gallant Highlanders, in all the arduous operations of that sanguinary
war. He led his regiment at Fuentes d'Onor, where it was on the
right, covering a brigade of nine pounders, when it endured a severe
cannonade, and had thirty-seven officers and men killed and wounded.
Major Peter Grant had his arm torn off by a cannon-shot, but he
survived to die lately, at a good old age, amongst his kindred in
Strathspey.
The regiment was then 897 strong. Cameron was at the second siege of
Badajoz, and at the surprise of Gerard's division, on the 28th of
October, 1811, when, on a dark, rainy morning, and under cover of a
dense mist, Sir Rowland Hill's troops attacked the village of Arroya
del Molinos, or the Mills-of-the-King. In this brilliant affair,
Fassifern attacked the two retreating squares of the French with his
Highlanders, and breaking through one, sword in hand, formed on the
_other_ side of the _Puebla_, and completed the overthrow of Marshal
Gerard, who had all his artillery, baggage, money, officers, horses,
and 1,400 men taken. In the charge through the village, Cameron
received a wound in the sword hand, and Captain M'Pherson, with whom he
fought the duel at Gibraltar, was shot by his side. On this occasion
the Highlanders had a parody made on the old song of "Johnny Cope," for
Gerard, until he heard the pipers of the 92nd playing that popular air,
believed the attack to be a mere exchange of shots between his videttes
and the guerillas. Cameron's wound was a narrow escape, and is thus
mentioned by an eye-witness:[5]
"The captain of the grenadier company having been wounded early in the
action, the senior lieutenant, on assuming the command of it, made a
false movement; on perceiving which, the colonel, greatly irritated,
repeated his former orders in a voice of thunder, and, as was his
usual custom when displeased, struck his left breast with his right
hand, which then grasped the hilt of his sword. The last syllable
of his orders had just been delivered, when a bullet, despatched by
one of the enemy's riflemen, struck the first joint of his middle
finger, shattered the bone, passed through the handle of the sword,
and struck his breast so violently, that he relinquished the command
of the battalion to Major Mitchell, in the full conviction that the
ball had passed into his body. On being undeceived, the gallant colonel
instantly rejoined his battalion, and, with his middle finger dangling
by a small piece of skin only, remained at the head of his Highlanders
to the close of the engagement."
When the French were completely driven out, and when Hill's division
was on the march for San Pedro, Cameron, who had lost much blood, was
conducted by Ewen M'Millan to a house in Arroya, to have the wound
dressed, and the finger, which yet dangled by a sinew, cut off. On
entering, they found it occupied by a noisy and tipsy party of Spanish
dragoons, who, notwithstanding the rank and wound of Fassifern,
endeavoured to eject him. High words ensued, and a dragoon dared to
aim a blow at his head with a sabre. Cameron instinctively raised his
wounded hand for protection, and had his right arm cut to the bone.
Rendered furious by the sight of his master's blood, M'Millan levelled
his musket at the head of the insolent Spaniard, and would have shot
him dead; but Cameron, who was aware that the Conde de Penne Villamur's
dragoons occupied the whole village, exclaimed--
"Desist, Ewen, for God's sake do not fire!" and struck up his
foster-brother's musket, the bullet from which pierced the ceiling. He
never could discover the perpetrator of this severe wound, from the
effects of which he suffered long.
During the harassing marches of Hill's division in the desolate
Estramadura, his native hardihood never flinched, though the miseries
endured by the troops were excessive in that naked district, where
they were constantly in arrears of pay, bivouacking without tents or
fires, or cantoned in roofless and ruined towns, marching day and night
in the wet and chill of winter, or the heat of the summer solano,
when the white dust blew down the mountain passes, and the air became
thick with flies; when the soil of the vast plains cracked and rent;
when the perspiration rose in hazy steam above the marching columns;
when comrades fought like tigers around the wayside wells and casual
pools, to fill their canteens at the puddle through which, perhaps,
the advanced guard had passed an hour before; when years of hardship,
danger, starvation, and rags were to be endured, Fassifern never had
a day's illness or absence from parade; nor did his hardy Gordon
Highlanders ever lose a man by fatigue, save upon two occasions.
