Charles James Napier
General Sir Charles James Napier, GCB (/ˈneɪpɪər/;[1] 10 August 1782 – 29 August 1853) was an officer and veteran of the British Army's Peninsular and 1812 campaigns, and later a major general of the Bombay Army, during which period he led the British military conquest of Sindh, before serving as the governor of Sindh, and Commander-in-Chief in India.
GeneralSir Charles Napier
Office established
10 August 1782
London, England
29 August 1853 (aged 71)
Portsmouth, England
Royal Garrison Church, Portsmouth, England
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East India Company
1794–1851
Early life[edit]
Charles James Napier was the eldest son of Colonel George Napier, and his second wife, Lady Sarah Lennox, with this being the second marriage for both parties. Lady Sarah was the great-granddaughter of King Charles II. Napier was born at the Whitehall Palace in London.
When he was only three years old his father took up an administrative post in Dublin, moving his family to live in Celbridge in County Kildare, Ireland, within walking distance of Lady Sarah's sister, Lady Louisa Conolly. His early education was at the local school in Celbridge. At the age of twelve, he joined the 33rd Infantry Regiment of the British Army in January 1794, but quickly transferred to the 89th and did not immediately take up his commission, but returned to school in Ireland.[2] In 1799, aged 17, he took up active service in the army as aide-de-camp to Sir James Duff.[3]
Peninsular War[edit]
Napier commanded the 50th (Queen's Own) Regiment of Foot during the Peninsular War in Iberia against Napoleon Bonaparte. Napier's activities there ended during the Battle of Corunna, in which he was wounded and left for dead on the battlefield. Napier was rescued, barely alive, by a French Army drummer named Guibert, and taken as a prisoner of war. Nevertheless, Napier was awarded an Army Gold Medal after he was returned to British hands.[4]
Napier recuperated from his wounds while he was being held near the headquarters of the French Marshal Soult and afterwards Michel Ney. On 21 March 1809, a British sloop approached Corunna with a letter for the commandant of the city, requesting information about the fate of Napier on behalf of his family. After an agreement between Ney and Napier, the latter was released on a convalescence leave at home for three months, under parole to return to Ney's quarters wherever he was on the first of July 1809.[5]
Napier volunteered to return to the Iberian Peninsula in 1810 to fight again against Napoleon in Portugal, notably in the Battle of the Côa, where he had two horses shot out from under him, in the Battle of Bussaco, in the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, and in the Battle of Badajoz (1812) (the second siege of Badajoz) in Extremadura, Spain, in which he was a lieutenant colonel in command of the 102nd Regiment of Foot. For his deeds at Bussaco and at Fuentes de Oñoro, Napier won the silver medal with two clasps.[4]
Bermuda Garrison and American War of 1812[edit]
Napier subsequently served in Bermuda, where the 102 Regiment was posted in 1812 to the Bermuda Garrison, stationed at St. George's Garrison. Bermuda, part of British North America and in the process of becoming an Imperial fortress, was the main base in winter of the North America Station of the Royal Navy, and his brother Henry Napier, at the time a naval lieutenant serving on a frigate that belonged to the station, was frequently in Bermuda. The American War of 1812 commenced with a declaration of war by the United States as the regiment was leaving England. In 1813, Lieutenant-Colonel, Sir Thomas Sydney Beckwith arrived in Bermuda to command a force tasked with raiding the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States, specifically in the region of Chesapeake Bay, with Napier as his Second-in-Command. Beckwith split the force into two brigades, one, composed of the 102nd Regiment, Royal Marines, and a unit recruited from French prisoners of war, was under Napier's command, and the other under Lieutenant-Colonel Williams of the Royal Marines. Embarking aboard naval vessels engaged on the American coast on the 8 June, 1813, they took part in raids on the Atlantic coast of the United States, including the Battle of Craney Island on 22 June 1813. Minus the two companies of Frenchmen, they left the Chesapeake and landed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 20 September, 1813. The Royal Marine battalion and Royal Marine Artillery were to go to Quebec under the command of Beckwith, leaving Napier a brigade of 1,000 infantry and three artillery pieces. It had been proposed to move the 102nd to operations in the American south, but this was not carried out. Napier transferred by exchange to the 50th Regiment of Foot in September, 1813. The 102nd Regiment was in Maine at the cessation of hostilities (the Treaty of Ghent was signed on 24 December 1814 by the negotiators, ratified by the Prince Regent on 27 December, and by the United States President on 17 February, ending the war). After three years at New Brunswick, it embarked in the autumn of 1817 to return to England under the command of Major Gustavus Rochford.[6][7]
Napier served as governor of Kefalonia in the Ionian Islands, and wrote a book about the island. Later he served on a diplomatic mission to Greece during its War of Independence, a conflict in which he had great sympathy for the Greeks. He also wrote two more books on Greece and the Ionian Islands.[8]
and his brothers: