Summary

The 5th Battalion gained sixteen battle honours for the Regiment in the Peninsular War. It had lost in killed and wounded 68 officers and 767 other ranks, with 2 officers and 225 men missing. These figures do not include losses in innumerable petty engagements which were not included in the official returns.

For their services, sixteen officers (Colonels) of the Regiment were awarded the Gold Medal, of whom seven also gained the Gold Cross. Company officers and other ranks received no decorations until, in 1847, a silver medal was bestowed on the eighty-nine survivors.

A remarkable letter, written towards the end of the 1813 campaign by Marshal Soult to the Minister of War, referring to the high proportion of casualties in officers in the French Army, is quoted in full in the Annals of the Regiment. The Marshal declares that these losses were caused by a battalion of the 60th which had a company attached to each division; that their men are "selected for their marksmanship, armed with a short rifle," who act as scouts; that they pick off the officers, including generals and staff, and that "this mode of making war is very detrimental to us."

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