The Scottish soldier and Empire, 1854-1902 - Reenactor.ru

36 The Scottish Soldier and Empire
they marched in triumph’ into Kumase. 49 Despite the absence of the
kilt, they had remained culturally distinctive, with their pipers playing
throughout the war and in the post-war parades. Notwithstanding
reports that the pipes had barely been heard during battle in the
forest, the Huntly Express insisted that the five pipers, ‘marching with
swinging gait at the head of their companies in the African jungle . . .
scared the Ashantees with the unwonted sound of the bagpipe’. 50
As important, at least in some quarters, was the role of the 42nd
in bringing about the success of a campaign launched by the previous
Liberal government. After the electoral victory of the Conservatives,
some Scottish Liberals found solace in Wolseley’s triumph. While the
Scotsman repudiated criticism of the campaign and rejected sneers
about the quality of the Asantes as military foes, the Stirling Observer
reaffirmed that if peace could be secured with the Asantehene, trade
with the hinterland could follow and then it would be ‘our duty’ to
try to ‘induce the Ashantees to give up their slave-holding and humansacrificing
habits’. 51 In short, hopes invested in this short campaign
were consistent with an emerging Liberal-imperial credo, and certainly
the reception accorded the 42nd was a harbinger of the passions
that future campaigns would arouse.
For many Scots, though, the achievements of the 42nd were simply
a matter of national pride. As a letter-writer to the Falkirk Herald
asked, ‘breathes there a Scotchman whose pulse does not beat full and
strong when he reads of the doings of our gallant 42D?’ 52 Whether
the writer realised it or not, the reference to ‘reading’ was highly perceptive.
Although Melton Prior of the Illustrated London News composed
sketches of the campaign reflecting the 42nd prominently, and
Wolseley allowed these sketches to be sent with the official dispatches,
53 the Asante War, fought in a tropical undergrowth with men
dressed in a drab grey kit, hardly lent itself to memorable paintings
and prints. Nor were many artifacts brought home: gold and valuables
were gathered by prize agents before Kumase was burned, and
looting occurred despite the ban, but there were limits on what could
be carried and loot had to be smuggled past guards on the River Pra. 54
So the printed medium predominated and, despite a spate of histories
written later in the year by special correspondents and Wolseley’s staff
officers, interest in the war waned fairly quickly. The conflict had
ended with a draft treaty and partial indemnity but without composing
relations between the Asante state and its coastal neighbours. 55
Nevertheless, the 42nd had earned further renown at home, south
of the border, and wherever accounts of the war were read. In an