RETREATS AND PURSUITS
The campaign of 1811-12 is not the least memorable of the immortal
campaigns in the Peninsula. It saw Fuentes, Albuera, and Salamanca
fought; it includes the great sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and of Badajos;
it witnessed the failure at Burgos. We give Kincaid's account of these
great events in other chapters; in this we are simply grouping his
pictures of soldiers on the march--in retreat or pursuit--with the
hardships and combats which attend such movements. This campaign is
specially rich in such pictures. It begins with the fierce marches in
which Wellington pursued Massena beyond the Portuguese frontier, and
closes with the disastrous and memorable retreat from Burgos:--
"The campaign of 1811 commenced on March 6, by the retreat of the
enemy from Santarem.
"Lord Wellington seemed to be perfectly acquainted with their
intentions, for he sent to apprise our piquets the evening before
that they were going off, and to desire that they should feel for
them occasionally during the night, and give the earliest information
of their having started. It was not, however, until daylight that
we were quite certain of their having gone, and our division was
instantly put in motion after them, passing through the town of
Santarem, around which their camp fires were still burning.
"Santarem is finely situated, and probably had been a handsome town.
I had never seen it in prosperity, and it now looked like a city of
the plague, represented by empty dogs and empty houses; and, but for
the tolling of a convent bell by some unseen hand, its appearance
was altogether inhuman. We halted for the night near Pyrnes. This
little town, and the few wretched inhabitants who had been induced to
remain in it, under the faithless promises of the French generals,
showed fearful signs of a late visit from a barbarous and merciless
foe. Young women were lying in their houses brutally violated--the
streets were strewn with broken furniture, intermixed with the
putrid carcasses of murdered peasants, mules, and donkeys, and
every description of filth, that filled the air with pestilential
nausea. The few starved male inhabitants who were stalking amid the
wreck of their friends and property, looked like so many skeletons
who had been permitted to leave their graves for the purpose of
taking vengeance on their oppressors, and the mangled body of every
Frenchman who was unfortunate or imprudent enough to stray from his
column showed how religiously they performed their mission.
"_March 8._--We overtook their rearguard this evening, snugly put
up for the night in a little village, the name of which I do not
recollect, but a couple of six-pounders, supported by a few of our
rifles, induced them to extend their walk.
"_March 11._--As it is possible that some of my readers might never
have had the misfortune to experience the comforts of a bivouac, and
as the one which I am now in contains but a small quantity of sleep,
I shall devote a waking hour for their edification.
"When a regiment arrives at its ground for the night it is formed in
columns of companies at full, half, or quarter distance, according
to the space which circumstances will permit it to occupy. The
officer commanding each company then receives his orders; and,
after communicating whatever may be necessary to the men, he desires
them to 'pile arms, and make themselves comfortable for the night.'
Now, I pray thee, most sanguine reader, suffer not thy fervid
imagination to transport thee into Elysian fields at the pleasing
exhortation conveyed in the concluding part of the captain's address,
but rest thee contentedly in the one where it is made, which in
all probability is a ploughed one, and that, too, in a state of
preparation to take a model of thy very beautiful person, under the
melting influence of a shower of rain. The soldiers of each company
have a hereditary claim to the ground next to their arms, as have
their officers to a wider range on the same line, limited to the end
of a bugle sound, if not by a neighbouring corps, or one that is
not neighbourly, for the nearer a man is to his enemy the nearer he
likes to be to his friends. Suffice it, that each individual knows
his place as well as if he had been born on the estate, and takes
immediate possession accordingly. In a ploughed or a stubble field
there is scarcely a choice of quarters; but whenever there is a
sprinkling of trees it is always an object to secure a good one, as
it affords shelter from the sun by day and the dews by night, besides
being a sort of home or signpost for a group of officers, as denoting
the best place of entertainment; for they hang their spare clothing
and accoutrements among the branches, barricade themselves on each
side with their saddles, canteens, and portmanteaus, and, with a
blazing fire in their front, they indulge, according to their various
humours, in a complete state of gipsyfication.
