On the night of March 5 it was ascertained that Massena had evacuated
his position at Santarem, and had commenced a retreat, and the Light
Division were ordered immediately in pursuit; and at three in the
morning on the 6th they marched. The 1st Battalion, being in advance,
on crossing the bridge came upon the dummy straw sentries (the old
trick of the retreating enemy), and pushing on, arrived at Santarem
at midday. This was found quite deserted; and after an hour’s halt
the Riflemen resumed their march, and that night occupied Pernes.
On the 7th they followed the retreating enemy to Torres Novas; and
halted at night at Arga and La Marosa. Starting at daybreak on
the 8th, the Riflemen first caught sight towards evening of the
enemy’s rear-guard, which occupied the village of Paialvo. The 1st
Battalion were at once ordered to dislodge them, which, with the
help of a couple of 6-pounders, they did very speedily. On the 9th
they advanced early, and after five hours’ march came up with the
enemy’s rear-guard at the junction of the roads from Leiria and
Lisbon and that to Coimbra. Here a large body of cavalry was posted,
and infantry in force was halted in rear. An advanced squadron of
the 11th _Grenadiers à Cheval_ was charged by the German hussars,
and some prisoners taken by them and the Royal Dragoons. About
40 prisoners, mostly stragglers, also fell into the hands of the
Riflemen.
During these marches O’Hare’s company were pushed forward, by
mounting them behind the dragoons, and were on the 9th engaged all
day in skirmishing; but without any loss.
On the 10th, the enemy having shown himself in great strength, in
order to check the advance and to take up a position, the Battalion
retired about half a league, and bivouacked in a pine-wood. On
moving forward on the 11th it was found that the French had taken
up a strong position at Pombal, occupying the old castle situated
on an eminence and the town with infantry; the rest of their force
being posted on the heights behind the town. Two companies of the
1st Battalion, O’Hare’s and another, with Elder’s Caçadores, dashed
over the bridge leading to the town, and found the enemy in some
houses near the bridge, from which they kept up a brisk fire; which
the Riflemen, entering the opposite houses, returned for some time.
Till at last Sergeant Fleming and a few men rushed into one of
the houses held by the enemy and made several prisoners. Then the
Riflemen drove them out of the houses. Lieutenant Hopwood, as he was
entering one of them, got a bad wound in the thigh; pushing on they
carried the castle, the key of the position; and pursuing the enemy,
after some sharp fighting with their voltigeurs, who obstinately
disputed ground which from its nature was very defensible, drove them
completely out of Pombal. But continuing their pursuit too far, some
were taken prisoners, and others escaped with difficulty. The combat
continued till dark, which fell before Lord Wellington could bring up
a sufficient body of troops to make a general attack. After this hard
day’s fighting the Battalion bivouacked in a ploughed field, exposed
to torrents of rain.
In this skirmish the two companies captured a grey horse, which
carried the baggage of Colonel Soult, the nephew of the Marshal; and
the contents were sold by auction by the captors in the bivouack;
except his medals, which the men presented to Captain O’Hare, whose
company had been actively engaged.
They stood to their arms before daylight, and found that the enemy
had retired in the night. They immediately followed; and found the
enemy posted in front of the town of Redinha; his right protected
by some wooded heights; his left resting on the river Soure beyond
Redinha, and well protected by ravines. In front was a large plain,
which, when the Riflemen emerged from the defile leading to it, they
found occupied by large bodies of troops. It was a bright Spring day,
and the sight of the one army advancing over the plain the other
in position on it, was splendid. The woods on the right of the
position were immediately attacked by the left wing (four companies)
of the 95th, under Major Stewart, which carried them and cleared
them from the enemy in gallant style. This enabled Lord Wellington
to form his line in front of the defile. At the same time the left
of the position was attacked by the right wing of the 95th, under
Major Gilmour, while the other regiments of the Light Division
supported their attacks. The French rear-guard made gallant attempts
to check their advance; but after a stubborn resistance they were
driven through the town of Redinha and over the bridge; the Riflemen
pressing them so hard, that they and the flying enemy passed over
mixed together. Many of the enemy were forced over the battlements of
the bridge; many threw themselves over to escape from their pursuers;
and not a few were slain in the hand-to-hand fight on the bridge. On
passing the bridge the rear-guard attempted to form on the height
beyond; but the Light Division allowed them no respite, and they
were driven towards Condeixa. The enemy’s guns occasionally gave our
skirmishers some discharges of grape; but they pressed on till dark,
when they were recalled, and bivouacked for the night on a height;
the French army in the valley beneath, and the advanced sentries not
more than two hundred yards from each other.
On this day Lieutenants Robert Beckwith and Chapman, of the 1st
Battalion, were wounded; and of the 2nd Battalion, 4 rank and file
were killed, and 9 wounded.
Lord Wellington, in his despatch, highly praises the conduct of the
Regiment on this day, specially naming Majors Gilmour and Stewart;
and in reference to driving the enemy’s right out of the wood, he
says: ‘I have never seen the French infantry driven from a wood in a
more gallant style;’[92] but by some mistake in Sir William Erskine’s
report, he gives the credit of this exploit to the 52nd, while it
was really performed, ‘to the admiration of the whole army,’ by four
companies of the 1st Battalion.[93]
After some of the 1st Battalion skirmishers had towards evening
driven the French before them, the officer commanding the latter held
up his sword with a white handkerchief tied to it; and on coming to
a parley, he told the officer commanding the Riflemen that he thought
both parties needed some rest after a hard day’s work, and proposed a
truce for the night. To this the Riflemen agreed; and asked him and
his subalterns to share their rations. They very readily accepted the
invitation; and after a scanty dinner of ration beef, and a little
rum for beverage, they separated; one party to resume their retreat,
the other their pursuit, next morning.
Three months after, Lieutenant Fitz-Maurice of the 95th, who had
been present, was on picquet at Duas Casas, near the Agueda, when
he saw a French officer limping towards him, who saluted him as an
acquaintance. ‘_Est-ce que vous ne me reconnaissez pas?_ I was one of
your guests at Redinha. One of your men wounded me next morning. No
matter. I come now not as a spy; but we have heard that you are short
of rations; and I come, in return for your kindness, to offer you
a share of ours.’ Fitz-Maurice was too old a soldier to admit that
they were in want of supplies; though indeed they were; so, thanking
him for his proffered kindness, which he declined (with great inward
longing and regret, no doubt), they parted as good friends as they
had been on the night of the fight at Redinha.
