endured great misery on the disastrous retreat from Burgos. Deprivation of food reduced the poor men almost to skeletons; their uniform was worn to rags; many were barefooted, and shirtless. Undeterred by the cruel exhibition of a soldier hung daily at the head of the column (for of twenty men under sentence of death for plundering, one was thus sacrificed every day), the 92nd shot some wild pigs in a wood through which they passed. Big Dugald Campbell, one of their favourite officers, drove his long claymore through the body of a boar which he pursued through the thicket, and claimed from some cazadores. This prize he shared with Cameron and other officers; but the affair drew forth a most severe reprimand from head-quarters, and this was at a time when a duro was given for a handful of oats or nuts, and when some of the officers had no other food for six-and-thirty hours than a few mushrooms or acorns.

Fassifern’s regiment formed part of the small force which was left with General Howard to secure Wellington’s retreat, by defending the old ruined town of Alba at the passage of the rapid Tormes. There the 50th, 71st, and 92nd made a gallant stand on the 8th of November, 1812. After a long and fatiguing march, and just when about to receive a little ration of dry bread—the first food after three days of starvation—the appearance of the whole pursuing French army under Joseph Bonaparte, summoned the brigade to man the old and shattered walls of Alba—a relic of the Moorish wars—while the sappers undermined the bridge of the Tormes. Two green hills overlooked the town and river. Between these and the wall, within pistol-shot of the 92nd Highlanders, a French staff-officer, mounted on a white charger, had the temerity to ride leisurely reconnoitring, and followed by an orderly on foot. Twenty Highlanders levelled their muskets to shoot this daring fellow, but the chivalric Cameron cried aloud:

“Recover your arms there! I will by no means permit an individual to be fired on!”

This officer who acted so boldly, and thus escaped so narrowly, proved to be no other than Marshal Soult, who, in ten minutes after, ordered eighteen pieces of cannon up to the heights, from whence they poured 1300 rounds of shot and shell on the brave brigade of Howard. This was endured until the 13th, by which time Cameron lost forty-two men killed and wounded. At daybreak, on the morning of the 14th, a despatch arrived from Wellington, directing Howard to abandon Alba, as the French cavalry, 3000 strong, had forded the river above the town and turned his flank. A Spanish garrison was left in the old castle of the Castigador de Flamencos—the walls were abandoned, and the bridge blown up. Lieutenant John Grant of the 92nd was the last officer who quitted the town, being left to bring off the sentinels, as the French entered, and he was struck by the stones as the mine under the bridge exploded, at the very heels of his party.

Wellington’s admirable foresight saved Howard’s brigade, which retired to winter quarters at Coria, in Leon, when, with many other officers and soldiers, Colonel Stewart of the 50th, as brave a Scot as ever drew a sword, expired of exhaustion and fatigue. A soldier of the 50th carved a rude stone to mark where this old officer was laid.

Refreshed by six months’ rest in winter quarters at Banos, in a beautiful valley of Leon, overshadowed by high mountains, Cameron, after commanding the 1st brigade during General Foy’s attack on Bejar, marched with his Highlanders, when the whole army advanced to turn the famous positions of Jourdan on the Ebro and Douro, and to meet him on the green plains of Vittoria, where, on the 21st of June, 1813, he again commanded the 1st brigade of Hill’s division, and carried the heights of La Peubla, when the gallant Cadogan fell amid heaps, literally heaps, of his brave Highlanders.

Sir William Stuart having ordered Cameron to secure the heights, added, “yield them to none without a written order from Sir Rowland Hill or myself, and defend them while you have a man remaining.” On this Fassifern ordered the pipers to strike up the “Camerons’ Gathering,” and the regiment advanced with great spirit and alacrity up the mountain side.

After this victory, the most decisive of the Spanish war, Cameron pushed on with his brigade towards the Pyrenees, beyond which the conqueror drove the French like a herd of sheep, and then garrisoned the heights by a chain of outposts, previous to besieging San Sebastian, and blockading Pampeluna. On this occasion the care of the important pass of Maya was entirely assigned to Cameron, with the 1st brigade, after it had crossed the Bidassoa, and skirmished with the routed French until darkness set in, on the 7th July.

Cameron commanded this great outpost until the 25th of that month, when the French advanced to storm the heights under the Duke of Dalmatia, who had assumed the command of Jourdan’s discomfited host, and was directed to retrieve all its disasters by driving the British beyond the Ebro. Full of confidence and of hope, at least to relieve the two beleaguered fortresses, this brave marshal sent his legions against the various passes in the mountains which Wellington, who was then urging the siege of San Sebastian in person, had occupied by battalions and brigades.

