Formation and Service
Composition of the Battalion
Concluding Thoughts
Notes |
The Corps of Embodied Detachments,
1809
By Andrew Bamford
Formation and Service
The need to find sufficient manpower for the Walcheren Expedition
of 1809, representing as it did the largest single deployment of British
troops during the Napoleonic Wars, necessitated a number of measures
not normally countenanced by the rigid application of the regimental
system. In this way, for example, battalions such as the 2/8th and
2/23rd embarked with
Chatham
’s expeditionary force with only a two or four companies rather
than the usual ten. Yet more extreme, however, was the creation in
Britain of a detachment battalion, officially entitled the Corps of
Embodied Detachments, in an expedient more commonly associated with
the early months of the Peninsular War. With Commander in Chief Sir
David Dundas combing
Britain for men fit for active service, it was noted that in excess
of 3,000 men remained at the Army Depot, and these were accordingly
drawn upon to create a provisional battalion for service with
Chatham
. This would appear to have been a fairly last-minute measure, as
the unit is not included in the original proposal for the organisation
of
Chatham
’s army sent by
Dundas
to Castlereagh on June 22nd.[1]
The first recorded mention of the battalion comes in a message from
Horse Guards to Castlereagh’s office (the exact recipient’s
name is illegible) dated July 3rd 1809 and marked “Immediate”.
The relevant passage reads:
I
am writing to acquaint you, for the information of Lord Castlereagh,
that a Corps of Eight Hundred Rank and File with a proper proportion
of officers and non commissioned officers, having been embodied from
the Detachments at the Army Depot, for the purpose of embarking with
the troops under order for service, it became necessary to apply to
the Secretary at War with respect for accoutrements being furnished
for this corps at the public expense.[2]
The officer appointed to command the battalion was Lt. Colonel Cochrane
of the 36th Foot, and a full complement of company and battalion staff
officers were assigned. All officers were drawn from regiments either
serving with
Chatham
’s forces, or which had supplied drafts to the battalion, with
the exception of the Paymaster, William Armstrong, who seems to have
been appointed directly to the battalion. The men were organised into
ten companies on the standard model, but these do not seem to have
included flank companies.
By July 7th the Corps of Embodied Detachments had been
assigned to Major General Thomas Picton’s Brigade of Lt. General
Alexander Mackenzie Fraser’s Third Division, with which it served
for the duration of the campaign, as part of the forces landed on
Walcheren
Island
itself under Lt. General Sir Eyre Coote.[3]
On August 25th, according to the army return
for that date, the battalion had a rank and file strength of exactly 800 men,
of whom 711 were fit for service, five present but sick, and eighty-four sick
in hospital: this equates to a sickness rate of 11%, as compared with 7% for
the army as a whole on the same date.[4]
Both this higher level of sickness, and its status as a
provisional formation, would seem to be collectively responsible for the fact
that the Corps of Embodied Detachments was not selected to remain with the
smaller force retained on Walcheren after the departure of the main body,[5]
and the battalion accordingly returned to
England.
October 25th found the battalion at Porchester Barracks
where, out of 712 rank and file only 267 were fit for service; of
the remainder 153 were sick in quarters, and 291 sick in hospital.
Rank and file strength had dropped by eighty-eight men since August,
of whom thirty had died in the previous month; the remaining discrepancy
is presumably represented by casualties between August 25th and
September 25th, but there is no September return extant
for the battalion to give a breakdown of these losses. The last return
for the unit, that of October 25th, catches it in the process
of disbandment, back at the Army Depot on the
Isle of Wight. 510 men were in the process of being given over to
the Army Depot, state of health not specified, 163 were “on
the march to join”, presumably from Porchester although an Ensign
Buck is noted as being in charge of Convalescents at Deal, and one
man was on furlough. Thirty-nine men had died over the previous month,
and one had deserted. This ends the short recorded career of the Corps
of Embodied Detachments.[6]
Composition of the Battalion
No records have been found detailing the composition of the Corps
of Embodied Detachments prior to its embarkation for Walcheren, but
filed with the returns cited above for October and November 1809 are
breakdowns by parent-unit of the officers and men present after the
battalion’s return to England, and these are reproduced here.
Obviously they cannot tell us the origin of those men who had already
become casualties, but they allow a reasonable idea of the proportional
composition of the battalion.
“Return showing the different Regiments which the officers,
non-commissioned officers and rank and file belong who are serving
with the Corps of Embodied Detachments” 24th October
1809.
Regiment |
Officers |
NCOs |
Musicians |
Rank and File |
Total |
6th |
3 |
4 |
2 |
0 |
9 |
8th |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
12th |
0 |
0 |
0 |
42 |
42 |
15th |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
19th |
2 |
0 |
0 |
61 |
63 |
22nd |
2 |
0 |
0 |
55 |
57 |
29th |
0 |
3 |
0 |
34 |
37 |
33rd |
4 |
3 |
0 |
150 |
157 |
36th |
3 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
6 |
41st |
0 |
1 |
0 |
37 |
38 |
48th |
0 |
1 |
0 |
13 |
14 |
50th |
3 |
12 |
2 |
0 |
17 |
53rd |
0 |
0 |
1 |
9 |
10 |
64th |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
78th |
9 |
1 |
0 |
298 |
308 |
79th |
3 |
13 |
3 |
0 |
19 |
88th |
0 |
0 |
0 |
13 |
13 |
Total |
32 |
39 |
10 |
712 |
793 |
The officers comprised; Lt. Colonel Cochrane commanding, two Majors,
eight Captains, eight Lieutenants, nine Ensigns, Paymaster, Adjutant,
Quartermaster, Surgeon and Assistant Surgeon, the additional man not
represented in the table being the Paymaster, Armstrong. The rank
and file from the 78th Highlanders are, in the original, divided such
that one man is from the second battalion and the remainder from the
first; since the officers are not distinguished by battalion the rank
and file figures are also combined here.
