336 CRIMEAN SERVICES OP “ I " TROOP, NOW “ o” BATTERY, R.H.A. 
Before entering on a detailed account of “ I " Troop, Royal Horse 
Artillery, then Captain G. A. Maude's, now Major J. Brandling's, 
it will be necessary to take a rapid glance at the causes that led to its 
being sent abroad after a home service of nearly forty years. 
This was the Troop known as the <e Rocket Troop," commanded for 
so many years by the late Brigadier-General Strangways; who brought 
it out of action at Leipsic 1 (then the Russians were our allies, now our 
enemies). Since then, respected and beloved, he lived almost con¬ 
tinuously with it until he fell gloriously at the battle of Inkerman. 
The history of both for that loug period are bound together, and his 
old Troop had the last sad honour of bearing his corse to that hill-top 
grave overlooking Sevastopol, where he lies beside Sir Geo. Cathcart, 
and surrounded by many other brave and gallant souls that fell that 
day. 
1 Doctor Thornton here falls into an error, common at this period. He confuses the services of 
the 1st and 2nd Rocket Troops. The 2nd, in which Strangways served as a Lieutenant, was 
present at the battles of Goerde, Leipsic and Waterloo, in the two former designated the Rocket 
Brigade. 
Groerde or Gorde was fought under the following circumstances:—A column of French troops 
of the 13th Corps, under General Pecheux, was pushed out from Hamburg, then held by Marshal 
Davoust, with the object of making a diversion in favour of a convoy of powder moving from 
Hanover to Magdeburg. In carrying this out, Pecheux was attacked by the Allies, under General 
Walmoden, between Dahlenburg and the Forest of Gorde, on the 16th of September, 1813, was 
surrounded, and only got off with the loss of 1000 men in killed, wounded and prisoners. The 
French official account (Victoires et Conquetes des Francais, Vol. XXII.) says, “ The Congreve 
rockets, the effect of which was entirely novel to our soldiers, contributed to the disorder of this 
affair.” General Pecheux fought with great courage against a force very superior to him in 
numbers. 
At the battle of “All Nations,” at Leipsic, between the Emperor Napoleon and the Allies on the 
16th, 18th, and 19th of October, 1813, the Rocket Brigade was attached to the troops under 
Bernadotte, Crown Prince of Sweden. On the morning of the 18th, with an escort of cavalry it 
proceeded to the attack of the village of Poundsdorf, after a brief but hot contest, so great was the 
moral and material effect of the rockets, that the enemy fell into confusion and began to retire ; 
when being pressed in pursuit, they surrendered to the number of between two and three thousand 
men. The Brigade then moved forward to attack the village of Sommerfeldt (Shonfeld) and was 
exposed to a very heavy fire of artillery and riflemen, a shot from one of whom shortly caused the 
death of the gallant Captain Bogue.* The command thus early in the battle devolved upon Lieut. 
Strangways, who at the close of the day received on the field the thanks of the Allied Sovereigns, 
the Emperor of Russia presenting him with his own Order of St. Anne. By Bernadotte, who had 
been an eye-witness of his gallantry throughout the campaign, he was afterwards presented with 
the Order of the Sword and a gold medal. In consequence of the signal services rendered by 
the Congreve rockets during the campaign of 1813, two Rocket Troops were formed in January, 
1814, the 1st at home, the 2nd from the brigade abroad. In May, 1815, the Prince Regent 
directed that Leipsic should be worn on their appointments. 
The 2nd Rocket Troop was engaged in several other affairs in 1813 besides Goerde and Leipsic. 
Mention is made of its services in Phillipon’s “ Memoirs and Campaigns of Charles John, Prince 
Royal of Sweden,” where it is stated that at the siege of Wittenberg, in 1813, “exclusive of 
bombs, rockets were likewise used under the very able direction of the English Captain, Bogue.” 
The same work gives Beruadotte’s bulletin concerning Goerde, in which he says, “ The English 
Artillery and Rocket Corps deserve the highest encomiums.” The record of the services of Lieut. 
Amherst Wright, who was a subaltern with this Troop in 1813, mention that he “served in the cam¬ 
paign of 1813-14 in Germany, under the orders of the Crown Prince of Sweden, and was present 
at the siege of Wittenberg, capture of Hanover and Liibeck, siege of Frederick Fort, and the siege 
and surrender of Gliickstadt. He received a gold medal from the Crown Prince of Sweden for 
Gliickstadt, and was made a Knight of the Royal Order of the. Sword.” 
At Waterloo, this troop, armed both with rockets and 6-pr. guns, was in Picton’s division, and 
posted on the left of the Charleroi road, near La Haye Saint, “ a position,” wrote Sir Augustus 
Frazer, “more than usually deadly,” here it suffered numerous casualties, and among them 
Strangways and two other officers were severely wounded.f In the reductions consequent on the 
peace at the close of the war, this troop was reduced in July 1816. The first then became “ The 
Rocket Troop,” which Captain Strangways commanded from 1837 till 1846. In 1847 it became 
“ I ” Troop, and embarked on its first foreign service for Turkey in 1854.— F.A.TF, 
* From a letter to the family of Captain Bogue by Captain James, A.-D.-C. to Sir Charles 
Stewart, and an eye-witness of the events described. 
f Among General Siborne’s lately published “ Waterloo Letters ” is one from Capt. F. Warde 
describing the effective services of this Troop on the 18th of June. 
