Charles Ewart

rdf:langString Charles Ewart

rdf:langString pp. 205–213.

rdf:langString Charles Ewart was about 6 feet high, firmly knit, with a countenance indicative of high mental and physical energies. In the retreat of the British through Holland after the disastrous Battle of Nimguen, Ewart one day heard the wailing sounds of a child coming from close to the roadside. He dismounted and found a woman and child lying in the snow. The mother was dead, but the infant, still clinging to life, was in the act of suckling from the breast of its lifeless parent. Ewart rescued the baby and on reaching the encampment for the evening, met with his colonel who offered to defray the expenses of a wet nurse. Great difficulties were encountered in this, however he was successful and also fortunate in discovering the father of the child, a sergeant in the 60th regiment. Some years later the father, now a sergeant-major and father of a healthy son, fortuitously met with Ewart. He tried to give Ewart a sum of money, which upon being firmly rejected, was replaced with the gift of a silver watch, and this was finally accepted as a memento of the events. At Waterloo, Ewart was involved in a hand to hand combat with an officer, whom he was about to cut down, when a young ensign of the Greys offered to instead take the Frenchman to the rear as a prisoner. No sooner had he agreed to the request when he heard the report of a pistol and upon turning, saw the ensign falling from his horse, and the officer in the act of replacing the weapon with which he had dispatched the life of his preserver. Thus enraged, Ewart cut down the officer, deaf to his pleadings for mercy. Dashing forward he now found himself close to the standard-bearer of one of the French Invincible regiments. A short and deadly conflict ensued and as the staff had stuck fast in the ground he was able to lay hold of it without further trouble. Looking round he saw a lancer single him out, gallop forward and hurl his spear at his breast. He had just enough strength to ward off the blow, so that the lance only grazed his side; then raising himself up in his stirrups, he brought his opponent to the ground with one cut of his sword. When riding away with the Eagle he experienced another narrow escape, for a wounded Frenchman, who he had taken for dead, raised himself up on one elbow and fired at him as he passed. The ball fortunately missed him and he was able to take his prize to the rear. In 1816 he was invited to a Waterloo dinner at Leith near Edinburgh, where Sir Walter Scott proposed his health and invited him to speak. Lieutenant Ewart begged that he might be excused, saying that he would rather fight the battle of Waterloo over again, than face so large an assemblage.

rdf:langString Autobiographical Remininscences, 1876

rdf:langString Cornet Charles Ewart (1769 – 23 March 1846) was a Scottish soldier of the Royal North British Dragoons (more commonly known as the Scots Greys), famous for capturing the regimental eagle of the 45e Régiment de Ligne (lit. '45th Regiment of the Line') at the Battle of Waterloo. He was born near Kilmarnock (although recent research has found that he may have in fact been born nearer Moffat) in 1769, and enlisted in the dragoons at the age of twenty. He fought in a number of actions in the French Revolutionary Wars, was briefly taken prisoner, and emerged from the conflict as a sergeant in the regiment. Over the next two decades he became a well-respected and competent soldier, serving as fencing-master of the regiment; a heavily built man, reported as 6'4" tall and "of Herculean strength" he was an expert swordsman and accomplished rider. At the Battle of Waterloo, he captured one of the two imperial eagle standards captured by the British Army during the Waterloo campaign. The year after Waterloo he was made a commissioned officer with the junior-most rank of ensign, retiring in 1821.