Lot Essay
Sergeant Ralph Worthington sailed for the Peninsula with the 2nd Battalion, 48th Foot in April 1809 and participated in the crossing of the Douro in the following month, the Battle of Busaco and was advanced to Corporal in December of the same year. The Regiment, nicknamed the "Steel Backs", supposedly because of the men's ability to take a flogging ('The whole Army admits we care as little for flogging as for the Frenchman's steel'), suffered heavily at the Battle of Albuhera in May 1811, the 2nd Battalion sustaining in excess of 400 casualties:
'At about 10.30 a.m. Colborne's Brigade, consisting of the 1/3rd, 2/31st, 2/48th and 2/66th Regiments, stood in the firing line, pouring out a withering fire into the left flank of the attacking French columns. Five minutes later most of them lay dead, dying or wounded following an attack of deadly efficiency by the most feared Cavalry in Europe. As Colborne's men stood blazing away a thunderstorm that had threatened all morning finally broke, the inky-black skies opening up with sheets of rain that swept over the battlefield. The British Infantrymen's muskets were quickly rendered useless and as the rain lashed down into their faces the soaked redcoats failed to see two Regiments of enemy Cavalry that were bearing down on them, using the sudden downpour as a screen. Caught in line and unable to form a square the Infantry were an easy target for the Cavalry who happened to be Polish Lancers, armed with a fearsome weapon hardly ever seen by the British and a superb killing instrument that enabled the bearer to kill with little fear to himself. It was also a weapon from which there was little escape, it being just as easy to thrust down and kill someone on the ground as it was to kill a man standing. The Polish Lancers dealt death all around them, violently and quickly, and when they withdrew just a few minutes later 1300 out of Colborne's 1600 men had either been killed or wounded in the carnage' (Ian Fletcher's Wellington's Regiments refers).
Worthington, in common with the other lucky survivors, was transferred to the 1st Battalion and sent home for recruiting duties. Back in the Peninsula in time for the Battle of Vittoria in June 1813, he was advanced to Sergeant in the same month and went on to participate in the operations in the Pyrenees, and in the Battles of Nivelle, Orthes and Toulouse. He was finally discharged in November 1814.
'At about 10.30 a.m. Colborne's Brigade, consisting of the 1/3rd, 2/31st, 2/48th and 2/66th Regiments, stood in the firing line, pouring out a withering fire into the left flank of the attacking French columns. Five minutes later most of them lay dead, dying or wounded following an attack of deadly efficiency by the most feared Cavalry in Europe. As Colborne's men stood blazing away a thunderstorm that had threatened all morning finally broke, the inky-black skies opening up with sheets of rain that swept over the battlefield. The British Infantrymen's muskets were quickly rendered useless and as the rain lashed down into their faces the soaked redcoats failed to see two Regiments of enemy Cavalry that were bearing down on them, using the sudden downpour as a screen. Caught in line and unable to form a square the Infantry were an easy target for the Cavalry who happened to be Polish Lancers, armed with a fearsome weapon hardly ever seen by the British and a superb killing instrument that enabled the bearer to kill with little fear to himself. It was also a weapon from which there was little escape, it being just as easy to thrust down and kill someone on the ground as it was to kill a man standing. The Polish Lancers dealt death all around them, violently and quickly, and when they withdrew just a few minutes later 1300 out of Colborne's 1600 men had either been killed or wounded in the carnage' (Ian Fletcher's Wellington's Regiments refers).
Worthington, in common with the other lucky survivors, was transferred to the 1st Battalion and sent home for recruiting duties. Back in the Peninsula in time for the Battle of Vittoria in June 1813, he was advanced to Sergeant in the same month and went on to participate in the operations in the Pyrenees, and in the Battles of Nivelle, Orthes and Toulouse. He was finally discharged in November 1814.