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Auction: 18003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 7

Military General Service 1793-1814, 2 clasps, Vittoria, Toulouse (James Grace, 15th Hussars,), scratches to obverse, edge bruising, nearly very fine

Provenance:
Glendining's, May 1911 (Ex-Gaskell Collection).

James Grace was born at Downton, Wiltshire in 1786. Enlisting into the 15th (King's) Hussars on 5 June 1805, he served as a Private at the Battle of Vittoria on 21 June 1813. Napoleon, having met with disaster in Russia, withdrew his best troops from the Peninsula. Wellington took advantage of this situation, outflanking the French army under Joseph Bonaparte at Vittoria on the River Zaddora. At dawn on 21 June, a Spanish villager informed Wellington that the key bridge at Tres Puentes was negligently unguarded. The 15th Hussars duly seized the bridge and held it until relieved by Major-General Kempt's Brigade of the Light Division. Occupying a ravine on the enemy bank, the 15th Hussars were subjected to withering artillery fire, one round-shot carrying off the head of the Spanish villager.

Also entitled to a Waterloo Medal, Grace served as a Private with the 15th Hussars at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Positioned on the extreme right of Wellington's line, the 15th Hussars detached a squadron to perform outpost duty west of Hougoumont. During the afternoon the remaining two squadrons charged repeatedly against cuirassiers attacking the Allied squares. 83 casualties were sustained, the regiment having no fewer than four commanding officers in the course of the day. The 15th pursued the French to Cambrai and thence to Paris, returning to England in May 1816.

Grace was discharged on 9 June 1819, having received 'a wound to the head' at Waterloo; sold with copied discharge papers.



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Sold for
£700