THE HISTORY OF A REGIMENT.*
THE records of this regiment, which was long ago known as " Leven's " or "The Edinburgh," present several points of in- terest from the circumstances of its formation, from its conduct and achievements in various noted campaigns, and from the refer- ences which are made to one of these in Sterne's most celebrated fiction. ne documents edited by Captain Higgins comprise a series of official notices extending over nearly two centuries, and incomplete only during one period of about fifteen years, on which a former compiler has attempted to throw some light by data col- lected from Tristram Shandy, and from the family memoirs of its author. Unluckily this theory has failed to satisfy Captain Higgins, who has seen from Sterne's words that the latter's father belonged to a different regiment, however clearly the Edinburgh may appear to have included Corporal Trim and Uncle Toby. He is consequently unable to maintain that the regiment took a part in the wars of Marlborough, but how much has been left him to relate of the times preceding and following that epoch !
The original names of the regiment were derived from Edinburgh, where it was raised to defend the Convention summoned by William of Orange ; and from the Earl of Leven, who filled its ranks with 800 men in the space of a few, or according to the Gazette, only two, hours, on the 19th March, 1689. With these recruits he occupied the Parliament House; and he led them, after a few months, to the unfortunate field of Killiecrankie, where they behaved "with extraordinary bravery and resolution." It was here that the regiment earned from the magistrates of Edin- burgh the special privilege of beating up for recruits within the bounds of that capital at all times, without asking permission of the Lord Provost. It reaped further laurels at Athlone and Limerick in the Irish campaign, and between 1691 and 1697 in Flanders, where it executed, in the siege of Namur, that attack on the counterscarp which Sterne has celebrated. It * The Records of the King's Own Borderers, or Old Edinburgh Regiment Edited by Captain B. T. Higgins. Loudon: Chapman and Hall. 1873. then returned to Scotland, where it appears to have remained until after the conclusion of the Peace of Utrecht. That it was there at least in 1710 is shown from letters of Marlborough's, quoted in the appendix to the present work ; and Sterne's father, on the other hand, who was at Lisle in 1712, appears to have belonged to " Handaside's regiment." During the civil war of 1715, the regi- ment bore a part in the confused fight of Sheriffmuir, where, as Burns sings, "we ran and they ran and a' ran ;" and afterwards in the battles of Fontenoy, Culloden, and six other general engagements, up to the time when it buried its old colours at Newcastle in 1765. During the next forty years we find it employed with distinction at Port Mahon, Gibraltar, and in the West Indies, Holland, and Egypt. Mean- time the practice of numbering regiments had commenced in 1744, or earlier, but it is only in 1756 that we begin to observe the omission of the colonel's name. However, the Edinburgh, or Twenty-fifth, received, in 1782, the new appellation of "The Sussex" (to suit the egoism of a highly-connected colonel). The name of "King's Own Borderers" was formally conferred upon it in 1803, together with a new motto, "In veritate religionis confido," which was certainly no improvement upon the original, "Nisi Dominus, frustra." But the old name of the regiment seems to have been regretted, if we may judge by a letter of the Lord Provost of Edinburgh in 1829, which sanctions the revival of the beating-up privilege. In 1809 the regiment took part in the capture of Martinique ; in 1842 it helped to reduce the insurgents at Natal ; and it was lately employed in Canada during the Fenian troubles. But we wish to select from its history some particulars relative to changes in army equipments and military discipline. During the war in the Netherlands in King William's reign, the use of an improved weapon among the French (or we should rather perhaps say, the secrecy under which they had adopted it) exposed the Edinburgh regiment to an unexpectedly severe en- counter. The handles of the bayonets had hitherto been solid, and were screwed into the muzzles of the muskets, so that while they were fixed the men could not fire. The French now be- thought themselves of rendering the handles hollow, and fitting them over the muzzle in the present fashion. An engagement took place, in which three of the French regiments were armed in this manner, and one of them, as Grose writes, "advanced with fixed bayonets against Leven's regiment, when Lieutenant Max- well, who commanded it, ordered his men to screw bayonets into their muzzles, thinking the enemy meant to decide the affair point to point ; but to his great surprise, when they came within a proper distance, the French threw in a heavy fire, which for a moment staggered his men, who nevertheless recovered themselves, charged, and drove the enemy out of the line." Perhaps the in- vention would never have so taken an enemy by surprise if it bad been reserved for these days of mitrailleurs and large newspapers.
