Hello everyone,
It has been awhile since I have posted. I am currently working again and going to school, as well as looking for a house. Finding a house during this time of the year is a very frustrating process and seems almost impossible as we have already lost two houses in a week. However, I can not complain, as we are lucky to have this problem with everything going on at the moment.
Moving on to one of most unique regiments found in the 3rd Corps is the 7e Legere from Général de Division Charles-Étienne Gudin de La Sablonnière's 3rd Division, whose Carabiniers supposedly wore the Colpack. These images can be found in icongraphy of the 7e Legere from Petit Soldats de Strasbourg, Bucquoy plates, and Knotel. Below is the list of officers from the 7e Legere that took part in the Battle of Thann. The 3rd Battalion was the advance guard of General Gudin's division under the command of General de brigade Petit. The 1st and 2nd Battalions were attached to General de Division Montbrun with Colonel Charles-Guilluame Lamaire in command of the regiment. As the list shows below, the 1st and 3rd suffered the most casualties, with the 3rd’s staff being the hardest hit, losing Adj. Major. Louis Waroquier (killed) and Chef de Batallion Jean-Pierre Faury shot in the left hip. Six other officers from the 3rd Battalion would be wounded, including two Capits., two Lieuts., and two Sous-Lieuts. There was also one officer from the 2nd Battalion, named S.Lieut. François-Joseph Courties, who was shot in the left shoulder.
The wounded officers of the 3rd Battalion were Capit. Yves-Blaise-Julien Bonnescuelle Duplessy (35) shot in the right hand, 3e Bat./ 4e Co. Capit. Jean Baptiste Brocq (43) was wounded by a shot at Thann on 19 April 1809, 3e Bat./ 3e Co Lieut. Charles Dupuy (nd) no information on his wounds, 3e Bat./ 4e Co. Lieut. Jean Bertrand Senat (39) received a strong contusion to the right shoulder, 3e Bat./ 3e Co. S.Lieut. Joseph-Benjamin Collin (25) no information on his wounds, and 3e Bat./ 4e Co. S.Lieut. Ambroise Beaumont (no date of birth) no information on his wounds.
Multiple sources put the total casualties for the regiment over 200 men hors de combat. We do know two officers were killed, and 13 other officers were wounded, including the commanding officer Colonel Charles-Guillaume Lamaire, who received a strong contusion to the left thigh. Unfortunately, I am missing the controle de troupes for the 7e Legere, which would shed some more light on the regiment's losses and the situational report dated 20 April 1809. In his work on the 1809 campaign, the Austrian historian Binder says, “In the Petit Brigade, the 7th Light Regiment 2 Batts., which had branched off to Montbrun, lost 2 Officers and only 40 men, which does not seem quite comprehensible.” https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=H8lCAAAAYAAJ... One word of caution, even though Binder claims to have seen the 20 April 1809 3rd Corps Situational report, his number of casualties seems very high and does not match even close the number of men I have collected from the controle de troupes for other regiments of the 3rd Corps.
However, I did find a document that shows the number of men killed up to 30 April 1809. As shown below from C506, the 7e Legere had 41 killed or scratched off the roles twenty days after the opening of hostilities, which most likely includes those killed outright, mortally wounded, and or those written off due to long absence in the hospital. Before 30 April, the regiment fought in countless outpost skirmishes, the Battle of Thann, the Battle of Landshut, the Battle of Eckmuhl, and took part in the assault on Ratisbonne.
One of the main issues tracking down the regiment's causality is the regiment being split between two different divisions and fighting on multiple fronts. However, in the 7e Legere Regimental history reports"Our losses did not exceed 200 men; Captain Waroquier was killed." https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=ugCm4rhYxDQC... Whatever the true losses were for the regiment; the regiment could easily afford them as they were one of the strongest regiments in the 3rd Corps with 63 officers and 2,790 NCOs and soldiers present on 10 April 1809.
I would also like to post some information on the officers who joined the regiment after the horrific Battle of Eylau in February 1807. On the two day Battle of Eylau on 7 and 8 February 1807, the regiment would take part in the disasterous attack of Marshal Augereau's VII Corps on the second day of battle. The 7e Legere would lose four officers killed, four mortally wounded, and 29 wounded. To make up for these losses after internal promotions, the regiment was sent five newly promoted officers from the Velites de la Chasseur a pied eight days after the battle on 16 February 1807 and three officers on 13 July
1807. Most regiments I have researched, have a few officers from the Velites de la Garde Imperial (Grenadiers or Chassuers a pied), however the 7e Legere is the largest yet. Of the 18 Sous-Lieuts present with the regiment on 19 April 1809, 10 were former Velites de la Chasseurs a pied de la Garde Imperial. In contrast, Joseph Marcel (20) was the only recent graduate of the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr. The othe seven Sous-Lieuts. were long serving soldiers of the 7e Legere who were promoted from the ranks, and must of felt some sort of jealousy or frustration with the newcomers from the Garde. There were also two Lieuts. who were from the Velites de la Chasseurs a pied, which were Claude-Phillippe Cotte (34) and Jean-Paul-Marie de Sede (31). Lieut. Cotte was a holder of the Legion d'honneur and had a long career before joining the Chasseurs a pied de la Garde and eventually being promoted Sergent in an 9 in the Velites de la Chasseurs a pied in 2nd Company, 3rd Battalion of the 2e Regiment. Below can be seen my most recent research on these officers from the Velites de la Chasseurs a pied. This is still a work in progress as a few are still missing.
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