Cameron’s force was encamped in the centre of a lonely gorge, and his outposts were far down the hillside in advance; and these, on Sunday the 25th, descried the division of General Drouet, 15,000 strong, advancing on the road that led from Urdax. Coming on with great spirit, they drove in the three light companies of the brigade (which Cameron had dispatched as skirmishers in front), and gained the high rock of Maya before the 2nd brigade of infantry could come to his support. His little band were thus left to defend that steep and narrow pass against five times their number. On this fatal morning the strength of the Gordon Highlanders was only fifty-five staff, and 762 rank and file.

To deceive the foe as to his real strength, Cameron skilfully divided his Highlanders into two wings, in open columns of companies, thus giving the slender battalion the aspect of two regiments; but this ruse was useless, as the traitor-muleteers, who, for the few weeks preceding, had been passing between the mountains and French outposts, had made Soult fully aware of the actual force left to defend the Pyrenees at every point. The moment the action commenced, Fassifern detached the 50th to the right, where, after a desperate conflict, it was driven back and forced to leave the ridge.

Under Major M’Pherson, Cameron then sent forward first the right wing, and then the left, of his brave Highlanders. Then ensued one of the most appalling scenes of carnage recorded in the annals of that protracted war. The Highlanders stood like a rampart, in which, however, frightful gaps were made by the bullets of the French, who came on, in one vast mob, shouting and brandishing their eagles. Separating the 1st and 2nd brigades, they descended upon the pass of Maya from one flank, while a fresh division poured upon its front from the Urdax road. Cameron, who had repeatedly ordered a charge, which was unheard amid the roar of the musketry, then made the whole fall back gradually upon the rock of Maya; a movement which was slowly and desperately covered by the left wings of the 71st Highland Light Infantry and of the Gordon Highlanders, which, by relieving each other, drenched in blood every inch of the ground; and there these gallant men defended the rock for ten successive hours, until—just when ammunition was falling short—the brigade of General Barnes arrived to their succour, and Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir William Stuart, a fine old soldier whom all the troops loved well, ordered Cameron’s brigade not to charge; but, exasperated by the slaughter they had endured, they rushed upon the French with the bayonet, and the Gordon Highlanders, “for the first time disregarded orders, and not only charged, but led the charge,” and recovered every foot of ground as far as the pass from which they had been driven. In this headlong advance the pipers played the “Haughs of Cromdale,” and the line was led by Captain Seton of Pitmedden, bonnet and claymore in hand. But the slaughter in their ranks was terrible, for 19 officers and 324 rank and file were killed, wounded, and missing. Among the wounded were—Cameron, who was shot through the thigh, and forced to leave the field; Major Mitchel, who succeeded him; Captains Holmes, and Bevan, who died when his arm was taken out of the socket, and Ronald M’Donald of Coul; Lieutenants Winchester, who commanded the light company; Donald M’Donald, Chisholm, Durie, M’Pherson, and Fife, who, after having one ball turned by a button, and another by his watch, was struck down at last; Gordon, Kerr Ross, and John Grant, who was shot through the side. Among the ensigns were Thomas and George Mitchell, Ewen Kennedy (one of Cameron’s Lochaber men), who bled to death on the field, and Alaster M’Donald of Dalchosnie, a youth of eighteen, who afterwards expired of a wound in the head, and was buried by four of his brother officers in a hole outside the town-gate of Vittoria, where Holmes said a short prayer over his grave.

Sir William Napier, in his history, thus alludes to Fassifern and the two regiments of Highlanders: “And that officer (Lieutenant-Colonel Cameron), still holding the pass of Maya with the left wings of the 71st and 92nd Regiments, brought their right wings and the Portuguese guns into action, and thus maintained the fight; but so dreadful was the slaughter, that it is said the advancing enemy was actually stopped by the heaped-up mass of dead and dying.... The stern valour of the 92nd would have graced Thermopylæ.”

Strange to say, Lieutenant Gordon died at Edinburgh sixteen years after, under the hands of a surgeon who was extracting the ball received at Maya, and he lies now in the Calton burying-ground. Two balls grazed Cameron, but the third pierced the fleshy part of his right thigh. In great agony he called to M’Millan, who slung his musket, rushed to his side, and led his horse by the bridle out of the field. “The gallant Cameron, who has so frequently bled for his country,” says the Pilot of 12th October, 1813, “received three shots in his person, his horse received three, and three more were found in his cloak, which was strapped before his saddle in the usual manner.” He lost so much blood, that, being unable to reach Vittoria, which was a hundred miles distant, and to which all the wounded were ordered to repair, he remained at an intermediate village until the scar healed and he could rejoin the regiment at Roncesvalles, after it had been engaged between Lizasso and Eguaros, and on the heights of Donna Maria, having in both affairs 120 officers and men killed and wounded. Captain Seton brought the regiment out of the field: thus the Speaker of the House of Commons, on the 24th of June, might well say that the Spaniards of future times would point with pride to the places “where a Stuart made his stand, and where the best blood of Scotland was shed in their defence.” For his bravery at the Pyrenees, his Majesty was pleased to permit Cameron to bear upon his shield the word Maya.

