Single Campaign Medals


Standing back-to-back, the regiment successfully defended itself against both infantry and cavalry attacks. After this famous incident, the 28th Foot began a custom of wearing their regimental badge on the back as well as the front of their headdress. This unique distinction was eventually granted official authorisation in 1830. Mullens was promoted to Brevet Captain in the Army on 13 November 1801, probably in recognition of his contribution during the Egyptian campaign. He did not become a Captain in the 28th Foot until a vacancy arose in May 1803. Meanwhile, in October 1802, the 28th Foot left Egypt for four years of home service, mostly spent in Fermoy, co. Cork, apart from a brief and abortive expedition which attempted, without success, to defend the Electorate of Hanover from a French invasion. The 28th was sent to Denmark, where it took part in the Battle of Copenhagen in August and September 1807, and to Portugal in July 1808, for service in the Peninsular, where it was once again under the command of Sir John Moore, becoming one of his most reliable regiments.


The retreat to Corunna, under the eyes of Sir John Moore


The main published memoirs dealing with the lives and adventures of those serving in the 28th Foot during the remainder of Mullens’s career are The Diary of a Veteran, Sergeant Peter Facey, 28th (North Gloucester) Regiment of Foot 1803-19 (edited by Gareth Glover) an account of the regiment and (until 1809) its Grenadier Company, which Mullens served in for several years; A Boy in The Peninsular


War, by Robert Blakeney; The Slashers: The Campaigns of the 28th (Charles Cadell).


Regiment of Foot During the Napoleonic Wars by a Serving Officer


In 1808-09, Captain Mullens and his men endured the forced marches, lack of sleep, torrential rains, blizzards, hunger, privations and other hardships of the arduous mid-winter retreat through the Galician mountains, with Napoleon himself, and later Marshal Soult, snapping at their heels. The 28th Foot formed part of the rear-guard from 1 January 1809, conducting a fighting withdrawal directly monitored by Sir John Moore. This involved many engagements with French cavalry and light troops. According to Sergeant Facey, the French cavalrymen often carried a rifleman behind the rider as a kind of mounted infantry (Facey Diary refers.) The 28th was the last regiment, and its Grenadier Company the last company, to reach the British supply base at the port of Corunna on 11 January 1809. The 28th Foot fought in the Battle of Corunna on 16 January 1809, once again as part of the Reserve Division. The Reserve was tasked


to cover a valley on the left of the main French assault. The 28th Foot and the 95th Rifles distinguished themselves by jointly defeating flanking attacks that aimed to break through to the British evacuation points around the port. By nightfall, both sides held much the same ground as they had at dawn. The following day, the British army was evacuated by sea.


Mullens and the 1/28th were sent out to the Netherlands as part of the brief but totally disastrous Walcheren Campaign from June until September 1809. As usual, the 28th Foot was part of the elite Reserve Division. The campaign involved little fighting (only 106 men died in combat) but after ‘about 10 days the troops began to fall sick, taking the ague [a form of malaria, dubbed Walcheren Fever] on account of the low marshy land and bad water. We then received orders that no man was to expose himself to the air in the morning without eating or drinking spirits, or smoking tobacco. Captain Charles Cadell claims that he was the only officer on the expedition who did not smoke, and that he was the only one to escape the fever.’ (Facey Diary refers.)


Cadell was likely exaggerating somewhat to enhance his anecdote, but Facey’s diary makes it clear that the 28th was hard hit, with well over 67% of the regiment affected by the ague. Out of a total of 40,000 British troops sent to Holland, 4,000 died, and almost 12,000 were still ill in February 1810. Many thousands were permanently weakened and subject to recurring bouts of fever. While 1/28th returned to Spain in March 1810, Mullens did not re-join his unit in the field at Tarifa until December 1810. He was most probably on sick certificate, like Lieutenant-Colonel Belson, who commanded 1/28th and who did not return until February 1811. Other possibilities to account for this gap in regimental service are leave of absence or a temporary detached duty.


