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never to lose sight of the fact, that, like the concluding scenes of every other well-fought field, those of Waterloo fell under one or the other of two perfectly distinct periods;-under that of the crisis, which, as to the result of the action, is the climax of doubt; or under that of the close, the immediately consequent period of certainty. Now, of all the numerous accounts of the action and portions of the action which have come before the public, until your reply, there never, I think, was one which questioned the fact that victory was certain to the allies from the moment the Imperial Guard was fairly beaten off the British position: all, of course, at the same time admitting that the extent of the destructive effects of that victory upon the French army was not established for some hours afterwards. You yourself, while holding forward the inference that the certainty of victory was not established until after the charges of two regiments of the 6th brigade of cavalry *, do not advance a single argument to prove that at the commencement of these charges, victory, abstractedly as victory, was at all doubtful, and your own narrative exhibits conclusive evidence of the opposite fact.

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Your charges commenced not from the rear, or from the summit, or from the slope of the British position; from these the charge of Adam's brigade had already driven the enemy; but it commenced from about midway between the two positions-(this is an important statement of yours, about midway towards that of the enemy")—and, as the valley between was not more than 500 yards across, the troops upon whom the charges were directed must have been on the first rising of the French position, (about in the line of the squares of the Old Guard, though probably much to their left,) not making any effort to restore the battle, but employed solely in covering the retreat. The remains of the enemy's cavalry your brigade gallantly dispersed, the artillery they took, and the columns of infantry which were not attacked, attempted no forward movement, but hastily retired from the field-it must be supposed, for nothing more is heard of them until half a mile farther to the rear they are charged by Vandeleur's brigade; and you cross and recross the ground with but two or three attendants.+ And so certainly at that time was retreat the object of the whole French army, that after the first charge of your leading regiment of hussars, when a portion of it, in full success pushing forward rapidly beyond the ground at which the charge commenced, was thrown under the fire of a square of the Old Guard farther to the rear than La Belle Alliance, and half a mile in a direct line from the summit of the British position‡;

*After quoting my account of the conclusion of the charge of the 52d upon the columns, of the Imperial Guard, you observe-" Here, you say, ended the battle (my word is crisis) of Waterloo: the subsequent movements were only directed to complete the victory....but I must beg to put in a few words for the troops engaged in what subsequently took place,"-directly implying that you wish to extend the crisis to their subsequent charges, and your other principal arguments have certainly the same object.

"I had with me only an orderly dragoon, and two other men of the 18th."U. S. Journ., p. 317.

"The square retired by descending into the hollow road....and then proceeded up it until it reached the high road beyond La Belle Alliance."-U S. Journ., p. 318. An attentive consideration of the plan in the July Number of the U. S. Journal, with

even that square was engaged in making its retreat, and even at that distant point, a regiment of red-coated infantry was coming close upon it in full pursuit.

The period which I have set apart as the crisis, the climax of uncertainty, is of a different character from that in which your earliest charge was made. It cannot be said that victory was certain to the allies, when 10,000 fresh and fine grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, seconded by 6000 of the 1st corps, and supported by as many more of the 2d, pressed desperately up the centre of the face of a position, on the whole length of which stood, I have said 35,000 men, but you say 10,000 less," a mere handful," the greater part of them thoroughly exhausted soldiers or very indifferent auxiliaries.

It cannot be said that victory was certain to the Allies, when a portion of the allied force gave way before the fury of this attack, and when, at a point defended only by Maitland's and Halkett's exhausted brigades, (the first reduced to the numbers of a weak battalion, and the latter to those of a few companies,) the headmost grenadiers of the Guard gained the summit of the British position, and, still unchecked, pressed desperately forward, with deafening shouts of " Vive l'Empereur! Vive Napoleon!"

But, on the contrary, when emerging from the reverse cover of the British position, the 52d, with 900 bayonets, covered by the 71st, with 700 more, had wheeled up upon the flank of these desperate masses, had poured in a most destructive fire, had charged, broken, and driven them, with those who seconded them, in one wild mingled mass of confusion, across the whole front of attack to the rear of La Haye Sainte, and when the greater part of the French army, panic-struck at the event, was seen on the face of their position, cavalry, infantry, and artillery intermingled, and rushing in similar confusion to gain the chaussée to Genappe;-then, indeed, as to the abstract question of victory, the period of doubt had completely passed away, it was unchangeably certain to the Allies, and so decided in its character, that even from that moment confidence might have assumed the place of expectation in proclaiming that the sun of Napoleon had set for ever with the sunset of Waterloo.*

I hold, therefore, that there are still unshaken grounds for maintaining the passage-" Thus ended the grand crisis of Waterloo. From this period the success of the Allies was established beyond a doubt; and their subsequent movements were only directed to complete the victory."

