The siege of Badajoz converted into a blockade -- Move to
Guinaldo -- Lord Wellington as a general -- A slight digression
on the horrors of war -- Instances of cruelty by both the French
and the inhabitants -- The English not wholly blameless --
Private depredations of Lawrence and his comrades -- Siege of
Ciudad Rodrigo -- Capture of a troublesome convent -- A
successful assault made -- Scenes in the town afterwards --
Incidents during the cantonments -- Putting it out of sight
proves not to be the best way of keeping grog -- Being too
sparing to one's beast not always advantageous.
For the remaining part of the year 1811 both armies were inactive. The
batteries had been at work at Badajoz and breaches had been made, but
these had proved impracticable, twelve forlorn hopes and storming
parties having advanced into them with no better result than that many
met their deaths and the remainder had to withdraw owing to obstacles.
The siege was therefore converted into a blockade, and Lord
Wellington, who after taking Almeida and driving the French out of
Portugal, had come southward with two divisions to reinforce
Beresford's army, moved the general South Army into cantonments and
encampments near the River Caza, a tributary of the Guadiana. There we
remained till July, when we were marched northward again across the
Tagus, and took up our position at Guinaldo. While there no particular
engagement ensued; the enemy indeed falling on another part of our
line, but no success being obtained on either side.
Although Lord Wellington had now driven the French clean out of
Portugal, he had still other work to do; work that praised him more
than he had been before, work that raised him to higher honours than
he yet possessed, but likewise work that sacrificed more thousands of
human beings than had been through the whole three years. There can be
no doubt that if he had had as many troops as the French, he would
long before this have driven them out of Portugal and perhaps Spain as
well; he seemed to understand their every movement, and was thus
always ready waiting to receive them; and they on their part seemed to
think they had more than found their match in him, and had become very
cautious in contending with him. But he actually had only half their
number, or even less, that he could depend on, and these were
sometimes not fit for service from want or other privations, as these
tales of the hospitals or rather deadly convents go to prove, where so
many of my comrades passed the end of their lives, and their remains
were carried out with no more ceremony than I described as at Elvas.
The Portuguese themselves were mostly exempt from the actual
slaughter, but their country had already been left by the enemy in
about as bad a state as it could; for if it had been infested with
swarms of locusts, the devastation could not have been paralleled. The
war could not have left one family quite untouched by its
destructiveness or by misery and grief irrecoverable for many years;
and indeed, in some cases, for ever, for many a child was deprived of
its father or mother, or even of both parents, and many were the
parents who had lost their children; and if any had accumulated a
little fortune then it must have been lost, being ever liable to be
plundered by the soldiery.
It must be said, however, that certainly the Spaniards and likewise
the Portuguese behaved on their part very cruelly to the enemy's
wounded, prisoners, or stragglers. I myself was witness to one of
their barbarous acts. They had laid a ring of straw round a wounded
Frenchman and set fire to it, and when the poor man tried to crawl
out, he was only received with a pitchfork which sent him again into
the centre. We soon made the Portuguese fly by firing in amongst them;
but when we came up to the poor man, his hair, fingers, and face were
fearfully burnt already. He implored us not to leave him, but we were
obliged to, and no doubt either the Portuguese returned and killed
him, or else he died of the injuries he had sustained at their hands,
or from the wounds that had before disabled him.
These barbarities, however, the enemy brought on themselves by dealing
out the same coin, for they would go on foraging parties, and perhaps
find a whole family or more together trying to protect their very
subsistences, when they would kill the males, serve the females not
much better, and carry off everything they could lay their hands on if
of any value. Sometimes, however, they were overpowered in these
freaks, and then they suffered just as bad a fate as I showed just
now; which, after all, is not much to be wondered at.
I am sorry to say, however, that we ourselves were not quite free from
the charge of depredations, though we did not carry them on to the
extent of bloodshed. An instance of this in which I was myself mixed
up happened during our stay at this very place Guinaldo.
