This online edition is dedicated to Juana Smith, whose charm and grace shine throughout her husband's memoirs.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL
SIR HARRY SMITH
BART, G.C.B.

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THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL
SIR HARRY SMITH
BARONET OF ALIWAL ON THE SUTLEJ
G.C.B.

EDITED
WITH THE ADDITION OF SOME SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTERS
BY G. C. MOORE SMITH, M.A.

WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1903

PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.

PREFACE.

THE Life of Sir Harry Smith here offered to the public consists of an Autobiography covering the period 1787 to 1846 (illustrated by notes and appendices), and some supplementary chapters contributed by myself on the last period of Sir Harry's life (1846-1860). Chapter XXXI. carries the reader to the year 1829. This, it is interesting to remark, is a true turning point in the life of the great soldier. Till then he had seen warfare only on two continents, Europe and American (the Peninsula, France, the Netherlands, Monte Video, Buenos Ayres, Washington, New Orleans); from that date onwards the scene of his active service was Africa and Asia. Till 1829 his responsibility was small; after 1829 he had a large or paramount share in directing the operations in which he was engaged. This difference naturally affects the tone of his narrative in the two periods.

The Autobiography (called by its author "Various Anecdotes and Events of my Life") was begun by Sir Harry Smith, then Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, at Glasgow in 1824. At that time it was only continued as far as page 15 of the present volume. On 11th August, 1844, when he had won his K.C.B., and was Adjutant-General of Her Majesty's Forces in India, he resumed his task at Simla. He then wrote with such speed that on 15th October he was able to tell his sister that he had carried his narrative to the end of the campaign of Gwalior, that is, to 1844 (p. 490). Finally, on 7th September, 1846, when at Cawnpore in command of a Division, he began to add to what he had previously written an account of the campaign of the Sutlej, which had brought him fresh honours. This narrative was broken off abruptly in the middle of the Battle of Sobraon (p. 550), and was never completed. Accordingly, of Sir Harry Smith's life from February, 1846, to his death on 12th October, 1860, we have no record by his own hand.

The Autobiography had been carefully preserved by Sir Harry's former aide-de-camp and friend, General Sir Edward Alan Holdich, K.C.B., but, as it happened, I was not myself aware of its existence until, owing to the fresh interest awakened in Sir Harry Smith and his wife by the siege of Ladysmith early in 1900, I inquired from members of my family what memorials of my great-uncle were preserved. Sir Edward then put this manuscript and a number of letters and documents at my disposal. It appeared to me and to friends whom I consulted that the Autobiography was so full of romantic adventure and at the same time of such solid historical value that it ought no longer to remain unpublished, and Mr. John Murray, to whom I submitted a transcription of it, came at once to the same conclusion.

My task as Editor has not been a light one. In Sir Harry's letter to Mrs. Sargant of 15th October, 1844,¹ he says of his manuscript, "I have never read a page of it since my scrawling it over at full gallop;" and in a letter of 14th January, 1845, "Harry Lorrequer would make a good story of it. You may ask him if you like, and let me know what he says of it." It is clear from these passages that Sir Harry did not contemplate the publication of his story in the rough form in which he had written it, but imagined that some literary man, such as Charles Lever, might take it in hand, rewrite it with fictitious names, and so fashion out of it a military romance. The chapters ² on Afghanistan and Gwalior, already written, were, however, of a serious character which would make them unsuitable for such treatment; and the same was the case with the chapters on the Sikh War, afterwards added. Whether Lever ever saw the manuscript I do not know; at any rate, the author's idea was never carried out.

It is obvious that now that fifty years have passed, some of the reasons which made Sir Harry suggest such a transformation of his story are no longer in force. The actors in the events which he describes having almost all passed away, to suppress names would be meaningless and would deprive the book of the greater part of its interest. And for the sake of literary effect to rewrite Sir Harry's story would be to destroy its great charm, the intimate relation in which it sets us with his fiery and romantic character.

The book here given to the public is not indeed word for word as Sir Harry wrote it. It has often been necessary to break up a long sentence, to invert a construction–sometimes to transpose a paragraph in order to bring it into closer connexion with the events to which it refers. But such changes have only been made when they seemed necessary to bring out more clearly the writer's intention; the words are the author's own, even where a specially awkward construction has been smoothed; and it may be broadly said that nothing has been added to Sir Harry's narrative or omitted from it. Such slight additions to the text as seemed desirable, for example, names and dates of battles,³ have been included in square brackets. In some cases, to avoid awkward parentheses, sentences of Sir Harry's own have been relegated from the text to footnotes. Such notes are indicated by the addition of his initials ("H. G. S.").

Sir Harry's handwriting was not of the most legible order, as he admits, and I have had considerable difficulty in identifying some of the persons and places he mentions. Sometimes I have come to the conclusion that his own recollection was at fault, and in this case I have laid my difficulty before the reader.