“Return showing the different Regiments which the officers,
non-commissioned officers and rank and file belong who are serving
with the Corps of Embodied Detachments” 25th November
1809.
Regiment |
Officers |
NCOs |
Musicians |
Rank and File |
Total |
6th |
4 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
9 |
12th |
0 |
0 |
0 |
42 |
42 |
15th |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
19th |
2 |
0 |
0 |
55 |
57 |
22nd |
2 |
0 |
0 |
52 |
54 |
29th |
0 |
3 |
0 |
31 |
34 |
33rd |
4 |
3 |
0 |
135 |
142 |
36th |
3 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
6 |
41st |
0 |
1 |
0 |
37 |
38 |
48th |
0 |
1 |
0 |
12 |
13 |
50th |
3 |
12 |
1 |
0 |
16 |
53rd |
0 |
0 |
1 |
8 |
9 |
64th |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
78th |
9 |
0 |
0 |
289 |
298 |
79th |
3 |
13 |
3 |
0 |
19 |
88th |
0 |
0 |
0 |
12 |
12 |
Total |
32 |
37 |
8 |
674 |
751 |
Officers are as before, but that there are now nine Lieutenants and
no Surgeon.
Concluding Thoughts
The creation of the Corps of Embodied Detachments represented the
first and only formation of such a unit from men at home and, whilst
not unsuccessful as such, it flew directly in the face of all the
strictures of the regimental system. All those regiments contributing
rank and file to the battalion had at least one of their own battalions
on active service abroad, and the redirection of men who would have
formed drafts for these units could only have had a detrimental effect
upon their effectiveness. To consider the most extreme example, the
78th Highlanders had at this time its first battalion in
India and its second in the process of returning from service in the
Mediterranean. The 1/78th was therefore reliant on the depot at home
for its drafts, but these were diverted in their entirety to the Corps
of Embodied Detachments, and so whereas in 1808 400 men had gone out
to India, in 1809 the 320 available were diverted to Walcheren and
no draft sailed east at all. The result was that, in 1810, the 2/78th
had to be stripped of every fit man remaining in its ranks in order
to keep the senior battalion up to strength, and was accordingly unfit
for service for the next four years.[7]
Inasmuch as that the 78th supplied something like two fifths
of the total men sent to form the Corps of Embodied Detachments it cannot be
assumed that all contributing regiments would have suffered to the same degree – although
the effect on the 33rd, with only one battalion and that in India, must also
have been marked – but it does suggest that this robbing Peter to pay
Paul could ultimately have only a deleterious effect on the army as a whole,
far outweighing the initial gain to be had from a single 800-man battalion
as reinforcement for an army of over 30,000. It may be suggested, as a final
remark, that its is significant that this all took place during the
“interregnum” between the Duke of York’s two tenures as Commander
in Chief, and that that officer, with his eye always on the long term so far
as manpower requirements were concerned, would never have permitted the sort
of measures sanctioned by Dundas.
Notes:
[1]
“State of Force to Proceed on Foreign
Service”, dated Horse Guards, June 22nd 1809, in
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers of 1810, Vol. X, pp.160-161.
[2]
Dispatch bound with correspondence (“Secretary -at-War, Secretary of
State for War, and Commander-in-Chief, In-letters and Miscellaneous
Papers”) in National Archives, WO1/641, pp.221-224.
[3]
“List of the several corps, General
and Staff Officers, comprising a large Division of His Majesty’s
Army, to be employed upon a Particular service”, dated Horse
Guards 7th July 1809, in House of Commons Parliamentary
Papers of 1810, Vol. X, pp.165-168. See also Gordon C. Bond, The
Grand Expedition. The British Invasion of
Holland
in 1809 (
Athens
, 1979), p.168; Robert Burnham, “The British Expeditionary Force
to
Walcheren: 1809”
at http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/battles/c_walcheren.html.
[4]
Data from Return for
Walcheren Expedition, August 25th 1809, in National Archives,
WO17/2479
[5]See “Return of the several
Corps to remain in the Island of Walcheren”, dated Middlebourg
[sic.], 7th September 1809, and reproduced in HMSO, British Minor
Expeditions 1746-1814, Compiled in the Intelligence Branch of the
Quartermaster General’s Department (London, 1884), p.78.
[6]
Returns of the Corps of Embodied Detachments,
October and November 1809, filed with monthly returns in National
Archives, WO17/234.
[7]
See James MacVeigh, The Historical Records
of the 78th Highlanders or Ross-shire Buffs (
Dumfries, 1887), pp.127.
Placed on the Napoleon Series: April 2007
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