O’Hare’s and Balvaird’s companies being on picquet, an alarm was
created by a Rifleman, Humphrey Allen, shooting a French sentry,
in the hope of finding something in his mess-tin, because his own
company had refused to share their provisions with him in consequence
of his having skulked to the rear, carrying wounded, during the day.
A general alarm took place, which brought Beckwith to the front.
On the 13th the Regiment marched to Condeixa and were left
comparatively quiet on the roadside. For while some manœuvring took
place to turn the enemy’s position, he evacuated it, having set the
town of Condeixa on fire. As Lord Wellington was superintending these
dispositions to turn the enemy’s flanks from a knoll close to the
Regiment, some French tirailleurs crept near unperceived and fired at
him and his Staff without success. Several Riflemen ran up to shoot
or capture them, but they fled on their approach.
On the 14th at dawn the Light Division advanced against the enemy,
who was posted on ground presenting many obstacles near the village
of Casal-Nova. Other divisions of the army were sent to turn the
flanks, while the Light Division attacked Ney’s centre. The ground
was much intersected with stone walls, which enabled the enemy to
dispute every foot of ground. And this Battalion was skirmishing from
early morning until night; but they drove the enemy from one post of
advantage to another in spite of many checks, and eventually Ney’s
rear-guard fell back upon the main body at Miranda de Corvo. Early in
the day a section of one of the companies was thrown forward among
the skirmishers, and some rising ground being in front, Kincaid was
ordered to take a man with him and occupy it, and to give notice of
any movements of the enemy. He and the man who accompanied him, John
Rouse, an old Rifleman, on getting to the top, ensconced themselves
behind two large stones; but every time Rouse put his rifle over the
stone to get a shot, a shower of French bullets rattled near them.
After several attempts he gave it up, observing, ‘There will be no
moving among them till this shower ceases.’ Kincaid observes that
‘this was the hardest day’s fighting he had ever known.’
As the French were retreating before our skirmishers, one man was
observed to remain behind, deliberately loading and firing. Costello
covered him and shot him. On coming up with him, a French sergeant,
who lay wounded beside him, said: ‘_Hélas! vous avez tué mon pauvre
frère._’ The cause of his having remained behind was evident; it was
in the hope of protecting his wounded brother. Costello, much to his
credit, as soon as the fighting was over, returned to look for the
brothers; both were dead, stripped by camp-followers, by whom they
had probably been murdered.
Major John Stewart was killed in this fight, and Lieutenant Strode
received wounds of which he died. Stewart was a most admirable
officer of light troops, skilful in handling them, experienced
in outpost duty, and (after Beckwith’s example), while strictly
maintaining discipline, never harassing the men with matters of
minute detail. Strode, who was also an excellent officer, always
carried a rifle in action, and in the accurate use of it he excelled.
This day’s fighting lasted till sunset, when the picquets of the 1st
Battalion occupied the village of Illama, which had been set on
fire by the French; and the officers and men of the picquets saved
many of the inhabitants and their children, who were too exhausted
from famine to extricate themselves, from perishing in their burning
houses. Some, however, were only saved from one death to die, when
brought out, from want and exhaustion. Lord Wellington, in his
despatch, specially mentions the conduct of the Regiment and the
names of Colonel Beckwith and Majors Gilmour and Stewart.
The Battalion on going over the field after the action found that
they had been opposed by the French 95th Regiment; and many buttons
with that number were cut off the coats of the killed and preserved
as trophies.
On the morning of the 15th a thick fog prevented the army starting
early in pursuit. When it cleared it was found that the enemy had
evacuated their position, and the Battalion passed through Miranda de
Corvo, which was in flames, having been set on fire by Marshal Ney’s
rear-guard, which had occupied it the night before.
The Battalion were halted beyond the village on a gentle slope, when
Lord Wellington rode up; and Beckwith took occasion in conversation
with him to mention that the Battalion were suffering much from
having outmarched their supplies, and that some of his men from want
and weakness had been unable to keep up. The Commander-in-Chief at
once told them that they should have the first rations that came up.
The men were just setting about cooking some provisions they had
found abandoned by the French, when they were ordered to fall in at
once and advance. The truth is that Lord Wellington on going to the
front had observed that the enemy were in a strong position behind
the river Ceira, but had committed the fatal mistake of leaving
the rear-guard under Ney in front of Foz d’Aronce on our side of
the river, here crossed only by a narrow bridge. The Battalion at
once attacked them, and after a short but hot engagement drove them
over the river. By some mistake the bridge was destroyed before
the whole of the rear-guard had passed; and these being hotly
pressed, endeavoured to cross the river, and a large number of them
were drowned in the attempt. It was almost dark before the action
commenced and it was quite dark before it was ended. The Battalion
occupied for the night the camping-ground thus suddenly vacated by
the French rear-guard, and at their camp-fires resumed the cooking of
their suppers which had been interrupted by the hasty advance from
Miranda de Corvo; or, rather, they continued the cooking begun by the
French, for they found their pots on the fire, and a good supply of
biscuit.
In this affair Lieutenant M’Cullock was severely, and Kincaid
slightly, wounded. The general orders of the 16th contain, besides
expressions of approbation and thanks to the army in general,
the following clause: ‘The Commander of the Forces requests the
Commanding Officers of the 43rd, 52nd and 95th Regiments, to name
a sergeant of each Regiment to be recommended for promotion to
an ensigncy, as a testimony of the particular approbation of the
Commander of the Forces of these three Regiments.’[94]
In compliance with this order, Sergeant Simpson, then acting
Sergeant-Major, was recommended, and was appointed an Ensign in the
2nd (Queen’s) Regiment of Foot.
The 16th was a day of rest. The Light Division had outmarched their
supplies; the men were fatigued and weak from hunger; and the bridge
over the Ceira being destroyed Lord Wellington gave them a day’s halt.
On reaching the banks of the Ceira the Riflemen came upon a sight of
such wanton cruelty as seemed to stand out in horrid prominence in a
retreat where cruelty, rapine and slaughter were of daily occurrence.
Nearly 500 donkeys were standing in mute agony, hamstrung by the
inhuman enemy who had fled the preceding night. That they should
prevent their falling into the hands of their pursuers was natural;
that they should choose this alternative of rendering them useless,
instead of killing them, was brutal.
On the morning of the 17th the Battalion crossed the Ceira at the
ford of Alça Perna; the ford was so deep that the men with difficulty
kept their legs; and having passed it they halted on high ground
covered with wood, a little short of the Alva. The next morning
the enemy was found in a strong position on the rugged banks of
the Alva, behind the Ponte da Murcella. They had broken down the
bridge. However, the Battalion was formed up opposite the enemy,
and some 9-pounders being brought up, their fire and the advance of
the Riflemen ‘put them all in a bustle,’ to use Lord Wellington’s
characteristic language;[95] and George Simmons says he never saw
them go off in such confusion.[96] The Battalion halted on a swampy
height covered with pine-woods, and bivouacked.
On the 19th, a temporary wooden bridge having been constructed, they
crossed the Alva, and passing through Sabriera, halted for the night
in a wood of pines.
On this day, amongst many other prisoners, an Aide-de-Camp of General
Loison was taken, with a very handsome Spanish girl, dressed in a
hussar uniform, who was said to be his wife. He was a Portuguese, a
traitor to his country.
On the 20th, the Battalion advanced through Gallizes and halted in
a fir-wood near Venda Nova. Here they found quantities of carts and
waggons which had been abandoned by the enemy. On the following day
they continued their advance and halted in fir-woods near Marusa.
On the 22nd the Battalion went into houses in the town of Momenta
de Serra in consequence of the inclemency of the weather. Here, as
indeed during this whole advance, they found the dead and mutilated
bodies of the people, and heard from the survivors heartrending
accounts of the cruelties perpetrated by the retreating enemy. On the
23rd they advanced to S. Paio and bivouacked in a wood in front of
it; on the next day they marched to and were quartered in the village
of Mello, and on the 25th bivouacked in a wood near it.
During these days the Battalion was obliged to make these short
marches in order to let the supplies come up. The men and officers
suffered the greatest privation, only one ration of bread being given
out in four days, and the country behind the retreating French being
stripped of everything.
On the 26th the Battalion marched to Celorico, which the enemy had
evacuated, and halted there the next day.
On the 28th the right wing of the Battalion by a forced march reached
Avalans de Ribeira, and 100 men under Captain Charles Beckwith were
sent to dislodge a strong rear-guard of the enemy from a mill in
front of Freixadas. They found the French busily at work, grinding
corn, and soon drove them out of the mill and the village; taking
several prisoners. In this affair the Adjutant, Lieutenant James
Stewart, having dashed into the village with a few Riflemen, was
shot, from a window, through the left breast and heart. He was acting
as Brigade-Major to Colonel Beckwith, and was universally esteemed in
the Regiment. ‘It is not too much to say,’ Leach observes, ‘that no
man in any corps ever filled the situation of adjutant better than he
did, and very few half so well. He was open-hearted, manly, friendly
and independent; a most gallant and zealous officer, and much devoted
to his own Corps. He neither cringed to, nor worshipped any man,
but did his duty manfully, and with impartiality: two qualities
inestimable in adjutants. By the soldiers he was idolised, and very
justly. When his duties as adjutant did not interfere, he was amongst
the first to enter into any frolic and fun; and a more jovial soul
never existed.’[97]
On the next morning at dawn the whole of the advanced guard,
Riflemen, cavalry, and artillery, attended his funeral; and his body,
wrapped in his cloak, and deposited in a chest, was buried in front
of Colonel Beckwith’s quarter, in the village of Alverca.
The left wing of the Battalion, with the rest of the Light Division,
had on the 28th crossed the Mondego, and occupied the villages of
Baracal and Mavashal.
On the 29th the army moved forward on the front and flanks of the
strong position of Guarda, which stands perched on a high hill, and
is said to be the most elevated town in Portugal.[98] Notwithstanding
the strength of his position the enemy did not await our onset,
but moved off in the direction of Sabugal, pursued by cavalry and
artillery only. The Light Division was not now handled by the
fiery Craufurd; and the enemy escaped with the loss of barely 200
prisoners, which fell into the hands of the pursuing cavalry.
The Battalion halted in Carapeta and other villages at the foot of
the hill on which Guarda is placed.
On April 1 the Battalion marched by Adão to Pega, where they halted
about an hour in very heavy rain; and then proceeded to Quintas de
S. Bartolomeo on the banks of the Coa, and nearly opposite Sabugal,
where the 2nd Corps of the French army, under Regnier, were posted in
great force, having picquets on our side of the river.
The Battalion furnished the picquets, which were ordered to be
extremely vigilant; not to interfere with the enemy if he did not
molest them; but if attacked, to hold their post and never to quit it.
It was a very dark and stormy night, with heavy rain. George Simmons
and Kincaid were on this picquet, and the latter relates a curious
instance of the impossibility of a man’s walking quite straight in
the dark. On going to visit one of his sentries about midnight, he
found the man absent from his post. Being an excellent old soldier
he felt assured that he had not deserted, and after searching for
him in vain he called him by name. The man’s answer was instantly
followed by the discharge of a French sentinel’s musket; and it then
appeared that on every successive walk up and down his beat he had
verged nearer and nearer to the French lines, which he was close to
when called. The man, convinced that he had kept on his post, was
astounded and incredulous that he had in the pitchy darkness edged
away from it.
On the 2nd the Battalion moved towards the right, and nearer to the
bridge in front of Sabugal, and during this movement had some slight
skirmishes with the enemy’s advanced posts.
[Illustration:
ACTION AT SABUGAL
3^{RD} APRIL 1811
_Drawn by Capt^n Moorsom, C.E._
_E. Weller, lith., London_
_London: Chatto & Windus._
]
On the morning of the 3rd a thick fog hung over the banks of the Coa.
Beckwith’s Brigade of the Light Division was drawn up in close column
behind the heights on the left bank of the river (in compliance with
the disposition for the attack[99]), when a staff officer rode up and
asked him ‘why he did not cross?’ Beckwith was not the man to whom
such a question should have been addressed, nor one to hesitate in
giving a practical answer to it. He immediately ordered his brigade
to advance. Four companies (the right wing) of the 1st Battalion
led. The banks were steep and the ford at which they crossed deep,
the water nearly up to the men’s armpits. As soon as the Riflemen
had climbed the opposite bank they advanced in skirmishing order.