We were quartered nearly twenty in number in two upper rooms of a
house, of which the family inhabited the lower part. Our beds, as
usual, consisted chiefly of straw. An Irish comrade of ours, by name
Harding, whom we named Pig Harding, owing to his always being on the
look out for any cheap pieces he could lay hands on, was quartered in
the same house, and we had not been there many days before he found
about thirty pounds of sausages curled round the bottom of a large
earthen jar that contained at least ten or twelve gallons of olive
oil, the sausages having evidently been placed there either to keep,
or to be out of our sight. Pig, however, who was up to many of the
Spanish movements, was not long in finding them; he soon had tried the
bottom with his bayonet, and found a prize worth fishing for; and he
came running into our room carrying the sausages, which owing to their
oily state did not fail to leave a trace of their whereabouts. We soon
repaired this defect so as not to be noticeable on the floor, which
was not kept so clean as it might be, and which our stay there had not
improved much, and then we had a fine meal off our sausages, which, to
use Pig's own words, "Blood and 'ounds, _were_ good, very," and soon
there were very few left.
After all in the house had eaten sufficient, the rest were given to
some of our comrades in another house, our policy being always to get
rid of any plunder as quickly as possible so as to bar detection if it
was found out. There were always plenty to help eat it, and in this
case every one of the sausages were gone before the woman found out
her loss, which was not till next day about dinnertime, when no doubt
she expected to cook the family meal off them. The sausages in that
country were generally made of cooked meat flavoured with garlic and
cayenne pepper, so that they were fit for eating at all times without
cooking. When the poor woman found them missing, she soon thought of
the right parties as the thieves; and with her fingers all dripping
with oil, for she had evidently been feeling for them in the jar, she
rushed in crying, "_Ladrone, Ladrone_ (you thieves, you thieves), the
French are bad enough, but you are worse!" We only laughed at her, so
she reported us to our major, who immediately came to our room and
said, "Then you are up to your prigging tricks again," and asked the
woman how much the sausages were worth. She did not fail to ask
enough, for she said sixteen dollars, which he paid at once, saying he
would deduct it from our pay.
The major never did as he said he would, however, and we heard no more
either of the sausages or of our money; but still we did not know that
at the time, and the threat only had the effect of sending Pig off
again in search of something that would at least give us the worth of
our money. He waited till just before we were going to shift from
these quarters, and then he found out a trap-door, through which he
got himself hoisted up, and found eight sides of bacon there, with one
of which he descended, thinking that would be as much as we could
conveniently eat at that place, and so at any rate we had the worth of
the sixteen dollars, for this last affair was not found out before we
started.
On another occasion, whilst we were at the same place, some Spaniards
came into our camp with wine for sale, contained in pigskins carried
across mules' backs, one on each side, and whilst the Spaniard was
measuring it out of one skin, a hole had been made in the other with a
penknife, which lightened both burdens at once considerably, much to
the discontent of the Spaniard on finding it out. But I think that all
such lesser manoeuvres as this, though bad in themselves, can be
perhaps looked over in considering the frequent hungry state that so
large a body of men were in during this war.
We remained in this neighbourhood till the latter end of 1811. The
beginning of 1812 opened with the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, where we
arrived and began to break ground on the 8th of February.
We had to commence throwing up our batteries and breastworks under a
particular annoyance from three guns, situated on a fortified convent
a little distance from the town, near where our brigade's operations
were in progress, so our colonel for one volunteered to storm the
convent, which offer was accepted. Several companies, therefore,
including my own, advanced under him unobserved by the enemy in the
darkness of the night, and succeeded in effecting an entrance into the
convent, the garrison being taken by surprise, but managing to decamp.
I then volunteered with a few men to march on up to the tower where
the guns were situated, a priest being made to show us the way, as the
path which we had to tread was so winding. When we arrived at the top,
which must have taken us at least ten minutes, we found no French
there, but the three shattered cannon still remained, which we were
ordered to pitch down, not much improving their condition thereby, and
so we gained the object for which we had come. All the French that
were left in the convent, or at least all I saw there, were two of
their wounded, but they were good enough to leave us a room full of
cabbages, which came in very handy.
