AN OLD HERO.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5273, 1 June 1895, Page 1

AN OLD HERO.

COLIN CAMPBELL, LORD CLYDE.

(Daily X eves,)

f Colic Campbell, by Archibald Forbes " —-that ia a sufficiently attractive/label for the new volume of Messrs Maomil.an's English Men of Action Series. -Nor are the contents unworthy of the label. Colin Campbell iB presented by his latest biographer as he really was, one of the glorieß of the British army, and ono of the noblest, most loyal, and most unassuming of men. As for the biographer, his battle-pieces, and especially his description of Campbell and his beloved Ninety-Third—" My own lads," as the old hero called them— at that desperate businesa the "capture of the L'ucknow Residency from the mutineers, shows that his hand retains its old cunning.

Colin Macliver, son of a Glasgow carpenter, was born at Glasgow in 1*792, The real name of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde, was not Campbell, but Macliver. The ' name Campbell, his mother's name, was given him in mistake by a Eoysl Duke, and stuck to him ever after. It will be Bhown presently how this came about. Toung Colin's father and mdther 'were of good families that had come down in the world. After some time spent at THE GLASGOW HIGH SCHOOL, Colin was removed by his mother's brother, Colonel John Campbell, to the Royal Military and Naval Academy at Gosport. " When barely fifteen and a half hia uncle presented him to tbe Duke of York, then Commander-in-Chief, who promised him a commission, and, supposing bim to be, as he said, "another of the clan," put down bis name as Colin Campbell, the name which he thenceforth bore. General Shadwell (Lord Clyde's biographer) states that on leaving the Duke's presence with his uncle young Colin made some comment on what he took to be a mistake on the Duke's -part in regard to his surname, to which the shrewd uncle replied by telling him that 'Campbell was a name which it would suit him for professional reasons to adopt.' The youngster was wise in his. generation, and- does not-ap-poai' to ha*ve had any compunction in dropping the "rfbt particularly eupbonibUß '_ tir- * name of- Macliven On May 26, 1808, young Campbell received the commission of ensign in the 9th Foot, now known as the Norfolk Eegiment, and within five weeks from the date of his first commission he waa promoted to a lieutenancy in the same regiment." When young Campbell was joining hia regiment in the Isle of Wight, Sir Arthur Wellesley's force of nine thousand men was sailing from Cork- for the Peninsula. A great opportunity it was for the fifteen-year-old ensign — or rather it would have been if the boy en.ign had been possessed of family influence. Had he been fortunate in that respect, his conduct in the Peninsula, so often praised by his superior officers, and especially HIB SPLENDID BEAVERY at the a-saul. on Sao Sebastian, would have then started him on the career of promotion which in his case proved to be so disappointingly long in coming. Bat if he did nob win promotion commensurate with his desert?, he gained an amount of experience almost uuique in one so young. He gained it at Vimeira, at the retreat on Corunna, at Barrosa, Sao Sebastian, and many other place?. At Vimeira, the boy received his " baptism of fire," of which Mr Forbes recalls an interesting anecdote in the following passage :—

"Young Campbell wbb with the rear company of his battalion, which stood halted in open column of companies under tho fierce fire of Laborde's artillery covering the impending assault of his infantry. The captain of Campbell's company, an officer inured to war, chose the occasion for leading the lad out to the front of the battalion and walking with him along the face of the leading company for several minutes, after which little piece of experience he Bent him back to his company. In narrating the incident in after years, Campbell was wont to add : 'It was the greatest kindness that could have been shown to me at suoh, a time, and through life I have been grateful for it.' It is not unlikely that the gallant and conoiderate old soldier may have intended not alone to give to his young subaltern his baptism of fire, but also to brace the nerves of the men of a battalion whioh, although part of a regiment subsequently distinguished in many campaigns and battles, was now for the first time in its military life to confront an enemy and endure hostile fire."