The officer in command of the French picquet ordered his men to
fire as they retreated. Following the picquet, they soon came upon
a regiment, and continued skirmishing till the rest of the brigade
came up. Then they pushed the enemy through a chestnut-wood and up
the hill; a blinding rain came on, and on advancing Beckwith found
himself, when the shower ceased, confronted by the whole of Regnier’s
_Corps d’Armée_. Their fire and overwhelming numbers forced back the
four companies of the Battalion on the 43rd who were in support.
Regnier followed with three strong columns; but the 43rd received
them with such a fire that they fell back, and the 43rd charging
them, drove them down the hill and into their position. Here the
enemy made a stand, and being reinforced, again obliged Beckwith to
retire. He got his Riflemen behind some walls, where he not only
held and checked the enemy, but again drove the French back and
pursued them; but on reaching their original position, Beckwith was
attacked by infantry on the left, while cavalry on the right charged
the skirmishers. A third time the handful of men were forced back
by overwhelming numbers; but now the other brigade of the Light
Division, attracted by the fire, came up; and the fog clearing off,
the 3rd Division, under Picton, which had crossed the river lower
down, came up on the enemy’s right; and the 5th Division, having
crossed the bridge, appeared debouching from the town of Sabugal;
thus reinforced, Beckwith drove the enemy at the point of the bayonet
into and through his original position, and the French retreated in
confusion. Unfortunately, Sir William Erskine with the cavalry had
lost his way in the fog, and had gone too far to the right; so that
advantage could not be taken of the loose manner in which the enemy
left the field; yet some prisoners were made.
In this action, in which, as Lord Wellington states, ‘the operations
of the day were, by unavoidable accidents, not performed in the
manner he intended they should be,’ nothing could be more daring
or more characteristic of British courage, than the way in which
Beckwith, with a handful of men (the Riflemen, Elder’s Caçadores, and
the 43rd), withstood and thrice repulsed and pursued a whole _Corps
d’Armée_ placed in a strong position. And deservedly does the great
captain go on to say that he considered ‘the action fought by Colonel
Beckwith’s brigade principally, to be one of the most glorious the
British troops were ever engaged in.’[100]
Beckwith’s own coolness and gallant bearing in it are recorded by all
the narrators of the action. When obliged by the overwhelming numbers
and fury of the French to give the order to retire, he rode among
his own Riflemen; and seeing some disposition to quicken the pace
he would say: ‘Don’t run; I did not mean that; we will go steadily,
and give them a shot as we retire.’ When he had reached his supports
and could make a stand, he faced them about, and led them forward
again, and was obeyed and followed as calmly and steadily as if he
was marching them up and down the barrack square.
In this affair Lieutenant the Hon. Duncan Arbuthnot and 1 Rifleman
were killed. Beckwith was wounded in the forehead, and had a horse
shot under him; and Second Lieutenant William Haggup and 12 rank and
file were wounded.
And of the company of the 2nd Battalion present in this action, 1 man
was killed and 2 wounded.
During the fight, as the Riflemen were driving the enemy’s
skirmishers through a chestnut-wood, a man of the 1st Battalion of
the name of Flinn, was aiming at a Frenchman, when a hare started
out of the fern with which the hill was covered. Flinn, leaving the
Frenchman, covered the hare, and fired and killed his game. On the
officer commanding the company remonstrating with him, his reply was,
‘Ah! your honour, sure we can kill a Frenchman any day; but it isn’t
always I can bag a hare for your supper.’[101]
The fight was hardly over, when the fog dissolved in torrents of
rain; and Lord Wellington, riding up at the moment, directed the
Light Division, as an express recognition of its prowess during the
day, to house themselves in the town of Sabugal. They arrived just
in time to anticipate the 5th Division, who yielded the much-coveted
shelter, not without much murmuring. Thus the Riflemen had a roof
over their heads; but the houses were mostly shared with the former
occupants, who were dying of hunger or of ill-usage.
On the next day the Light Division moved through Quadrazaes,
Valdespina, and Alfayates, and halted for the night at the frontier
village of Forcalhos.
On the 5th the Battalion marched to Albergueria (in Spain); Massena
having crossed the Agueda, and evacuated Portugal, with the exception
of a garrison in Almeida, which was immediately blockaded.
On the 8th they marched to Fuentes d’Onor, and on the next day took
up their old line of outposts on the Agueda, at Gallegos, Espeja, and
Fuentes d’Onor.
On the 10th two companies of Riflemen, consisting of 150 men, under
Captain Cameron, were detached to San Pedro near Almeida, to shoot
the cattle grazing on the glacis of that fortress. Daily until
the 15th, before dawn, they marched to near Almeida, and taking
a position among rocks, and firing at the cattle, compelled the
garrison to withdraw them. They were daily saluted with the fire of
the guns of the place, by which, on the 12th, 1 sergeant (McDonald)
was killed. At dusk they returned to San Pedro, to resume their watch
on the next morning.
On the 23rd, a force consisting of two battalions of French infantry
and a squadron of cavalry, marched by Carpio to the heights above the
bridge of Marialva, on the Azarva, and halting there, sent forward a
party to attack the picquets of the Light Division stationed at the
bridge, then furnished by the 52nd. The pass was gallantly defended;
and another company of the 52nd and some of the 1st Battalion coming
to the assistance of the picquet, the enemy were repulsed, and
retired towards Ciudad Rodrigo. Lord Wellington, in his ‘Despatches,’
mentions Lieutenant Charles Eeles as having distinguished himself on
this occasion.[102]
On the 27th the Battalion marched early in the morning from the
villages of Sesmero, Barquella and Villar de Puerco, which they
occupied, to Alameda, and thence in rear of Gallegos, on which
occasion another attack was made on the picquets, and again the enemy
were repulsed.
And again, on May 1, six squadrons of French cavalry and a column
of infantry appeared on the old ground of the heights of Carpio and
Marialva; but after making a demonstration for some hours, withdrew.
On the 2nd the French army was concentrated, and advanced with a
view evidently of raising the blockade of Almeida, or of throwing
supplies into it; and as Lord Wellington was not disposed to dispute
their advance until they approached his position at Fuentes d’Onor,
the Light Division fell back without firing a shot, and passing
through the village of Fuentes d’Onor, took post behind the village
of Alameda.
But though the 1st Battalion were not actually engaged on this
day, the company of the 3rd Battalion which was attached to the
1st Division took part in resisting the furious attack made by the
enemy’s light troops on the village of Fuentes d’Onor; Lieutenant
Uniacke was severely wounded, and 9 Riflemen were wounded.
