Description
Jeremiah Cooper enlisted in the 1st or King’s Dragoon Guards on 13 July 1804 at Nottingham and served until 30 August 1828 when he was discharged ‘worn out’.
At Waterloo he would have shared in that first great charge of the Household Brigade (1st and 2nd Life Guards, Royal Horse Guards and K.D.G., 1220 sabres in all) against the 1st and 4th Cuirassiers of Dubois’s Brigade which resulted in putting the four infantry divisions of D’Erlon’s Corps into full flight.
With 32 officers and 555 men, the 1st Dragoon Guards were the largest British heavy cavalry regiment at Waterloo. They were brigaded with the Household Cavalry under Major-General Lord Edward Somerset and helped to cover Wellington’s retreat from Quatre Bras on 17 June. That night Wellington redeployed his army on the ridge of Mont St. Jean, 11 miles south of Brussels, with the village of Waterloo as his Headquarters. He positioned Somerset’s Brigade on the reverse slope just west of the Brussels-Charleroi road.
