Comments
Historic_Owl t1_iryu6xs wrote
Except Lord Uxbridge wasn’t talking about his career: "I have had a pretty long run. I have been a beau these forty-seven years, and it would not be fair to cut the young men out any longer."
Evidently Lord Uxbridge fucked.
1945BestYear OP t1_iryvmfc wrote
I suppose the ladies were lucky the cannon hit his right leg and not his middle one.
Ninja-Yodeler t1_irynggm wrote
I've always enjoyed the aplomb of supposedly striaght-faced having no more reaction to the cannon shot than looking down and saying "My god sir, I've lost my leg" to which Wellington replied "My god sir, so you have"
There's a similar story from someone's journal at the time of an officer having their arm amputated without any form of pain relief after the battle of waterloo, and the officers friend right outside the tent had no idea there was even an amputation going on (lack of usual screaming) until he heard his friend say "Bring that arm back, don't just throw it away over there, it has a ring from my wife upon the finger I would like"
1945BestYear OP t1_iryr9rx wrote
Being very stressful and otherwise busy environments, I imagine that being on a battlefield, and especially having long experience on a battlefield, causes people to tend to diminish in their own minds events - such as serious yet non-fatal injury - that they would focus more on if they were afforded more tranquility.
I'm reading Redcoat by Richard Holmes, and it mentions an Irish soldier named John Dunn, who walked seven miles after a battle in the Peninsular War to see a captain in his company, George Napier, an Englishman who in contrast to many of his contemporaries had nothing but respect for the Irish soldier. Napier, recovering from a wound, noted that Private Dunn himself had a bandaged arm. Dunn (who had also lost a brother in the same battle), replied:
>Why sure it's nothing, only me arrum was cut off a few hours ago below the elbow joint, and I couldn't come till the anguish was over a bit. But now I'm here, and thank God your honour's arrum is not cut off, for it's mighty cruel work; by Jasus, I'd rather be shot twinty times.
Because of this visit by Dunn which made a lasting impact on him, Napier had told his sons;
> Whenever you see a poor lame soldier, recollect John Dunn, and never pass him coldly by.
Sdog1981 t1_iryrpya wrote
The whole family got in on the act.
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"Uxbridge's close family lost several limbs in the service of the United Kingdom during the Napoleonic Wars: his brother, Major-General Sir Edward Paget, lost his right arm in the crossing of the Douro during the Second Battle of Porto in 1809, and his daughter lost a hand tending her husband on a battlefield in Spain."
1945BestYear OP t1_iryu1el wrote
I had been aware that female companions (be they wives, sweethearts, or lets say more 'transactional' forms of relationships) of soldiers had been an immutable part of military life in this era and indeed almost every era before it since the dawn of warfare, but finding out the daughter of an aristocrat in Regency Britain had a battlefield amputation still honestly shocked me. It's the sort of thing where unless you specifically heard about cases like this, if you saw it portrayed in a film you would think "There's no way this was real.". Jane Austen could've had a character like her in one of her novels, and it'd be entirely authentic.
ghengilhar t1_is0uh9m wrote
Jeez. Who does this family think they are? The Skywalkers?
Mobely t1_irz0cq8 wrote
“Paint my dick big”
Tardigradelegs t1_is094ie wrote
His prosthetic leg was also very impressive; possibly the first articulated prosthetic leg in place of the static 'peg leg' type developed by a London limb maker named James Potts. - https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/history/2020/12/02/disability-history-month-henry-paget-the-earl-of-uxbridge/
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You can also visit the prosthetic at the Calvary museum in Anglesey, Wales.
merrycat t1_iryu1k8 wrote
Skinny jeans got nothing on those Regency right pants.
1945BestYear OP t1_iryveg1 wrote
I believe (probably wrong) that he's dressed as a Hussar, who had a bit of a reputation for being the Mr. Steal Your Girls of the Napoleonic Era. Mustaches were fashionable in Britain and France in the Victorian Era because of them; the original and best Hussars were from Eastern Europe, nations like Poland and Hungary, where men tended to grow mustaches if they could, and so when Western European armies added them to their cavalry forces they wanted to adopt their looks, and the image of the dashing and moustachioed cavalry officer bled into civilian life.
Ok-Seaworthiness4488 t1_iryxfga wrote
A monument to leg day
Cissyhayes t1_is07okx wrote
He had 18 kids! Eloped with wife number two
coldfarm t1_is0p13d wrote
Who was Wellington's sister-in-law. It made things awkward during the Hundred Days (Waterloo) Campaign when Uxbridge was defacto second-in-Command.
Jef_Wheaton t1_is7867u wrote
I guess since they kept the leg, he WAS amputated from it, instead of it being amputated from him.
1945BestYear OP t1_irybjr7 wrote
I want to say, the real TIL is that George Canning, a Tory statesman who eventually became Prime Minister, wrote a poem in commemoration(?) of the leg, and it is hilarious. The full thing is on the page, but here's one verse:
>A leg and foot to speak more plain
>Lie here, of one commanding;
>Who, though his wits he might retain,
>Lost half his understanding.
Might not top what Lord Uxbridge might have said himself while he was getting amputated; he treated the fact that his active military service was probably over by saying "I've had a pretty long run."