These exceptions were Lieutenants Marshall and Hill, two fine young
officers; the first of whom died in a wretched bullock car--died of
sheer starvation, as he was being conveyed into Badajoz; and the
second, unable to keep up with his men, perished of the same awful
death among the mountains, between Talavera and Toledo. It is said
that, on many occasions, Fassifern would have starved also, but for the
vigorous efforts of his foster-brother and henchman, Ewen M'Millan,
who, despite Lord Wellington's orders, plundered the Dons without
mercy, when the comfort of his chieftain and master required him to do
so.
After incessant skirmishes and daily marches along the banks of the
Tagus, and after a desperate affair of outposts at La Nava, on the 18th
May, 1812, Hill marched to destroy the forts erected by the French at
the bridge of Almarez. The 50th, and a wing of the 71st Highlanders,
formed one column, which was destined to attack Fort Napoleon; Cameron
with his regiment, and the remainder of the 71st, had orders to support
the attack, and storm the _tête-du-pont_. Both columns were amply
provided with scaling-ladders. As the troops descended a _rut_ of
the sierra, in Indian file, about midnight, Mr. Irvine, a gentleman
volunteer, left his ranks to obtain a draught of water. This was
contrary to express orders; and such was Cameron's strictness, that he
dismissed him from the regiment on the instant, and the poor fellow was
left alone among the mountains of Romangordo.
Being proud of his own regiment, Cameron had a great jealousy of the
71st Highlanders; and when the attack commenced, on some of their
bullets, in the twilight and confusion, whistling over his own ranks,
he called aloud--
"Seventy-first! what the devil are you about? Do you wish the
ninety-second to return your fire?"
Fort Napoleon was stormed in gallant style. Captain Candler, of the
50th, was shot through the head; but the French were driven towards
the _tête-du-pont_. Then Cameron entered it with them pell-mell, with
bayonets charged, muskets clubbed, swords and sledge-hammers. But
the commandant of Fort Ragusa, on the opposite side, cut the pontoon
bridge, and thus the whole garrison of Fort Napoleon found the deep
Tagus before them, and the foe behind.
Eager to capture Ragusa, many of Cameron's men flung themselves into
the river, and daringly swam across. Privates Gall and Somerville
were the first men who brought over the pontoon bridge. On gaining
possession of the platforms, which were literally ankle-deep in brains
and blood, the 1st brigade slued round the cannon upon the French, and
blew their heads off in scores, as they crowded into the square of the
little fortress, where the 71st Highlanders captured a standard of the
_Corps Etranger_.
The dead, 436 in number, were thrown into the ditch; the ramparts,
with eighteen cannon, were hurled over them; the stone towers were
blown up; the barracks and storehouses burned down; and the whole
place laid bare. In the general pillage which ensued, a Highlander
became mutinous to Cameron, who raised his claymore to cut him down;
but the descending blow was turned aside by a sergeant, named Taylor,
who kindly interposed his pike between them. Even when the gust of
passion passed away, Cameron could not forgive the affront of Taylor's
interference before his men, and was headstrong enough to resent it
in the following manner: When the sergeants drew lots for the command
of a firing party to shoot a deserter at Coria, Taylor escaped this
hateful ballot, but nevertheless Cameron ordered him to take charge of
the execution. Taylor gave him a glance full of reproach, and burst
into tears, yet he obeyed, and shot the culprit dead. Then Cameron
repented the casual malevolence which is sometimes to be found even yet
among the Celts, when an affront has been given them. At Merida, he
was pall-bearer during the grand military funeral generously bestowed
on the commandant of Almarez, who had been slain there by an officer
of the 71st Highlanders, and who was buried with the honours due to a
British officer of the same rank.
Cameron's native dislike to receive orders from seniors, his jealousy
of the 71st, and _Old Half-hundred_, involved him in many quarrels
with Colonels Cadogan and Stuart, and even in an angry correspondence
with Wellington. It was then currently rumoured in the Highland
regiments, that the great Duke had some dislike to their nation. The
Gordon Highlanders added, that he viewed coldly old Sir William Stuart,
Fassifern, and Major Mitchell, from whom they averred that he withheld
many honours to which they were entitled. What amount of truth these
rumours contained, it is _now_ impossible to learn. High words ensued
on one occasion between the colonel and his great leader, to whom he
said:--
"My Lord Marquis, thank God! I am beholden to no man for my bread--not
even to the service, for I have a comfortable home to retire to
whenever I please."
The real source of this bitterness of feeling is unknown; but it
continued during the whole war.
