Lieutenant-Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

Colquhoun Grant (1780 – 20 October 1829) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

soldier and

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...

officer during the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

Career

Of a family from the Scots aristocracy, Grant, the youngest of eight brothers, was commissioned into the

11th Foot The Devonshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army that served under various titles and served in many wars and conflicts from 1685 to 1958, such as the Second Boer War, the First World War and the Second World War. In 1958 ...

in 1795, reaching the rank of

major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

by 1809 when he was posted to the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

under the command of Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington. In 1810 he was appointed to Wellesley's personal staff as an Exploring Officer in the Peninsula Corps of Guides, a

special reconnaissance Special reconnaissance (SR) or Recon Team is conducted by small units of highly trained military personnel, usually from special forces units or military intelligence organizations, who operate behind enemy lines, avoiding direct combat and detect ...

unit whose members spoke the local languages. Grant never thought of himself as a spy, and always rode in full uniform, often behind enemy lines, to note the positions and strength of the enemy. Grant was captured by French forces on 16 April 1812. As he was in uniform, he was treated as an officer and gentleman by his captors, who offered him

parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...

, which Grant accepted. His servant Leon, a local guide, was not so fortunate, and was shot. Grant was invited to dine with Marshal

Auguste de Marmont Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont (20 July 1774 – 22 March 1852) was a French general and nobleman who rose to the rank of Marshal of the Empire and was awarded the title (french: duc de Raguse). In the Peninsular War Marmont succeede ...

, who hoped to find out more about Wellington, and who was angered by Grant's reticence. Marmont had good reason to remain suspicious of Grant, as the latter managed to send and receive secret messages while in captivity. Marmont sent Grant to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

for

interrogation Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...

. It is clear from Marmont's correspondence that he had no intention of exchanging Grant for a prisoner of equal rank, as was the custom of the time, considering him to be a spy. Grant, on seeing a copy of Marmont's letter, decided that it invalidated his parole agreement and escaped. Grant was able to pass himself off as an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

officer and spent some weeks at liberty in the streets and salons of Paris, sending intelligence reports to Wellington. He then escaped to England, rejoining Wellington in early 1814. Promoted to

lieutenant-colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

, he was appointed commanding officer of the Corps of Guides and Head of Intelligence for the Peninsular Army. During the

Hundred Days The Hundred Days (french: les Cent-Jours ), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on20 March 1815 and the second restoration ...

Campaign, Grant was working as an intelligence officer in France when Wellington put him in charge of his own intelligence operations. Grant sent in a steady stream of reports regarding the build-up of French troops along the border and returned to Brussels in time to take part in the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

on 18 June. In 1821, Grant transferred to the 54th Foot as lieutenant-colonel, later commanding a brigade in the

First Anglo-Burmese War The First Anglo-Burmese War ( my, ပထမ အင်္ဂလိပ်-မြန်မာ စစ်; ; 5 March 1824 – 24 February 1826), also known as the First Burma War, was the first of three wars fought between the British and Burmese ...

during the difficult Arakan campaign. In 1829, he was invalided out of the army, and his doctor, Sir James McGrigor, sent him to take the waters at

Aachen Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...

. On the night of 20 October 1829, he died there.

Family

His son, Walter Colquhoun Grant, also became an army officer, the youngest

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

in the army at 24, before financial troubles saw him become an early settler in the

Colony of Vancouver Island The Colony of Vancouver Island, officially known as the Island of Vancouver and its Dependencies, was a Crown colony of British North America from 1849 to 1866, after which it was united with the mainland to form the Colony of British Columbia. ...

. He later rejoined the army, serving in the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

and

Indian Mutiny The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...

References

Bibliography

Jock Haswell Major Chetwynd John Drake "Jock" Haswell (18 July 1919 – 21 January 2018), who also wrote as George Foster, was a British military and intelligence author and former British intelligence officer. He was "Author for Service Intelligence" 196 ...

, ''The First Respectable Spy. The Life and Times of Colquhoun Grant, Wellington's Head of Intelligence'', London, Hamish Hamilton, 1969 {{DEFAULTSORT:Grant, Colquhoun 1780 births 1829 deaths Devonshire Regiment officers 54th Regiment of Foot officers British Army personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars Napoleonic Wars prisoners of war held by France British military personnel of the First Anglo-Burmese War British prisoners of war (Napoleonic Wars)