From this period he was incessantly engaged in all the operations along the French Pyrenees, in daily skirmishes, and the capture of entrenched camps. The country was now covered by snow, and the troops endured many privations, which Sir William Stuart (brother of Lord Galloway) did all in his power to alleviate, by issuing extra allowances of rum, which won him the cognomen of Auld Grog Willie; and his popularity was so great among all the troops, that his appearance was always hailed by a noisy cheer, and shouts of “God bless you, Sir William!” Lord Wellington disliked this, and compelled the general to refund to Government all those extra allowances of rum served out to the poor soldiers amid the snows of that severe winter on the Pyrenees.

Cameron, who had long remarked that those officers of his 1st Battalion who became by promotion members of the 2nd, and should consequently be at home, were always unfortunate if the corps were engaged, before the passage of the Nive ordered four of them to leave immediately for Britain, when the troops were about to cross the river.

“God bless you, gentlemen,” said he, as they bade him adieu; “I am now tired of war, and may well wish I were going with you.”

But, mounted on his charger, he was the first to cross the Nivelle, below Ainhoe, when his daring Highlanders were ordered to storm the strong redoubt in rear of the village, where they drove out the French and took possession of their huts. Here his favourite piper was killed by his side; and with his own hand he strove to raise him, exclaiming, “I would rather lose twenty men than have lost you!” He led them through the Nive at Cambo; and in the attack upon those heavy columns which occupied the ground between the entrenched camp at Bayonne and the road to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, he fought valiantly at the battle of St. Pierre. There (Napier relates), at one period of the day, the overwhelming cannonade and musketry drove the 92nd in rear of the hamlet; however, on being succoured by their old comrades, the 50th, and Ashworth’s Caçadores, they re-formed behind St. Pierre, and “then their gallant colonel, Cameron, once more led them down the road, with colours flying and pipes playing, resolved to give the shock to whatever stood in their way. The 92nd was but a small clump compared to the heavy mass in front;” but Fassifern led them on as of old, and the heavy mass rolled before their bayonets like mist before the wind. Four times that day he led them to brilliant charges, and four times the foe was driven back. Cameron had 13 officers and 173 rank and file killed and wounded; but he obtained an honorary badge, inscribed with the word Nive.

After the attack on the enemy at Hellette, in the lower Pyrenees, where General Harispe was driven out, and forced to retire to Meharin; and after that gallant conflict on the heights of Garris, where Cameron lost Seton of Pitmedden, and twelve other brave fellows, the scene of his next achievement was the pretty village of Arriverette, on the right bank of Gave de Mauleon, where the French endeavoured to destroy a wooden bridge, to prevent Wellington from following them; but a ford being discovered above it, Cameron boldly threw himself into the stream, at the head of his Highlanders, crossed under a fire of artillery, stormed the village, drove back the enemy, and, by securing the bridge, enabled the whole troops to pass. For this eminent service his Majesty granted to him, as an additional crest of honourable augmentation, a Highlander of the 92nd foot, “armed and accoutred, up to the middle in water, his dexter hand grasping a broadsword, in his sinister a banner, inscribed, ‘92nd,’ within a wreath of laurel, all proper, and on an escroll above, the word Arriverette.”6 But Cameron had now a fresh cause of displeasure at his great leader; for, on applying to him, through Lieutenant-General Lord Niddry, for leave to inscribe Arriverette upon the regimental colours, Wellington declined, without affording any satisfactory reason. He acknowledged, in his reply, that “the 92nd forded the river, and took the village against a superior force of the enemy, in most gallant style;”” but added that it was beneath their reputation to explain why they should not have Arriverette on their colours. This ambiguous reply Cameron considered another affront, and never forgot or forgave it.

