We have also the record of Captain Clark Kennedy, of the Royal Dragoons, regarding the capture of the eagle of the 105th Regiment. “I was,” he relates, “in command of the centre squadron of the Royal Dragoons in this charge; while following up the attack, I perceived a little to my left, in the midst of a body of infantry, an eagle and colour, which the bearer was making off with towards the rear. I immediately gave the order to my squadron, ‘Right shoulders forward!’ at the same time leading direct upon the eagle and calling out to the men with me to secure the colour; the instant I got within reach of the officer who carried the eagle, I ran my sword into his right side, and he staggered and fell, but did not reach the ground on account of the pressure of his companions: as the officer was in the act of falling, I called out a second time to some men close behind me, ‘Secure the colour, it belongs to me.’ The standard coverer, Corporal Styles, and several other men rushed up, and the eagle fell across my horse’s head against that of Corporal Styles’s. As it was falling, I caught the fringe of the flag with my left hand, but could not at first pull up the eagle: at the second attempt, however, I succeeded. Being in the midst of French troops, I attempted to separate the eagle from the staff, to put it into the breast of my coatee, but it was too firmly fixed. Corporal Styles said, ‘Sir, don’t break it’; to which I replied, ‘Very well; carry it off to the rear as fast as you can.’ He did so.”
Unfortunately the victors were too eager, and instead of returning they continued until they were in the French lines, thus enabling Napoleon to “turn the tables.” His reserve squadrons robbed the British ranks of 1000 brave men, including Ponsonby. More would have fallen had not Vandeleur’s Light Cavalry Brigade checked the enemy.
Picton was dead, shot at the head of his men. “When you hear of my death,” the latter had previously remarked to a comrade, “you will hear of a bloody day.” He had “fallen gloriously at the head of his division, maintaining a position which, if it had not been kept, would have altered the fate of the day.”[98]
The following account of the magnificent charge of Ponsonby’s Union Brigade, from the pen of James Armour, Rough-rider to the Scots Greys, who took part in it, gives some idea of the work performed: