![]() To Jackson, the Scots embodied all the “pomp and circumstance of glorious war.” ![]() The 42nd Highlanders, celebrated in song and story as the Black Watch, came first, followed by the 79th Cameron Highlanders and the 92nd Gordons. But it was the Scottish Highlanders who made the most indelible impression. The colonel recalled how fine the green-coated 94th Rifles and 28th Foot looked. Jackson drew rein, watched for a moment, then relocated outside the Hotel Bellevue to watch the division march past. After the review, they would leave the city via the Porte de Namur gate. At just that moment, General Sir Thomas Picton was reviewing his 5th Division. There was a park nearby, and the noise of gathering soldiers stirred the colonel’s curiosity. Jackson rode down the Rue de la Madeleine at a leisurely pace until he came to the city’s magnificent Place Royale. Lieutenant Colonel Basil Jackson of the Royal Staff Corps had returned to Brussels about 4 am after delivering a dispatch to Wellington’s cavalry headquarters 15 miles away. ![]() Even stolid Belgian peasants bringing in vegetables from outlying farms could not help but stop their wagons and gaze in awe. ![]() As the red-coated British soldiers got into ranks, Brussels citizens looked on with growing excitement. The Anglo-Dutch army under Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, was assembling to combat French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s lightning invasion of Belgium. In the early morning of June 16, 1815, the city of Brussels awoke to the shriek of bagpipes and the throbbing tattoo of drums. ![]()
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