page_title: Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch
section_title: 1809–11
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch / Career / 1809–11
caption_attribution_description: Thomas Graham, Baron Lynedoch, by Sir George Hayter (died 1871), given to the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1896. See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG.
context_page_description: Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch GCB GCMG was a Scottish aristocrat, politician and British Army officer. After his education at Oxford, he inherited a substantial estate in Scotland was married and settled down to a quiet career as a landowning gentleman. However, with the death of his wife, when he was aged 42, he immersed himself in a military career, during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
  Taylor described Graham as "tall, square-shouldered, and erect, his limbs sinewy and remarkably strong. His complexion was dark, with full eyebrows, firm-set lips, and an open, benevolent air. His manners and address were frank, simple, and polished".
context_section_description: After his return to England, Colonel Graham was promoted to the rank of major general, and was appointed, in the summer of 1809, to command a division under Lord Chatham, in the fatal Walcheren expedition. An attack of malaria fever, however, compelled him to return home.
  On his recovery he was raised to the rank of lieutenant general, and was sent to Spain, to take command of the British and Portuguese troops in Cádiz, which was at that time closely invested by the French. The British Government attached great importance to the possession of Cádiz, as it was Britain's last stronghold in the Iberian Peninsula. But, as Sir William Napier remarked, while "money, troops, and a fleet—in fine, all things necessary to render Cádiz formidable—were collected, yet to little purpose, because procrastinating jealousy, ostentation, and a thousand absurdities, were the invariable attendants of Spanish armies and government".
  General Graham resolved to make an effort to raise the siege by attacking the rear of the besieging army, and in February 1811, he sailed from Cádiz with a force of upwards of 4,000 men, accompanied by 7,000 Spanish troops, under General La Pena, to whom, for the sake of unanimity, the chief command was conceded. The allied troops assembled at Tarifa, in the Straits of Gibraltar, and, moving northward, they arrived, on the morning of 5 March, at the heights of Barrosa, which were on the south of Cádiz and of the lines of the besieging army.
  On the instructions of the Spanish general, Graham's force moved down from the position of Barossa to that of the Torre de Bermeja, about half-way to the Santi Petri river, in order to secure the communication across that river. While marching through the wood towards the Bermeja, Graham received notice that the enemy was advancing in force towards the height of Barrosa. As that position was the key of that of Santi Petri, Graham immediately countermarched, in order to support the troops left for its defence; but before the British force could get themselves quite disengaged from the wood, he saw to his astonishment the Spanish troops under La Pena abandoning the Barrosa hill, which the French left wing was rapidly ascending.
  At the same time their right wing stood in the plain on the edge of the wood, within cannon-shot. "A retreat," as he says, "in the face of such an enemy, already within reach of the easy communication by the sea-beach, must have involved the whole allied army in all the danger of being attacked during the unavoidable confusion of the different corps arriving on the narrow ridge of the Bermeja at the same time. Trusting", as he says, "to the known heroism of British troops, regardless of the numbers and position of the enemy", General Graham determined on an immediate attack.
  In the centre a powerful battery of ten guns, under Major Duncan, opened a most destructive fire upon General Leval's division, which, however, continued to advance in very imposing masses, but was completely defeated by a determined charge of the British left wing; and the eagle of the 8th regiment of light infantry, and a howitzer, were captured by the British. A reserve formed up beyond the narrow valley, across which the French were closely pursued, were the next to share the same fate. Meanwhile, the right wing was no less successful. The French General Ruffin's division, confident of success, met it on the ascent of the hill, and, after a sanguinary conflict, was driven from the heights in confusion, leaving two pieces of cannon in the hands of the British.
  "No expressions of mine", said General Graham, in his despatch to the Earl of Liverpool, "could do justice to the conduct of the troops throughout. Nothing less than the almost unparalleled exertions of every officer, the invincible bravery of every soldier, and the most determined devotion to the honour of his Majesty's arms in all, could have achieved this brilliant success against such a formidable enemy so posted".
  "The contemptible feebleness of La Pena", says Sir William Napier, "furnished a surprising contrast to the h
caption: Portrait of Baron Lynedoch 1823 by Sir George Hayter
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