The battle of Minden (1759) was the first, according to our author, in which the British troops took aim by placing the butt of the firelock against the shoulder and viewing the object along the barrel when firing at the enemy, in which mode they had been in- structed during the preceding peace. On former occasions the firelock was brought up breast-high, and discharged towards the enemy a good deal at random, because it was considered a degrada- tion to take aim according to the present custom. In this year also the Cavalry adopted the trumpet, in place of the side-drum and hautboys.
Elsewhere we learn that "until the year 1745, swords were worn by the privates of infantry, but in this year they were ordered to be discontinued by the battalion companies. The Grenadiers con- tinued to wear swords until the year 1762." Perhaps our poets will be more familiar with the sword than the bayonet for another century or two. Caps appear to have been substituted for cocked hats for the officers of the Army in 1811, and the embroidery on the breasts of their dress-coats was abolished in-1829. Both these changes were made on Christmas Day. It was in 1796 that the coat of the private was reduced to a jacket, and that of the officer differentiated by books, facings, and other devices.
The cat-of-nine-tails was introduced along with regimental courts-martial in 1760, punishments having previously been almost discretionary with the commanding officers of corps, and inflicted with switches, mostly of willow. Our author's accounts of engagements and even campaigns are in many places ample, but the battle of Fontenoy is the only one that has been illustrated by a rough diagram. We shall extract from another chapter, in honour of Sterne, a few particulars relative to the incident in the siege of Namur. The place was first invested by three corps of the allied armies on the 3rd of July, but their lines were so extensive that the garrison received a strong reinforcement. The besiegers were soon joined by the main armies of King William and the Elector of Bavaria, who encamped on both sides of the Sambre and Meuse. New lines of circumvallation were commenced on the Sth by General Coehorn, "the most celebrated engineer of that or any former period," who had defended Namur against Vauban when the French reduced it in 1692. The trenches were opened on the 11th, and during ten days the batteries played vigorously On the town, several sallies of the be- sieged being repulsed. On the 18th the King ordered an attack on the outworks, and the five battalions under Major-General Ramsay and Lord Cutts (English, Scotch, and Dutch troops), commenced the assault on the right. With the support of other corps they overpowered a sally of the besieged. The lines near the gate of St. Nicolas were attacked by the English and Scotch battalions on the 27th, but in approaching the advanced counterscarp (of the "sluice or waterstop ") they were exposed to a terrible fire from the counterguard and demi- bastion of St. Roch ; and the enemy exploded a mine under part -of the glazia, by which 20 officers and more than 500 men were tilled in Levee's regiment. "Sterne, in his own way, tells us how bis uncle Toby, a captain in Leven's, was wounded in the groin upon this occasion." Some confusion ensued, but the British troops rallied, overcame a desperate resistance, and effected a lodgment on the counterscarp and on the foremost covered way. The Dutch troops, who seconded them, had a similar success in the -counterguard of St. Hoch, and both corps, by digging some traverses, were enabled to maintain the positions they had gained. The allies obtained further advantages during the ensuing week, and the breaches being now practicable, and preparations having been made for an assault, the town capitulated on the 4th of August, thotigh the citadel was retained until the following month, Marshal Villeroy making an effort to retain it. Uncle Toby has become to us a more interesting sufferer in this transaction than the victim specially commemorated by Smollett, viz., "Mr. Godfrey, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, who was killed among others in the trenches by the side of the King, having come to the camp to confer with his Majesty about remitting money for the payment of the army."
We need hardly say that the bulk of this volume is in great part made up of registers possessing no general interest, but oapable of being consulted with advantage on questions of personal and family history. But in this respect and others the value of Captain Higgins's labours might have been much enhanced by the compilation of a good index. The narrative has not been en- livened with any political comments except in a concluding para- graph (referring to the Abolition of Purchase and other recent measures), which, however, appears hastily written, and of an undecided tendency.
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