LIFE OF A REGIMENT

This volume of the history (concerned only with the 92nd Foot) was first published in 1901 and the preface to that edition is incorporated in this 2nd edition. The author explains that it was his object, in matters of general history, merely to give the reason for the various expeditions in which the regiment was involved, and in describing the operations to confine himself to the part played by it. He has attached importance to the interior economy and discipline of a Highland regiment with many fascinating details on such subjects as nationality, dress, messing, and recruiting and other regimental matters. The regiment was raised by the Duke of Gordon, embodied in June 1794 in Aberdeen (which became the Regimental Depot), and on the first muster roll all the Highland Clans were represented, the greatest number being MacDonalds followed by Camerons. They didn’t hang about in those days, on 5th September (less than three months after embodiment) they embarked for Gibraltar where they arrived on 26th - 25 officers781 rank and file. The names of the officers and their service records are given as well as the names of the sergeants and where they had come from. The Regiment began life as the 100th Foot, changed to 92nd in 1798. In 1799 it won its first Battle Honour at Egmont-op-Zee in Holland, fighting Napoleon’s troops, and the chapter describing this action gives a list of those killed or died of wounds with their parish and county; the officers’ list includes wounded. In 1802 a 2nd Battalion, 92nd Foot, was formed but eleven years later it was disbanded without going on active service. The original battalion saw plenty of active service in the Napoleonic wars - in Egypt, Denmark, the Peninsula, including the awful retreat to Corunna, and at Waterloo; descriptions of the fighting include casualty rolls. But the great strength of this history is in what might be called domestic details, the life of the regiment as it is aptly titled, which is a wonderful comment on the life of a soldier in a Highland regiment. For instance we are given details of the rank and file from the returns of March 1807: in a battalion total of 892 43 were 6ft and over, 529 were between 5ft 5 and 5ft 8 while there were 177 under 5ft 5, including two sergeants; one private was over 55 (he had got more than 30 years service in - QM’s storeman?), but the majority (555) were aged between 20 and 30. 252 had between 12 and 14 years service and 229 between three and four years. One of the appendices list all the officers as at 1st January 1813 (some seventy in all) giving residence or family, county and career details as far as known. A fascinating regimental record!