John Moore

John Moore trained the British light infantry and then died winning the battle that saved his army in Spain. He was a Glasgow doctor's son, commissioned at fifteen, and served in Corsica, the West Indies, Ireland during the 1798 rebellion, Holland and Egypt, collecting wounds throughout. His lasting work was at Shorncliffe from 1803, where he took the 43rd, 52nd and 95th regiments and trained them as light infantry on a system that treated the private soldier as a man who could be trusted to think - aimed fire, open order, skirmishing, discipline through self-respect rather than the lash. Those regiments became the Light Division and were the best infantry Wellington had. In 1808 Moore was given command in the Peninsula and marched into Spain to support the Spanish armies, which had already been destroyed by the time he arrived. He learned that Napoleon himself was closing on him with vastly superior numbers, and instead of retreating to Portugal he advanced against the French communications at Sahagun, deliberately drawing Napoleon north and away from southern Spain, and then ran for the coast. The retreat to Corunna in midwinter over the Galician mountains broke the discipline of much of the army and killed a great many of it. At Corunna on 16 January 1809 he turned and fought Soult to cover the embarkation, and was hit in the shoulder by a cannonball while watching the 42nd. He lived long enough to know the French had been held. He was buried in his cloak on the ramparts before dawn, which is the subject of one of the most recited English poems of the century.

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