Mullens next saw action during sorties out of Tarifa, aimed at French garrisons in the region. They were a prelude to the Battle of Barossa on 5 March 1811, where Mullens was a senior Captain of the elite Flank Companies of the 28th Foot, in his case, the Grenadier Company. This Company took the position of honour as the right-hand Company of the regimental line. It was made up of hand-picked, experienced soldiers, the most reliable men in the regiment, because the Grenadiers were used as assault troops. Transfer from one of the six or more Centre Companies to the Grenadier Company generally brought enhanced status and sometimes higher rates of subsistence allowance. The Flank Companies of the 28th, the 9th and 2/82nd Foot were detached from their centre companies at Tarifa and ‘brigaded’ as an independent composite battalion ‘composed entirely of selected men’, reporting direct to the senior British general. Its command was entrusted to John Fredrick Browne, a larger-than-life character who was a senior Major in the 28th Foot and a Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army. It was generally referred to as ‘Colonel Browne’s Battalion’, although its existence as a military unit was always strictly temporary.


‘Now cheer up my brave lads! ‘Tis to Glory We Steer…’


The Battle of Barossa took place during an ultimately unsuccessful joint Spanish-British manoeuvre intended to break the French siege of the port-city of Cadiz, where Spain’s anti-Bonaparte government was based. The French commander, Marshal Victor, intended to trap the Allied army on the coast as it advanced towards Cadiz and destroy it in detail. Colonel Browne’s Battalion was posted as rear- guard on Barossa Hill, supported by five Spanish infantry regiments, artillery and Spanish and British cavalry. These supports melted away as soon as the French army came into sight, and Browne reluctantly ordered his men down off Barossa Hill, to avoid being encircled by the French pincer movements and to stay in touch with the main British force, who were split up, trying to make their way through a pine forest.


‘As the Flank Companies formed an extended line in front of the pine forest at the foot of the hill, the British commander, Lieutenant- General Sir Thomas Graham, joined them, saying “Browne, did I not give you orders to defend Barossa Hill?” “Yes, Sir”, said Browne, “but you would not have me fight the whole French army with four hundred and seventy men?” “Had you not,” replied the general, “five Spanish battalions, together with artillery and cavalry?” “Oh!” said Browne, “They all ran away long before the enemy came within cannon-shot.” The general coolly replied, “It is a bad business, Browne; you must instantly turn around and attack.” “Very well,” said the colonel.’ (Blakeney refers).


Browne re-formed his men into compact battalion, rode to the front and taking off his hat, shouted “Gentlemen, I am happy to be the bearer of good news: General Graham has done you the honour of being the first to attack those fellows. Now follow me, you rascals!” He then broke into song “Now, cheer up my brave lads! ’Tis to glory we steer…” As they advanced deliberately up Barossa Hill, once Browne had completed all the verses of “Hearts of Oak”, he concluded his exhortations: “There they are, you rascals, if you don’t kill them, they will kill you; so fire away!” Blakeney states: ‘Thus we moved forward with four hundred and sixty-eight men and twenty-one officers to attack the position, upon which but three-quarters of an hour previously we had stood in proud defiance of the advancing foe, but which was now defended by two thousand five hundred infantry and eight pieces of artillery, together with some cavalry…[and] two battalions of chosen grenadiers commanded by General Rousseau, the whole under the orders of General of Division Rufin.’ (ibid).


Blakeney was one of those who assaulted Barossa Hill with the Flank Companies: ‘As soon as we crossed the ravine close to the base of the hill and formed on the opposite side, a most tremendous roar of cannon and musketry was all at once opened, Rufin’s whole division pointing at us with muskets, and eight pieces of cannon sending forth their grape, firing as one salvo. Nearly two hundred of our men and more than half the officers went down by this first volley.’


Fifty more soldiers and most of the remaining officers became casualties before Browne’s men drove the French off Barossa Hill at the point of the bayonet, supported by the Guards Brigade which General Graham rushed forward at the double to reinforce the attack which, when it began, ‘had not the slightest prospect of success, still it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the British army’.


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