incompetence of the American expedition – a British attempt to escalate on land a struggle with the former colonists that had begun as the naval war of 1812 – and by General Robert Ross’s handling of his small army at Bladensburg, outside Washington, on 24 August 1814. The brigade-major described the burning of the American capital as ‘barbarous’, though he and his comrades ate eagerly enough the supper which they discovered on the White House table. As the British force withdrew towards the fleet, the soldiers riddled with dysentery, Ross deputed Smith to proceed to London with his despatch, reporting victory of a kind at Washington, together with an exposition of the acute difficulties of proceeding further. Little more than three weeks later, the Rifleman was in England. After seven years’ absence from his own country, he revelled in the spectacle of southern England in glorious summer sunshine; and even more, of course, in his reunion with Juana. He delivered his despatch to the prime minister’s residence in Downing Street, then hastened to his wife. From the window of the house where she was lodging she glimpsed his hand on the coach door as he peered forth in search of the right number, and shrieked: ‘Oh Dios, la mano de mi Enrique!’ He wrote later: ‘Oh! you who enter into holy wedlock for the sake of connexions – tame, cool, amiable, good, I admit – you cannot feel what we did!’ After the joy of their encounter, he was summoned back first to meet the prime minister the Earl of Liverpool, and then to an audience with the Prince Regent. Here was heady stuff for a twenty-seven-year-old soldier without experience of high places. Now at last, he was granted his majority.
Juana for the first time met her father-in-law, who travelled to London for the encounter. Old Mr Smith burst into tears of ‘joy, admiration, astonishment and delight’ at the spectacle of this passionate young woman in full Spanish costume. She immediately threw herself into his arms. The happy family journeyed together to Whittlesey, where there was a great reunion with Vitty the Pug, with Harry’s old hunter Jack, and finally with Tiny the Andalusian, whom the Smith grooms had found hard to manage. Juana, of course, had no such difficulty. ‘Don’t make a noise,’ she said, ‘and he will follow me like a dog.’ And so the horse did – into the family drawing room.
After just three weeks of domestic tranquillity, Major Smith was summoned again to Horse Guards. There was more news from America, all bad. General Ross had attempted to take Baltimore and failed, with the loss of his own life. Sir Edward Pakenham was to replace him, and Smith was appointed to become his assistant adjutant-general, a senior staff post. The commander-in-chief and his large staff set forth across the wintry Atlantic in November 1814, crowded into a frigate. They landed before New Orleans on 26 December, four days after the army had been put ashore. The subsequent battle, disastrous for British arms, cost Pakenham’s life. Its conduct shocked Smith. Since the débâcle in South America at the outset of his military career, he had never seen his countrymen so utterly confounded. In Spain, Wellington’s army set about its business with a confidence founded upon absolute faith in its leader, which was seldom misplaced. Now, in America, Smith once more stood witness to folly and mismanagement of the most grievous kind. There was only one Wellington. Many lesser British generals were utterly unworthy of their commands.
After the battle of New Orleans, Smith was sent to the enemy’s lines to arrange a truce for the burial of the dead. He found his American counterpart Colonel James Butler, the future president General Andrew Jackson’s adjutant-general, ‘a rough fellow’ who carried a drawn sword lacking a scabbard on his belt. Smith apologised for the delay in bringing forward the surgeons. Butler, gazing out upon the heaps of British dead and dying, said: ‘Why now, I calculate as your doctors are tired; they have plenty to do today.’ Smith riposted outrageously: ‘Do? Why, this is nothing to us Wellington fellows! The next brush we have with you, you shall see how a Brigade of the Peninsular Army (arrived yesterday) will serve you fellows out with the bayonet.’ He asked Butler why he carried a drawn sword. The American, matching Smith’s spirit, answered boldly: ‘Because I reckon a scabbard of no use so long as one of you Britishers is on our soil. We don’t wish to shoot you, but we must, if you molest our property; we have thrown away the scabbard.’