On the evening of the 4th, the Battalion were moved to the rear of
the centre of the British position. On this day General Craufurd
rejoined from England, where he had been on leave, to the great
satisfaction of his Division, which had experienced the want of his
leading on more than one occasion during his absence.
[Illustration:
BATTLE OF FUENTES d’ONOR
5^{TH} MAY 1811
_Drawn by Capt^n Moorsom, C.E._
_E. Weller, lith., London_
_London: Chatto & Windus._
]
On the 5th took place the Battle of Fuentes d’Onor. In the morning
the Battalion was moved to the right and posted in a wood of oaks,
throwing out skirmishers in front. Here they were hotly engaged
for some time with the French skirmishers, who, however, did not
attempt to drive them through the wood; till a large body of cavalry
appearing on their right, and the French skirmishers pressing them
sharply through the wood, they were compelled to retire, as the flank
of the 7th Division being turned, they were in great danger of being
cut off. Then it was that Craufurd moved them in close column, ready
to form square in an instant had the cavalry charged them, across a
plain nearly a mile in extent. This manœuvre was executed with all
the precision and deliberateness of a field-day, while an enormous
force of hostile cavalry hovered around them, but did not dare to
charge, so formidable was their formation, and so steady their
movement; and while a furious cannonade assailed them. They marched
to that part of the position where the Guards were formed in line,
and they wheeling back a company, the Battalion marched through, and
halting in column acted as a support to that part of the position.
They were afterwards placed at a right angle to the right of the
British position, with their own right resting on the river Turones;
and getting behind and among some rocks and broken ground, they were
menaced by a large force of French infantry, which endeavoured to
push in between the 1st and 7th Divisions, but finding the position
unassailable, and being vigorously attacked by four companies of the
Battalion under Major O’Hare,[103] withdrew. Then a tremendous fire
of artillery was opened upon the Riflemen.
About two o’clock, as the enemy did not seem to threaten any further
attack on this position, the Battalion were withdrawn, and placed in
reserve in rear of the centre. Here they remained, lying down, until
near dusk, when the Battalion moved down into Fuentes d’Onor, to
relieve the troops which had been engaged there.
While the Battalion were in position near the Turones, and the French
infantry which threatened them kept out of rifle range, Flinn, whose
sporting propensities at Sabugal I have recorded, was observed to
leave the ranks, and, with his comrade, advance towards the enemy.
The officer in immediate command, fancying they were deserting, asked
the sergeant of the company what it meant. ‘Oh no, sir,’ he replied,
‘they are only gone for some amusement.’ Accordingly, ‘on nobler
game intent’ than the hares at Sabugal, after stopping to drink at
the Turones (for the May day was hot) they crept up to the French,
and taking good aim, brought down each his man. Then, putting their
caps on their rifles to receive the return fire, while they were
well under cover, they deliberately walked back, and fell into their
places in the Battalion.[104]
In this action 1 sergeant and 6 Riflemen of the 1st Battalion were
wounded; of the company of the 2nd Battalion, 2 were killed and
4 wounded; and of the company of the 3rd Battalion, attached to
Sir Brent Spencer’s Division, Lieutenant Westby and 1 private were
killed, 2 were wounded, and 1 sergeant and 1 private were missing.
Shortly after the Battalion occupied the village of Fuentes d’Onor,
the French, whose picquets were at the other side of the bridge which
spans the Duas Casas, sent over a flag of truce, with a request to be
allowed to carry off their wounded. This was of course acceded to.
Three French officers crossed the bridge, and while the wounded on
both sides were being carried off had much friendly conversation with
our officers, preceded by polite offers of ‘_une prise de tabac_.’
They were loud in their praises of the gallantry of our troops, and
presaged hard fighting on the morrow. One of them, alluding to the
name of the place, observed to George Simmons that of that ‘Fountain
of Honour’ many of their comrades and of ours had drank deep. The
wounded having been removed, they politely wished our officers ‘good
night,’ and returned to their side of the river.
They had a captain’s picquet posted near the bridge, and a strong
column of infantry near a church, and two of their sentries were at
the foot of the bridge, while ours were stationed on our side of it.
Great vigilance was necessary, and was exercised by our officers of
the picquet, in consequence of the proximity of the posts.
A man of the Battalion of the name of Tidy, a blacksmith by trade,
having found a forge in the village, set to work to shoe some of the
officers’ horses. A French grenadier, attracted by the light, crossed
the bridge, and asked to be allowed to light his pipe, and having
done so remained talking to our men. Craufurd, who had come down to
visit the picquet (Costello says to see after the shoeing of his
horse), caught sight of the red epaulette, and sternly asked ‘What
the man was doing there;’ and being informed that he only came to
light his pipe, ordered him to begone.[105]
In the course of the night the Riflemen on picquet in the village
threw up earthworks in the gardens, and a strong breastwork across
the street. Before dawn they stood to their arms, but when day broke
they found that the French did not renew the attack; nor did any
change occur in the position of the two armies until the 10th, when
it was ascertained at daybreak, by the Riflemen on picquet, that the
French had retired, leaving only a small cavalry picquet at various
points in the line of posts they had occupied. The Light Division and
cavalry pursued them; but the superiority of the enemy in cavalry,
which covered their retreat, effectually checked the pursuit; and the
Battalion bivouacked in its old quarters at Gallegos and Espeja.
On the 12th three regiments of French cavalry moved from Ciudad
Rodrigo by the heights of Carpio, and our cavalry picquets fell back,
followed by a squadron towards Espeja. Beckwith at once turned out
his brigade, and sent forward some Riflemen as skirmishers; and the
enemy retired across the Azarva with the loss of a few horses.
On the 26th, the Battalion marched to Nave d’Aver and Aldea de Ponte,
fully expecting to proceed to the Alemtejo; but the next day they
were countermanded, and resumed from the 5th Division the line of
outposts in front of Espeja, Gallegos, &c.
On June 3, Beckwith, having heard that the French cavalry were
collecting on the Agueda, and not knowing where an attack might be
made, moved his brigade before dawn out of Espeja, and occupied a
wood in rear of it; but no attack being made he returned to his
former post at noon.