On one occasion his pride revolted at General Howard for keeping the
regiment too long under arms before inspection! and he sent Lieutenant
Grant to the Brigadier's billet with a brief message, "that the
regiment awaited him."
On another occasion, it chanced that by mistake he and a Spanish
colonel were billeted on the same mansion, and as it was thought too
small to accommodate both, he resolved to turn out the Don who was
already in possession of the premises. On Cameron arriving with the
colours, which were borne by his cousin, Ewen Ross, and another ensign,
and were escorted by four sergeants with their pikes, the Spanish
colonel appeared in the doorway with his Toledo drawn and pistols
cocked. Fassifern drew his claymore. "Forward, gentlemen," said he; "at
all risks I command you to lodge the colours!"
The sergeants charged with their pikes, and we know not how the affair
might have ended, had not Villamur's corps of Spanish horse turned the
corner of the street; this forced the rash chieftain to parley with the
cavalier, and share his quarters in peace.
After the night of blood at Almarez, Cameron and his Highlanders
marched by Fuente del Maistre, Los Santos, the hill of Albuera, and
many other places, bivouacking with their brigade wherever night found
them, preparatory to the attack on the forts at Salamanca, and the
battle there, which was fought, while Hill's division covered Lord
Wellington's rear. After joining the grand army on these contested
plains, the Highlanders were reviewed by their great general. Rations
had been served out that morning; the sheep-heads had been assigned to
the 92nd, and when they marched past by open column of companies, every
sixth man carried a sheep's head in his left hand.
When Wellington entered Madrid, the Highlanders of Cameron for one
night occupied the Escuriel, in the chapel of which the remains of a
king and queen of Scotland (Malcolm III. and St. Margaret) are said to
lie, having been conveyed to Spain in 1560. After Cameron marched to
Aranjuez, his cousin, Ewen Ross, had a narrow escape from a terrible
death. Having been ordered to the rear with sick and wounded from the
brigade, and having no less than twelve waggons-full of officers,
he reached Badajoz, after encountering many difficulties, and there
found that various outrages committed by the detachment of Lieutenant
H----, of the 28th, were laid to the charge of his party, such as
shooting and plundering the paisanos, robbing them of _burros_, wine,
and provisions. Lack of Spanish prevented the gallant Highlander
from explaining that he was not the guilty person; and the Marquis
del Palacio, governor of Badajoz, illegally tried him by a Spanish
court-martial, and unscrupulously sentenced him to death! Then fearing
to carry this sentence into execution, he sent him, under an escort of
Portuguese horse, to Elvas, where an English officer saved him from a
rabble who were bent on his destruction, and he was enabled to rejoin
Cameron in safety. On this march he saved from starvation Mr. Irvine,
the poor volunteer, whom he found in a state of destitution near
Truxillo.
Cameron and his Highlanders endured great misery on the disastrous
retreat from Burgos. Deprivation of food reduced the poor men almost to
skeletons; their uniform was worn to rags; many were barefooted, and
shirtless. Undeterred by the cruel exhibition of a soldier hung _daily_
at the head of the column (for of twenty men under sentence of death
for plundering, one was thus sacrificed every day), the 92nd shot some
wild pigs in a wood through which they passed. _Big_ Dugald Campbell,
one of their favourite officers, drove his long claymore through the
body of a boar which he pursued through the thicket, and claimed from
some cazadores. This prize he shared with Cameron and other officers;
but the affair drew forth a most severe reprimand from head-quarters,
and this was at a time when a _duro_ was given for a handful of
oats or nuts, and when some of the officers had no other food for
six-and-thirty hours than a few mushrooms or acorns.
Fassifern's regiment formed part of the small force which was left with
General Howard to secure Wellington's retreat, by defending the old
ruined town of Alba at the passage of the rapid Tormes. There the 50th,
71st, and 92nd made a gallant stand on the 8th of November, 1812. After
a long and fatiguing march, and just when about to receive a little
ration of dry bread--the first food after three days of starvation--the
appearance of the whole pursuing French army under Joseph Bonaparte,
summoned the brigade to man the old and shattered walls of Alba--a
relic of the Moorish wars--while the sappers undermined the bridge of
the Tormes. Two green hills overlooked the town and river. Between
these and the wall, within pistol-shot of the 92nd Highlanders, a
French staff-officer, mounted on a white charger, had the temerity
to ride leisurely reconnoitring, and followed by an orderly on foot.
