Death Before Glory

by Martin Howard

  Hanging was the most common method of execution. Again, this was often performed publicly to act as a deterrent. Grey’s hanging of looters on Martinique clearly made the desired impression as it is referred to in a number of memoirs. Cooper Willyams expresses his surprise that two soldiers robbed the locals on the first day of campaigning despite the clarity of the warning in general orders. Executions were sometimes clumsily performed; William Richardson witnessed a mishandled hanging from a yardarm where the unfortunate survived long enough to reach up and grab the noose, effectively ending his own life. Execution by firing squad is less often mentioned, Stewart’s account of the fate of the mutineers in Saint Domingue being one example. A few luckier individuals were pardoned, thereby avoiding the full force of military justice. Willyams recounts a case on Martinique where a soldier escaped a delayed sentence of 800 lashes as Grey, although approving the severity of the punishment, believed that the man’s already prolonged imprisonment was enough. The commander hoped that the display of lenity would render the offender ‘a good and faithful British soldier to his King and country’.3

  Deficiencies in pay were a cause of disaffection among soldiers and sailors. The West Indies were expensive; the cost of just feeding a soldier was more than twice his daily allowance before deductions were made to cover costs such as clothing and hospitalisation. There is no shortage of grumbles about money from all ranks. Lieutenant Henry Sherwood ran short on St Vincent in 1799 although this seems to have been in part his own fault, ‘…I was put to great expense more indeed than was necessary for from my openness of character I advanced small sums to the officers and was not repaid’. His monies at home were invested and not easily available and he relied on his aunt to settle a bill of £100, a debt which he says had made him ill. Another profligate officer, Edward Pakenham, admitted to his mother from Barbados in 1802 that he had ‘drawn most most devilishly’, spending £500 in a year. ‘I have thought it Right to take advantage of your goodness.’

  The rank and file had no such recourse. James Aytoun recollects that his pay was normally six months in arrears. It was uncommon for a man who died in Dominica to be out of debt to the pay sergeant. When significant arrears did arrive, there was a temptation to part company with the windfall immediately. On St Vincent in 1796, the men pocketed the balance of 18 months’ pay, John Simpson enthusing that as it was the first settlement they had received since arriving on the colony ‘…we got 3 days to spend our money’.4

  A number of adaptations were made to the British infantryman’s clothes and kit to meet the demands of a tropical climate. This is reflected in the army’s regulations, the following taken from the report of the board appointed by Abercromby to make recommendations for the preservation of the health of his men in the West Indies in 1795.

  The Board highly approves of the Troops being provided with Two Flannel Waistcoats, One Pair of Flannel Drawers for Night Duty, Two Pair of Worsted Socks each man, also a Flannel Cap or Welch Wig, and Two Pairs loose Trousers, made of Cotton Cloth, or Russian Duck. Half Gaiters of Cloth have been found useful as a Defence against Insects. The Hats should be White, they should be round, to shade the face from the Sun, and high in the Crown, to defend the Head from the Heat. Top Coats should be Short Skirted, and made sufficiently large to admit of buttoning across the Body. Each Regiment should be amply supplied with Watch Coats. The Stocks should be made of Black Cloth, in Preference to Leather, as better adapted to a warm Climate. The Knapsacks should be made of painted Canvas.

  Frederick Maitland, the deputy adjutant general, trumpeted the use of flannel clothing, claiming that that it allowed the wearer to better tolerate the temperature extremes of day and night. He did admit that it was ‘very dangerous’ to put on wet flannel and that if worn for too long it was prone to ‘putrescence’. Others were not convinced. Physician Hector McLean believed flannel to contribute little to the health of men in the Tropics, ‘…the soldier feels encumbered, hot and uneasy in his exertions’. Black Watch veteran David Stewart was unimpressed by the radical alterations to the Highlanders’ uniform in 1795, the plaid, kilt and bonnet replaced by the regulation Russian duck pantaloons and round hat. The trousers and hat absorbed rainwater to the extent that the troops had ‘a very unseemly and unmilitary appearance’. The felt hats hung down like the ears of a bloodhound. Some directives were subsequently reversed, for instance the white shakos, prone to mildew, were replaced by the standard black shako in 1813.

