In our last post on the Battle of Waterloo Uxbridge was injured in the heat of battle. In the final installment of the series, we uncover whether he survives his emergency surgery.
…First a tourniquet was applied to Uxbridge’s leg. Then Hume lifted a knife (a borrowed one, as his own had been blunted from overuse).
“Tell me when you are going to begin” requested the Earl.
“Now, my lord” replied Hume.
The Earl lay back on his pillows, and in the same calm voice as before simply said “whenever you please”.
Hume began by making two connecting incisions. The thin line separated the skin, which was then peeled back. A swift blow and Hume had cut through to the bone. Taking up the saw he began the arduous process of cutting the bone. The process of amputation in this period could easily stretch to half an hour. With no anaesthetic. The pain must have been excruciating. Yet not even once did the Earl complain. No moans, no words, no complaints of any sort escaped his lips.
However, as the bone was almost cut through the saw jammed. Unbeknownst to Hume, one of the surgeons, fearing that the bone might splinter, had raised the leg to give it better support. Hume, perplexed, cursed: “Damn the saw”. The Earl, still refusing to watch, but seemingly unruffled, enquired: “what is the matter?”
Another witness to the surgery, the Earl’s aide-de-camp Thomas Wildman, reported that during the surgery the Earl had actually smiled, jesting that “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”. Yet another witness alleged that his closest comment to a complaint was the observation that “the knives appear somewhat blunt”.
The surgery proceeded, and was completed without further incident. The amputation finished, Uxbridge was given weak wine and water and was made comfortable in bed. Hume was amazed by the Earl’s composure. In spite of all he had been through his pulse was steady, at a perfectly normal sixty-six beats per minute, and he exhibited no symptoms (excluding the missing leg) of what he had undergone. In fact Hume wondered if anyone suddenly entering the room would even be aware that it was the Earl who was wounded.
In fact, shortly after the surgery, Sir Hussey Vivian (one of Uxbridge’s officers) entered the cottage. Uxbridge greeted him with a cry of “Ah! Vivian” and immediately asked a favour of his subordinate. Some of those in the cottage had been suggesting the leg could have been saved, and Uxbridge, perhaps looking to put his mind at rest, politely requested that Vivian take a look at the severed limb and give his opinion on the matter. Vivian went to the limb, picked it up, and examined it. Having determined that “rusty grape-shot had gone through and shattered the bones all to pieces”, he returned to the Earl and informed him that he could “set his mind quite at rest”, for the leg was undoubtedly “better off than on”.
Surgery at this time was always a risky business, and amputation especially so. Fortunately, however, the Earl was to recover from his wound, and he had an articulated artificial limb fitted. Soon after the battle he was created Marquess of Anglesey, and would go on to be promoted to full general in August 1819.
The story does not quite end there, however. Uxbridge’s amputated leg went on to become a minor celebrity in its own right. Paris, owner of the house where the surgery had been conducted, asked if he might bury the leg in his garden. He would go on to build a sort of shrine around it, with a tombstone detailing Lord Uxbridge’s heroism. This became a major tourist attraction. Visitors from all over Europe came to view it. In fact, the leg became so famous that even the King of Prussia visited it.
©National Portrait Gallery, Henry William Paget
1st Marquess of Anglesey by William Salter
Have you read our whole series on the wounded soldiers at the Battle of Waterloo?
Wounded Soldiers At Waterloo: The run-up to the battle
Wounded Soldiers At Waterloo: The Battle Begins
Written by Matthew Gracey-McMinn