He received an honorary badge for his conduct at the battle of Orthez; and on the 2nd March, 1814, distinguished himself at the capture of Aire so prominently, that George III. desired him to bear embattled in chief above the old cognizance of Lochiel (as the heraldic record above quoted has it), “a representation of the town of Aire, in allusion to his glorious services on the 2nd March last, when, after an arduous and sanguinary conflict, he succeeded in forcing a superior body of the enemy to abandon the said town, and subsequently had the honour to receive an address from the inhabitants, expressive of their gratitude for the maintenance of discipline, by which he had saved them from plunder and destruction.” The address, which was so complimentary to his distinguished regiment, was signed by M. Codroy, the mayor, in the name of the people.

From thence he accompanied the troops in that hot and brilliant pursuit, which did not cease until the French evacuated Toulouse, and the white banner of Bourbon was displayed upon its walls. The seizure of Paris by the allies, the abdication of Bonaparte and proclamation of peace, the restoration of Louis XVIII., rapidly followed, and the Peninsular army was ordered home.

In the last skirmish near Toulouse, Cameron had his favourite horse shot under him; and, though there was a hot fire of musketry sweeping the place where it lay, M’Millan deliberately unbuckled the girths of the saddle, and brought it away with the cloak and holsters, saying, that “though the French were welcome to the dead carcase, they should not get the good accoutrements.”

When encamped at Blanchefort, two miles from Bordeaux, Cameron obtained his brevet colonelcy on the 4th June, 1814;7 and when cantoned at Pouillac, his Highlanders joyfully received the route for Scotland, and on the 17th July embarked on board H.M.S. Norge, which, however, by a change of destination, landed them at the Cove of Cork.

While his regiment, now reduced to one battalion, was in Ireland, Cameron returned, on leave, to his native glen at Fassifern.

Wellington had then won all the honours a subject could attain: patents of nobility, baronetcy, and knighthood were issued for generals of division and brigade; Orders of the Garter, the Bath, and the Crescent were unsparingly lavished among the heroes of the war; but the brave Cameron, notwithstanding all his services—though he had been almost riddled by musket-shot, and had served in Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Egypt, and France, at home and abroad, for twenty-one years—found that the Duke of Wellington had omitted his name in the list of officers recommended for honorary distinctions. He visited London, and complained to the Duke of York, who offered to have him gazetted as an additional Cross of the Bath.

“I beg your highness will excuse me,” said he, “for as my name has been omitted, I will not accept of it now.”

“Sir,” replied the duke, “do you know to whom you are speaking?”

“A prince of that royal blood for which I have too often shed my own; but am yet willing to do so again. And I have the honour to wish your Highness good morning.”

In this haughty fashion he quitted the Horse Guards, but was afterwards prevailed upon to write to Wellington.

Justly indignant, he wrote a fiery remonstrance to the duke, who was then at Vienna, and who, in one of his letters to Earl Bathurst, dated 5th February, mentions it as a somewhat imprudent production; but his Grace replied to the following effect:—

“Vienna, 5th February, 1815.

“Sir,—I received your letter of the 8th January, this morning, and I have transmitted it to the Secretary of State, with my recommendation of you.

“The Government fixed the occasions on which medals should be granted to the army, and framed the rules, according to which I was bound to make the lists of those to whom they were to be granted; and not having received their orders to recommend for medals, for the service at Arroya del Molinos, Alba de Tormes, Bejar, Aire, or at Arriverette, it was impossible for me to recommend you for a medal at Fuentes d’Onoro, or in the Pyrenees, according to the rules by which I was bound to make out the lists of those I recommended. I have not an accurate recollection of the lists for Bayonne, the Nivelle, Orthez, and Toulouse; but of this I am very certain, that I have never failed to do your services justice, as it was my earnest desire to render it to every officer and soldier I had the honour of commanding.

“I have nothing to say about the selection of the officers recently appointed Knights Commanders of the Order of the Bath. I did not know their names till I saw the list of them in the Gazette. If you had known these facts, I hope that the same spirit of justice by which I have always been animated, would have induced you to spare me the pain of reading the reproaches and charges of injustice contained in your letter; and that you would have defended me in the 92nd Regiment; and would have shown them that the regulation, and not I, deprived you of those marks of honour which they wished to see you obtain. As these facts are in the knowledge of everybody, it is scarcely possible to believe that you were not aware of them, and I attribute the harshness of your letter solely to the irritation which you naturally feel in considering your own case. However, the expression of this irritation, however unjust towards me, and unpleasant to my feelings, has not made me forget the services which you and your brave corps rendered upon every occasion on which you were called upon; and, although I am afraid it is too late, I have recommended you in the strongest terms to the Secretary of State; and have the honour to be, &c.,

Wellington.

“To Lieut.-Colonel Cameron, 92nd Regiment.”