  The dress initiatives fell down both because of inadequate supplies and because they did not go far enough. As early as Grey’s first expedition, senior officers were forced to plead for flannel shirts for the men. It was commonplace throughout the West Indian campaigns for troops to fight without proper shoes. The shortages were, of course, not limited to the Caribbean, but the harmful climate and noisome insects meant that the deficiencies were especially damaging.

  Despite the well-meaning concessions most soldiers reached the West Indies fitted out in heavy, tight-fitting uniforms and burdened with a great weight of kit. The steady trickle of recommended adaptations to the European pattern uniform still left redcoats burning up in the tropical sun. Aytoun set out from Edinburgh on his West Indian adventure loaded down with ‘six shirts, three pairs stockings, two pairs of shoes, two pairs of gaiters, two pairs of breeches, an extra waistcoat, red jacket and a compleat regimental suit, besides arms, accoutrements, and ammunition’. The troops landing on Martinique in 1809 were equipped for ‘light marching’, but still carried a coat, shoes, other spare clothes, a canteen, a haversack, 60 rounds of ammunition in their pouches and 20 in their pocket. Officers were expected to wear long-tailed coats and bicorns when on duty – George Pinckard describes himself clad in scarlet and gold, ‘… a very lobster’ – but throughout the period they had their own unofficial order of dress in the Caribbean with round hats, short-tailed jackets with white linen pantaloons, and boots or half-boots. There were also some adaptations to cavalry uniforms with the variable issue of lightweight coats, tin helmets and pantaloons.5

  The importance of the early morning and midday meals in the routine of the garrison has been alluded to. A typical daily ration for a British Napoleonic soldier was 1½ pounds of bread, 1 pound of beef or ½ pound of pork, ¼ pint of pease, 1 ounce of butter or cheese and 1 ounce of rice. The food was routinely consumed in ‘messes’, several soldiers pooling their rations and eating together. There is a common notion that the soldiers’ fare was dull, endless salted beef, but this was not the case in the West Indies where the diet was easily supplemented by abundant local produce. An excerpt from the section devoted to diet in the official recommendations for Abercromby’s first expedition gives a flavour of this.

  The Board considers the Regulation of Diet in the West Indies as an Object of the first Importance – The Men should be divided into Messes, and should have Two regular Meals a Day; for Breakfast, Coffee or Cocoa, with Sugar; for Dinner Salt Provisions, with Yams, and the Vegetables of the Country and seasoned with the Spices of the country – Fresh Provisions should be served to the Troops as often as is practicable…

  The lacing of the food with local ingredients was not only good for nutrition, but also provided novelty and helped relieve boredom. Many soldiers have left accounts of exotic Caribbean foods. James Aytoun, perhaps our best witness of the mundane life of the garrison, tells us that the men sold their standard rations – butter, rice, pease, beef and pork – to buy green plantains, roast coffee and treacle. Soup was thickened with Callaloo leaves and spiced with Cayenne pepper. Surprisingly, the seafood was mostly overlooked. The men were, Aytoun says, ‘fed like fighting cocks’ and the only thing in short supply was firewood. The quality of the basic rations was variable. In Demerara, the beef was sourced locally and, according to St Clair, it was often so poor that soldiers refused to eat it.

  Officers were allowed even more freedom in their diet, either messing with their comrades in camp or in their own accommodation or eating outside the g
arrison. Vegetables and fruit were easily available but fresh meat not always so. In Demerara, Pinckard complained that he had to eat salted meat, a routine broken only by the rare procurement of a Muscovy duck, chicken or suckling pig. He admitted to having developed a ‘Creole appetite’, feasting on yams and plantains. The local potatoes were disappointing, a consignment from home being treated as a great delicacy. Other English articles might arrive every several months in merchant ships to be sold at exorbitant prices. Pinckard’s enrolment into the regimental mess meant that he at least did not have to seek his own provisions. Dinners outside the garrison were unpredictable. When William Dyott visited General Leigh at his home on Barbados the repast was ‘…quite West Indian, consisting principally of poultry’. There was, he says, ‘one joint of mutton, which some people said was as good as they ever ate. I pitied their taste’.

