Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cole, Galbraith Lowry
COLE, Sir GALBRAITH LOWRY (1772–1842), general, second son of William Willoughby Cole, first earl of Enniskillen in the peerage of Ireland, by Anne, daughter of Galbraith Lowry Corry of Ahenis, co. Tipperary, and sister of the first earl of Belmore, was born in Dublin on 1 May 1772. He entered the army as a cornet in the 12th light dragoons on 31 March 1787, was promoted lieutenant into the 5th dragoon guards on 31 May 1791, captain into the 70th regiment on 30 Nov. 1792, and major into the 86th on 31 Oct. 1793. He was on his way to join his new regiment when he came upon the fleet and army, under Sir John Jervis and Sir Charles Grey, which were going to attack Martinique, and stopped with them as a volunteer and joined in the attack of 24 March 1794. He was then attached to Sir Charles Grey's personal staff as aide-de-camp, and was present at the reduction of Guadeloupe and St. Lucia, and was, on 26 Nov. 1794, promoted lieutenant-colonel into Ward's regiment, from which he soon exchanged into the Coldstream guards. Cole then again went on staff service, and acted as deputy adjutant-general in Ireland, as aide-de-camp to Lord Carhampton, the commander-in-chief in Ireland in 1797, and as military secretary to General Lord Hutchinson in Egypt. In 1798 he was returned to the Irish House of Commons as M.P. for Enniskillen, and sat for that borough until the union. On 1 Jan. 1801 he was promoted colonel, and appointed to command the regiment with which his family was associated, the 27th Inniskillings, and assumed the command at Malta in 1805. From Malta he proceeded to Sicily, and commanded his own regiment and a battalion of grenadiers as brigadier-general, and second in command at the battle of Maida on 4 July 1806. It is true that the chief credit of that victory rests with Brigadier-general Kempt, of the light infantry brigade, who commanded on the left, and with Colonel Ross, of the 20th regiment, but nevertheless a mistake on Cole's part would have imperilled the success they had gained. He was promoted major-general on 25 April 1808, and left Sicily in the summer of 1809 on account of differences with Sir John Stuart, who commanded in chief. He then asked to be sent to the Peninsula, and on arriving there was posted to the 4th division in 1809, which was formed of two English brigades, the fusilier brigade consisting of the two battalions of the 7th and the 23rd fusiliers, and the other of the 27th, 40th, and 48th, with General Harvey's Portuguese brigade. This was the famous 4th division, which was always coupled with the 3rd and the light divisions by Wellington as his three best divisions, and to the absence of which he attributed his repulse at Burgos. Cole had every qualification for a good general of division, and if he had not the same genius for war as Picton and Craufurd, he had the advantage of being more obedient to the commander-in-chief than they always were. At the battle of Busaco the 4th division was stationed on the extreme left of the position, and did not come into action at all, but in the following year it was to show its strength at Albuera. After Massena had been driven out of Portugal the 2nd and 4th divisions were detached to the south of the Tagus under Marshal Beresford to make an attack on Badajoz, and on the way Cole was left to reduce the small fortress of Olivenca, which surrendered to him on 15 April 1811. He then assisted at the first siege of Badajoz, and when Beresford advanced to form a junction with Blake's Spanish army and prepared to fight Soult, who was coming up from Andalusia to relieve Badajoz, Cole was left behind to cover the advance and destroy the siege material. The story of the battle of Albuera need not be told here [see Beresford, William Carr], but the part Cole played is too important to be passed over. It is known that the 2nd division had got into confusion, and that Soult had won a commanding position on Beresford's right flank, and it is generally asserted, by Napier as well as other historians, on the authority of Lord Hardinge, that it was owing to Hardinge's orders and advice that Cole ordered the advance of his fusilier brigade, which saved the day. Cole, however, afterwards declared, and he was not contradicted (see his Letter to the United Service Magazine, January 1821), that he sent his aide-de-camp, Captain de Roverea, to Beresford, suggesting that he should advance, but that the captain was mortally wounded and did not return, and that when Colonel Rooke and Colonel Hardinge advised him to move, he had already made up his mind to do so. There can be no doubt that the advance of the fusiliers saved the day, but