Vibrant, immediate, and honest
29 BINGHAM, Sir George Ridout. A detailed and important account of the Peninsular War between April 1809 and March 1810. 1820 £22,500 [154175] Small quarto (230 × 185 mm). Contemporary red half roan, smooth spine divided by seven pairs of gilt fillets, gilt lettered “MSS. Letters from the Peninsula”, sides and corners trimmed with paired gilt fillets, red paper sides. 163 pages running to about 32,000 words written in a neat hand. Binding professionally refurbished, slight cockling to first few leaves, otherwise clean and presenting smartly. Provenance: pencilled ownership inscription on front pastedown, “Col. Mansel, Smedmore, Wareham, Dorset”. John Delalynde Mansel (1850–1915) joined the Rifle Brigade in 1869 and had a distinguished career, serving on the North-West Frontier and in Burma. His grandfather, Lieut.-Col. John Mansel (1776–1863), served as Bingham’s second-in- command in the Peninsula from August 1811 to October 1812. The Mansel and Bingham families were later united through marriage.
An outstanding series of spirited and engrossing letters written by an officer of one of Wellington’s best hard-fighting regiments, Major-General Sir George Ridout Bingham (1777–1833). Transcribed by him from his own letters written at the time, they cover the period that includes the campaign of Talavera and comprise a significant primary source that offers an invaluable insight into campaigning in the Peninsula. Bingham was born into an old Dorset family. “In 1805 he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the newly raised 2nd battalion 53rd Foot in Ireland, and, going with it to Portugal four years later, fought at its head throughout its distinguished Peninsular career, beginning with the expulsion of the French from Porto in 1809, and ending with the close of the Burgos retreat in 1812. The battalion was then reduced to a remnant, and having no home battalion to relieve or reinforce it (the 1st battalion being in India), was sent home; but four companies were left in Portugal, and these, with four companies of the 2nd Queen’s regiment, were formed into a provisional battalion which, under Bingham’s command, served in the subsequent campaigns in Spain and the south of France, including the victories at Vitoria, in the Pyrenees, and on the Nivelle. Bingham was awarded the Portuguese order of the Tower and Sword, and was made a KCB (January 1815) . . . He was regarded as a thorough gentleman as well as a brilliant soldier” ( ODNB ). In his foreword he relates how, “On my return to England in 1814 after my Mother’s death, I found in her dressing Room, carefully put by together, a great many letters I had written to her, and my Father, during the time I was serving on the Peninsula . . . having much leisure time on my hands when I settled at Deans Leaze in 1820, I began to enter them into this book.” His letter of 29 July 1809 stands as a good example of the tenor of the collection: “Had the Spaniards made any sort of movement, or shewn any disposition to have engaged, the loss on our part would not have been so heavy, but the British stood the whole attack of the French without assistance, and the Spaniards ate up, during the action, all the bread that had been prepared for us, so that our men have been fortyeight hours with scarce any food; our extreme want of provisions will prevent our following up our victory . . . We have suffered much in superior officers, hardly a general officer of infantry, but what is either killed or wounded; Generals McKenzie and Langworth are killed; Hill and the two Campbells are wounded, and our total loss will amount to 5000 killed and wounded. The French fought with great bravery and obstinacy and had eighty well served pieces of artillery in the field, and their loss must be at least equal to, if not superior to our own; in the 53rd we have had six men killed and thirty two wounded; Martin Crew and Seth Bishop are severely, Corporal Muslewaite and Jacob Durnet slightly wounded; these men came from the Dorset and I mention their names that you may satisfy enquiries. At the close of action yesterday I was
so overcome with fatigue, and heat, that I fainted, and they all thought me killed . . . At this moment the Spaniards are murdering the wounded Frenchmen in the woods in our front; I must hasten to prevent them. Adieu.” The foreword and all 37 letters are printed in Gareth Glover’s Wellington’s Lieutenant, Napoleon’s Gaoler: The Peninsula Letters & St Helena Diaries of Sir George Ridout Bingham , 2005. Glover writes: “it must be stated that all of the records that I have used from various sources are copies of the originals, of which I have been unable to discover the whereabouts”. Glover describes the letters as “vibrant, immediate and honest . . . packed with information regarding the situation of the army; they include his thoughts and fears for the campaigns, untainted by the dreaded ‘hindsight’ of memoirs written much later; a full description of the country he travelled through and of the people and customs he met without prejudice; his honest and unfettered views of the officers and men he served with and full explanations of the trivia of daily life on campaign too often missing from such memoirs”.
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