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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Nd . i ^—THE * 0 H £ ORN-HO * E MAN , The life of a soldier is proverbially full of incident ; but the character of the sphere in which he is destined to move , can
only be understood b y those who have actually moved in it . The generality of autnors , — -historians , novelists and poets , — in describing battles , fill their pages with the roar of cannon , the fumes of smoke , and the groans and the cries of the wounded and the dying . But heat the narrative from the lips
of an old soldier : he throws aside all superfluous detail , all attempt at high colouring , and relates facts exactly as they occurred , with as much precision as he would go through his exercise at drill . In the course of a recent campaign , I met with an officer who , to his honour be it spoken , had risen from the ranks , and who had won the several orders which he wore ,
not by interest nor intrigue , but by hard fighting in the heat of many a well-contested battle . The adventure * he had encountered , the scenes he had witnessed he related in strong graphic language , and after some persuasion he consented to give me a few fragments of his life . Reader ! the sketches 1 subjoin are not fictions , nor exaggerations " founded
Upon fact ; " they are the stern realities which chequer the career of a soldier in the field and in the camp , and as such will not be found undeserving the attention of those who feel interested in the study of human nature . * X . P .
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At an early age I entered the first battalion of the 95 th regitttetit , ttpw the Kifle Brigade , fend served in it from the retreat tff Corunna to the battle of Waterloo , As I had volunteered Oft the Forlorn Hope at Cuidad Rodrigo , and escape ^ without a scratch , I was determined to have a touch at mdaj o * , so volunteered for the taking of that to \ yn klso , You may wifeh
to know what a Forlorn Hope is—I wiUtell you . It is the tan-giiard > generally few in number , or , as the French mote fyfaly ekjpYe&s it , the " enfans perdus of an army determine ^ to take a town by styrm . It is constituted iji the following manner . The captains of companies , upo | i private parade ,
£ all their companies to attention ; and telliiig them that a certain place is to be stormed , inquire if any men will volunteer < jpti the Forlorn Mope . Such as volunteer ^< ne to the front , aad he then takes down their names } but if none volunteer , it * Moreover , the world ought to know what war really is , and . tlifn Hunk © f « glory WEd .
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114 ' FragmtnU < if tl Soldier * $ Life .
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FRAGMENTS OP A SOLDIER'S tWt .
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• V ¦ ¦ 1- * THE FORLORtf * HOPE MAN * " > '
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 1, 1837, page 164, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1829/page/38/
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