at a fearful loss ; one of the three colonels of the brigade, who was acting as brigadier-general, Sir W. Myers, was killed ; the other two, Blakeney and Ellis, and Cole himself were all wounded. Cole, however, rejoined his division in July 1811, but left it again the following December to take his seat in the House of Commons, to which he had been elected in 1803 as M.P. for Fermanagh county. He thus missed the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, where Sir Charles Colville commanded the 4th division, but rejoined the army in June 1812 in time to be present at the great battle of Salamanca in the following month. In that battle Cole's division was posted on the extreme left of the position opposite to the French hill of the two known as the Arapiles, and for a moment the defeat of his Portuguese brigade under Pack made the day doubtful until the hill was carried by the 6th division under Major-general Henry Clinton, and in the attack Cole was shot through the body. He, however, soon rejoined his division at Madrid, and when the repulse before Burgos made it necessary for General Hill to evacuate Madrid, it was Cole who covered the retreat. In winter quarters he made himself very popular, and the excellence of his dinners is testified to by a remark of Lord Wellington's to a newcomer in the camp, 'Cole gives the best dinners, Hill the next best, mine are no great things, and Beresford's and Picton's are very bad indeed.' One festivity deserves special mention, when on 5 March 1813 Lord Wellington invested Cole with the order of the Bath at Ciudad Rodrigo. At the battle of Vittoria the 4th division acted on the right centre, and did not bear any special part, though Cole was mentioned in despatches, but in the series of battles known as the battles of the Pyrenees the 4th division played a very great part indeed, especially in the combat at Roncesvalles, when its hard fighting gave time for Lord Wellington to concentrate on Sorauren. At the battle of the Nivelle the 4th division, under Cole, together with the 7th, carried the Sarre redoubt, at the Nive it was in reserve, at Orthes it carried the village of St. Boe's, the key of the enemy's position, and at Toulouse it was the 4th and 6th divisions, under the command of Beresford, which carried the height of Calvinet and repaired the mischief done by the flight of the Spaniards. On the conclusion of peace Cole received no reward but the order of the Tower and Sword of Portugal and a gold cross with four clasps, and being transferred to the colonelcy of the 70th regiment from that of the 103rd, for he had been promoted lieutenant-general on 4 June 1813. This neglect, when so many peers and baronets were being made, as naturally and as justly irritated the friends of Cole as similar neglect did those of Sir Thomas Picton. When Napoleon escaped from Elba, the Duke of Wellington at once asked for Cole as one of his generals of division in Belgium, and the latter after his honeymoon prepared to join the duke. But before that honeymoon had well commenced, for it was on 15 June 1815 that Cole married Lady Frances Harris, second daughter of the first Earl of Malmesbury, the final victory of the Duke of Wellington was won. On 15 Aug., however, Cole joined the army of occupation in France, and commanded the 2nd division until the final evacuation of France in November 1818. In 1823 Cole resigned his seat in the House of Commons, which he had held for twenty years, on being appointed governor of the Mauritius. There he remained until 1828, when he was promoted to the governorship of the Cape of Good Hope, which he ruled with equal success and popularity until 1833. He then returned to England and established himself at Highfield Park, near Hartford Bridge, Hampshire, where he died suddenly on 4 Oct. 1842. He had previously been made colonel of the 27th Inniskillings in 1826, and promoted full general in 1830. His body was solemnly conveyed with military honours to Ireland and buried in the family vault at Enniskillen, and a column more than a hundred feet high with a statue of the general upon it has been erected in his honour on the Fort Hill near that city. By his wife Cole left a large family, of whom the eldest, Colonel Arthur Lowry Cole, C.B., was a distinguished officer, and commanded the 17th regiment throughout the Crimean war.
[The best biography of Cole is contained in Memoirs of British Generals distinguished in the Peninsular War, by John William Cole, a relative of the general, who had also the use of the 'Marches and Movements of the 4th Division,' by Sir Charles Broke Vere, deputy quartermaster-general to the division; see also Napier's Peninsular War and the Wellington Despatches.]