This is the essential point of difference between us. Compared with it, all others sink into insignificance. For you yourself have declared that the charges of your brigade were subsequent to the events which I have marked out as the crisis. You yourself have admitted that those events may have taken place as I have described themt; and that if regard to the road you describe, will, I think, bring conviction that the square charged by the 10th is very near its proper place, and you do not dispute it.

It appears to me, on consideration, that in the Narrative the time was given a quarter of an hour too early, and that the sun really set during the repulse of the Imperial Guard. I do not say this to make a coincidence, but a correction.

f" Nor do I pretend at all to interfere with (excepting to correct what appears to me an error in distance) your statement as regards the attack of the 52d, immediately in advance of La Haye Sainte."-Page 317.

" With

they did indeed comprehend the crisis, that, certainly, the glorious close of the victory is, in a very great measure, to be attributed to the 521 regiment. Begging you, therefore, to observe and bear in mind constantly the comparative insignificance of all the other points which you impugn, I proceed to examine these also.

To the narrative of the movements of Adam's brigade in the period which I have marked out as the crisis, you make two, and but two objections. These are on very secondary points, and arise almost entirely from inference.

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You object to the passage, "the headmost companies of the Imperial Guard crowned the very summit of the position." Your grounds of objection are, not that you saw the head of the column of the Imperial Guard, and that it was repulsed before it reached the summit; but that, in front of your own brigade, the French did not crown the summit; and that, on the next day, the mass of the enemy's dead and dying lay below the crest. With regard to the first ground of objection, the extreme right of your brigade was probably 300 yards to the left of the point at which the Imperial Guard attacked, and the smoke was intensely thickt; it is therefore quite conceivable, that the Imperial Guard may have stood on the very summit, and not have been perceptible to you. In front of the 6th brigade, those of the enemy who beat back the Nassau troops upon your horses' heads, must, at the least, have been very close upon the summit; and it is possible that, on portions even of this front, some may actually have reached it without coming under your personal observation.

With regard to the second ground of objection, I quite agree with you that the mass of the enemy's dead and dying lay below the crest; and when you say further, that a few French infantry lay within our line, we are still at agreement, and you support the very fact against which you appear to be objecting: for the course of our line was rather in rear, than in front of the summit; and I think it will not be contested, that between the two great roads, the Imperial Guard and the crowd of skirmishers which went with it, penetrated at the least as far as any infantry during the day. I have not stated that many fell on the summit: those who attained it were engaged in flank with the left companies only of the 52d, and began very soon to give ground to the right and rear. What also in other places would be called many, might, on such a field, appear a few. I did not see the head of the imperial column, but officers and men who were on the left of the 52d have been decided in the assertion, that it really crowned the summit of the position, so that the left flank of the regiment, stationed as it was behind the summit, was almost turned when the order was given to advance. My attention on the right was principally attracted by the

"With respect to the inferences you have drawn, as indeed with anything you have stated, I have little to say, excepting only as regards the 6th brigade of cavalry."-Page 320.

"If so, certainly the glorious close of that victory was, in a very great measure, (taking your account of the movements of the 52d to be correct,) to be attributed to that regiment."-Page 315.

+"The smoke at this moment was so dense on the side of the hill, that it was scarcely possible to see ten yards before us."-Page 313.

artillerymen in its front, who, to the letter, were driven from their guns, by the close întensity of the musketry, for some seconds before the 52d moved forward; a circumstance which alone appears to show that the great column of attack to the left of the 52d, from which the fire proceeded, must have really gained the summit before the repulsing charge took place.