I have not thought it my duty to normalize the spelling of proper names, such as those of towns in the Peninsula and in India, and the names of Kafir chiefs. Sir Harry himself spells such names in a variety of ways, and I have not thought absolute consistency a matter of importance, while to have re-written Indian names according to the modern official spelling would have been, as it seems to me, to perpetrate an anachronism.

I have, indeed, generally printed "Sutlej," though Sir Harry frequently or generally wrote "Sutledge;" but I have kept in his own narrative his spelling "Ferozeshuhur" (which is, I believe, more correct) for the battle generally called "Ferozeshah." Even Sir Harry's native place (and my own) has two spellings, "Whittlesey" and "Whittlesea." In his narrative I have preserved his usual spelling "Whittlesea," but I have myself used the other, as I have been taught to do from a boy.

Perhaps it is worth while to mention here that Sir Harry's name was strictly "Henry George Wakelyn Smith," and it appears in this form in official documents. But having been always known in the army as "Harry Smith," after attaining his knighthood he stoutly refused to become "Sir Henry," and insisted on retaining the more familiar name. ⁴ As the year of his birth is constantly given as 1788, it is worth while to state that the Baptismal Register of St. Mary's, Whittlesey, proves him to have been born on 28th June, 1787.

While the documents put into my hands by Sir Edward Holdich enabled me to throw a good deal of additional light on the events recorded in the Autobiography, I thought it a prime duty not to interrupt Sir Harry's own narrative by interpolations. Accordingly I have thrown this illustrative matter into Appendices. In some of these, especially in his letters to his wife of 1835 (Appendix iv.), one sees the writer, perhaps, in still more familiar guise than in the Autobiography.

But I had not merely to illustrate the period of Sir Harry's life covered by his Autobiography; I had a further task before me, viz. to construct a narrative of the rest of his life (1846-1860), including his Governorship of the Cape (1847-1852). For the manner in which I have done this, I must crave indulgence. At the best it would have been no easy matter to continue in the third person a story begun by the main actor in the first, and in this case the letters and personal memoranda, which were tolerably abundant for Sir Harry's earlier years, suddenly became very scanty when they were most required. Accordingly, for much of Sir Harry's life I had no more sources to draw on than are accessible to anybody–histories, blue-books, and newspapers. I can only say that in this situation I have done the best I could. My chief difficulty was, of course, in dealing with the time of Sir Harry's command at the Cape. It would have been inconsistent with the scope of the whole book to have attempted a systematic history of the colony or of the operations of the Kafir War. At the same time I could not enable my readers to form an estimate of Sir Harry's conduct at this time without giving them some indication of the circumstances which surrounded him. If I am found by some critics to have subordinated biography too much to history, I can only hope that other critics will console me by finding that I have subordinated history too much to biography.

Amid a certain dearth of materials of a private kind, I do congratulate myself on having been able to use the packet of letters docketed by Sir Harry, "John Bell's and Charlie Beckwith's Letters." General Beckwith was an earlier General Gordon, and his letters are so interesting in matter and so brilliant in expression that one is tempted to wish to see them printed in full. Perhaps some readers of this book may be able to tell me of other letters by the same remarkable man which have been preserved.

The latter part of this book would have been balder than it is, if it had not been for the help I have received from various friends, known and unknown. I must express my thanks in particular to the Misses Payne of Chester, who lent me letters addressed to their father, Major C. W. Meadows Payne; to Mrs. Thorne of Chippenham, who lent me letters addressed to her father, Major George Simmons; to Mrs. Fasson, daughter of Mr. Justice Menzies of the Cape, and Mr. W. F. Collier of Horrabridge, who gave me their reminiscences; to Colonel L. G. Fawkes, R.A., Stephen A. Aveling, Esq., of Rochester, Major J. F. Anderson of Faringdon, R. Morton Middleton, Esq., of Ealing, Captain C. V. Ibbetson of Preston, Mrs. Henry Fawcett, my aunt Mrs. John A. Smith, Mrs. Farebrother of Oxford, Mr. B. Genn of Ely, Mr. Charles Sayle of Cambridge, Mr. G. J. Turner of Lincoln's Inn, Mr. A. E. Barnes of the Local Government Board, the Military Secretary of the War Office, and others, for kind assistance of various kinds. I am indebted to my cousins, Mrs. Lambert of 1, Sloane Gardens, S.W., and C. W. Ford, Esq., for permission to reproduce pictures in their possession, and to General Sir Edward Holdich for much aid and interest in my work in addition to the permission to use his diary of the Boomplaats expedition. Lastly, my thanks are due to my brothers and sisters who assisted in transcribing the Autobiography, and in particular to my sister, Miss M. A. Smith, who did most of the work of preparing the Index.

I shall feel that any labour which I have bestowed on the preparation of this book will be richly repaid if through it Harry and Juana Smith cease to be mere names and become living figures, held in honour and affection by the sons and daughters of the Empire which they served.

