Benjamin Randell Harris
Encyclopedia
Benjamin Randell Harris was a British infantryman who served in the British army during the Napoleonic Wars
. He is most widely remembered today as the author of a memoir of his time in the army entitled The Recollections of Rifleman Harris
, which affords us a rare insight into the world of the enlisted man in Wellington
's army. Most memoirs published after the war came from serving officers, and the experiences of ordinary soldiers were overlooked due to the illiteracy of so many people at that time. Harris himself was illiterate, his recollections were recorded for him at some stage in the middle of the 1830s by an officer who knew him, Captain Henry Curling. Curling then kept the manuscript until 1848, when he succeeded in getting it published.
, Hampshire
to Robert and Elizabeth Harris around the 28 October 1781. His family however were shepherds from Stalbridge
in North Dorset
, and it was here that Benjamin grew up, in a large family with whom he remained until 1803.
In that year he was drafted into the 66th Regiment of Foot somewhat against his will, and forcibly marched to Winchester
, where he underwent training in preparation for deployment against the French as the Peace of Amiens was drawing to a close. It was whilst stationed there that he was randomly selected as part of a firing squad to execute a deserter, an action which he reports "for many years afterwards remained deeply impressed on my mind". Shortly afterwards he was despatched as a garrison force to Ireland
, and served duty in Cork
and in Dublin, where he met and joined a newly formed regiment, the 95th Regiment of Foot, the now famous green-jacketed riflemen.
From Ireland, Harris was returned to England following a period with a recruiting party, and rapidly settled into regimental life, learning to become a cobbler
in addition to his regular duties, by which means he made a substantial amount of money which later enabled him to afford medical treatment which saved his life. Harris' first experience of military service came in 1807, when he participated in the brief land campaign which accompanied the Bombardment of Copenhagen
. He saw action in the skirmish at Køge (which was also the first action of the Duke of Wellington
following his return from India). Soon afterwards, he and his unit returned to England on captured Danish vessels.
to participate in the opening actions of the British involvement in the Peninsular War
. Harris was at the very first action, a skirmish at the town of Óbidos, where he saw Lieutenant Ralph Bunbury
fall, the first British casualty of the war. On the 17 August 1807 he was in the hotly contested skirmish line at Battle of Rolica
, and saw serious opposition for the first time, reporting it as an exhilarating and terrifying experience. Many of his companions were killed at this action and the ensuing Battle of Vimeiro
, but Harris remained unhurt, continuing the march to Salamanca
before becoming trapped in northern Spain with the rest of Sir John Moore
's army. Harris missed the Battle of Corunna
which culminated the campaign, but the sights and horrors of the march remained with him for decades to come, and he was lucky to escape, claiming to be the very last man collected from the beaches at Vigo
, and embarking for England in a severely weakened state.
of the Dutch coast with the aim of destroying the dykes and lock gates there to render the port of Antwerp unusable for the French navy. The expedition totally failed, as it was unable to take any of the island's major towns and bivouacked in squalid conditions during the summer, resulting in a plague of malaria
and typhoid which killed over 4,000 soldiers and permanently disabled 12,000 from a force of 40,000. Harris was amongst those disabled, spending months in plague wards from which he was never expected to recover, and on at least one occasion only surviving through the extra medical care he received thanks to his financial reserves. Although he was recalled to his regiment in 1810 for service in Spain, he was unable to attend due to recurring bouts of malaria, and spent much of the period between 1809 and 1814 in hospitals or his father's home in Stalbridge, especially after Wellington had decreed that no men who served in Walcheren were to be sent to the Peninsula as they were unfit for further service. Those few months when he was able to live normally he spent in London with Veterans Battalions of unfit and wounded men, including numerous French deserters.
campaign in 1815, the War Office withdrew his pension leaving Harris with no choice but to reenter the work force as a cobbler, which trade he plied in London. In the 1830s an acquaintance, Captain Henry Curling, found him as a worker in a cobblers and bootmakers in the city and persuaded him to relate his war experiences, which Curling collected into a manuscript. Harris disappears from the historical record not long after this, but it is known that he owned his own cobbling shop in London between 1836 and 1839 and was alive to see his manuscript published in 1848, because in that year he received the Military General Service Medal
with Peninsula clasp. Nothing more is known of Harris' life or death, and his memoirs were not well known at the time, only becoming well read much later by historians of the twentieth century. Harris did however leave a postscript to his manuscript, which reads:
novels of Bernard Cornwell
featured a rifleman named Harris, portrayed as a down-at-heel intellectual often to be found eagerly reading the works of the great French writers of the period. The character is killed at the Battle of Waterloo.