"There are several degrees of comfort to be reckoned in a bivouac,
two of which will suffice.
"The first, and worst, is to arrive at the end of a cold, wet
day, too dark to see your ground, and too near the enemy to be
permitted to unpack the knapsacks or to take off accoutrements;
where, unencumbered with baggage or eatables of any kind, you have
the consolation of knowing that things are now at their worst, and
that any change must be for the better. You keep yourself alive for
a while in collecting material to feed your fire with. You take a
smell at your empty calabash, which recalls to your remembrance the
delicious flavour of its last drop of wine. You curse your servant
for not having contrived to send you something or other from the
baggage (though you know that it was impossible). You then d---- the
enemy for being so near you, though, probably, as in the present
instance, it was you that came so near them. And, finally, you take
a whiff at the end of a cigar, if you have one, and keep grumbling
through the smoke, like distant thunder through a cloud, until you
tumble into a most warlike sleep.
"The next, and most common one, is when you are not required to look
quite so sharp, and when the light baggage and provisions come in at
the heel of the regiment. If it is early in the day, the first thing
to be done is to make some tea, the most sovereign restorative for
jaded spirits. We then proceed to our various duties. The officers
of each company form a mess of themselves. One remains in camp to
attend to the duties of the regiment; a second attends to the mess;
he goes to the regimental butcher and bespeaks a portion of the only
purchasable commodities--hearts, livers, and kidneys; and also to see
whether he cannot do the commissary out of a few extra biscuits, or a
canteen of brandy; and the remainder are gentlemen at large for the
day. But while they go hunting among the neighbouring regiments for
news, and the neighbouring houses for curiosity, they have always an
eye to their mess, and omit no opportunity of adding to the general
stock.
"Dinner-hour, for fear of accident, is always the hour when dinner
can be got ready; and the 14th section of the articles of war is
always most rigidly attended to by every good officer parading
himself round the camp-kettle at the time fixed, with his haversack
in his hand. A haversack on service is a sort of dumb waiter. The
mess have a good many things in common, but the contents of the
haversack are exclusively the property of its owner.
"After doing justice to the dinner, if we feel in a humour for
additional society, we transfer ourselves to some neighbouring mess,
taking our cups and whatever we mean to drink along with us, for in
those times there is nothing to be expected from our friends beyond
the pleasure of their conversation; and, finally, we retire to rest.
To avoid inconvenience by the tossing off of the bed-clothes, each
officer has a blanket sewed up at the side, like a sack, into which
he scrambles, and, with a green sod or a smooth stone for a pillow,
composes himself to sleep, and, under such a glorious reflecting
canopy as the heavens, it would be a subject of mortification to an
astronomer to see the celerity with which he tumbles into it. Habit
gives endurance, and fatigue is the best nightcap; no matter that the
veteran's countenance is alternately stormed with torrents of rain,
heavy dews, and hoar-frosts; no matter that his ears are assailed
by a million mouths of chattering locusts, and by some villainous
donkey, who every half-hour pitches a bray note, which is instantly
taken up by every mule and donkey in the army, and sent echoing from
regiment to regiment, over hill and valley, until it dies away in the
distance; no matter that the scorpion is lurking beneath his pillow,
the snake winding is slimy way by his side, and the lizard galloping
over his face, wiping his eyes with its long, cold tail.
"All are unheeded, until the warning voice of the brazen instrument
sounds to arms. Strange it is that the ear which is impervious to
what would disturb the rest of the world besides, should alone be
alive to one, and that, too, a sound which is likely to soothe the
sleep of the citizens, or at most to set them dreaming of their
loves. But so it is. The first note of the melodious bugle places
the soldier on his legs, like lightning; when, muttering a few curses
at the unseasonableness of the hour, he plants himself on his alarm
post, without knowing or caring about the cause.
"Such is a bivouac; and our sleep-breaker having just sounded, the
reader will find what occurred by reading on.