Smith was pleasantly surprised to notice that the Americans had not stripped the dead in the fashion of the French, indeed had taken only British soldiers’ boots, of which they were much in want. He and Butler fell out, however. The American seems to have been a grave fellow, unaccustomed to the manners of such insouciant cavaliers as Smith. Butler may have been disconcerted by the bearing of this English professional warrior, who was content to fight almost anyone wherever he was ordered, with scant heed to weighing the merits of the cause. Casualties that seemed appalling to the Americans gave no pause to such as Smith, who had seen Badajoz. In his eyes, losses were merely the price soldiers paid for practising their trade. Wellington seldom grieved for long over the casualties of his battles, and indeed he could not afford to.
At New Orleans Smith told Jackson’s man that he hoped next time they met, it would be Butler’s turn to ask leave to bury American dead. Yet after a few more weeks of desultory skirmishing, the invaders acknowledged failure. Smith, appointed military secretary to Pakenham’s successor Sir John Lambert, was one of the few men of the army in America who returned to England with an enhanced reputation. His courage on the battlefield was no more than that expected of any officer of those days, but his eager fellowship, zeal and efficiency marked him out for future advancement. He remained unfailingly popular with his comrades. The latter point should not be taken for granted among successful warriors. Many of those depicted in these pages were disliked or resented by their peers. Yet few men failed to warm to bluff, plain, eager, guileless Harry Smith.
As his ship entered the Bristol Channel on the homeward voyage, its passengers, eager for news, lined the side when it passed an outbound merchantman. A voice cried out from the deck: ‘Ho! Bonaparter’s back again on the throne of France!’ Smith, ever the career soldier, tossed his hat to the sky and cried out in exultation: ‘I’ll be a lieutenant-colonel yet, before the year’s out!’ Arrived at Whittlesey in a chaise, he found Juana, emotional as ever, fainting with fear that the vehicle brought some stranger bearing bad news for her. She recovered soon enough, of course, and Smith observed happily that never again in their marriage did they face a long separation. He himself embarked upon buying horses for the new campaign with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy off to play in a great match. One of his younger siblings, Charles, was to join the Rifle Brigade as a volunteer, and brother Tom was already in the field. There was one alarm before the Smiths departed. The whole family rode out together on the last evening. As they approached home, Harry glimpsed a fence and ditch at the edge of the town, and could not resist an exuberant flourish: ‘I’ll have one more leap on my war horse.’ He set his old mare at it. To the horror of them all, she came down. Her rider found himself with a leg trapped between the fence and his struggling mount. For a few terrible seconds he was sure that his leg must be broken, ‘and there was an end to my brigade majorship!’ Instead, to everyone’s relief horse and rider scrambled to their feet unscathed.
Major Smith set out next day for Harwich with Charles, Juana, assorted servants and West the groom, reaching Sir John Lambert and his brigade at Ghent on 5 June. Once again he was to fill his old post as brigade-major. A few days later, on 15 June 1815, the force was abruptly summoned to march for Brussels. Next afternoon, as they approached the Belgian capital, they were given fresh orders for Quatre Bras. Bonaparte and his army were closing upon the city from the west. A great battle was plainly imminent. As the column passed through Brussels, they were appalled by the scenes of confusion, haste, muddle and civilian flight which met their eyes. They encountered a mob of Hanoverians galloping for the coast, proclaiming that the French had already turned their rear. Smith went to report to Lambert, whom he found sitting down to dinner with Juana and his ADC. That cool commander contemptuously dismissed the Hanoverian rumour, and urged his brigade-major to enjoy a magnificent turbot which his butler had brought up from Brussels.
That evening came a thunderstorm which drenched the armies and reduced the ground to a quagmire. During the night Lambert’s brigade was ordered forward, a movement which the regiments found hard to execute amid the mud and the milling throng of panic-stricken camp followers and baggage carts. The troops were further disgusted when orders