  The diet of officers and men in the West Indies varied depending on the availability of supplies from home and the state of the local markets. However, the shortages were relative and genuine hunger was rare in the British garrison. Despite the difficulties of provisioning a theatre thousands of miles distant, the army’s administrators did fill the mouths of their soldiers. Henry Sherwood on St Vincent in 1799 describes his men cooking rats, but this was probably because they preferred them to the meat rations rather than because they were actually starving. Sherwood was tempted but admitted that he could not ‘muster the resolution’. In contrast to the British experience, the French suffered from severe hunger in Saint Domingue. In 1802, Sergeant Major Philippe Beaudoin complains of being without bread for three weeks and of being forced to subsist on root vegetables. Later, the troops were reduced to eating rotten biscuit and any animal they could kill including dogs, cats, rats and mice.

  All European soldiers in the region needed a constant supply of clean drinking water. Barrack accommodation had its own water cisterns, usually with a curved roof and a square hole through which buckets of water were drawn. Rainwater was collected from the roof or specially constructed catchments and then filtered to remove mud and other debris. The remains of these systems can be still seen at Shirley Heights in Antigua and at the Brimstone Hill Fortress on St Kitts. Despite such initiatives the end of the rainy season could quickly lead to shortages. Jonathan Leach points out that there was not a single spring of fresh water on Antigua and that the troops and inhabitants were entirely dependent on rainfall and the filling of the cisterns. From January to June 1804, there was a drought and the men were placed on a small allowance of water. This would have been even more problematic if sloops had not been constantly employed bringing barrels of fresh water from neighbouring Montserrat. Leach concedes that his regimental comrades were ‘by no means addicted to the use of water as a beverage’ but they still suffered from its scarcity. There are other examples of water rationing; on Guadeloupe in the summer of 1794 the men were short of all supplies and limited to two quarts of water per day.

  The most acute water deprivation and instances of severe thirst occurred on active campaigning. This happened throughout the wars. The men besieging Fort Bourbon in 1794 risked enemy shells and their officers’ wrath to slake their thirst in a rivulet. The troops landed on Puerto Rico were equally afflicted. In Saint Domingue, many of the natural sources of water were tainted. Phipps Howard refers to Les Sources Puante, a well-known series of springs between Arcahaye and Port au Prince. The water was tinged with green and emitted the worst smell he had ever experienced. Harry Ross-Lewin witnessed men sucking sweat from their jackets and drinking their urine. Cavalryman Norbert Landsheit also campaigned in the colony.

  There was no water to be had along the road, and the little which the men had brought in their canteens was all exhausted. Numbers had, therefore, become so faint, that they could scarcely sit on their horses and some had even fallen to the ground. In particular, I recollect seeing a poor fellow stretched by the wayside, whom an officer saved from death, by pouring the last drop out of the canteen which he himself carried, into the sufferer’s mouth; − and before two hours were passed, I saw the same officer perish for the lack of that which he had generously given away.

  Such a valuable commodity could be used as a weapon. At the siege of Fort Matilda in 1794, the British water cisterns were stagnant, the French having cut the aqueduct supplying them. Prescott was forced to send men to collect water from the nearby River Gallion. These twice-daily armed parties were covered by the firing of grapeshot from the fort.

  Leach’s assertion that he and his comrades were not overly partial to water reflects the reality that alcohol was regarded by the army and navy as an essential thirst-quenching drink. Normal army rations contained an allowance of alcohol and in the West Indies this was a quarter of a pint of rum. Regulations from 1795 stipulate that this was to be at least a year old – to avoid the harmful effects of ‘new rum’ – and diluted with three parts water. During periods of excessive fatigue men might receive extra alcohol, preferably porter but more rum if only this was available. That rum was regarded as a prerequisite for the normal functioning of the army is underlined by William Dyott’s shocked response to the lack of rum for his men fighting on Grenada; ‘A soldier never murmurs at the shortage of provisions but if his grog is stopped he is completely defeated’. The local grog shops allowed the troops to further indulge themselves; the below description is from Antigua but other islands had similar institutions.

