Robert Ballard Long

Robert Ballard Long
Lieutenant-General Robert Ballard Long. Mezzotint, 1827.
Born	4 April 1771 Chichester, West Sussex
Died	2 March 1825 Berkeley Square, London
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1791 to 1821
Rank	British Army Lieutenant General
Battles/wars	French Revolutionary Wars • Flanders Campaign • Irish Rebellion of 1798 Napoleonic Wars • Battle of Corunna • Walcheren Expedition • Campo Mayor • Albuera Campaign • Arroyo dos Molinos • Battle of Vitoria • Battle of Pyrenees • Siege of Pamplona

Lieutenant-General Robert Ballard Long (4 April 1771 – 2 March 1825) was an officer of the British and Hanoverian Armies who despite extensive service during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars never managed to achieve high command due to his abrasive manner with his superiors and his alleged tactical ineptitude. Although he remained a cavalry commander in the Peninsular War between 1811 and 1813, the British commander Wellington became disillusioned with Long's abilities. Wellington's opinion was never expressed directly, though when the Prince Regent manoeuvred his favourite, Colquhoun Grant into replacing Long as a cavalry brigade commander, Wellington conspicuously made no effort to retain Long. Other senior officers, including Sir William Beresford and the Duke of Cumberland, expressed their dissatisfaction with Long's abilities. The celebrated historian, and Peninsula veteran, Sir William Napier was a severe critic of Beresford's record as army commander during the Albuera Campaign; in criticising Beresford he involved Long's opinions as part of his argument. The publication of Napier's history led to a long running and acrimonious argument in print between Beresford and his partisans on one side, with Napier and Long's nephew Charles Edward Long (Long having died before the controversy reached the public arena) on the other. Recently Long's performance as a cavalry general has received more favourable comment in Ian Fletcher's revisionist account of the British cavalry in the Napoleonic period.

Long was born the elder of twin sons to Jamaican planter Edward Long and his wife Mary at Chichester in 1771. Long received a formal education, attending Dr Thomson's School in Kensington until age nine and then being sent to Harrow School until 18 in 1789. After three years at the University of Göttingen studying military theory, Long was commissioned into the 1st King's Dragoon Guards as a cornet in 1791. With the aid of his family's substantial financial resources, Long had been promoted to captain by November 1793 and served with his regiment in Flanders during the Duke of York's unsuccessful campaign there. In the winter of 1794/95, Long had left his regiment and was attached to the staff of General Sir George Don during the retreat into Germany and return to England.