Cameron saw there was something at least generous in the tone of this letter, and he sent a memorial for the Order of the Bath; for the medal which had been given to officers engaged at Fuentes d’Onoro, and also for the Order of the Tower and Sword. Wellington replied as follows:—

“Vienna, February, 1815.

“Sir,—I have received your letter of the 13th January, and the copy of your memorial; in answer to which I can only inform you, that I had no concern whatever in the selection of the officers of the army lately under my command to be Knights Commanders of the Order of the Bath; and as I see that the number limited is filled, I am quite certain that no application I can make will answer any purpose. I will inquire about your claim to a medal for Fuentes d’Onoro. I have recommended you for the Portuguese Order of the Tower and Sword; and have the honour, &c.,

“Wellington.

“To Lieut.-Colonel Cameron, 92nd Regiment.”

Fassifern received the Portuguese order, but he was too much of a Highlander to forget the first unmerited affront, of being omitted or forgotten; and now we can but hope that this omission of the great duke was, at least, an unwitting one.

Like every Highlander of the old school, and like many of the present day, Cameron believed in the Taisch, or Second Sight; he had one other fancy, a dread of being on the water, or at sea; thus he who would face without flinching a shower of grape or hedge of bayonets, has been known to grow pale at the rocking of a small boat.

When at home, on leave, in 1815, he visited Mor’ar, in Lochaber, the seat of Colonel Simon M’Donald, a retired officer who had joined the 92nd at their first muster in 1793. One day when passing along a corridor together, and about to enter the dining-room, M’Donald started back, with his eyes fixed in their sockets, his face pale as death, and his limbs trembling.

“In God’s name, what is the matter Mor’ar?” asked Cameron.

“Nothing,” replied M’Donald, after a pause, and greatly agitated; “nothing.”

“You have seen something, Simon,” continued Cameron, impressively, for he knew, or believed, that the gift of the Taisch was hereditary in the family of Mor’ar.

“Well, then, I have seen something, Fassifern,” said M’Donald, passing a hand over his eyes with a troubled expression; “but do not ask me what it was.”

Mor’ar was thoughtful and sad for a long time after, and it was currently believed that he had seen some vision of his old friend’s approaching end; for the day-dreams of the Highland seers are always fraught with death and sorrow. Immediately after this, war broke out again; Bonaparte quitted Elba, returned to Paris, and resumed the reins of government, while Louis XVIII. withdrew to Ghent.

Wellington once more took the field, and the 92nd Highlanders were ordered to Flanders, with the other forces under his command. Cameron hastened to rejoin, in Ireland, where the regiment was still stationed. Its second battalion, under Lamond of that ilk, had been disbanded at Edinburgh, all save twelve sergeants and 174 soldiers, who, with five officers, marched to Portpatrick to join the head-quarters; and on this route an interesting episode occurred.

As the Highlanders, with pipes playing, marched past a little wayside cottage, an old and white-haired man came out to see them, and was immediately recognised as their brave and favourite general in Spain, Sir William Stuart, who, neglected by the Government, had retired there to brood over his unrequited services. A hearty cheer welcomed “Auld Grog Willie.” Then the brave Stuart burst into tears, and wept like a child. The detachment was formed into line, and inspected by him; perhaps the last military duty he ever performed, for rumour says that he died soon after of a broken heart.

Cameron embarked with his Highlanders at Cork, for Ostend, from whence, with eight battalions under his command, viz., the third battalion of the Royal Scots; the 28th, 32nd, 42nd, 44th, 79th, 92nd, and third battalion of the 95th Rifle corps, he marched, viâ Ghent and Bruges, to Brussels, where, on the 3rd June, 1815, his Highlanders, with the brigade to which they belonged—the 5th or Sir Denis Pack’s—were reviewed by Wellington, then a field-marshal. In the 5th corps were also the 1st Royal Scots, the 42nd Highlanders, and 44th Regiment.

When Pack’s brigade was under arms in the Park of Brussels, the Duchess of Richmond, who had been Lady Charlotte Gordon, passed in an open carriage along the line. Colonel MacQuarrie, of the 42nd, gallantly made his Highlanders present arms to her, as the Duke of Gordon’s daughter, while the pipes played a salute; but on her approaching the 92nd, Cameron, still true to his old feud with her brother the marquis, gave the order—“Gordon Highlanders, order arms—stand at ease!” and thus coldly was the fair duchess received by the clan regiment of her father.