"_March 12._--We stood to our arms before daylight. Finding that
the enemy had quitted the position in our front, we proceeded to
follow them; and had not gone far before we heard the usual morning's
salutation of a couple of shots between their rear and our advanced
guard. On driving in their outposts, we found their whole army drawn
out on the plain, near Redinha, and instantly quarrelled with them on
a large scale."
Here is a picture of one of the almost constant skirmishes which marked
Wellington's advance and Massena's slow and stubborn retreat:--
"As everybody has read 'Waverley' and the 'Scottish Chiefs,' and
knows that one battle is just like another, inasmuch as they always
conclude by one or both sides running away, and as it is nothing to
me what this or t'other regiment did, nor do I care three buttons
what this or t'other person thinks he did, I shall limit all my
descriptions to such events as immediately concerned the important
personage most interested in this history.
"Be it known, then, that I was one of a crowd of skirmishers who
were enabling the French ones to carry the news of their own defeat
through a thick wood at an infantry canter when I found myself all
at once within a few yards of one of their regiments in line, which
opened such a fire that had I not, rifleman-like, taken instant
advantage of the cover of a good fir-tree, my name would have
unquestionably been transmitted to posterity by that night's gazette.
And however opposed it may be to the usual system of drill, I will
maintain, from that day's experience, that the cleverest method of
teaching a recruit to stand at attention is to place him behind a
tree and fire balls at him; as had our late worthy disciplinarian,
Sir David Dundas himself, been looking on, I think that even he must
have admitted that he never saw any one stand so fiercely upright as
I did behind mine, while the balls were rapping into it as fast as
if a fellow had been hammering a nail on the opposite side, not to
mention the numbers that were whistling past within the eighth of an
inch of every part of my body, both before and behind, particularly
in the vicinity of my nose, for which the upper part of the tree
could barely afford protection.
"This was a last and a desperate stand made by their rearguard, for
their own safety, immediately above the town, as their sole chance
of escape depended upon their being able to hold the post until the
only bridge across the river was clear of the other fugitives. But
they could not hold it long enough; for, while we were undergoing
a temporary sort of purgatory in their front, our comrades went
working round their flanks, which quickly sent them flying, with us
intermixed, at full cry down the streets.
"When we reached the bridge, the scene became exceedingly
interesting, for it was choked up by the fugitives, who were, as
usual, impeding each other's progress, and we did not find that
the application of our swords to those nearest to us tended at all
towards lessening their disorder, for it induced about a hundred
of them to rush into an adjoining house for shelter, but that was
getting regularly out of the frying-pan into the fire, for the house
happened to be really in flames, and too hot to hold them, so that
the same hundred were quickly seen unkennelling again, half-cooked,
into the very jaws of their consumers.
"John Bull, however, is not a bloodthirsty person, so that those who
could not better themselves, had only to submit to a simple transfer
of personal property to ensure his protection. We, consequently,
made many prisoners at the bridge, and followed their army about a
league beyond it, keeping up a flying fight until dark.
"_March 13._--Arrived on the hill above Condacia in time to see that
handsome little town in flames. Every species of barbarity continued
to mark the enemy's retreating steps. They burnt every town or
village through which they passed, and if we entered a church which,
by accident, had been spared, it was to see the murdered bodies of
the peasantry on the altar.
* * * * *
"Our post that night was one of terrific grandeur. The hills behind
were in a blaze of light with the British camp-fires, as were those
in our front with the French ones. Both hills were abrupt and lofty,
not above eight hundred yards asunder, and we were in the burning
village in the valley beyond. The roofs of houses every instant
falling in, and the sparks and flames ascending to the clouds.
The streets were strewed with the dying and the dead,--some had
been murdered and some killed in action, which, together with the
half-famished wretches whom we had saved from burning, contributed in
making it a scene which was well calculated to shake a stout heart,
as was proved in the instance of one of our sentries, a well-known
'devil-may-care' sort of fellow. I know not what appearances the
burning rafters might have reflected on the neighbouring trees at the
time, but he had not been long on his post before he came running
into the piquet, and swore, by all the saints in the calendar, that
he saw six dead Frenchmen advancing upon him with hatchets over their
shoulders!
