Never have troops of any
nation reaped greater glory, nor earned more lasting fame, than that day
fell to the lot of those battalions.
In the first line were the 12th, 37th, and 23rd Regiments; in the second
line, the 20th, 51st, and 25th, the latter that famous regiment raised
in Scotland in the year 1688 by the Earl of Leven, and then called
"Leven's" or the Edinburgh Regiment. At Minden it fought as Sempil's
Regiment, later it was known as the King's Own Borderers, and now it is
familiar to all as the King's Own Scottish Borderers. Entirely
unsupported, these two lines of scarlet-clad men marched steadily
against a mass of cavalry, the flower of the French army. Without haste,
without even a sign of hesitation or of wavering, over ground swept by
the fire of more than sixty cannon, they moved--a fire that ploughed
through their ranks and mowed down men as the hurricane blast smites to
the earth trees in a forest of pines. Not till the threatening
squadrons of horse began to get into motion did these British regiments
halt, and then, pausing coolly till the galloping ranks were all but
within striking distance, they fired a volley so withering that men and
horses fell in swathes, while the survivors reeled in confusion back on
their supports.
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