Twenty Highlanders levelled their muskets to shoot this daring fellow,
but the chivalric Cameron cried aloud:
"Recover your arms there! I will by no means permit an individual to be
fired on!"
This officer who acted so boldly, and thus escaped so narrowly, proved
to be no other than _Marshal Soult_, who, in ten minutes after, ordered
eighteen pieces of cannon up to the heights, from whence they poured
1300 rounds of shot and shell on the brave brigade of Howard. This
was endured until the 13th, by which time Cameron lost forty-two men
killed and wounded. At daybreak, on the morning of the 14th, a despatch
arrived from Wellington, directing Howard to abandon Alba, as the
French cavalry, 3000 strong, had forded the river above the town and
turned his flank. A Spanish garrison was left in the old castle of the
_Castigador de Flamencos_--the walls were abandoned, and the bridge
blown up. Lieutenant John Grant of the 92nd was the last officer who
quitted the town, being left to bring off the sentinels, as the French
entered, and he was struck by the stones as the mine under the bridge
exploded, at the very heels of his party.
Wellington's admirable foresight saved Howard's brigade, which retired
to winter quarters at Coria, in Leon, when, with many other officers
and soldiers, Colonel Stewart of the 50th, as brave a Scot as ever
drew a sword, expired of exhaustion and fatigue. A soldier of the 50th
carved a rude stone to mark where this old officer was laid.
Refreshed by six months' rest in winter quarters at Banos, in a
beautiful valley of Leon, overshadowed by high mountains, Cameron,
after commanding the 1st brigade during General Foy's attack on Bejar,
marched with his Highlanders, when the whole army advanced to turn
the famous positions of Jourdan on the Ebro and Douro, and to meet him
on the green plains of Vittoria, where, on the 21st of June, 1813,
he again commanded the 1st brigade of Hill's division, and carried
the heights of La Peubla, when the gallant Cadogan fell amid heaps,
literally heaps, of his brave Highlanders.
Sir William Stuart having ordered Cameron to secure the heights, added,
"yield them to none without a written order from Sir Rowland Hill
or myself, and defend them while you have a man remaining." On this
Fassifern ordered the pipers to strike up the "Camerons' Gathering,"
and the regiment advanced with great spirit and alacrity up the
mountain side.
After this victory, the most decisive of the Spanish war, Cameron
pushed on with his brigade towards the Pyrenees, beyond which the
conqueror drove the French like a herd of sheep, and then garrisoned
the heights by a chain of outposts, previous to besieging San
Sebastian, and blockading Pampeluna. On this occasion the care of the
important pass of Maya was entirely assigned to Cameron, with the 1st
brigade, after it had crossed the Bidassoa, and skirmished with the
routed French until darkness set in, on the 7th July.
Cameron commanded this great outpost until the 25th of that month, when
the French advanced to storm the heights under the Duke of Dalmatia,
who had assumed the command of Jourdan's discomfited host, and was
directed to retrieve all its disasters by driving the British beyond
the Ebro. Full of confidence and of hope, at least to relieve the two
beleaguered fortresses, this brave marshal sent his legions against the
various passes in the mountains which Wellington, who was then urging
the siege of San Sebastian in person, had occupied by battalions and
brigades.
Cameron's force was encamped in the centre of a lonely gorge, and his
outposts were far down the hillside in advance; and these, on Sunday
the 25th, descried the division of General Drouet, 15,000 strong,
advancing on the road that led from Urdax. Coming on with great
spirit, they drove in the three light companies of the brigade (which
Cameron had dispatched as skirmishers in front), and gained the high
rock of Maya before the 2nd brigade of infantry could come to his
support. His little band were thus left to defend that steep and narrow
pass against _five_ times their number. On this fatal morning the
strength of the Gordon Highlanders was only fifty-five staff, and 762
rank and file.
To deceive the foe as to his real strength, Cameron skilfully divided
his Highlanders into two wings, in open columns of companies, thus
giving the slender battalion the aspect of _two_ regiments; but this
_ruse_ was useless, as the traitor-muleteers, who, for the few weeks
preceding, had been passing between the mountains and French outposts,
had made Soult fully aware of the actual force left to defend the
Pyrenees at every point. The moment the action commenced, Fassifern
detached the 50th to the right, where, after a desperate conflict, it
was driven back and forced to leave the ridge.
