Description
Military General Service Medal, bar Barrosa, Private John Watson, Royal Artillery, on silk ribbon, good preserved condition.
The Regimental History recalls General Graham, commanding the British Army at Barrosa, in his despatch of the gallant services of his tiny 10 Gun Battery at Barrosa led by Major Duncan:
“The special expressions used by General Graham in his despatch with reference to the services of the Royal Artillery on this occasion are well worthy of a place in the records of the Corps. ‘I owe too much,’ he wrote, ‘to Major Duncan and the officers and corps of the Royal Artillery, not to mention them in terms of the highest approbation: never was artillery better served.”
Officially impressed: “J. Watson, R. Arty”
Confirmed on the medal roll.
Medal in good preserved condition, toned on a piece of old silk ribbon.
About 97 clasps were claimed for Barrosa by the Royal Artillery, decades later when the MGS was instituted.
The battle of Barrosa, aka the Battle of Chiclana or Cerro del Puerto, was a combined battle fought by the United Kingdom, Spain & Portugal against the French in Spain, fought on 5th March 1811.
The British side was led by General Thomas Graham, and the Spanish General Manuel Lapena, who would for his poor conduct in this battle be court martialled, removed from command and be derided by Historians ever since.
Meanwhile the French had at their head one of Napoleon’s “Marshals of the Empire” Claude-Victor Perrin, the Duke of Belluno, aka “Victor”
The battle was fought during the Allied attempt to disrupt Marshal Victor’s siege of Cádiz by landing troops south of the city and striking the French lines from the rear. In Francis Duncan’s History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery (compiled from the regiment’s original records), the artillery component attached to Graham’s Cádiz force is described as small but crucial: Major Duncan’s field contingent amounted to “ten guns” and in Graham’s hands it was “never idle, and always in the right place.”
The Artillery had just 10 Guns from Hughes & Shenley’s Batteries, commanded by Major Duncan, who would gain renown for his service in the battle.
Following the battle, the Royal Artillery recorded losses of 3 Rank and file killed, with 32 wounded.
The fellow Royal Artillery Drivers similarly suffered 18 killed and 22 wounded.
They also lost a number of Officers, Captains Hughes & Cator were left wounded, alongside Lieuts Mitchell, Brereton, Manners, Maitland and Pester, Lieut Woolcombe died of his wounds.
If you want to read a proper account of the services of the Royal Artillery at Barrosa here is the entry from the History of the Royal Artillery tells their part in the battle:
“In the records already given of the services of the companies of the 10th Battalion, reference has been made to the duties of the Royal Artillery at Cadiz. In this chapter it is proposed to describe a battle which was fought by General Graham’s force, and in which it has been said the Artillery covered themselves with glory.
The gallant General stated that Artillery had never been better served; but it may be added that it had never been better handled than by him. His contingent was but small—ten guns—but it was never idle, and always in the right place.
The circumstances which led to the battle of Barossa may be summarised as follows. An attempt had been resolved upon by the Anglo-Spanish leaders in Cadiz to raise the French siege, the opportunity being favourable, as the besieging force did not at the time exceed 12,000 men. The English had 4,200, and the Spaniards nearly 10,000. To facilitate matters, General Graham consented to serve under the Spanish General La Peña, although the event proved that there never was a man less fitted to hold a command.
The plan of action was to transport the allied force to Tarifa, disembark there, and effect a junction with another Spanish force, and then countermarch the whole on the rear of the besieging force at Chiclana. Inclement weather prevented the first part of the scheme from being carried out, and the landing was effected, not at Tarifa, but at Algesiras. The whole army, however, effected a junction at the former place on the 28th February, 1811, and, driving the French before them, reached a place known as the Vigia de la Barrosa, or Barossa, at noon on the 5th March.
Here they were encountered by the French Marshal Victor, who had been warned of the expedition, and who promptly availed himself of the numerous openings which the blunders and incompetency of the Spanish General offered. The tale of these is too long to reproduce in a merely Regimental history; suffice it to say that, owing to them, General Graham found himself in an extraordinary and embarrassing position.
Having been ordered to march from the height of Barossa, which was the key of the whole position, and to proceed to Bermeja through a difficult pine-wood, he obeyed, but with regret. Assuming that the important point he had just quitted would be occupied by the Spaniards, he left his baggage with a small guard. To his amazement, he soon learned that no such precaution had been taken; that the French Marshal, detecting the omission, was already ascending the height; and that his own baggage-guard was in extreme and imminent danger.
Retracing his steps as rapidly as the nature of the wood would admit of, he arrived in time to see the enemy in complete possession of the height—himself face to face with the French, and utterly unsupported by the Spaniards. By what has been called by Napier an inspiration—but such an inspiration as never comes to the short-sighted or ignorant—he realised that retreat would be folly, and that his only hope of success lay in immediately assuming the offensive.
Massing his Artillery, he desired Major Duncan to keep up a powerful fire, while he organized his force into divisions for the attack. Of this fire Napier writes that it ravaged the French ranks. As soon as the Infantry had formed, General Graham advanced his Artillery to a more favourable position, whence, as he afterwards wrote, it kept up a most destructive fire on the French columns now advancing.
The right division of the English, under General Dilkes, and the left, under Colonel Wheatley, encountered respectively the French divisions under Generals Ruffin and Laval. The Infantry regiments engaged were the Guards, 28th, 7th, 67th, and 87th, the flank companies of the 1st Battalion 9th Foot, 2nd Battalion 47th, and 2nd Battalion 82nd, besides part of the 20th Portuguese Regiment. Where all behaved with gallantry, it may seem invidious to select any particular regiment for notice; but, at a most critical moment, the defeat of General Laval’s division was completed by a magnificent advance of the 87th Regiment.
Both the French divisions were borne backwards from the hill, and, uniting, attempted to reform and make another attack. But their attempt was frustrated by the fire of the Artillery, which from being terrific, as Napier termed it, became now “close, rapid, and murderous, and rendered the attempt vain.” Marshal Victor, therefore, withdrew his troops from the field, and the English, having been twenty-four hours under arms and without food, were too exhausted to pursue.
In this battle, which only lasted one hour and a half, over 1,200 were killed and wounded on the side of the English, and more than 2,000 on the side of the French. Six guns and 400 prisoners also fell into the hands of the conquerors. Of the conduct of his troops generally, General Graham wrote to Lord Liverpool that nothing less than the almost unparalleled exertions of every officer, the invincible bravery of every soldier, and the most determined devotion to the honour of His Majesty’s arms in all, could have achieved this brilliant success against such a formidable enemy so posted.
Sir Richard Keats, the Admiral on the station, who had superintended the transport of the troops to Algeciras, wrote that the British troops, led by their gallant and able commander, forgetting, on the sight of the enemy, their own fatigue and privations, and regardless of advantage in the numbers and situation of the enemy, gained by their determined valour a victory uneclipsed by any of the brave achievements of the British army.
The special expressions used by General Graham in his despatch with reference to the services of the Royal Artillery on this occasion are well worthy of a place in the records of the Corps. “I owe too much,” he wrote, “to Major Duncan and the officers and corps of the Royal Artillery, not to mention them in terms of the highest approbation: never was artillery better served.” He recommended Major Duncan for promotion, and the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel was accordingly conferred upon him. “
