A volunteer in the Spanish Army during the Napoleonic wars and in the Argentine-Chilean army subsequently, Charles (Carlos) Morgan Carrol (also know as ‘O’Carrol) was born in Tulla, Tipperary, Ireland in 1780. Not much is known of his early life, other than that he enlisted in the British 87th Regiment earning the rank of Ensign. Instead his story truly begins when he was enrolled by his brother William ‘Guillermo’ Parker Carrol (1776-1842) into the Spanish army along with another brother Richard ‘Ricardo’ Parker Carrol (1782-?) and his cousin Michael ‘Miguel’ Carrol (also known as O’Carrol, 1789- c.1830).

Charles fought in the Hibernia regiment commanded by his brother William and took part in many actions, particularly in Brecha de Tarifa (1812), Pamplona (1813) and Bayonne (1814). He earned the rank of teniente coronel in 1812 and after the end of the war continued in service under the command of Carlos O’Donnell until at least October 1815.

He was awarded the Spanish Orden de Carlos III in 1819, but in absentia because by 1818 he had already joined the Argentine-Chilean army of the Andes and made commander of the third battalion of the Escuadrón de Dragones de la Patria. He was killed near the Chilean village of Los Angeles, suffering a horrendous death at the hands of a pro-Spanish guerrilla in 1820. Since then he has been considered a ‘martyr’ of the Chilean emancipatory cause; today, streets are named after him in the Chilean region of Biobío.

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Source (indicative): G. Iglesias-Rogers, British Liberators in the Age of Napoleon: Volunteering under the Spanish Flag in the Peninsular War, (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2014).

Posted by:  Graciela Iglesias-Rogers, assisted by Adam Nour El-Din Hafez

How to cite: To cite from this page, please use any style (Chicago, Harvard, etc). Our preferred citation form is: Graciela Iglesias-Rogers, assisted by Adam Nour El-Din Hafez, ‘Carrol (O’Carrol), Charles Morgan, 1780-1820’, The Hispanic-Anglosphere: transnational networks, global communities (late 18^th to early 20^th centuries), project funded by the AHRC and the University of Winchester in partnership with the National Trust, [https://hispanic-anglosphere.com/individuals/carrol-ocarrol-charles-morgan-1780-1820,  accessed – please add date]

Thematic categories:

War and the Military; Family and Friends; Exile and Migration