Note 435 — SECTION XXI: CHAPTER II

A passage of Napier’s account of the movements of the Light Division (iii. 27) has puzzled many readers. ‘Eighteen hundred British bayonets went sparkling over the brow of the hill. Yet so hardy were the leading French that every man of the first section raised his musket, and two officers and ten soldiers (of the 52nd) fell before them. Not a Frenchman had missed his mark!’ This passage looks as if the whole French division had been conceived by Napier as moving in a single column with a front of only twelve men. An eye-witness, Sir John Bell, of the 52nd, who owned the copy of the book which I now have before me, has written Bosh! in the margin against the words. Of course the enemy was advancing with each battalion in column of companies, with a front of thirty at least. What Napier seems to have had in his head was an anecdote told by his brother George (Autobiography, p. 143). ‘My company met the very head of the French column, and immediately calling to my men to form column of sections, in order to give more force to our rush, we dashed forward. I was in front of my men a yard or two, when a Frenchman made a plunge at me with his bayonet, and at the same time received the contents of his musket under my hip and fell. At the same instant they fired upon my front section, consisting of about nine men in the front rank, all of whom fell, four dead, the rest wounded.’ But this does not imply that the French column was only twelve broad.