On the 5th, the Light Division broke up from the line of posts
it had occupied since the battle of Fuentes d’Onor, and marching
by Aldea de Ponte, bivouacked in a wood near Alfayates. On the
next day the Battalion crossed the Coa by the very same ford near
Sabugal by which they had advanced to the fight of April 3, and
bivouacked in a neighbouring wood of chestnut-trees. The night was
very dark, and about midnight there occurred one of those strange
panics which excite the terror even of those who never flinched in
battle. Some bullocks straying among the piled arms knocked them
over. Those awakened by the crash of the falling rifles raised the
cry, ‘The French are upon us!’ In a moment all was confusion; the
officers trying to assemble their companies; even Craufurd himself,
it is said,[106] ordering the men to fall in and load; and the camp
followers flying to the rear. After a time the panic died out; and on
the morning of the 8th the Battalion marched to Memoa, and halting
there to cook, proceeded to Penamacor in the evening.
On the 9th to S. Miguel d’Arch, and halted on the 10th.
On the 11th, by some blunder of the Staff, they were ordered to
commence their march under a burning sun, and a great many men
fell out, necessitating frequent halts. By some further mistake
the baggage and supplies did not come up, and the men were without
provisions for forty hours. At night they arrived at As Caldas de
Cima, and bivouacked in a wood.
On the 12th the Battalion passed through Castello Branco, and halted
during the heat of the day at As Cornadas de Rodão, and in the
evening advanced to the pass of Villa Velha.
On the next day, crossing the Tagus by a bridge of boats, they
marched to Niza, and bivouacked in a wood; on the 14th marched to
Alpalhão, and on the following day to Portalegre, where they halted
until the 19th, when they moved to Arronches.
On the 23rd they took up their position with the army which Lord
Wellington had concentrated, encamping on a most arid plain near
Monte Raguinga on the Caya, and about three miles from Campo Major.
Here the Battalion remained for about a month, during which time
Craufurd did not allow his Division to be idle, but frequently took
it out for drill and exercise. During the time it remained here the
Battalion suffered much from the baneful climate of the Alemtejo; and
fever, ague and dysentery were rife amongst the officers and men.
To add to the discomfort of this camp, it was infested with snakes,
scorpions and other reptiles; yet it is strange that among so many
men occupying it, no fatal or serious accident ever occurred from
this nuisance, at least among the Riflemen.
At last, on July 21, they were released from the life, to them after
active service, so monotonous and every way so disagreeable; and on
that day marching about a league and a half only, bivouacked, and
on the next day marched into Portalegre. On the 23rd they proceeded
to Castello de Vide, where they occupied several quintas round the
town. Thence they marched northward by much the same route by which
they had moved to the Alemtejo, passing Niza on the 29th, and on
the next day crossing the Tagus at Villa Velha, by a pontoon bridge,
and bivouacking in an olive-grove. Thence to Castello Branco on
August 1, to Lausão on the 2nd, Bemposta on the 3rd, Mauras on the
4th, whence they moved to the neighbouring heights on the 6th, and
continued their march towards the northern frontier of Portugal on
the 7th. On the 10th the Battalion crossed the Agueda at the ford of
Vado de Carros, and occupied the villages of Martiago with the right
wing, and Langella with the left. On the 11th they started, with Lord
Wellington, to make a reconnaissance on Ciudad Rodrigo. On their
approaching it some hundred infantry with a few field-guns, came out
of the town, but did not venture beyond the protection of the guns
of the place. The reconnaissance having been effected, the Riflemen
returned to their cantonments.
During the march from the Alemtejo the men of the Battalion had
suffered much from the heat, and many of the marches had to be
performed in the evening, or before sunrise, or during the night. On
August 21 the four companies of the 3rd Battalion which had been at
Barrosa, joined the Light Division, and a fifth company, which, as
has been mentioned, was attached to Sir Brent Spencer’s Division at
his request, as a Colonel Commandant of the Regiment, also joined,
thus forming five companies of the Battalion, under the command of
Colonel Barnard. They were placed in Beckwith’s brigade of the Light
Division. About the same time another company of the 2nd Battalion,
which had embarked at Portsmouth on July 5, and had landed at Lisbon
on the 14th, under the command of Captain Hart, also joined the Light
Division.
Sickness, no doubt contracted in the Alemtejo while encamped on
the Caya, still made great ravages among the troops of the Light
Division; three officers and many men of the Regiment having died
while it occupied these cantonments on the Agueda.
At the end of August the Regiment (or at least the 1st Battalion)
marched to Villa Rejo, on the 28th to Zamarra, and on the 29th to
Atalaya.
On that evening George Simmons was sent forward with a company, and a
corporal and three men of the German hussars, with orders, by moving
through a woody country and by a circuitous route, to strike on the
road leading from Salamanca; and then to proceed at his discretion,
in order to ascertain, if possible, whether any convoy was on its way
to throw provisions into Ciudad Rodrigo. He reconnoitred Tenebrun,
and bivouacked for the night in a wood.
The next morning he moved to Boca de Carro and S. Spiritus, and
ascertained from Don Julian Sanchez’s guerillas that a convoy
had left Salamanca for Ciudad Rodrigo, but had been compelled to
return, several parties of guerillas having formed across the road
and attacked it. The company therefore returned to its quarters at
Atalaya.
On September 9, Leach with his company and one of Portuguese
Caçadores was sent over the Sierra de Gata to occupy two villages,
Las Herrias and Aldea Juella, in the heart of the mountains, to
observe some roads by which it was thought that Marmont might attempt
to move light cavalry or infantry, and to obtain information as to
the movements of the enemy. Here they remained a fortnight, daily
patrolling and reconnoitring, but unable to ascertain anything of the
enemy’s doings.
Marmont having determined to throw provisions into Ciudad Rodrigo,
assembled his whole army and crossed the mountains from Plasencia.
The Regiment, as part of the Light Division, was posted on the
heights near Horquira. The enemy’s cavalry watched them, and entered
Atalaya on September 23. Here the Riflemen remained three days;
and on the 25th the combat at El Bodon took place between the Hon.
