Early Life and Service
James Graham was born in 1791, in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland. One of three brothers to serve in the British Army, Graham enlisted in the 2nd Battalion of the Coldstream Guards in 1813, which was then stationed in England. Almost all soldiers at the time signed on for life in exchange for a "bounty" of £23 17s 6d, a large portion of which was absorbed by the cost of outfitting "necessities". Graham was assigned to the battalion's light company, and by 1815 had been made a corporal.
It was not unusual for Irishmen to join English or Scottish regiments after the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. Most battalions during the Napoleonic wars had a proportion of Irish soldiers. Each regiment of the army was composed of a number of battalions (anything from one to seven, with two being most common), each battalion comprising ten companies. Eight of these companies were standard "centre" companies, while the other two were elite flank specialists: one grenadier company and one light company, which was skilled at skirmishing and scouting.
The Coldstream Guards were a regiment of Foot Guards, a group of elite infantry regiments of the British Army. In background and natural attributes, recruits to the Foot Guards differed little from those recruited into other regiments, but they received superior training and were expected to maintain rigorous discipline. Wellington considered Guards NCOs to be among the best in the army.
The Coldstream Guards had just two battalions: the first saw significant service in the Peninsula (Portugal and Spain) during the Napoleonic Wars, but the second – Graham's – saw much less action. In November 1813, however, six companies from the 2nd Battalion embarked for the Netherlands to take part in the coming assault on Bergen op Zoom.
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