Saving Time

The History in Saving Time

I attempted to weave actual historical events and people into Saving Time where I could. The Corunna Campaign was an amazing episode in the British war against the French in Spain.

1. The Army allowed 4-6 wives of soldiers per infantry company and cavalry squadron, paid for by the Army. With ten companies per battalion, that is up to 60 women for every 750-1,000 men who could follow the army and be fed by it. This is before women camp followers with husbands and lovers of enlisted men who marched but weren’t ‘officially’ with the Army. Officers were also able to bring their wives and families on campaign if they paid for their supplies. These conventions were common among the Napoleonic Armies. For this campaign, many of British officers found it hard to say no to the wives and family among their commands. As a result, at the start of the campaign there were an estimated three to four thousand women with Moore’s army of 40,000 and perhaps hundreds of children.

2. As Mel relates, twelve women were captured by French dragoons in a supply raid at Benevente in Spain on December 29, 1808. They returned, some days later, having walked the entire way, but not all twelve. The French soldiers had treated them badly, though the cavalry troopers had given them some food.

This danger of capture and rape was so common that many gave it little thought. At the Battle of El Bodon in 1814, some women belonging to one of General Picton’s brigades were captured by the French, along with stores and baggage. Private William Brown recalled that their ‘co-mates’ appeared to be little affected by this occurrence. One Irishman, seated round a campfire that evening was commiserated with on losing his wife. He replied, “Faith, boys! I would not have cared a straw about it all, but Jenny had got my pipe away with her!” When Jenny and her companions were escorted to the British outposts and restored to their husbands, the same Irishman saw his wife and offered her a seat by the fire, as though she”d just returned with the wash. He put his arm around her and asked about his pipe. When Jenny said she”d lost it, he patted her hand and said, ”Not to worry, we”ll find another.”

3. The horrible weather was recorded in detail during the British Army’s retreat to Corunna by many soldiers. It allowed me to include each day’s actual weather, rain, icy cold, snow and wind. I was surprised when one officer described lightning and thunder during a snowstorm. The entire 1808-1809 campaign, retreat, and weather is chronicled in Christopher Summerville’s book The March of Death.

4. The march was a horror. I tried to give a sense of this without dwelling on it too much, but the sights related did occur. An estimated 5,000 people lost their lives or were captured during the retreat. I wanted to write a book about the real Napoleonic Wars and the real women who were involved. Saving Time is a love story set in a time of war.

5. The army systems of the period used different uniform colors to identify different unit types as well as individual units. Most British infantry wore red coats with cuffs and collars in various colors to identify regiments, but not always. Some British cavalry regiments wore blue coats like the French and the Rifles wore a dark green. This mix of uniform colors was true for other armies. Several French units like the Guard Chasseurs wore red coats as well as green, white, and blue.

6. The medicine of the period was crude by today’s standards, but in many ways, not ineffective. The moldy breadcrumbs Mel used to stop Rig’s bleeding was a real remedy. The mold in the bread often contained penicillin, reducing infection. The ability to stitch up wounds was known, cat gut being a type of ‘dissolving’ thread for deep wounds.

7. Rig’s wounds were serious, but from what I have read, the location of Rig’s first saber wound would not have crippled him. Troopers could incur horrible sword wounds from cavalry clashes. I could not conceive of a path through the campaign where Rig would not risk being wounded. Very few soldiers escaped some kind of wounds during the campaign.

8. Many of the officers and individuals met in this book were real people. For instance, Melissa’s uncle, Colonel Laird Thomas Graham, was with General Moore, becoming a famous general. His back story was real, and he did have nieces. The German commissary officer, August Ludolf Friedrich Schaumann, was a real rogue. He wrote an entertaining memoir, On the Road with Wellington. He was part of the King’s German Legion or KGL, the troops who escaped when Napoleon captured the English King’s Hanover inheritance. The Spaniard Don Alejandro Alverez was the major of La Corunna and wealthy Don Bernardo Mascoso did have several officers including Schaumann billeted in his home as ‘guests.’

9, The slaughter of horses described in Corunna did happen as well as the massive explosion which threw Melissa to the floor. The destruction of the Army’s treasury, with the wagon over the cliff happened, ordered by General Paget when no more transport animals could be found.

10, The battles occurred as described at Cacabellos, Lugo and Corunna, as well as the skirmish around the burning barn. The rifleman who was offered a reward if he could bring down French General Corbert from the Cacabellos bridge was Thomas Plunkett of the 95th Rifles. He was made famous by that shot, at an estimated range of 230 yards. The drunkenness among the British soldiers mentioned at every turn was typical of the Corunna retreat and the British Army in general during the war in the Peninsula. The regiments would fall apart during a protracted retreat, pillaging and drinking, only to form up again and fight fiercely, as they did during Wellington’s desperate retreat from Burgos in 1812.

11. Reginald Sparhawk is a real officer’s name. He was a British captain who received wounds during the Napoleonic wars, though he was not part of the British army in 1809. He is listed in the compendium of officers who received pensions because of battle wounds. I just liked the name. However, the situation and fall with his horse that killed Sparhawk in my story actually happened to another officer that night, killing him and the soldiers who fell with him.

12. The Scottish and Gaelic words that Melissa others spoke were part of the period. The Scots did speak their own non-English language at the time, as did many Welsh and Irish. In some respects, speaking them was an act of defiance regarding the English. If you get a chance to hear Gaelic or Welsh spoken, do. They are singularly beautiful and exotic, conjuring up days long gone. Scottish brogue is just infectious. I have Melissa falling in and out of it as it is described in some memoirs and travel logs of the period. However, for comprehension’s sake, I couldn’t have every Scots person speaking the Braid Scots as constantly as was during this time, any more than the author of the Outlander series could for the 1740’s period.

13. The opinions traded between Captain Mountharron and Rig over the responsibilities and required knowledge of an officer was a real debate within the British Army. Mountharron’s beliefs are taken directly from period writings. The Army entered the Napoleonic Wars as a very provincial organization where the upper-class officers often had no more responsibilities than they did in civilian life. The Army was seen as a temporary organization, unlike the Royal Navy, having no ‘Royal’ moniker and funded for only a year at a time. After the American Revolution, the Army was reduced from 200,000 to less than 45,000. This was the strength it enjoyed in 1793 when the French Revolutionary Wars began. The Army was forced to become a far larger, far more professional organization over the twenty years of the Napoleonic Wars.

14. The story of the transport ship Dispatch is true. Along with the Smallbridge, the two ships were lost off the coast of Cornwall, the only two to be sunk by the storm, though others were run aground by the gale-force winds. In all, over five hundred men were lost from the army in returning to England.

There is a great deal more history portrayed in Saving Time, but I will leave readers to discover it exploring the many British memoirs of the amazing Corunna Campaign.