Although this character is not intended to represent the real Benjamin Harris, there are a number of small details and lines of dialogue that were included as references to the historical person - he is shown repairing his comrades' shoes, and his Commanding officer
suggests that, in order to get rich, he write a book about his soldiering days, "full of battles and death".
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
. He is most widely remembered today as the author of a memoir of his time in the army entitled The Recollections of Rifleman Harris
The Recollections of Rifleman Harris
The Recollections of Rifleman Harris is a memoir published in 1848 of the experiences of an enlisted soldier in the 95th Regiment of Foot in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. The eponymous soldier was Benjamin Randell Harris, a private who joined the regiment in 1803 and served in many...
, which affords us a rare insight into the world of the enlisted man in Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
's army. Most memoirs published after the war came from serving officers, and the experiences of ordinary soldiers were overlooked due to the illiteracy of so many people at that time. Harris himself was illiterate, his recollections were recorded for him at some stage in the middle of the 1830s by an officer who knew him, Captain Henry Curling. Curling then kept the manuscript until 1848, when he succeeded in getting it published.
Early life
Benjamin Harris is vague about his origins in his text, but investigations by Eileen Hathaway have revealed that he was born in PortseaPortsea
Portsea is an area of the English city of Portsmouth, located on Portsea Island, within the ceremonial county of Hampshire.The area was originally known as the Common and lay between the town of Portsmouth and the nearby Dockyard. The Common started to be developed at the end of the seventeenth...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
to Robert and Elizabeth Harris around the 28 October 1781. His family however were shepherds from Stalbridge
Stalbridge
Stalbridge is a small town and civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the Blackmore Vale area of North Dorset district, near the border with Somerset. In 2001 the town had a population of 2,579, and is still growing. 30.8% of the inhabitants are retired...
in North Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, and it was here that Benjamin grew up, in a large family with whom he remained until 1803.
In that year he was drafted into the 66th Regiment of Foot somewhat against his will, and forcibly marched to Winchester
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
, where he underwent training in preparation for deployment against the French as the Peace of Amiens was drawing to a close. It was whilst stationed there that he was randomly selected as part of a firing squad to execute a deserter, an action which he reports "for many years afterwards remained deeply impressed on my mind". Shortly afterwards he was despatched as a garrison force to Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, and served duty in Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
and in Dublin, where he met and joined a newly formed regiment, the 95th Regiment of Foot, the now famous green-jacketed riflemen.
From Ireland, Harris was returned to England following a period with a recruiting party, and rapidly settled into regimental life, learning to become a cobbler
Shoemaking
Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or...
in addition to his regular duties, by which means he made a substantial amount of money which later enabled him to afford medical treatment which saved his life. Harris' first experience of military service came in 1807, when he participated in the brief land campaign which accompanied the Bombardment of Copenhagen
Battle of Copenhagen (1807)
The Second Battle of Copenhagen was a British preemptive attack on Copenhagen, targeting the civilian population in order to seize the Dano-Norwegian fleet and in turn originate the term to Copenhagenize.-Background:Despite the defeat and loss of many ships in the first Battle of Copenhagen in...
. He saw action in the skirmish at Køge (which was also the first action of the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
following his return from India). Soon afterwards, he and his unit returned to England on captured Danish vessels.
Peninsular War
Harris was soon moving again, sailing to PortugalPortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
to participate in the opening actions of the British involvement in the Peninsular War
Peninsular War
The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...
. Harris was at the very first action, a skirmish at the town of Óbidos, where he saw Lieutenant Ralph Bunbury
Ralph Bunbury
Lieutenant Ralph Bunbury , of the 95th Rifles, is known for having been the first British Army officer casualty in the Peninsular war.Bunbury was killed at Óbidos, Portugal.- References :*...
fall, the first British casualty of the war. On the 17 August 1807 he was in the hotly contested skirmish line at Battle of Rolica
Battle of Roliça
In the Battle of Roliça an Anglo-Portuguese army under Sir Arthur Wellesley defeated an outnumbered French army under General Henri Delaborde, near the village of Roliça in Portugal. The French retired in good order...
, and saw serious opposition for the first time, reporting it as an exhilarating and terrifying experience. Many of his companions were killed at this action and the ensuing Battle of Vimeiro
Battle of Vimeiro
In the Battle of Vimeiro the British under General Arthur Wellesley defeated the French under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro , near Lisbon, Portugal during the Peninsular War...