  …where to the heterogeneous mass of eatables, crockery and tinware, is added the more exciting articles of brandy, rum, gin, porter and wine; and where of an evening amid fumes of every description (from Yanky cheese to Virginia tobacco) and dim smoky oil lamps, parties of soldiers, sailors and unfortunate females – ay, and men of better rank in life who ought to blush to be found in such places – love to congregate and barter health and money for dirty goblets of fiery liquids.

  There was a wide choice of alcoholic drinks. In Barbados, Pinckard found the favourite tipples to be Madeira and claret wines, punch, sangaree (a tumbler of Madeira, sugar and nutmeg diluted with a wineglass of water), porter and cider. The combination of easily available alcohol and a life of alternating boredom and extreme danger led to much drunkenness. Excessive consumption was encouraged by the prevailing opinion that alcohol gave some protection against deadly tropical disease. Dr Theodore Gordon, deputy inspector of hospitals in the Windward and Leeward Islands, saw drink being downed by the troops with ‘a degree of desperation that is scarcely creditable’. Gordon’s medical colleague, William Fergusson, witnessed the same behaviour in Saint Domingue.

  … I have seen the troops then in such a state that no parades could be formed for days together, and it was matter of difficulty to procure men in fit condition to take the ordinary guards. This occurred regularly once a month and a vigilant enemy might then have easily surprised our strongest garrisons.

  Fergusson says that the officers generally shunned the local rum, but there is no evidence that they deprived themselves. On the voyage out, Thomas Phipps Howard and a fellow officer had 360 bottles of port as their ‘sea stock’, enough, he thought, to last them to Barbados. Dr Hector McLean was an advocate of cautious alcohol consumption, limiting himself to draughts of sangaree and Madeira during the day and a bottle of claret after dinner. We will return to alcohol to discuss its insidious effects on the health of the West Indian garrison in a later chapter.6

  Barrack accommodation for the men varied widely in its siting, size and construction. Most typical were functional brick and stone buildings such as still exist at Shirley Heights and at the Brimstone Hill Fortress. At the latter, there was accommodation for 800 men, although it seems to have been rarely fully occupied in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. The barracks on Richmond Hill in Grenada, about two miles above St George’s, could accommodate 600−800 troops and the three barracks at Barbados, described by Phipps Howard, were each capable of taking 1,000 men. There was little useful building material on Barbados and the barracks were const
ructed with wood brought from England. Some accommodation was deliberately built at altitude, up to 2,000 feet, the so called ‘hill’ or ‘health stations’. These were most common in Jamaica. Other barracks exploited local buildings; the 99th Regiment in Dominica was housed in a spacious cotton works.

  Whatever the precise nature of the barracks, they were tightly controlled. General regulations demanded that the accommodation should be ‘roomy’ and that men should ideally be housed in the upper quarters, sleeping in hammocks or cot frames with legs. A series of articles relating to the barracks in Jamaica in 1801 give an insight into barrack life. Some of the lengthier entries have been paraphrased.

  Article 1: The Island Barrack Master is to immediately appoint Barrack Masters to act at the different Island Barracks.

  2: Every Barrack Master shall attend the arrival of such regiment or detachment as should be ordered to quarter in the barrack under his care: and having with the commanding officer viewed the conditions of the said barrack, and every room and part thereof, and the furniture and utensils, shall deliver the same, with an inventory under his hand stating the particular condition thereof.

  3: No regiment should be given excessive rooms/furniture/utensils.

  4: Each Barrack Master should make frequent inspections.

  5: The use of every room to be indicated on the door.

  6/7: Barrack Master to provide detailed returns for the Barrack Master General when a regiment arrives or leaves and routinely every three months.