"We found by the buttons on the coats of some of the fallen foe,
that we had this day been opposed to the French 95th Regiment (the
same number as we were then), and I cut off several of them, which I
preserved as trophies."
Here is another picture of a brilliant skirmish at the passage of the
Ceira. In this combat Wellington showed himself keener in vision and
swifter in stroke than Ney, and inflicted on that general both disgrace
and loss. Ney was, as a result, relieved of his command of the French
rearguard, and sent to France under something like a cloud. Here he
joined Napoleon, and took part in the perils and horrors of the Russian
campaign--once more, there, commanding a French rearguard in retreat:--
"_March 15._--We overtook the enemy a little before dark this
afternoon. They were drawn up behind the Ceira, at Fez d'Aronce,
with their rearguard, under Marshal Ney, imprudently posted on
our side of the river, a circumstance which Lord Wellington took
immediate advantage of; and, by a furious attack, dislodged them in
such confusion that they blew up the bridge before half of their own
people had time to get over. Those who were thereby left behind,
not choosing to put themselves to the pain of being shot, took to
the river, which received them so hospitably that few of them ever
quitted it.
"About the middle of the action, I observed some inexperienced light
troops rushing up a deep roadway to certain destruction, and ran to
warn them out of it, but I only arrived in time to partake the reward
of their indiscretion, for I was instantly struck with a musket-ball
above the left ear, which deposited me at full length in the mud.
"I know not how long I lay insensible, but, on recovering, my first
feeling was for my head, to ascertain if any part of it was still
standing, for it appeared to me as if nothing remained above the
mouth; but, after repeated applications of all my fingers and thumbs
to the doubtful parts, I at length proved to myself satisfactorily,
that it had rather increased than diminished by the concussion; and
jumping on my legs, and hearing, by the whistling of the balls from
both sides, that the rascals who had got me into the scrape had been
driven back and left me there, I snatched my cap, which had saved my
life, and which had been spun off my head to the distance of ten or
twelve yards, and joined them a short distance in the rear, when one
of them, a soldier of the 60th, came and told me that an officer of
ours had been killed a short time before, pointing to the spot where
I myself had fallen, and that he had tried to take his jacket off,
but that the advance of the enemy had prevented him. I told him that
I was the one that had been killed, and that I was deucedly obliged
to him for his kind intentions, while I felt still more so to the
enemy for their timely advance, otherwise, I have no doubt, but my
friend would have taken a fancy to my trousers also, for I found that
he had absolutely unbuttoned my jacket.
"There is nothing so gratifying to frail mortality as a good dinner
when most wanted and least expected. It was perfectly dark before
the action finished, but, on going to take advantage of the fires
which the enemy had evacuated, we found their soup kettles in full
operation, and every man's mess of biscuit lying beside them, in
stockings, as was the French mode of carrying them; and it is
needless to say how unceremoniously we proceeded to do the honours of
the feast. It ever after became a saying among the soldiers, whenever
they were on short allowance, 'Well d-- my eyes, we must either fall
in with the French or the commissary to-day, I don't care which.'
"_March 19._--We, this day, captured the aide-de-camp of General
Loison, together with his wife, who was dressed in a splendid hussar
uniform. He was a Portuguese, and a traitor, and looked very like a
man who would be hanged. She was a Spaniard, and very handsome, and
looked very like a woman who would get married again.
"_March 20._--We had now been three days without anything in the
shape of bread, and meat without it after a time becomes almost
loathsome. Hearing that we were not likely to march quite so early
as usual this morning, I started before daylight to a village about
two miles off, in the face of the Sierra d'Estrella, in the hopes
of being able to purchase something, as it lay out of the hostile
line of movements. On my arrival there, I found some nuns who had
fled from a neighbouring convent, waiting outside the building of
the village oven for some Indian-corn leaven, which they had carried
there to be baked, and, when I explained my pressing wants, two of
them, very kindly, transferred me their shares, for which I gave
each a kiss and a dollar between. They took the former as an unusual
favour; but looked at the latter, as much as to say, 'Our poverty,
and not our will, consents.' I ran off with my half-baked dough, and
joined my comrades, just as they were getting under arms.
"_March 31._--At daylight, this morning, we moved to our right, along
the ridge of mountains, to Guarda; on our arrival there, we saw the
imposing spectacle of the whole of the French army winding through
the valley below, just out of gunshot. On taking possession of one of
the villages which they had just evacuated, we found the body of a
well-dressed female, whom they had murdered by a horrible refinement
in cruelty. She had been placed upon her back, alive, in the middle
of the street, with the fragment of a rock upon her breast, which it
required four of our men to remove.
"_April 1._--We overtook the enemy this afternoon in position behind
Coa, at Sabugal, with their advanced posts on our side of the river.
I was sent on piquet for the night, and had my sentries within half
musket-shot of theirs; it was wet, dark, and stormy when I went,
about midnight, to visit them, and I was not a little annoyed to find
one missing. Recollecting who he was, a steady old soldier, and the
last man in the world to desert his post, I called his name aloud,
when his answering voice, followed by the discharge of a musket,
reached me nearly at the same time, from the direction of one of the
French sentries; and, after some inquiry, I found that, in walking
his lonely round, in a brown study, no doubt, he had each turn taken
ten or twelve paces to his front, and only half that number to the
rear, until he had gradually worked himself up to within a few yards
of his adversary; and it would be difficult to say which of the two
was most astonished--the one at hearing a voice, or the other a shot
so near, but all my rhetoric, aided by the testimony of the sergeant
and the other sentries, could not convince the fellow that he was not
on the identical spot on which I had posted him."
On April 3, 1811, was fought the battle of Sabugal, which is told
elsewhere. We take up Kincaid's sketches of a soldier's bivouac and
marching experiences after Fuentes, during the pause while Ciudad
Rodrigo was being blockaded:--
"Our battalion occupied Atalya, a little village at the foot of
the Sierra de Gata, and in front of the river Vadilla. On taking
possession of my quarter, the people showed me an outhouse, which,
they said, I might use as a stable, and I took my horse into it,
but, seeing the floor strewed with what appeared to be a small brown
seed, heaps of which lay in each corner, as if shovelled together in
readiness to take to market, I took up a handful, out of curiosity,
and truly, they were a curiosity, for I found that they were all
regular fleas, and that they were proceeding to eat both me and my
horse, without the smallest ceremony. I rushed out of the place, and
knocked them down by fistfuls, and never yet could comprehend the
cause of their congregating together in such a place."
Marmont, who now commanded the French army, charged with the defence
of Ciudad Rodrigo, advanced, towards the end of September, for its
relief, and Wellington at once fell back. Kincaid's cheerful spirits
can extract fun out of even a night march and a retreat!
"About the middle of the night we received an order to stand to our
arms with as little noise as possible, and to commence retiring,
the rest of the army having been already withdrawn, unknown to us;
an instance of the rapidity and uncertainty of our movements which
proved fatal to the liberty of several amateurs and followers of
the army, who, seeing an army of sixty thousand men lying asleep
around their camp-fires, at ten o'clock at night, naturally concluded
that they might safely indulge in a bed in the village behind until
daylight, without the risk of being caught napping; but, long ere
that time they found themselves on the high-road to Ciudad Rodrigo,
in the rude grasp of an enemy. Amongst others, was the chaplain of
our division, whose outward man conveyed no very exalted notion
of the respectability of his profession, and who was treated with
greater indignity than usually fell to the lot of prisoners, for,
after keeping him a couple of days, and finding that, however gifted
he might have been in spiritual lore, he was as ignorant as Dominie
Sampson on military matters; and, conceiving good provisions to be
thrown away upon him, they stripped him nearly naked and dismissed
him, like the barber in 'Gil Blas,' with a kick in the breech, and
sent him into us in a woeful state.
"In every interval between our active services we indulged in all
manner of childish trick and amusement with an avidity and delight of
which it is impossible to convey an adequate idea. We lived united,
as men always are who are daily staring death in the face on the same
side, and who, caring little about it, look upon each new day added
to their lives as one more to rejoice in.
