Donald's Safe Come Back Again

DESCRIPTION: Donald returns to Meg from war with Abercrombie after losing a leg. He says "If her I can protect again, Claymore in hand I'll leave the north Though legless I come back again"
AUTHOR: Adam Cameron
EARLIEST DATE: 1881 (Christie)
KEYWORDS: love war return injury Scotland
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig/Duncan1 94, "Donald's Safe Come Back Again" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: W. Christie, editor, Traditional Ballad Airs (Edinburgh, 1881 (downloadable pdf by University of Edinburgh, 2007)), Vol II, pp. 258-259, "Back Again" (1 tune)
Roud #5791
NOTES [236 words]: Greig/Duncan1 quoting Christie, Traditional Ballad Airs: "'The Ballad, "Back again," is said to have been composed by a Lamp-maker in Aberdeen of the name of Watson, and was a great favourite in Scotland, after the death of General Sir Ralph Abercromby at Aboukir Bay.' He died on 28 March 1801."
Christie's four eight-line verses include, with minor changes, all the text of the Greig/Duncan1 four four-line verses. - BS
So strong is the British historical bent toward the navy that, in checking four histories of the Napoleonic Wars and two encyclopedic histories, I found only one that mentions Abercrombie, though all of them mention the Naval victory at Aboukir Bay in 1798. (That, after all, involved Nelson.)
But it was the land expedition under Abercrombie which finally drove the French from Egypt. According to Michael Glover, The Napoleonic Wars: An Illustrated History 1792-1815Hippocreme, 1978. 1979, p. 82. Abercrombie's forces had been based in Gibraltar. He took roughly 15,000 men to Turkey so that the Ottomans could cooperate in the expedition. Abercrombie and his subordinate John Moore managed to cooperate well with the navy, and they succeeded in making a landing in Aboukir Bay on March 7, 1801. Abercrombie suffered his mortal wound two weeks later, on March 21, at the Battle of Alexandria. His successor General Hutchinson would take Cairo in June and receive the French surrender. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD1094

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