After this affair we took up our quarters in the convent, but still
continued our ground work. Once the enemy sallied out of the town and
attacked us during these operations, and a smart brush ensued, but
they were soon obliged to retire again. Now and then the garrison
would greet us with a cannon-ball, which often did some little
mischief; a sergeant was killed by one, which at the same time took
another's arm off, and I myself had a narrow escape one day whilst in
the breastworks, from a six-pounder which having struck the convent,
rebounded and caught me in the chest. Luckily it was nearly spent, but
as it was it knocked me down, and it was some time before I could
recover my breath, and that not until my comrades had poured some rum
and water down my throat. My chest was much discoloured and swollen,
through which I was ill for nearly a week.
By the 19th of January two practicable breaches were made in the walls
of the town, and an attack was ordered. Our colonel volunteered for
the forlorn hope, but it was put under other commanders, being chiefly
composed of the rifles. The main breach was committed to General
Picton's division, and the brigades of General Vandeleur and Colonel
Barnet were ordered to attack the smaller breach, headed by a
storming-party of three hundred men and a forlorn hope, under Major
George Napier of the Fifty-second regiment. The forlorn hope assembled
between seven and eight o'clock under the walls of the convent we were
then occupying, which protected them a little from the enemy's shot.
All was deathly silent amongst those men, who perhaps could not help
thinking that it might be their last undertaking: in fact, this is
much the worst business a soldier can enter upon, as scarcely anything
but death looks him in the face. There they were watching with intense
anxiety for the to many fatal signal; and at length the order was
given to advance.
The assault was to be conducted on all sides at once, and in double
quick time the troops were at the breach, although the ladders, which
were being carried by the Portuguese, when wanted had disappeared. Our
troops nevertheless pushed onwards and gained the breach, when either
through accident or the neglect of the train-man, a mine was sprung
before the French were clearly off it, and both French and English
were suddenly blown into the air and buried together in the ruin.
After the smother had fairly cleared away, our troops met with very
little difficulty in mounting the breach and scouring the ramparts,
the French throwing down their arms and retiring into the town itself,
where after a brief contest in the streets, the whole surviving
garrison surrendered; but it was not without the loss of many of the
bravest men on our side in the first assault.
This successful achievement was attended with all the horrors of the
soldiery, excesses, riot, and drunkenness taking place on every side.
Houses were plundered of their contents, cellars broken open and
emptied, and many houses were even set on fire, amid the yells of the
dissipated soldiers and the screams of the wounded. Thus the night
passed, but in the morning order was a little restored, and those men
who were sensible enough returned to their own regiments.
About forty-one pieces of cannon, some stands of arms, and a quantity
of provisions were taken, besides which the enemy must have lost quite
a thousand men, besides the prisoners. Amongst these latter were six
or seven deserters belonging to the Allied army, who were sent to
their respective regiments and probably shot: fortunately there were
none belonging to our division. The Allies' loss was very
considerable, being upwards of a thousand also.
After the reduction of Ciudad Rodrigo, Lord Wellington put it under
garrison and ordered the breaches to be repaired. Then he marched
south to watch the proceedings at Badajoz, whilst we again went into
cantonments near Rodrigo.
Some muleteers halted under the protection of our troops at this
place, laden with rum and biscuits for the supply of the army, over
which sentries were placed on guard, but instead of guarding, they
took so much rum, which being there generally carried in pigs' skins
was easily got at, that they died in consequence next morning.
Likewise one of our cavalry men was here flogged for making away with
his horse's corn to selfishly buy himself grog; and well deserving of
punishment he was, for the poor horse was miserably thin. In fact, the
horses in general were the same, and it was thought that many were
served the same; but this man being the first that was caught, was
tried by court-martial and sentenced to fifty lashes as an example.
The man asked the colonel to look over it as it was his first offence,
but the colonel said, "The horse's looks tell a different tale from
that; he has long had the bitters, and you the sweet, and now it is
time things should be the other way round." Certainly the horses'
forage could not at all times be procured, and especially in the
winter, but for that very reason they had more need of it when it
could be. The best horses I saw during the whole Peninsular campaign
were the German hussars': those men were not so fond of drink as ours,
which might perhaps account for the condition of their animals, as
they had no more chance of gaining forage than our men had.