Under Major M'Pherson, Cameron then sent forward first the right
wing, and then the left, of his brave Highlanders. Then ensued one
of the most appalling scenes of carnage recorded in the annals of
that protracted war. The Highlanders stood like a rampart, in which,
however, frightful gaps were made by the bullets of the French, who
came on, in one vast mob, shouting and brandishing their eagles.
Separating the 1st and 2nd brigades, they descended upon the pass of
Maya from one flank, while a fresh division poured upon its front
from the Urdax road. Cameron, who had repeatedly ordered a _charge_,
which was unheard amid the roar of the musketry, then made the whole
fall back gradually upon the rock of Maya; a movement which was slowly
and desperately covered by the left wings of the 71st Highland Light
Infantry and of the Gordon Highlanders, which, by relieving each
other, drenched in blood every inch of the ground; and there these
gallant men defended the rock for ten successive hours, until--just
when ammunition was falling short--the brigade of General Barnes
arrived to their succour, and Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir William
Stuart, a fine old soldier whom all the troops loved well, ordered
Cameron's brigade _not_ to charge; but, exasperated by the slaughter
they had endured, they rushed upon the French with the bayonet, and
the Gordon Highlanders, "_for the first time disregarded orders, and
not only charged, but led the charge_," and recovered every foot of
ground as far as the pass from which they had been driven. In this
headlong advance the pipers played the "Haughs of Cromdale," and the
line was led by Captain Seton of Pitmedden, bonnet and claymore in
hand. But the slaughter in their ranks was terrible, for 19 officers
and 324 rank and file were killed, wounded, and missing. Among the
wounded were--Cameron, who was shot through the thigh, and forced to
leave the field; Major Mitchel, who succeeded him; Captains Holmes, and
Bevan, who died when his arm was taken out of the socket, and Ronald
M'Donald of Coul; Lieutenants Winchester, who commanded the light
company; Donald M'Donald, Chisholm, Durie, M'Pherson, and Fife, who,
after having one ball turned by a button, and another by his watch, was
struck down at last; Gordon, Kerr Ross, and John Grant, who was shot
through the side. Among the ensigns were Thomas and George Mitchell,
Ewen Kennedy (one of Cameron's Lochaber men), who bled to death on the
field, and Alaster M'Donald of Dalchosnie, a youth of eighteen, who
afterwards expired of a wound in the head, and was buried by four of
his brother officers in a hole outside the town-gate of Vittoria, where
Holmes said a short prayer over his grave.
Sir William Napier, in his history, thus alludes to Fassifern and the
two regiments of Highlanders: "And that officer (Lieutenant-Colonel
Cameron), still holding the pass of Maya with the left wings of the
71st and 92nd Regiments, brought their right wings and the Portuguese
guns into action, and thus maintained the fight; but so dreadful was
the slaughter, that it is said the advancing enemy was actually stopped
by the heaped-up mass of dead and dying.... The stern valour of the
92nd would have graced _Thermopylæ_."
Strange to say, Lieutenant Gordon died at Edinburgh sixteen years
after, under the hands of a surgeon who was extracting the ball
received at Maya, and he lies now in the Calton burying-ground. Two
balls grazed Cameron, but the third pierced the fleshy part of his
right thigh. In great agony he called to M'Millan, who slung his
musket, rushed to his side, and led his horse by the bridle out of
the field. "The gallant Cameron, who has so frequently bled for his
country," says the _Pilot_ of 12th October, 1813, "received _three_
shots in his person, his horse received three, and three more were
found in his cloak, which was strapped before his saddle in the usual
manner." He lost so much blood, that, being unable to reach Vittoria,
which was a hundred miles distant, and to which all the wounded were
ordered to repair, he remained at an intermediate village until the
scar healed and he could rejoin the regiment at Roncesvalles, after it
had been engaged between Lizasso and Eguaros, and on the heights of
Donna Maria, having in both affairs 120 officers and men killed and
wounded. Captain Seton brought the regiment out of the field: thus the
Speaker of the House of Commons, on the 24th of June, might well say
that the Spaniards of future times would point with pride to the places
"where a Stuart made his stand, and where the best blood of Scotland
was shed in their defence." For his bravery at the Pyrenees, his
Majesty was pleased to permit Cameron to bear upon his shield the word
_Maya_.