Hundred Days Period
During the Hundred Days, the 12th Light Dragoons were attached to Vandeleur's light cavalry brigade. At the Battle of Waterloo, the 12th and 16th Light Dragoons were told to charge down the slope, but no further, to support the withdrawal of the Union Brigade of heavy cavalry. But, like the Union Brigade (led by his second cousin, William Ponsonby), the light horse charged (as he later admitted) too far.
Ponsonby was wounded in both arms, knocked off his horse by another sabre cut, and finally stabbed in the back by a French lancer and lay wounded in the field. A French skirmisher robbed him as he lay helpless on the ground. Luckily for Ponsonby, a Major de Laussat of the Imperial Guard Dragoons found him and treated him kindly, giving him some brandy and promising to send help. Later, another French skirmisher used Ponsonby as a shield as he fired over him. Toward the end of the battle, he was ridden over by Prussian cavalry and roughed up by a Prussian looking for plunder. At last, Ponsonby was discovered by a soldier of the 40th Foot who stood guard over him during the night. He was carried away in a cart, to a surgeon who tended to his seven major wounds and managed to stop the bleeding. He convalesced under the supervision of his sister Lady Caroline Lamb who nursed him back to health.
He went on half-pay on 26 August 1820, and was appointed "inspecting field officer" in the Ionian Islands on 20 January 1824. The next year, on 16 March 1825, he married Lady Emily Charlotte Bathurst (d. 1877), daughter of Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst. They had three sons and three daughters:
- Sir Henry Frederick Ponsonby (1825–1895)
- Lt-Col. Arthur Edward Valette Ponsonby (3 December 1827 – 16 June 1868), married Catina Dahl
- Georgina Melita Maria Ponsonby (16 February 1829 – 18 February 1895), unmarried
- Harriet Julia Frances Ponsonby (27 October 1830 – 13 June 1906), unmarried
- Selina Barbara Wilhelmina Ponsonby (20 January 1835 – 22 July 1919), married William Windham Baring on 22 January 1862, without issue
- Rev. Frederick John Ponsonby (21 March 1837 – 3 February 1894), unmarried
Read more about this topic: Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby
Famous quotes containing the words days and/or period:
“Never were days yet called two
But one night went betwixt.”
—Thomas Campion (1567–1620)
“Stupid word, that. Period. In America it means “full stop” like in punctuation. That’s stupid as well. A period isn’t a full stop. It’s a new beginning. I don’t mean all that creativity, life-giving force, earth-mother stuff, I mean it’s a new beginning to the month, relief that you’re not pregnant, when you don’t have to have a child.”
—Michelene Wandor (b. 1940)