The 95th Rifles, (Now part of the Greenjackets/Rifles Brigade) were the elite sharpshooters of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. In the days when the King’s soldiers were lucky to hit a target 50 yards away with their smooth-bore Brown Bess muskets, these marksmen with their trusty Baker rifles could reach to the near-unheard of range of 200-yards or more.
Campaigning through Spain, they had their swan song at Waterloo. While in the Iberian, one Rifleman Thomas Plunket, an Irishman, found himself in the Battle of Cacabelos in 1809 during the Peninsular War. Advancing into the fray as everyone else was retreating after the Allied lines broke, Plunket took careful aim at the mounted officer leading the oncoming French cavalry in a distinctive reclining position.
A shot later, Brigadier General of Cavalry Auguste Colbert-Chabanais was swept from his horse and never mounted it again.
While the range of the shot is debated to be as far as 600 yards off, all seem to concur that it was at least 200 yards away.
Colbert’s death was enough to disrupt the French advance and turn the looming rout into a British victory. While the French engraved his name on the Arc de Triomphe, they still lost that day.
While Plunket was invalided out at Waterloo after a head wound and died penniless, with officers of the regiment chipping in for his funeral, his shot is still remembered and celebrated.
