The Greys at Waterloo. Reminiscences of the Waterloo Campaign by Sergeant Major, in 1815 Corporal, Dickson, Scots Greys [officially 2nd or Royal North British Dragoons], as recounted to his family and friends. From: "With Napoleon at Waterloo", edited McKenzie McBride, 1911. [Slightly edited by D.Morfitt 1997, especially the introductory section; omissions marked with an ellipsis ...Numbers in square brackets in the text (thus [1]) refer to explanatory notes by D.Morfitt which can be found at the end of the memoir.]
...He was a native of Paisley, born in the Revolution year of 1789. He enlisted at Glasgow in 1807 when barely eighteen, and remained in the service till 1834. At Waterloo he was corporal in Captain Vernon's troop, and his sabre and other regimentals bear evidence that his number was 57 of F troop. He was promoted sergeant after Waterloo for his services, and took the place of Sergeant Charles Ewart, who received a commission in the Fifth Veteran Regiment for the brave deed narrated here.
On retiring from the Greys Sergeant Dickson joined the Fife Light Horse... He died at the age of ninety on 16th July 1880... His army papers bear witness that during his service of twenty-seven years in the Greys his character was 'excellent', and he was awarded a medal for long service and good conduct in addition to his Waterloo medal [1]...
'Well, you all know that when I was a lad of eighteen, being a good Scotsman, I joined the Greys, the oldest regiment of dragoons [2] in the British army, and our only Scottish cavalry corps.
When news came that Napoleon Bonaparte had landed in France, we were sent across to Belgium post-haste, and there had a long rest, waiting for his next move. I remember how the trumpets roused us at four o'clock on the morning of Friday 16th June 1815, and how quickly we assembled and fell in!
Three days' biscuits were served out to us; and after long marches - for we did fifty miles that one day before we reached Quatre Bras - we joined the rest of our brigade under Sir William Ponsonby.
Besides our regiment there were the 1st Royals [1st Royal Dragoons] and the Enniskillens [6th Dragoons], and we were known as the Union Brigade because, you see, it was made up of one English, one Irish and one Scots regiment.
On the day before the great fight - that was Saturday, for you know the battle was fought on the Sunday morning, the 18th June - we were marched from Quatre Bras along the road towards Brussels. We thought our Iron Duke was taking us there; but no. In a drenching rain we were told to halt and lie down in a hollow to the right of the main road, among some green barley. Yes, how we trampled down the corn! The wet barley soon soaked us, so we set about making fires beside a cross-road that rang along the hollow in which we were posted. No rations were served that night. As we sat round our fire we heard a loud rumbling noise about a mile away, and this we knew must be the French artillery and wagons coming up. It went rolling on incessantly all night, rising and falling like that sound just now of the wind in the chimney.
One thing I must tell you: though there were more than seventy thousand Frenchmen over there, we never once saw a camp-fire burning all the night and until six o'clock the next morning. Why they weren't allowed to warm themselves, poor fellows! I don't know. Well, about eleven o'clock that night a fearful storm burst over us. The thunder was terrible to hear. It was a battle-royal of the elements, as if the whole clouds were going to fall on us. We said it was a warning to Bonaparte that all nature was angry at him.
Around the fires we soon fell asleep, for we were all worn out with our long march in the sultry heat of the day before.
I was wakened about five o'clock by my comrade MacGee, who sprang up and cried, "D--- your eyes, boys, there's the bugle!" "Tuts, Jock!" I replied, "it's the horses chains clanking." "Clankin'?" said he. "What's that, then?" as a clear blast fell on our ears.
After I had eaten my ration of "stirabout" - oatmeal and water - I was sent forward on picket [3] to the road two hundred yards in front, to watch the enemy. It was daylight, and the sun was every now and again sending bright flashes of light through the broken clouds. As I stood behind the straggling hedge and low beech-trees that skirted the high banks of the sunken road on both sides, I could see the French army drawn up in heavy masses opposite me. They were only a mile from where I stood; but the distance seemed greater, for between us the mist still filled the hollows. There were great columns of infantry, and squadron after squadron of Cuirassiers [4], red Dragoons, brown Hussars [5], and green Lancers [6] with little swallow-tail flags at the end of their lances. The grandest sight was a regiment of Cuirassiers, dashing at full gallop over the brow of the hill opposite me, with the sun shining on their steel breastplates. It was a splendid show. Every now and then the sun lit up the whole country. No one who saw it could ever forget it.
Between eight and nine there was a roll of drums along the whole of the enemy's line, and a burst of music from the bands of a hundred battalions came to me on the wind. I seemed to recognise the "Marseillaise" [7], but the sounds got mixed and lost in a sudden uproar that arose. Then every regiment began to move. They were taking up position for the battle. On our side perfect silence reigned; but I saw that with us too preparations were being made. Down below me a regiment of Germans was marching through the growing corn to the support of others who were in possession of a farmhouse that lay between the two armies. This was the farm of La Haye Sainte, and it was near there that the battle raged fiercest. These brave Germans! they died to a man before the French stormed it, at the point of the bayonet, in the afternoon [8]. A battery of artillery now came dashing along the road in fine style and passed in front of me. I think they were Hanoverians; they were not British troops, but I don't remember whether they were Dutch or German. They drew up close by, about a hundred yards in front of the road. There were four guns. Then a strong brigade of Dutch and Belgians marched up with swinging, quick step, and turned off at a cross-road between high banks on to the plateau on the most exposed slope of the position. They numbered at least three thousand men, and looked well in their blue coats with orange-and-red facings. After this I rode up to a party of Highlanders under the command of Captain Ferrier, from Belsyde, Linlithgow, whom I knew to belong to the Ninety-second [9] or "Gay Gordons", as we called them. All were intently watching the movements going on about them. They, with the Seventy-ninth Cameron Highlanders, the Forty-second (Black Watch), and First Royal Scots formed part of Picton's "Fighting Division". They began to tell me about the battle at Quatre Bras two days before, when every regiment in brave old Picton's division had lost more than one-third of its men. The Gordons, they said, had lost half their number and twenty-five out of thirty-six officers. Little did we think that before the sun set that night not thirty men of our own regiment would answer the roll-call.
I seem to remember everything as if it happened yesterday. After the village clocks had struck eleven the guns on the French centre thundered out, and then musketry firing commenced away to the far right. The French were seen to be attacking a farmhouse there in force. It was called Hougoumont. I noticed, just in front of me, great columns of infantry beginning to advance over the brow of the hill on their side of the valley, marching straight for us. Then began a tremendous cannonade from two hundred and fifty French guns all along the lines. The noise was fearful; but just then a loud report rent the air, followed by a rolling cheer on our side, and our artillery got into action. We had one hundred and fifty guns in all; but half of these belonged to the Dutch, Germans, or Belgians, who were hired to fight on our side. The French had about ten thousand men more than we had
