Fitzroy James Henry Somerset 1st Baron Raglan

Fitzroy James Henry Somerset Raglan, 1st Baron 1788-1855, British general. He entered the army in 1804 and was made (1814) a lieutenant colonel for his services on the duke of Wellington's staff in the Peninsular War. He was secretary of the embassy in Paris when Napoleon reentered Paris (1815), and he lost an arm at the battle of Waterloo. Raglan became secretary to Wellington in 1818, retaining that position until the latter's death (1852) when Raglan succeeded him as master general of ordinance. He was raised to the peerage in the same year. As commander of the British force in the Crimean War , Raglan again showed himself a brave officer and was made field marshal after the battle of Inkerman. However, he was handicapped by his joint command with the French commander, Marshal Saint-Arnaud, by weather conditions, and by the inefficiency of government departments and became the object of bitter criticism because of slow military progress and the sufferings of the troops. The failure of the attack on Sevastopol hastened his death from disease before the end of the war. The raglan, an overcoat in which the sleeves go directly to the neck without shoulder seams, was named for Lord Raglan.

Bibliography: See C. Hibbert, The Destruction of Lord Raglan (1961, repr. 1963).

Raglan, Fitzroy James Henry Somerset, 1st Baron (1788–1855). Lord Fitzroy Somerset, eighth son of the duke of Beaufort, was appointed aide‐de‐camp to the future duke of Wellington, in 1808. He accompanied the duke throughout his campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula (1808–14) and was badly wounded at Waterloo. In 1852 Somerset was created Baron Raglan, and two years later given command of British forces in the war against Russia. When those forces invaded the Crimea in 1854, it soon became apparent that Raglan was not suited to high command, for although promoted to field marshal, he was widely criticized for orders leading to the ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ at Balaclava on 25 October. He died of dysentery in the Crimea on 25 June 1855.