Colin Campbell wa3 a war-worn veteran by the time, when he wes tottering on tho verge ©f twenty-one. He had been privileged to perform his part in battles the very names of which will retain their magic

AS .LONG AS ENGLISH HISTORY LASTS. After Wellington's expulsion of the French armies from the Peninsula, young Campbell drifted away to the new world, and served with the Sixtieth Eegimentin Nora Scotia. _F__ncy ,> Campbell, the born soldier and leader of men, idling away his time in that region of fish oil and fog at the time when his old comrades in the Peninsula were beating Napoleon and wrecking the first French Empiro at ■ Waterloo. Mr Forbe. paoßes rapidly over Campbell's service of many years in the West Indies, remarking that the time he spent in Barhadoes was perhaps the happiest in his life. Campbell ia in London in 1835, on the look-out for employment His appointment to the Ninety-eighth, his signally judicious conduct in northern England, under Napier's command, at the p?riod of the Chartist agitation, are passed uuder rapid review, and bring the story of h.Blife np to .the end of IS4I, and the desp .tch of tho British expedition to China. The passages about the Chinese expedition are chiefly" remarkable for their account of tho .Ralloisle, tho ship in which Campbell and tho Ninety-eighth made tho voyage to Chins. What Mr. Forbes describes as the " abominable overcrowding " on board the Bulleisle is in startling contrast with tbo oare taken of British troops in recent expeditions— ench as thoso in connection with the Egyptian occupation andthe Soudanese insurrection. Not

THE CHINESE TROOPS, but the effects of the hardships at; eea— eßpecially when tbey becamo intensified by the Chinese summer and the malaria of. the filthy " Flowery Land"— killed off the gallant Ninety-eighth in the course of the

campaign. Colin Campbell's account of the mortality among his men is quoted by Mr Forbea, and may be given here :«— regiment hao lost by death up to this date two hundred and eighty-three men, and there are still two hundred and thirty- one siok, of whom some fifty or sixty will die? and generally, of those who may Burvive there will be some seventy or eighty men to be discharged in consequence of their constitutions having been so completely broken down aB to unfit them for the duties of soldiers. This is the history of the Ninety-eighth Begiment, which sailed from Plymouth in so effective a Btate in all respeota on Bee. 20 of last year — and all this destruction withont having lost a man by the fire of the enemy!"

Mr Forbes adds that, grave as Campbell's estimate was, it did not reach "the grim actual total. From its landing at Chin* Kiang on July 21, 1842, up to February, 1844, a period of nineteen months, the unfortunate regiment lost by death alone 432 out of a strength of 766- non-com-missioned officers and men; and there remained of it alive no more than 334— an awful contrast to the full number with wbioh it had embarked at Plymouth twenty-six months earlier." From all which it follows that some highly-placed landsman would have been

"NANE THB WAUB o' A HANGIN'." Campbell wbb not the only hero of tbe great time who took part in the Chinese expedition. Lord Saltoun, the hero of Hougoumont, was second in command of the Chinese expeditionary force. In India, the next scene of Campbell's career, there were othera who, like himself, had fought in the Peninsular days. Lord Gough was an old Peninsular man. So was Sir William Gomm. And so was Colonel William Havelock, who was now to distinguish himself in the hard fighting that was to end in the final disappearance of the Sikh power and the annexation of the Punjaub. Campbell himself relates a characteristic and touching anecdote of the brave Sikhs, as he saw them laying down their 'arm?. "Thero was," he writes, " nothing cringing in tho manner of these men in laying down their arms. They acknowledged themselves beaten, and they were starving— destitute alike of food and money. Each man, as he laid down his arms, received a rupee to enable him to support himself while on his way to hia home. The greater number of the old men especially, when laying down their arms, made a deep reverence or Balaam as they' placed their swords on the heap, with the muttered' words, * Kunjeet Singh is dead to-day ! ' This was said with deep feoling ; they are undoubtedly a fine and brave people."

