Man Of War

Here is a picture – a very incomplete one – of the cavalry in the Duke of Wellington’s day. The picture remained the same, with but minor changes, until after the Crimean War nearly half a century later.

Like the infantry, the cavalry was organized in regiments. Each had a colonel as titular head, usually a very senior officer (in the case of the 10th Light Dragoons, for instance, it was the Prince of Wales; in the case of the fictional 6th Light Dragoons it was first the Earl of Sussex and then Lord George Irvine, both lieutenant generals) who kept a fatherly if distant eye on things, in particular the appointment of officers. The actual command of the regiment was exercised by a lieutenant-colonel. He had a major as his second in command (or ‘senior major’ as he was known in the Sixth and other regiments), an adjutant who was usually commissioned from the ranks, a regimental serjeant-major (RSM) and various other ‘specialist’ staff.

A cavalry regiment comprised a number of troops identified by a letter (A Troop, B Troop, etc.), each of a hundred or so men commanded by a captain, though in practice the troops were usually under strength. The number of troops in a regiment varied depending on where it was stationed; in Spain, for instance, at the height of the war, there were eight.

The captain was assisted by two or three subaltern officers – lieutenants and cornets (second-lieutenants) – and a troop serjeant-major, who before 1811 was known as a quartermaster (QM). After 1811 a regimental quartermaster was established to supervise supply and quartering (accommodation) for the regiment as a whole – men and horses. There was also a riding-master (RM), like the QM usually commissioned from the ranks (‘the ranks’ referred to everyone who was not a commissioned officer, in other words RSM and below). With his staff of rough-riders (a rough was an unbroken remount, a replacement horse) the RM was responsible for training recruits both human and equine.

Troops were sometimes paired in squadrons, numbered First, Second, Third (and occasionally Fourth). On grand reviews in the eighteenth century the colonel would command the first squadron, the lieutenant-colonel the second, and the major the third, each squadron bearing an identifying guidon, a silk banner – similar to the infantry battalion’s colours. By the time of the Peninsular War, however, guidons were no longer carried mounted in the field, and the squadron was commanded by the senior of the two troop leaders (captains).

A troop or squadron leader, as well indeed as the commanding officer, would give his orders in the field by voice and through his trumpeter. His words of command were either carried along the line by the sheer power of his voice, or were repeated by the troop officers, or in the case of the commanding officer were relayed by the adjutant (‘gallopers’ and aides-de-camp performed the same function for general officers). The trumpet was often used for repeating an order and to recall or signal scattered troops. The commanding officer and each captain had his own trumpeter, who was traditionally mounted on a grey, and they were trained by the trumpet-major (who, incidentally, was traditionally responsible for administering floggings).

The lowest rank was private man. In a muster roll, for instance, he was entered as ‘Private John Smith’; he was addressed by all ranks, however, simply as ‘Smith’. In the Sixth and regiments like them he would be referred to as a dragoon. The practice of referring to him as a trooper came much later; the cavalry rank ‘trooper’ only replaced ‘private’ officially after the First World War. In Wellington’s day, a trooper was the man’s horse – troop horse; an officer’s horse was known as a charger (which he had to buy for himself – two of them at least – along with all his uniform and equipment).

A dragoon, a private soldier, would hope in time to be promoted corporal, and he would then be addressed as, say, ‘Corporal Smith’ by all ranks. The rank of lance-corporal, or in some regiments ‘chosen man’, was not yet properly established, though it was used unofficially. In due course a corporal might be promoted sergeant (with a ‘j’ in the Sixth and other regiments) and perhaps serjeant-major. The best of these non-commissioned officers (NCOs – every rank from corporal to RSM, i.e. between private and cornet, since warrant rank was not yet properly established), if he survived long enough, would hope to be promoted RSM, and would then be addressed by the officers as ‘Mr Smith’ (like the subaltern officers), or by subordinates as ‘Sir’. In time the RSM might be commissioned as a lieutenant to be adjutant, QM or RM.