General Colville’s brigade and the enemy’s cavalry. At this time the
Riflemen were on the right bank of the Agueda, occupying the line of
the Vadillo, a tributary flowing through a rocky channel into the
Agueda, and falling into it about three miles from Rodrigo. Their
position was a most dangerous one; for unless the troops on the left
bank of the Agueda could hold the French in check they would have
been cut off. Their safety was further endangered by the obstinacy of
Craufurd; who though he received orders to retire, and join the rest
of the army at or near Guinaldo, at two o’clock in the afternoon of
the 25th, marched only to Cespedosa, one league from the Vadillo. On
the next morning, however, at daybreak, they marched; and crossing
the Agueda by a ford, and taking a circuitous route joined the 3rd
and 4th Divisions near Guinaldo about three o’clock in the afternoon.
On that night the whole army retired, leaving the Light Division as
a rear-guard. The Riflemen having made up their fires to deceive the
enemy, and to lead them to believe that they were still in bivouack,
followed about midnight. They marched through Casillas de Flores
to Forcalhos, and were on the march during the whole of the 27th,
with the exception of a short halt. General Craufurd having remained
behind with a troop of cavalry to reconnoitre, was sharply pressed
and pursued by the enemy’s chasseurs, and came galloping into the
middle of the Riflemen with the enemy’s troopers at his heels. But
the Riflemen, throwing themselves into rocky ground and cover, which
fortunately was on each side of the road, soon brought the French
cavalry to a check; but these dismounting and acting as infantry
skirmishers, a smart skirmish took place between some companies of
the Regiment and these dismounted men, which continued the greater
part of the day. In the evening the Regiment joined the other
Divisions at Aldea de Ponte.
Again forming the rear-guard, the Regiment marched at midnight, and
about eight o’clock on the morning of the 28th reached a position on
the height near Soita in a wood of enormous chestnut-trees, many of
which were hollow from age and of such dimensions that men might have
been and were sheltered in them. Lord Wellington was here in a very
strong position; and Marmont having effected his principal object of
re-victualling Ciudad Rodrigo, declined to give battle, and retired.
The Regiment on October 1 marched to Aldea Velha, and resumed its
cantonments on the Agueda at Castellejo de Duas Casas, Martiago,
Atalaya, Robleda, etc.
The Regiment now (with the Light Division) maintained the blockade of
Ciudad Rodrigo, and there is little to record of its movements until
the commencement of the more active operations of the siege.
On November 2, however, information having been received that a
considerable body of French troops were in motion to escort a
new governor to Rodrigo (the former one, General Renaud, having
been taken prisoner near the place by Don Julian Sanchez and his
guerillas), the Regiment moved up nearer to the fortress on this
morning; but it having been ascertained that the governor had
succeeded in entering the place, and that the escort was bivouacked
two leagues in its rear, the Regiment fell back to its former
cantonments.
On the 20th Lord Wellington inspected the Regiment (with the rest
of the Division) between El Bodon and Fuente Guinaldo. The Regiment
had marched from its cantonments in the morning and returned to them
after the inspection.
About this time, or rather earlier, Colonel Beckwith went to England
on account of his health, and Barnard (commanding the 3rd Battalion)
took command of his brigade.
On January 4 the troops intended to carry on the siege of Ciudad
Rodrigo were moved up near the place. In an incessant fall of cold
rain the Riflemen forded the Agueda; the water being nearly up to
their shoulders, the men were obliged to put their pouches on the
top of their knapsacks and to hold on to one another to prevent
their being swept away by the current. The Light Division occupied
Pastores, La Encina, and El Bodon. No sufficient arrangements having
been made for their quarters, houses were with difficulty obtained,
and officers and men were huddled together wherever they could find
shelter. Next day, however, better arrangements were made, and the
companies of Riflemen were housed separately.
On the 8th the Regiment crossed the Agueda before daylight on a
bitterly cold morning at the ford of Cantarona, near the Convent of
La Caridad; the water was about knee-deep; and passing round a hill
to the north of the town near San Francisco and out of range of the
enemy’s guns, they halted. Several French officers appeared and spoke
to the officers of the 95th with great politeness, being anxious to
ascertain, as it seemed, what this movement meant.
It was not long before they learned; for at nine o’clock that evening
a party of 300 men of the Light Division, under Colonel Colborne
of the 52nd, stormed the detached fort of San Francisco. Captain
Crampton’s company of the 1st Battalion first formed upon the crest
of the glacis, followed by Travers’s company of the 3rd Battalion,
and another company, commanded by Lieutenant Macnamara, of the 1st
Battalion. In a moment they were in the ditch and swarming over the
parapet. Three guns were taken, 2 captains and 48 men made prisoners,
and the rest of the garrison were killed. In this attack Second
Lieutenant Rutherford Hawksley, ‘a most promising young man,’ was
severely wounded, and died of his wounds. The officer commanding
this outwork, a smart, talkative little Frenchman, was, when made
prisoner, brought to General Craufurd. He had been stripped by the
Portuguese and had nothing on but trousers, and was bleeding from
the nose and mouth. Craufurd having expressed regret that he could
not furnish him with clothing, Tom Crawley, a well-known private
in the 1st Battalion, stepped forward, and saluting, said, ‘He may
have my great coat, your honour.’ Craufurd, who was much pleased,
said,’You are very good, Rifleman; let him have it.’ Almost at
the same time a sergeant was brought in, stripped naked by the
Portuguese; he embraced his captain and burst into tears. Harry
Smith, then on Craufurd’s Staff, gave him his handkerchief to cover
his nakedness.[107]
The capture of this work enabled the working parties immediately to
begin the first parallel. The garrison kept up an incessant fire of
shot and shell, but by daylight the men were well covered. Early
on the 9th the Light Division were relieved by the 1st. The French
from the old square tower of the cathedral had a good view of this
relief, and a furious fire was kept up on the advancing and retiring
Divisions.
On the 12th the Light Division again occupied the trenches, fording
the Agueda up to their waists, and continuing in this wet state,
half-frozen, till relieved next day. Some worked at the approaches;
some kept up a fire on the works of the place; and in the evening,
under cover of a fog, thirty men of the 1st Battalion, under
Kincaid, were sent forward to dig holes as near as possible to the
crest of the glacis, in which to shelter themselves, and to pick
off the gunners. This was not difficult for a good marksman; as,
by having his rifle ready, he was able to aim at an embrasure and
fire at it the moment he saw the flash of the gun. But the garrison
threw fire-balls among them; however, the men crouching in their
rifle-pits, lay hid until the fire-balls burned out, and then
springing up again, picked off their gunners in the embrasures.