G. C. MOORE SMITH.

SHEFFIELD,
    September, 1901.

For some of the corrections now introduced I am indebted to Lieut.-Col. Willoughby Verner, Rifle Brigade, and to the Rev. Canon C. Evans, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

G. C. M. S.,

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, SHEFFIELD,
    April, 1902.

¹ See Appendix vi.

² Sir Harry's original narrative is not broken into chapters.

³ The Peninsular dates are generally borrowed from A British Rifleman (Major Simmons' diary).

⁴ Sir Harry's ordinary signature was "H. G. Smith." His letters to his wife were commonly signed "Enrique"; to members of his family, "Harry Smith"; to his friend and interpreter for the Kafir language, Mr. Theophilus Shepstone, "Inkosi" ("Chief"). He addressed Mr. Shepstone as "My dear Sumtseu" ("Hunter").

DATES OF LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR HARRY SMITH'S
COMMISSIONS AND APPOINTMENTS.

REGIMENTAL RANK.

ARMY RANK.

STAFF APPOINTMENTS.

PENINSULAR WAR.

WASHINGTON EXPEDITION.

NEW ORLEANS EXPEDITION.

WATERLOO CAMPAIGN.

OCCUPATION OF FRANCE.

GLASGOW.

NOVA SCOTIA.

JAMAICA.

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

INDIA.

SIKH WAR.

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

HOME STAFF.

STEPS IN THE ORDER OF THE BATH.

BOOKS USEFUL FOR REFERENCE IN
CONNEXION WITH SIR HARRY SMITH'S LIFE.

An Authentic Narrative of the Proceedings of the Expedition under .. Craufurd until its Arrival at Monte Video, with an Account of the Operations against Buenos Ayres... By an Officer of the Expedition (1808).

SIR WILLIAM F. P. NAPIER: History of the War in the Peninsula.

SIR H. E. MAXWELL: Life of Wellington.

SIR WILLIAM H. COPE: History of the Rifle Brigade (1877).

EDWARD COSTELLO: Adventures of a Soldier (1852).

A British Rifleman (Major George Simmons' Diary), edited by LT.-COLONEL WILLOUGHBY VERNER (1899).

SIR JOHN KINCAID: Random Shots by a Rifleman.

SIR JOHN KINCAID: Adventures in the Rifle Brigade.

Recollections of Rifleman Harris (1848).

SURTEES: Twenty-five Years in the Rifle Brigade (1833).

COLONEL JONATHAN LEACH: Rough Sketches in the Life of an Old Soldier (1831).

A Narrative of the Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans. By an Officer (1821).

CHARLES DALTON: The Waterloo Roll Call (1890).

GEORGE MCC. THEAL: History of South Africa, vol. iv. (1893).

R. GODLONTON: A Narrative of the Irruption of the Kafir Hordes into the Eastern Province of the Cape of Good Hope, 1834-5 (1836).

SIR J. E. ALEXANDER: Narrative of a Voyage, etc. (1837). This work contains in vol. ii. a history of the Kafir War of 1835, with illustrations.

H. CLOETE: The Great Boer Trek.

The War in India. Despatches of Viscount Hardinge, Lord Gough, Major-General Sir Harry Smith, Bart., etc. (1846).

J. D. CUNNINGHAM: History of the Sikhs.

MCGREGOR History of the Sikhs.

GENERAL SIR CHAS. GOUGH and A. D. INNES: The Sikhs and the Sikh Wars (1897).

J. W. CLARK and T. MCK. HUGHES: Life of Adam Sedgwick.

HARRIET WARD: Five Years in Kaffirland.

J. NOBLE: South Africa (1877).

A. WILMOT and J. C. CHASE: Annals of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope (1869).

ALFRED W. COLE: The Cape and the Kaffirs (1852).

W. R. KING: Campaigning in Kaffirland (with illustrations), (1853).

W. A. NEWMAN: Memoir of John Montagu (1855).

Correspondence of General Sir G. Cathcart (1856).

EARL GREY: The Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Administration (1853).

BLUE-BOOKS: Cape of Good Hope (1830-1852).

M. MEILLE: Memoir of General Beckwith, C.B. (1873).

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

On the Cover.  

ARMS GRANTED TO SIR HARRY SMITH IN 1846.

They are thus described by Sir Bernard Burke:–

The supporters are a soldier of the Rifle Brigade and a soldier of the 52nd Regiment.

This book has been put on-line as part of the BUILD-A-BOOK Initiative at the Celebration of Women Writers. The illustration of British Riflemen of the 60th Regiment & 95th Regiment is from coloured lithograph vignettes by J. C. Stadler after Charles Hamilton Smith from Charles Hamilton Smith's Costumes of the Army of the British Empire, according to the last regulations 1812, published by Colnaghi & Co. 1812-1815.