Notes and Reminiscences of a Staff Officer: Chiefly Relating to the Waterloo Campaign and to St. Helena Matters During the Captivity of NapoleonE. P. Dutton & Company, 1903 - 218 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
Admiral afterwards aide-de-camp allied appeared army artillery attack battalion battle bayonets Bertrand Blücher body Bonaparte British troops Brunswick Brussels cannon Captain cavalry Cephalonia chaussée Colonel Lowe command corps Corsican Rangers course d'Erlon Delancey despatch division Duke Duke's Dutch duty Emperor enemy English feel felt fire Forsyth France French garrison Genappe Gneisenau Gourgaud Governor ground guns headquarters heard honour horses Hougomont infantry island knew La Haye Sainte LENOX AND TILDEN Ligny Longwood look Lord Lowe's Major Lowe ment miles military Mont St Jean Montholon morning musket Muttlebury Napoleon never Ninove Nivelles numbers O'Meara occasion Paris passed Peninsula person Picton position present Prussians PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR Quartermaster-General Quatre Bras rear regiment riding road rode seemed seen sent Sir George Sir Hudson Lowe soldiers soon St Helena staff officer thought TILDEN FOUNDATIONS tion told waggons Waterloo Wellington wounded YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
Popular passages
Page 13 - And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature's tear-drops as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave, — alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass...
Page 80 - He shall defend thee under his wings, and thou shalt be safe under his feathers ; his faithfulness and truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Page 58 - You are aware how useful he has always been to me, and how much I shall feel the want of his assistance, and what a regard and affection I feel for him ; and you will readily believe how much concerned I am for his misfortune. Indeed, the losses I have sustained have quite broken me down ; and I have no feeling for the advantages we have acquired.
Page 199 - ... own aggrandizement, involve nations in strife. War is in itself an unmitigated curse. It is indeed the abomination of desolation. It may impose upon the imagination with all its proud pomp and circumstance, and few sights can be conceived of more thrilling interest than the march of a great army in compact array. But follow that army to the battle-field. See it after the shock of conflict, when • the clash of swords is over and the artillery has ceased to thunder. Listen to the cries of the...
Page 210 - ... one, has learnt to appreciate your rare military talents, your profound judgment on the great operations of war, and your imperturbable sangfroid in the day of battle. These rare qualities and your honourable character will link me to you eternally.
Page 162 - I was not asked to make out a case for Sir Hudson Lowe, nor, had I been asked to do so, would I have consented. I regarded the duty of examining the papers left by him as a solemn trust for the due and truthful discharge of which I was responsible to the public, and a still more searching tribunal, my own conscience. Amiciis Socrates, amictis Plato, sed magis arnica Veritas.
Page 164 - There are perhaps few, if any, public administrations of any kind, of which the records are so full and complete as those of my Government at St. Helena. There is not only a detailed correspondence addressed to the proper department of His Majesty's Government, reporting the occurrences of almost every day during the five years that Napoleon Bonaparte remained under my custody, but the greater part of the conversations held with Bonaparte himself, or with his followers, was immediately noted down...
Page 163 - As regards Napoleon, if I know anything of myself, my sympathies were in his favour. I cannot now sufficiently express my admiration of his genius ; but neither can I blind myself to the fact that he did not exhibit in misfortune that magnanimity without which there is no real greatness, and that he concentrated the energies of his mighty intellect on the ignoble task of insulting the Governor of St. Helena and manufacturing a case of hardship and oppression for himself.
Page 198 - Louvre, and foreign bayonets brought back the King whom she had driven into exile and proclaimed an outlaw. " Of his merits as a great Captain we need not speak. Such a world-conqueror will perhaps never be seen again. But we may hope the time is coming, if, indeed, it has not already come, when men will sit in stern judgment upon those who, without adequate and just cause, and for the sake of their own aggrandizement, involve nations in strife. War is in itself an unmitigated curse. It is indeed...
Page 168 - EVENTS OF A MILITARY LIFE, being Recollections after Service in the Peninsular War, Invasion of France, the East Indies, St. Helena, Canada, and elsewhere. By WALTER HENRY, Esq. Surgeon to the Forces, First Class. 2 vols. royal 12mo.