WATERLOO - QUATRE BRAS AND HOUGOUMONT Autograph letter signed ('T.J. Wedgwood') from Ensign Thomas Wedgwood of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd (Scots) Guards, to his mother ('My Dear Mother'), his retained draft, written the day after Waterloo from Nivelles, '...the field in which we are going to Bivouac to Night...', reassuring her that after '...some very hard fighting...' they have '...gained a most complete victory...' and that he is '...quite safe and have escaped unhurt...', going on to describe events at Quatre Bras ('...ready to march at a moment's notice... the 1st Regt of Coldstream attacked the French with the Bayonet and drove them back... we lay down to escape the shot and shells that was flying over us in great abundance... the French were driven back about half a league...'), describing French underhand tactics ('...a Regt of French who came up to a Parley... this was only a trick to wait for more cavalry... met with a French Regt who were clothed in Red and did not find it out that they were French till too late... next morning our Regt was sent into a wood to skirmish... at 5 o'clock were obliged to Retreat...'), the loss of his baggage and sleeping that night '... on the bare Ground with nothing either above or beneath us in one of the most Rainey nights Possible... ankle deep in mud...', fighting the next day started at half past eleven he notes, before going on to describe the defence of Hougoumont ('...a house surrounded by a small wall in which were placed the light Infintry Companies of the Coldstream and our Regt with orders to defend it to the last... they sent fire Balls upon the house... exposed to heavy fire of shot Grape and Shells for 2 hours and a half... nearly 100 men consumed in the flames the French forced the gates 3 times and 3 times were driven back with imense loss... a few Dutch who lined the Garden wall in which they made portholes and anoy'd the French very much...'), describing attacks and retreats ('...they knocked a great Deal of the wall down with their Cannon but could not gain admittance...'), the felicitous arrival of the Prussians ('...a body of about 30,000 Prussians came up and the French emediately Retreated at a great pace... drove them back Double quick time...'), ending by giving a tally of men and equipment lost, news that Belgian troops are spreading rumours of the French '...advancing at their heels...', and complaining that the regiments baggage has been pillaged ('...my baggage horse is either killed or stolen...'), and that they were '...not able to change our clothes we have had nothing to eat... not tasted a particle of Food for the last 48 hours... with the greatest Difficulty we can get any water and what we do is horribly bad...', 3 pages on a bifolium, dust-staining particularly where folded and exposed, some marks, creased with small holes and tears at folds, folio (340 x 205mm.), [n.p. but Nivelles], 19 June 1815; in a red cloth solander box by The Chelsea Bindery Footnotes: 'THE FRENCH FORCED THE GATES 3 TIMES AND 3 TIMES WERE DRIVEN BACK WITH IMMENSE LOSS': A TEENAGE ENSIGN'S EXCITING EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNT OF THE DEFENCE OF HOUGOUMONT WRITTEN IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE. Thomas Wedgwood (1797-1860) was commissioned into the 2nd Battalion, 3rd (Scots) Guards after Sandhurst in January 1814, and was thus part of the contingent charged with defending the crucially-positioned farmhouse at Hougoumont with orders to '...defend it to the last...'. Wellington himself remarked that 'the success of the battle of Waterloo depended on the closing of the gates' (David Howarth, Waterloo: A Near Run Thing, 1974, p.96) and, through this evocative first-hand account, Wedgwood captures the excitement and the horror of a regiment literally under fire from the 'fire balls' of the French artillery. Written in a hurried, breathless style, with little or no punctuation, Wedgwood describes the events preceding the battle, including the famously atrocious weather conditions the soldiers had to face the night before, and then gives a vivid and detailed account of events as they unfolded: '...they sent fire Balls upon the house and set a Barn and all the out Houses on fire... my company went down to the assistance of the Coldstreams in the wood, in which there was a very heavy fire of Musquetry... they attacked the house again with Renewed force and vigour but could not force it...', he writes. Wedgwood was the grandson of the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and the version of this letter sent to his mother is retained in the Wedgwood Museum, published in Emma Darwin's, A Century of Family Letters, 1792-1896, Vol I, 1915, and in Anthony Wedgwood's Tom Wedgwood at Waterloo: The Life of Thomas Josiah Wedgwood, a Soldier who fought at Waterloo, 2018. The version sent to his mother differs in some points of wording and is a much neater, more deliberate cross-written composition, whereas ours, the draft, is striking in its haste and immediacy. After Waterloo, Wedgwood was promoted through the ranks and spent some 15 months as part of a peace-keeping force in Portugal before leaving the army in 1837, retiring to Tenby in Pembrokeshire where he lived until his death. Anthony Wedgwood writes that 'he never fully recovered from the facial paralysis brought on by exhaustion and exposure during the march to Paris' following Waterloo and concludes 'no reference to the circumstances of his death has been found: like the good soldier that he was, he seems simply to have faded away'. Provenance: By family descent; private collection, U.K. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing