Recruitment in the British Army such as French Royalists, Germans, Greeks and Corsicans to supplement its forces. In 1813 one fifth of the army, 52,000 men, were such volunteers. The British Army in 1813 contained over 250,000 men, though this was much larger in comparison to the army at the beginning of the war, the all volunteer British army was still much smaller than that of France, which with conscription had an army over 2.6 million. From 1798 onwards, structural, training and logistical reforms implemented or authorised by the Duke of York (as commander-in-chief of the army) slowly improved the lot of the ordinary soldier.
Cornet (rank) famous cornets in that conflict were George Joyce, Robert Stetson, and Ninian Beall. It was abolished along with the purchase of commissions in the Army Reform Act of 1871, replaced by second lieutenant. The ranks of ensign and cornet were abolished in the US Army in 1815. The rank also existed in other nation's cavalry troops, such as those of Sweden ("kornett") and Imperial Russia (корнет), and by the Continental Army in the American War of Independence. General Alexander Macomb was initially commissioned a cornet in a career in which he eventually became Commanding General of the United States Army.