, but Harris remained unhurt, continuing the march to Salamanca
Salamanca
Salamanca is a city in western Spain, in the community of Castile and León. Because it is known for its beautiful buildings and urban environment, the Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. It is the most important university city in Spain and is known for its contributions to...
before becoming trapped in northern Spain with the rest of Sir John Moore
John Moore (British soldier)
Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, KB was a British soldier and General. He is best known for his military training reforms and for his death at the Battle of Corunna, in which his force was defeated but gained a tactical advantage over a French army under Marshal Soult during the Peninsular...
's army. Harris missed the Battle of Corunna
Battle of Corunna
The Battle of Corunna refers to a battle of the Peninsular War. On January 16, 1809, a French army under Marshal Soult attacked the British under Sir John Moore...
which culminated the campaign, but the sights and horrors of the march remained with him for decades to come, and he was lucky to escape, claiming to be the very last man collected from the beaches at Vigo
Vigo
Vigo is a city and municipality in north-west Spain, in Galicia, situated on the ria of the same name on the Atlantic Ocean.-Population:...
, and embarking for England in a severely weakened state.
Walcheren
The biggest upheaval in Harris' life was the disastrous 1809 Walcheren Expedition, in which a British force was sent to the islands of WalcherenWalcheren
thumb|right|250px|Campveer Tower in Veere, built in 1500Walcheren is a former island in the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands at the mouth of the Scheldt estuary. It lies between the Oosterschelde in the north and the Westerschelde in the south and is roughly the shape of a rhombus...
of the Dutch coast with the aim of destroying the dykes and lock gates there to render the port of Antwerp unusable for the French navy. The expedition totally failed, as it was unable to take any of the island's major towns and bivouacked in squalid conditions during the summer, resulting in a plague of malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
and typhoid which killed over 4,000 soldiers and permanently disabled 12,000 from a force of 40,000. Harris was amongst those disabled, spending months in plague wards from which he was never expected to recover, and on at least one occasion only surviving through the extra medical care he received thanks to his financial reserves. Although he was recalled to his regiment in 1810 for service in Spain, he was unable to attend due to recurring bouts of malaria, and spent much of the period between 1809 and 1814 in hospitals or his father's home in Stalbridge, especially after Wellington had decreed that no men who served in Walcheren were to be sent to the Peninsula as they were unfit for further service. Those few months when he was able to live normally he spent in London with Veterans Battalions of unfit and wounded men, including numerous French deserters.
Later life
Since Harris was unfit to rejoin his unit in the Hundred DaysHundred Days
The Hundred Days, sometimes known as the Hundred Days of Napoleon or Napoleon's Hundred Days for specificity, marked the period between Emperor Napoleon I of France's return from exile on Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815...
campaign in 1815, the War Office withdrew his pension leaving Harris with no choice but to reenter the work force as a cobbler, which trade he plied in London. In the 1830s an acquaintance, Captain Henry Curling, found him as a worker in a cobblers and bootmakers in the city and persuaded him to relate his war experiences, which Curling collected into a manuscript. Harris disappears from the historical record not long after this, but it is known that he owned his own cobbling shop in London between 1836 and 1839 and was alive to see his manuscript published in 1848, because in that year he received the Military General Service Medal
Military General Service Medal
The Military General Service Medal was a campaign medal approved in 1847, for issue to officers and men of the British Army.The MGSM was approved on 1 June 1847 as a retrospective award for various military actions from 1793–1814; a period encompassing the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic...
with Peninsula clasp. Nothing more is known of Harris' life or death, and his memoirs were not well known at the time, only becoming well read much later by historians of the twentieth century. Harris did however leave a postscript to his manuscript, which reads:
- "I enjoyed life more whilst on active service than I have ever done since, and I look back on my time spent on the fields of the Peninsula as the only part worthy of remembrance".
In fiction
The television series based on the SharpeSharpe (TV series)
Sharpe is a British series of television dramas starring Sean Bean about Richard Sharpe, a fictional British soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe is the hero of a number of novels by Bernard Cornwell; most, though not all, of the episodes are based on the books...
novels of Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell OBE is an English author of historical novels. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe which were adapted into a series of Sharpe television films.-Biography:...
featured a rifleman named Harris, portrayed as a down-at-heel intellectual often to be found eagerly reading the works of the great French writers of the period. The character is killed at the Battle of Waterloo.
Although this character is not intended to represent the real Benjamin Harris, there are a number of small details and lines of dialogue that were included as references to the historical person - he is shown repairing his comrades' shoes, and his Commanding officer
Richard Sharpe (fictional character)
Sharpe is a series of historical fiction stories by Bernard Cornwell centred on the character of Richard Sharpe. The stories formed the basis for an ITV television series wherein the eponymous character was played by Sean Bean....
suggests that, in order to get rich, he write a book about his soldiering days, "full of battles and death".