"We invited the villagers every evening to a dance at our quarters
alternately. A Spanish peasant girl has an address about her which I
have never met with in the same class of any other country; and she
at once enters into society with the ease and confidence of one who
had been accustomed to it all her life. We used to flourish away at
the bolero, fandango, and waltz, and wound up early in the evening
with a supper of roasted chestnuts.
"Our village belles, as already stated, made themselves perfectly at
home in our society, and we, too, should have enjoyed theirs for a
season; but when month after month and year after year continued to
roll along, without producing any change, we found that the cherry
cheek and sparkling eye of rustic beauty furnished but a very poor
apology for the illuminated portion of Nature's fairest works, and
ardently longed for an opportunity of once more feasting our eyes on
a lady."
After the glory of Salamanca came, by way of anti-climax, the
inglorious failure at Burgos. Kincaid's battalion took part in the
toils and suffering of the retreat from Burgos. There is no note of
grumbling in his tale. Yet seldom has an army suffered more than
during those bitter November days, when Wellington's soldiers, with
the discouraging memory of the failure at Burgos chilling their
imaginations, toiled in retreat along muddy roads, across swollen
rivers, through blinding and incessant rain, almost without food; while
fiercely on their rear hung the pursuing French cavalry. Wellington
made a brief halt on November 14 at Salamanca, and we take up Kincaid's
story at this point:--
"_November 7._--Halted this night at Alba de Tormes, and next day
marched into quarters in Salamanca, where we rejoined Lord Wellington
with the army from Burgos.
"On the 14th the British army concentrated on the field of their
former glory, in consequence of a part of the French army having
effected the passage of the river above Alba de Tormes. On the 15th
the whole of the enemy's force having passed the river a cannonade
commenced early in the day; and it was the general belief that, ere
night, a second battle of Salamanca would be recorded. But as all the
French armies in Spain were now united in our front, and outnumbered
us so far, Lord Wellington, seeing no decided advantage to be gained
by risking a battle, at length ordered a retreat, which we commenced
about three in the afternoon. Our division halted for the night at
the entrance of a forest about four miles from Salamanca.
"The heavy rains which usually precede the Spanish winter had set in
the day before; and as the roads in that part of the country cease to
be roads for the remainder of the season, we were now walking nearly
knee-deep in a stiff mud, into which no man could thrust his foot
with the certainty of having a shoe at the end of it when he pulled
it out again; and that we might not be miserable by halves, we had
this evening to regale our chops with the last morsel of biscuit that
they were destined to grind during the retreat.
"We cut some boughs of trees to keep us out of the mud, and lay
down to sleep on them, wet to the skin; but the cannonade of the
afternoon had been succeeded after dark by a continued firing of
musketry, which led us to believe that our piquets were attacked,
and, in momentary expectation of an order to stand to our arms, we
kept ourselves awake the whole night, and were not a little provoked
when we found next morning that it had been occasioned by numerous
stragglers from the different regiments shooting at the pigs
belonging to the peasantry, which were grazing in the wood.
"_November 16._--Retiring from daylight until dark through the same
description of roads. The French dragoons kept close behind, but did
not attempt to molest us. It still continued to rain hard, and we
again passed the night in a wood. I was very industriously employed
during the early part of it feeling, in the dark, for acorns as a
substitute for bread.
"_November 17._--We were much surprised in the course of the forenoon
to hear a sharp firing commence behind us on the very road by which
we were retiring; and it was not until we reached the spot that we
learnt that the troops, who were retreating by a road parallel to
ours, had left it too soon, and enabled some French dragoons, under
cover of the forest, to advance unperceived to the flank of our line
of march, who, seeing an interval between two divisions of infantry,
which was filled with light baggage and some passing officers, dashed
at it and made some prisoners in the scramble of the moment, amongst
whom was Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Paget.