On the 12th June, Napoleon left Paris at the head of his brave army, and the British poured from Brussels. “The 42nd and 92nd Highlanders marched through the Place Royale and the Parc,” says the “Circumstantial Detail;” “one could not but admire their fine appearance, their steady, military demeanour, with their pipes playing before them, and the beams of the rising sun shining upon their glittering arms. On many a highland hill and in many a lowland valley will the deeds of these brave men be remembered. It was impossible to witness such a scene unmoved.”

It was at four o’clock, on a bright midsummer morning, when the Highlanders of Pack’s brigade marched through the Namur gate, and, mounted on a black Spanish horse, Fassifern was at the head of the 92nd. Gallant MacQuarrie led the Royal Highlanders. They were in the division of Sir Thomas Picton, and, about two o’clock in the day, came within range of the French artillery in front of Gemappe, near a farm-house, now immortalised as Les Quatre Bras, where the main road from Charleroi to Brussels is crossed by that which leads from Nivelle to Namur. This was doomed to be, as his friend Mor’ar had, perhaps, too surely foreseen, the scene of Cameron’s last achievement.

The 92nd were ordered to line a ditch in front of the Namur road, on the left flank of the farm-house; Wellington took his station near, and a hot cannonade swept over them. The proud and fiery Cameron, still pursuing his feud with the duke, never deigned to take the slightest notice of him, but allowed him to pass and repass his post without according either salute or recognising. At four in the afternoon the Black Brunswick which failed in a charge in front of this position, and their brave prince fell by a mortal wound. Inspired with new ardour, a body of French cavalry, which had taken the colours of the 69th, or South Lincolnshire Regiment, swept forward, and then the 92nd, the moment the Brunswickers were past, poured an oblique but deadly volley upon the foe, piling men and horses breast high before the roadway. Attended by one soldier, his servant, M. Bourgoyne, an officer of these horse chasseurs, clad in light green uniform, tried to escape round the flank of the 92nd. His brass helmet had fallen off, and displayed his curly black hair; he was a handsome young man, and waved his sabre, repeatedly shouting “Vive l’Empereur.” Cameron evinced no disposition to molest this gallant Frenchman, but Wellington exclaimed, “92nd, d—n it, do not let that fellow escape.” Fifty or sixty men then fired at him; but, such was the speed of his horse, the smoke, confusion, and inutility of firing with fixed bayonets, that he escaped all their shots, and caracoled his horse along the whole line of the 92nd. Then private Harold Chisholm, and a corporal of the 42nd Highlanders (who had lost his regiment and joined Cameron), unfixed their bayonets, knelt down, fired, and the chasseur fell to the earth, while his charger limped away on three legs. M. Bourgoyne had been shot through both ankles. Several Hanoverians now rushed forward to bayonet him, but he was rescued by Lieutenants Chisholm and Ewen Ross, who had him borne to the rear. Lieutenant Hector Innes encountered his servant, who was run through from behind by a Belgian lancer and slain. M. Bourgoyne was afterwards sent to Brussels; and his family in Paris expressed to Lieutenant Winchester, and other Highland officers, their deep gratitude for his preservation.

Again the chasseurs charged, and again they were repulsed; while a fire of cannon and musket-shot was thinning fast the ranks of Cameron. Forming under cover of these attacks, the French infantry, flanked by artillery, possessed themselves of a two-storied house, and in heavy column advanced beyond it with great spirit. At that moment,

“92nd!” exclaimed the Duke of Wellington, waving his cocked hat, “prepare to charge.”

Fassifern raised his bonnet, set spurs to his horse, the whole regiment sprang over the ditch which bounded the road, and with bayonets charged, dashed through the smoke upon the enemy, and routed them. Officers and men fell fast on every side; but on went the 92nd until the gable of the two-storied house at the corner of the Charleroi road broke the centre of their line. Then they formed up in two wings, rank entire, with the house in the centre; and Cameron sent forward his cousin Ewen Ross, with the light company, into a wood of olives to skirmish, where he received a severe wound in the groin. At that time the grape-shot of the French artillery was sweeping the corn-field between the wood and the farm-house, and shredding away the ripe ears like flakes of snow in the wind. A body of French, who occupied the upper story, were firing briskly from the windows; and others who lined a thick thorn hedge, defended the avenues to the building.

Here it was that the brave Cameron, of Fassifern, fell; but the accounts of his death, as related by Siborne and others, are not strictly correct in detail. He had led his Highlanders close to the hedge, when a shot from the house passed through his belly, entering on the left side, and passing out on the right, tearing the intestines, and inflicting a mortal wound. At the same moment his horse sank under him, pierced by four musket balls.