Campbell returned to England io 1858. He wbb now sixty-one years old, and he was. looking forward to an eaßy, honourable retirement. But the Crimean War was in the near distance, and the Indian Mutiny, ' with its unparalleled records of British valour— and

A PE-SBAOE, AND A FIELD •HABBHALBHIP, and many other tokens of the Queen's and the nation's., gratitude to the fine old soldier who had so faithfully served his' country. We shonld much like to quote Mr Forbes'e narrative of the conduct of Campbell's Highlanders at the Alma and elsewhere; but neither this nor the author's criticisms of operations in the Crimea, the Punjaub, and the scenes of the .Mutiny can be properly dope by extracts apart from their context. Campbell's farewell to his glorious . Highland regiments in the Crimea is, very .likely, unknown to the mats of English readers, at any rate to the readers of .this generation. Those who may now read it for the first time in Mr Forbes's glowing pagea will read it again and again. It iB the most eloquent and moving good-bye ever given by a commander to his soldiers, and it ia all the more impressive because the man who uttered it had by natnre so little of the gift of speech. The address showed how deeply Campbell himßelf was moved. . The circumstances in which he waß placed made of the old hero a poet for the nonce. He waa mightily proud of bis. Highlanders. He regarded them as the finest soldierß in the world. If he had to achieve "the impossible," he wonld, with absolute confidence, entrust it to " my own lads " of the Ninety-third, aad the other noble fellows of the plaid and the plume. Listen to this little speech of Sir Colin's, and the -response, at a memorable orisis in the Mutiny: —

" ' Ninety-Third : Yon are my own lads, I rely on you to do yourselves and me credit.' ' Aye, aye, Sir Colin, ye ken us and we ken you ; we'll bring the women and bairns out o' Lucknow, or we'll leave onr ain banes there. ' " And a few days after that, when the touch-and-go crißiß came at

THE ASSAULT OX THB SECDNDRABAGH, Campbell gave hia matter-of-fact, proudly confident order : " Ewart ! Bring on the tartan." And " the tartan " sprang ahead, seven companies of it. Mr ForbesMitchell, whom Mr Forbes quotes, is of opinion that the first man to rush in through the hole made by the guns was a non-commissioned-officer of the Ninetythird. We take tbe following passage from Mr Forbes's narrative .—

" The foremost men climbed in through the narrow breach. ' The bulk of the Ninety-third and the Sikhs entered by the great gate further to the left after its massive locks had yielded to many bullets, and they were followed by Barnaton's battalion of detachments. The Fifty-third broke in through a window tp the right. The vast interior garden in which the deadly strife was proceeding rang with the clash of weapons, the crackle of musketry, and shouts and yells of the combatants. The scene baffled all description. The enemy, caught in a death trap, fought with the courage of despair. The conflict raged for bourß and the carnage was appalling. When tho enclosure and buildinge were finally cleared of their ghastly contents, no fewer than two thousand native soldiers were found to have been slain." One great secret of Campbell's popularity in the rank and file is revealed in

THE FOLLOWING BTOBT, told by himself and quoted by Mr Forbes, Sir Colin, aB he then wbb (1856), was inspecting the depot at Chichester :— "I noticed that an old man, evidently an old soldier, though in plain clothes, was constantly on the gronnd, and apparently watching my movements. As I was leaving the barrack-yard at the end of the inspection, he came towards me, drew himself up, made the military salute, and with much respect 6a id — 'Sir Colin, may I speak to you? Look at me, sir! do you recollect me?' I looked at him and replied, " Yeß, I do.' 'What is my name?' he asked. I told him. ' Yes, sir ; and where did yon last soe me ?' *In the breach of San Sebastian,' I replied, ' badly wounded by my side.' 'Bight, sir!' answered the old soldier. ' J can tell you something more,' I added; 'you were No. — in ihe front rank of my company.' 'Bight, Bir ! ' said the veteran. I. was putting my hand into my pocket to make the old man a present, when he stepped forward, laid his hand on my wrist, and said—' No, sir, that is not what I want ; but you will be going to Shorncliffe to inspect the depdt there. I have a son in the Innißkillings quartered at that Btation, and if you will oall him out and tell him that you knew his father, that ia what I should wish.'"

And that was forty-three yearß after Sau Sebastian, in the Peninsular days.

Mr Forbes regards the incident oharaoteristio of

THB RELATIONS BKTWIXN OFFIOBEB AMD

. HEN in the old army, " before the era of short service set in." And he adds that Sir Colin, when Commander-in-Chief in India, oould recognise by name all the men of his favourite regiment who had served in tha Crimea.