The Peninsula War medal awarded to Smith Fife, 42nd Foot, ‘a little lad about five feet high’ who earned the sobriquet ‘Napoleon’ in the regiment after an unusual incident following his capture at Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815

Military General Service 1793-1814, 2 clasps, Orthes, Toulouse (Smith Fife, 42nd Foot) very fine £1,400-£1,800

Captain Stewart’s Collection 1913; Glendinings, March 1935.

Smith Fife/Fyfe was born on 7 October 1791, probably in the village of Kippen, Stirling, and enlisted into the 42nd Foot from the Inverness district on 25 August 1812, and was posted to the 2nd Battalion. He transferred to the 1st Battalion on 30 November 1813, for service in France. He served in Captain Donald Chisholm’s company in the Waterloo campaign and was taken prisoner at Quatre Bras, as related by Sergeant James Anton in his Retrospect of a Military Life:

‘The day’s contest was at a close, our attention was directed to the casualties which had occurred in our ranks. We had lost, in killed, one colonel, one lieutenant, one ensign, one sergeant-major, two sergeants, and forty-eight rank-and-file. One brevet lieutenant-colonel, five captains, five lieutenants, two ensigns, fourteen sergeants, one drummer, and two hundred and fourteen rank-and-file composed our list of wounded. Six privates fell into the enemy’s hands; among these was a little lad (Smith Fyfe) about five feet high. The French general, on seeing this diminutive looking lad, is said to have lifted him up by the collar or breech and exclaimed to the soldiers who were near him, “Behold the sample of the men of whom you are afraid!” This lad returned a few days afterwards, dressed in the clothing of a French grenadier, and was saluted by the name of Napoleon, which he retained until he was discharged.’

Smith Fife was discharged at Strabane on 24 March 1818. He married on 27 November 1819, Jean Lockhart, also of Kippen, at Cauldhame. His death is recorded at Kippen on 9 March 1872, when he was described as a ‘pauper, formerly a soldier’, aged 81 years.

Sold with copied pay-lists.

Smith Fife’s Waterloo Medal was sold by Halls of Shrewsbury in October 2017.