The regiment gave a wild cheer, burst in the gates of the garden, and fearfully was he avenged by the charged bayonet and clubbed musket; but ere this Captain William Grant, Lieutenants Chisholm, Becher, and M’Pherson were killed, and soon after were barbarously stripped by the French. Nineteen officers of the 92nd were wounded, and 280 rank and file killed and wounded. The aged mother of Chisholm received a widow’s pension from the Government, and Campbell, the adjutant, brought his claymore and watch home to her in Strathglass, as mementos of that dark day at Les Quatre Bras.

“The warlike and lamented Colonel Cameron,” says his cousin Lieutenant Ewen Ross (92nd), who was wounded on that day by his side, and whose letter is now before me, “Cameron, than whom there was not a braver or better officer in the best or bravest of armies, was left to the chance care of his orderly sergeant, William Grant, who with a private of the 4th company led him carefully and slowly to a square of office houses at Quatre Bras. His horse being perforated by four musket balls, could carry him no further, and was then shot. The colonel was then carried in a blanket to Gemappe by Sergeant Grant, Colin Mackenzie the drum-major, two drummers named MacLean, and three MacRaes belonging to the band.”

Ewen M’Millan and another Highlander carried Cameron into what the soldiers not inaptly named the bloody hospital at Gemappe, where his wound was at once pronounced to be mortal. On the position being abandoned, in his hereditary hatred and horror of the French, he expressed great dread of being left to die in their hands; and by nine in the evening his faithful and sorrowing foster-brother procured a common cart, the only vehicle to be had, and placed him in it with Ensign Angus M’Donald, who was also severely wounded, and conveyed them towards Brussels. On the way Cameron asked if the enemy had been defeated? M’Millan answered “yes,” though such was not the case, but the poor fellow’s heart was ready to burst.

“Defeated—then I die happy!” said Cameron; “but, oh! I hope my dear native country will believe that I have served her faithfully.”

After this the power of language failed him; but Angus M’Donald (who afterwards died from the effect of his own wound) related that he heard him praying fervently in Gaelic, and in whispers. He was sinking fast. As the cart passed near where his cousin Ross lay wounded, the latter sent his servant, Angus Sutherland, to inquire how he was; but Cameron’s speech was gone—he could only shake his head mournfully, without replying; and just as the cart entered the village of Waterloo, he laid his head on the breast of the brave and good M’Millan, on whose arm he had reclined, and expired without a sigh.

His faithful follower conveyed the body in by the Namur gate, through which Cameron had that morning ridden forth at the head of his Highlanders, and took it straight to the billet they had occupied in Brussels. As he was obliged to rejoin the regiment without delay for the coming conflict at Waterloo, he made a rough deal coffin, and in this placed the body of his master, brother, and friend—for Cameron had been all these three to the poor Highland private; and thus he interred him, still in his full uniform, by the side of the King’s Avenue, on the Ghent road, the Allée Verte. This was on the evening of Saturday, the 17th of June. The body was conveyed to its hastily-made tomb, in a common cart, for poor Ewen could afford nothing better; and the only persons who accompanied him were the landlord of the billet, an honest Belgian, and three wounded Highlanders, who, with their open scars, had tottered out of Brussels to pay the last tribute to him they loved so well, and had followed so long.

“Your lordships will see in the enclosed lists,” says Wellington, in a dispatch to the Treasury, dated Orville, 25th June, “the names of some most valuable officers lost to His Majesty’s service. Among them, I cannot avoid to mention Colonel Cameron, of the 92nd Regiment, and Colonel Sir H. Ellis of the 23rd, to whose conduct I have frequently called your lordships’ attention, and who at last fell, distinguishing themselves at the head of the brave troops which they commanded. Notwithstanding the glory of the occasion, it is impossible not to lament such men, both on account of the public and as friends.”

Such was the eulogium of Wellington!

When Cameron was lying dead in the hospital of Gemappe, there was found in the pocket of his Highland regimentals a touching memento, illustrative of his character, and more honourable even than the trophies of battle which he bore on his breast; viz., a pocket-book, containing the names of all the Highland soldiers who had come with him from his father’s lands and from Lochaber; marking those whom he had promoted, and those who were dead; for he counted many of them as his clansmen and kindred, and had ever looked after the interests and welfare of them all as if they had been the children of his own hearth, and he had carried this list with him in all his battles, for it was dated at Alexandria, in Egypt, 24th September, 1801.

A captain of an English regiment was buried near him; and there in that lonely place the graves lay undisturbed until the month of April, 1816. In that year the colonel’s brother, Captain Peter Cameron, of the Balcarris, came to Brussels, accompanied by Ewen M’Millan, who led him to the well-remembered place, where the graves lay, near three trees at a corner of the Allée Verte. The colonel’s remains were exhumed, placed within another coffin, and brought to Leith; from whence a king’s ship conveyed them to his native Lochaber, where a grand Highland funeral was prepared.