"Our division formed on the heights above Samunoz to cover the
passage of the rivulet, which was so swollen with the heavy rains,
as only to be passable at particular fords. While we waited there
for the passage of the rest of the army, the enemy, under cover of
the forest, was, at the same time, assembling in force close around
us; and the moment that we began to descend the hill, towards the
rivulet, we were assailed by a heavy fire of cannon and musketry,
while their powerful cavalry were in readiness to take advantage of
any confusion which might have occurred. We effected the passage,
however, in excellent order, and formed on the opposite bank of the
stream, where we continued under a cannonade and engaged in a sharp
skirmish until dark.
"When the firing ceased, we received the usual order 'to make
ourselves comfortable for the night,' and I never remember an
instance in which we had so much difficulty in obeying it; for the
ground we occupied was a perfect flat, which was flooded more than
ankle-deep with water, excepting here and there, where the higher
ground around the roots of trees presented circles of a few feet of
visible earth, upon which we grouped ourselves. Some few fires were
kindled, at which we roasted some bits of raw beef on the points of
our swords, and ate them by way of a dinner. There was plenty of
water to apologise for the want of better fluids, but bread sent no
apology at all.
"It made my very heart rejoice to see my brigadier's servant commence
boiling some chocolate and frying a beef-steak. I watched its
progress with a keenness which intense hunger alone could inspire,
and was on the very point of having my desires consummated, when the
general, getting uneasy at not having received any communication
relative to the movements of the morning, and, without considering
how feelingly my stomach yearned for a better acquaintance with the
contents of his frying-pan, desired me to ride to General Alten
for orders. I found the general at a neighbouring tree; but he cut
off all hopes of my timely return, by desiring me to remain with
him until he received the report of an officer whom he had sent to
ascertain the progress of the other divisions.
"While I was toasting myself at his fire, so sharply set that I could
have eaten one of my boots, I observed his German orderly dragoon
at an adjoining fire stirring up the contents of a camp-kettle,
that once more revived my departing hopes, and I presently had the
satisfaction of seeing him dipping in some basins, presenting one to
the general, one to the aide-de-camp, and a third to myself. The mess
which it contained I found, after swallowing the whole at a draught,
was neither more nor less than the produce of a piece of beef boiled
in plain water; and though it would have been enough to have
physicked a dromedary at any other time, yet, as I could then have
made a good hole in the dromedary himself, it sufficiently satisfied
my cravings to make me equal to anything for the remainder of the day.
"On November 19 we arrived at the convent of Caridad, near Ciudad
Rodrigo, and once more experienced the comforts of our baggage and
provisions. My boots had not been off since the 13th, and I found it
necessary to cut them to pieces to get my swollen feet out of them.
"Up to this period Lord Wellington had been adored by the army, in
consideration of his brilliant achievements, and for his noble and
manly bearing in all things; but, in consequence of some disgraceful
irregularities which took place during the retreat, he immediately
after issued an order conveying a sweeping censure on the whole army.
His general conduct was too upright for even the finger of malice
itself to point at; but as his censure on this occasion was not
strictly confined to the guilty, it afforded a handle to disappointed
persons, and excited a feeling against him on the part of individuals
which has probably never since been obliterated.
"It began by telling us that we had suffered no privations; and,
though this was hard to be digested on an empty stomach, yet, taking
it in its more liberal meaning, that our privations were not of an
extent to justify any irregularities, which I readily admit; still,
as many regiments were not guilty of any irregularities, it is not
to be wondered if such should have felt at first a little sulky to
find, in the general reproof, that no loop-hole whatever had been
left for them to creep through; for, I believe I am justified in
saying that neither our own, nor the two gallant corps associated
with us, had a single man absent that we could not satisfactorily
account for. But it touched us still more tenderly in not excepting
us from his general charge of inexpertness in camp arrangements;
for it was our belief, and in which we were in some measure borne
out by circumstances, that had he placed us at the same moment in
the same field with an equal number of the best troops in France,
that he would not only have seen our fires as quickly lit, but every
Frenchman roasting on them to the bargain, if they waited long enough
to be dressed, for there perhaps never was, nor ever again will be,
such a war-brigade as that which was composed of the 43rd, 52nd, and
the Rifles."