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As to the other point to which you object, of the distance of some guns which enfiladed the 52d on its right flank, and were driven off by the right section, I should be happy to be able to make oath to every other detail of the action, as confidently as I could, if necessary, to this. The guns were very close for artillery,-close enough to justify Sir John Colborne's permission to attempt the driving them off, as the result also proved; and yet, not close enough for the section to open its fire with effect, until it had run about 100 yards towards them. Of these two points I am positive; and they fix the distance at between 300 and 400 yards. The circumstances were sufficiently urgent to justify a very desperate attempt. Sir John Colborne, galloping to the right from the centre, had just said, These guns will destroy the regiment." Three field-pieces, enfilading a four-deep line with grape, at a short range, must soon cause fearful havoc. The attempt, however, was by no means of a desperate character. The guns were without any close support,- -no fugitives were near. They were not (as you say) "flying in every direction," but in one close, immense. mass, before the front of the 52d. A section then consisted of about ten file, and to twenty extended skirmishers,-it is an easy task to drive off, though not to capture t, two or three unsupported fieldpieces. This 400 yards did certainly, as you infer, bring the section nearly to the position "in which the reserve of the enemy was posted to cover the retreat;" and this is an important fact: for the section then found itself within 250 yards of the squares of the Old Guard, and found them standing on the first rise of the French position, in perfectly undisturbed steadiness. The guns, detached and firing 250 yards in their front, prove most positively, that no British cavalry were, or had been recently charging, in the immediate neighbourhood; and the steadiness of the squares,-not firing a shot or attempting to move, -but standing in the same line with cuirassiers, as steady on their right, furnishes abundant corroboration to the same effect.

It appears, therefore, not only that the precise place and limit of the crisis has been correctly stated, but that your only two secondary objections to my account of it do not hold good.

With regard to the period described in my account as the close of the action that this period, including all the charges of your brigade, was subsequent to that which I have described as the crisis, it must be remembered, there is no question whatever between us, for you yourself positively declare it. Of the accuracy of the account of the movements

The evidence of an officer of that battery would be very valuable on this and other points.

+"The right section wheeled up and drove them off."-Crisis and Close, &c. "Do you really mean to say that a section of the 52d quitted the body of the regiment and captured three guns, 400 yards distant from it ?"Sir Hussey Vivian's Reply, &c.

U. S. J., pages 314, 315.

of the 52d and 71st regiments in its duration, I feel very confident; and, for all that is said in your reply, have a right to be so, for you know nothing of the 52d *; and those of the 71st you impugn but in one point, and that very doubtfully. You say "whether those friends," the regiment that fired on the square which the 10th charged, "were the 71st regiment, or a regiment of Hanoverians, I will not presume to say, but the impression on my mind has always been that they were Hanoverians."

I have stated that this red regiment was the 71st, and while well weighing the contents of Sir Thomas Reynell's letter in the last U. S. Journal, still hold, that if any regiment of infantry was found by the 10th hussars in close pursuit of a square of the Old Guard, near the road which falls into the chaussée to Genappe on its right side beyond La Belle Alliance, it could have been no other than that regiment, which united with the 52d in driving the squares of the Old Guard from the first rising of their position, on the same side of the chaussée, in their front of La Belle Alliance. When the 52d crossed the chaussée to pursue one of these squares along the left side, the red regiment on its right pressed after two squares along the right side, and 400 yards farther in its course must have crossed the point at which the 10th found the red regiment and the square of the Old Guard. No regiment would have left an enemy's square behind it, or if by any accident they had done so, the rest of the British infantry was at that time several hundred yards in the rear; so that, on the supposition that the 10th came up with any other regiment, your brigade must have been still less in advance than even I have described them, which you certainly will not admit.

That the 71st was the red regiment, which covered the right flank of the 52d in its charge on the columns of the Moyenne Guard, and immediately afterwards joined with it in attacking the squares of the Old Guard, I never before Sir Thos. Reynell's letter heard questioned. The 71st was brigaded with the 52d, it was in square immediately on its right in the scene preceding the great attack on the Imperial Guard, and it was near it at daylight the next morning.

The testimony of eye-witnesses has always placed the 52d and 71st together in the attack on the squares of the Old Guard. Kincaid, as I before quoted him, says

"The enemy made one last attempt at a stand, on the rising ground to our right of La Belle Alliance; but a charge from General Adam's brigade" of which the 52d and 71st were the red regiments," again threw them into a state of confusion."

Beauchamp, as quoted by you, says

"The 52d and 71st regiments of General Adam's brigade soon put to flight the battalions which endeavoured to stand on the high road." And the story has several times appeared in print, that the 52d and 71st, after turning the reserve of the Old Guard, "separated, and running on two sides of an oval, met again, and thus cut off several thousand prisoners," which, in the general fact, took place with the 52d, and some other red regiment from La Belle Alliance to Rosomme. But, if

"I know nothing of what occurred to the 52d on the other side of the high road.... Nor do I pretend at all to interfere with....your statement as regards the attack of the 52d immediately in advance of La Haye Sainte."-p. 317.

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