From Fassifern the remains of the colonel were borne for five miles, on the shoulders of his friends and clansmen, to the old kirkyard of Kilmalie, where, in presence of 3000 Highlanders, his aged father, then verging on his eightieth year, laid his head in the grave a second time, while the pipes played a lament; and now he sleeps in his native earth by the tomb of the MacLauchlans, the Leine Chrios of Locheil. Donald Cameron, his chief, was in attendance, with Barra, Barcaldine, and Glencoe, and seventy gentlemen of the clans dined in honour of the occasion, at the Inn of Maryburgh.

Old Highlanders yet tell how sadly and how solemnly on that day the march of Gille Chriosd rang in the great glen of Caledonia, and yet remember the dirge composed on that occasion by Ailean Dall, or “Blind Allan,” the bard of the chieftain of Glengarry—perhaps the last of the family bards in the Scottish Highlands.

In consideration of his son’s brilliant services, the venerable Ewen of Fassifern received a baronetcy, and in Kilmalie a monument has been raised above the grave of the hero of Arriverette. Its epitaph is from the pen of Sir Walter Scott, and is remarkable for the elegance of its expression:—

“Sacred to the memory of Colonel John Cameron, eldest son of Ewen Cameron of Fassifern, Bart., whose mortal remains, transported from the field of glory where he died, rest here with those of his forefathers. During twenty years of active military service, with a spirit which knew no fear, and shunned no danger, he accompanied or led, in marches, sieges, and battles, the 92nd Regiment of Scottish Highlanders, always to honour and always to victory; and at length, in the 42nd year of his age, upon the memorable 16th June, 1815, was slain in command of that corps, while actively contributing to achieve the decisive victory of Waterloo, which gave peace to Europe. Thus closing his military career with the long and eventful struggle, in which his services had been so often distinguished; he died, lamented by that unrivalled general, to whose long train of success he had so often contributed; by his country, from which he had repeatedly received marks of the highest consideration, and by his sovereign, who graced his surviving family with those marks of honour which could not follow, to this place, him whom they were designed to commemorate. Reader, call not his fate untimely, who, thus honoured and lamented, closed a life of fame by a death of glory!”

Few of Camerons old comrades now survive. I know of only three officers and four privates living of the regiment which, between the 27th August, 1799, and the 18th June, 1815, had lost, in killed and wounded, 117 officers and 1634 men. After being discharged, Ewen M’Millan (who could never learn one word of English) died, in 1840, at Callart, the seat of Cameron’s brother, and he now sleeps by his old master’s side at Kilmalie. He it is whose memory Scott has embalmed in his “Dance of Death,” and—

“Who for many a day
Had followed stout and stern,
Where through battles, rout, and reel,
Storm of shot and hedge of steel,
Led the grandson of Lochiel,
Valiant Fassifern!

Though steel and shot he leads no more,
Low laid ’mid friends’ and foemen’s gore
But long his native lake’s wild shore,
And Suinart rough, and high Ardgower,
And Morven long and tell;

And proud Bennevis hear with awe,
How, upon Bloody Quatre Bras,
Brave Cameron heard the wild hurrah
Of conquest, as he fell!”

Riddled with wounds, Colonel Donald M’Donald of Inch, Knight of St. Vladimir, died in 1830, and is interred at Edinburgh; Lieutenant Winchester died there in 1846. Captain Campbell died, by leaping over a window, with a pistol in each hand, to chastise a person who had insulted him; some have died as emigrants among the wilds of the far West; many more are lying near Uppark, in Jamaica, where the close-ranked headstones show where 1300 of the Gordon Highlanders are sleeping far from their native hills; and now Paymaster Gordon, and Lieutenants Ewen Ross, John Grant, and Alexander Gordon alone survive to wear the war decoration.

Notes

3 As an example of the number of officers belonging to the clans, who served during the war and escaped its slaughter, we may state that there were on full and half-pay commissions, in 1816, 22 Buchanans; 67 Camerons; 22 Drummonds; 26 Fergusons; 41 Forbeses; 49 Grahames; 90 Frazers; 96 Grants; 144 M’Leans and M’Kenzies; 248 Campbells; and other names in the same proportion.

4 MS. Records, 92nd Highlanders.

5 Lieutenant Hope, 92nd.

6 “Record:” Lyon Court, Edinburgh.

7 Note of his services furnished to author from Horse Guards.