1812 found the Rifles once more taking part in marches which taxed the
endurance of the soldiers to the uttermost; but this time the temper of
the troops was gay and exultant in the highest degree. They were taking
part in the great movement which thrust the French back to Vittoria.
The elation of coming and assured victory was in the soldiers' blood.
The Rifles, after days of toilsome marches through wild and mountainous
country, at last reached the fruitful valley of the Ebro. Here is a
pleasant campaign scene:--
"We started at daylight on June 15, through a dreary region of solid
rock, bearing an abundant crop of loose stones, without a particle
of soil or vegetation visible to the naked eye in any direction.
After leaving nearly twenty miles of this horrible wilderness behind
us, our weary minds clogged with an imaginary view of nearly as much
more of it in our front, we found ourselves all at once looking down
upon the valley of the Ebro, near the village of Arenas, one of the
richest, loveliest, and most romantic spots that I ever beheld. The
influence of such a scene on the mind can scarcely be believed. Five
minutes before we were all as lively as stones. In a moment we were
all fruits and flowers; and many a pair of legs, that one would have
thought had not a kick left in them, were, in five minutes after,
seen dancing across the bridge to the tune of 'The Downfall of
Paris,' which struck up from the bands of the different regiments.
"I lay down that night in a cottage garden, with my head on a melon,
and my eye on a cherry-tree, and resigned myself to a repose which
did not require a long courtship.
"We resumed our march at daybreak on the 16th. The road, in the
first instance, wound through orchards and luxurious gardens,
and then closed in to the edge of the river, through a difficult
and formidable pass, where the rocks on each side, arising to a
prodigious height, hung over each other in fearful grandeur, and in
many places nearly met together over our heads.
"After following the course of the river for nearly two miles, the
rocks on each side gradually expanded into another valley, lovely as
the one we had left, and where we found the fifth division of our
army lying encamped. They were still asleep; and the rising sun, and
a beautiful morning, gave additional sublimity to the scene; for
there was nothing but the tops of the white tents peeping above the
fruit trees; and an occasional sentinel pacing his post, that gave
any indication of what a nest of hornets the blast of a bugle could
bring out of that apparently peaceful solitude.
"We were welcomed into every town or village through which we passed
by the peasant girls, who were in the habit of meeting us with
garlands of flowers, and dancing before us in a peculiar style of
their own; and it not unfrequently happened, that while they were
so employed with one regiment, the preceding one was diligently
engaged in pulling down some of their houses for firewood, a measure
which we were sometimes obliged to have recourse to, where no other
fuel could be had, and for which they were ultimately paid by the
British Government; but it was a measure that was more likely to have
set the poor souls dancing mad than for joy, had they foreseen the
consequences of our visit."
At this stage the march brought the British into actual contact with
the enemy, and there ensued much brisk skirmishing, in which the Rifles
found huge enjoyment:--
"On the morning of the 18th, we were ordered to march to San Milan, a
small town, about two leagues off; and where, on our arrival on the
hill above it, we found a division of French infantry, as strong as
ourselves, in the act of crossing our path. The surprise, I believe,
was mutual, though I doubt whether the pleasure was equally so; for
we were red-hot for an opportunity of retaliating for the Salamanca
retreat; and, as the old saying goes, 'There is no opportunity
like the present.' Their leading brigade had nearly passed before
we came up, but not a moment was lost after we did. Our battalion
dispersing among the brushwood, went down the hill upon them; and,
with a destructive fire, broke through their line of march, supported
by the rest of the brigade. Those that had passed made no attempt
at a stand, but continued their flight, keeping up as good a fire
as their circumstances would permit; while we kept hanging on their
flank and rear, through a good rifle country, which enabled us to
make considerable havoc among them. Their general's aide-de-camp,
amongst others, was mortally wounded; and a lady, on a white horse,
who probably was his wife, remained beside him, until we came very
near. She appeared to be in great distress; but, though we called to
her to remain, and not to be alarmed, yet she galloped off as soon as
a decided step became necessary. The object of her solicitude did not
survive many minutes after we reached him."