HORSE ARTILLERY GUNS AT WATERLOO. 
115 
the troops and brigades engaged on the 18th of June. It runs thus : 
“and every brigade 1 except Major Brome's that was with the 4th Div¬ 
ision at Hal, and Major 1 Smith's that did not arrive in time." Not 
“Webber Smith's 6-pr." troop, as Major Murdoch misquotes it. Now 
we know on the authority of Lieut.-Col. Sir A. Frazer, (see “ Mercer's 
Journal," p. 159), “that at the beginning of June, including the horse 
artillery, there were twenty brigades of British Artillery, or 1 20 pieces, 
ready to take the field. More arrived, I believe, after this." Major 
Francis Smith, ft. A., commanded one of these, and though marching 
to join the army did not arrive in time for the battle. However, let 
the commanding officer of “ F " troop speak for himself as to his 
presence at Waterloo. 
“ Lieut.-Colonel Webber Smith's troop. Light 6-prs. 1 2 3 
Major-General J. Webber Smith, C.B., R„A., 
Captain and Brevet-Lieut.-Colonel, R.H.A., 
Dublin, 29th August, 1885. 
I first came into action in the field near Hougoumont with my right 
close to the road and a little in front of the sunken road. Bull was then 
much to my left, being on the ridge above the orchard. When I had 
got my harness, etc., etc., in order in the hollow way, 3 I got into 
position a little to the left of Bull. I think Ramsay was between us, 
and no charge or attack of cavalry had taken place before I was in 
action there. 
Believe me, etc., 
J. Webber Smith." 
In a note in his paper, Major Murdoch says, “it (Webber Smith's 
troop) had been placed in position at Nivelles (Frazer, p. 557)." This 
is incorrect; what Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Frazer wrote was, “ I placed 
Webber Smith's troop to fire down the pave leading from Nivelles to¬ 
wards Waterloo." This position was on the field of battle; besides as 
the French army on the 18th of Juue was five and a half miles in front 
of, and between the British army and the town of Nivelles, it was im¬ 
possible for any British troops to have been posted there. 
Of the 2nd Rocket troop little need be said. In May, 1815, it 
ceased to be entirely a Rocket troop, and received light 6-pr. guns, 
at the same time in accordance with a plan (a copy of which is before 
me), which was submitted by Capt. E. C. Whinyates to, and approved 
bj, the Duke of Wellington, it took also into the field 800 rockets. 
Major Murdoch concludes his remarks by saying “thus, it will now 
1 The italics are mine.— F.A.W. 
2 See “Waterloo Letters/’ edited by Major-General H. T. Siborne, p. 191. 
3 This brought them (the French) under the fire of Lieut.-Colonel Smith’s Horse Battery, which 
had been pushed forward into the valley on the west of the Nivelles Road, both to check the ad¬ 
vance of the French Infantry and to answer that battery of Pire’s which had been directed against 
Bull’s howitzers, and which Smith had succeeded in silencing. The French skirmishers crept up 
under cover of the brushwood and the tall grain, within short musket shot of the flank of Smith’s 
battery, and opened so destructive a fire against its horses and gunners that it was disabled for 
present use and obliged to withdraw into a “ hollow way ” in its rear “ in order to refit.” “ Quatre 
Bras, Ligny and Waterloo,” by Dorsey Gardner, pp. 229-30. See also Captain Siborne’s “ History 
of Campaign of 1816,” pp. 392-3, Vol. I. 