At ten the next morning the Division was relieved, and marched back
to its cantonments. The fording of the Agueda, now partly frozen, on
coming to and returning from the trenches, was very trying to the
men. Not only the depth and the cold of the river; but now large
blocks of ice carried down by the current bruised and incommoded
them. In some measure to obviate this, cavalry were ordered to form
across the ford above the infantry, and under this shelter the
Riflemen crossed, if in the cold, at least unmolested by the floating
ice.
On the 16th they again resumed their place in the trenches. The enemy
had now got the range so accurately that their shells literally
dropped into the trenches. So murderous and incessant was the fire
from the place, that on their relief the next morning a new expedient
was devised to escape its effect. The relieving division came up
by small parties and the Light Division in like manner retired a
few men at a time. But strange is the confidence given by constant
exposure to danger: the Riflemen having discovered that by crossing
the river close to where they then were, and running the gauntlet of
the enemy’s fire for about a mile, instead of going round behind the
hill near San Francisco, they would save both time and distance in
getting to their cantonments, they did so.
Two breaches having been pronounced practicable on the 18th, the
troops were ordered to assemble on the 19th for the assault of
the place. The storming party consisted of a hundred men from
each Regiment of the Division. The officers of the Regiment who
volunteered for this duty were Captain Mitchell[108] of the 2nd
Battalion, and Lieutenants William Johnston and Kincaid of the 1st
Battalion. The Regiment forded the Agueda as usual, and halted for
about an hour near the Convent of La Caridad. Thence they moved
forward, and halted again behind the Convent of San Francisco.
The order of attack was as follows:
Four companies of the 1st Battalion, commanded by Major Cameron, who
were to line the crest of the glacis and keep down the fire of the
place;
Portuguese, carrying hay-bags, which they were to throw into the
ditch, and ladders;
The forlorn hope;
The storming party, commanded by Major George Napier, of the 52nd;
The main body of the Division, commanded by Craufurd.
While waiting behind the Convent for the order to advance, Harry
Smith came up to the Regiment, and said, ‘Some of you must come and
take charge of some ladders;’ George Simmons at once stepped out and
offered to go; and, having picked out the number of men required,
followed Smith to the Engineer camp and obtained them. When he
returned, Craufurd fiercely attacked him; ‘Why did you bring these
short ladders here?’ ‘Because I was ordered by the Engineers to do
so, General.’ ‘Go back, Sir, and get others; I am astonished at such
stupidity.’ Simmons returned and procured others; and on his way back
finding a Portuguese Captain wishing to be useful with his company,
he handed over the ladders to him with strict injunctions as to how
to place them, and rejoined his Battalion.
It is pleasanter to record Craufurd’s last address to his Division,
almost his last words, as they stood waiting to attack; words never
forgotten by some who heard them.
‘Soldiers,’ he said, in a voice which seemed to be peculiarly
impressive, ‘the eyes of your country are upon you. Be steady; be
cool; be firm in the assault. The town must be yours this night. Once
masters of the wall, let your first duty be to clear the ramparts,
and in doing so keep well together.’
At last the signal was given, and the leading Riflemen issued from
behind the Convent of San Francisco and turned to the left to ascend
the glacis. The night was clear enough to enable the defenders to
perceive them; and no sooner had the head of the column appeared,
than a furious fire of shot, shell and musketry lit up the ramparts
in a sheet of flame, while fire-balls enabled the enemy to direct
their aim on the advancing columns. Cameron’s Riflemen extended along
the glacis, and opened their fire. The stormers rushed up to the
ditch, and without waiting for the hay-bags or ladders carried by
the Portuguese, who were nowhere, leaped into the ditch, a descent
of ten or twelve feet, and made for the breach. Kincaid, by mistake,
turned to a ravelin which he fancied to be a bastion, and finding
one angle of it a good deal battered, thought it was the breach, and
mounted it; but soon perceiving his error, was about to return, when
a shout from the other side of the ditch announced that the breach
had been found. He dropped from the ravelin, and on coming to the
breach found the head of the storming party just ascending it.
But not the stormers only: the rest of the Regiment were pouring
into the ditch. George Simmons finding ladders reared against the
_fausse-braye_ (for the Portuguese by this time had found their way
to the ditch) mounted it with many others, fancying it to be the
breach; but discovering his mistake, slid down the other side and
mounted the breach. As he was ascending the ladders, Uniacke of
the 1st Battalion accosted him. ‘This is the way.’ ‘Impossible,’
replied Simmons, ‘here are the ladders.’ Uniacke left him, turned
to the left, and just as he reached the rampart an expense magazine
exploded, and blew him and many others up.[109]
Then was there furious fighting at this breach; but it was soon won.
The men, true to Craufurd’s orders, cleared the ramparts, and within
an hour the place was in our hands. Then began that furious tumult,
and that loosening of all the bands of discipline which mark the sack
of a place captured by assault. The town was set on fire, but by the
exertions of Barnard, Cameron and others it was extinguished. Barnard
and Cameron with some of their officers seized broken gun-barrels,
of which many French ones were found, and by force and even blows
compelled the men to refrain from brutality and madness. By one
o’clock in the morning Barnard had got the Regiment together and
formed them on the ramparts, where, kindling fires, they lay down and
slept soundly after this din of arms.
And many slept to wake no more. Captain Uniacke, as I have said, was
blown up on reaching the rampart; his arm was torn from the socket,
and he was fearfully scorched. He was carried to Gallegos, where he
died a few hours after, surrounded by the men of his company, by
whom he was beloved.’ ‘Though young in years,’ says Costello, who
served in his company, ‘he was gallant, daring, and just to all whom
he commanded. His affability and personal courage had rendered him
the idol of the men of his company.’ Fairfoot, who was Pay-sergeant
of his company, was resolved that he should be buried in consecrated
ground; but he found an obstacle in the prejudices of the clergy,
who considered him a heretic. However, Fairfoot (with pardonable
equivocation) assured the priests that his Captain was an Irishman,
which to the Spanish priests implied that he was a Catholic. Their
scruples gave way; ‘and I chose,’ said Fairfoot afterwards, ‘the
finest tree in the church-yard of Gallegos.’ At its foot he was laid;
the whole of his company attending, under the command of Thomas
Smith, his subaltern. Lieutenants John Cox and Hamilton, of the 1st
Battalion, were also severely wounded, 1 Rifleman was killed, 1
sergeant and 15 rank and file wounded; in the 2nd Battalion, Captain
Mitchell, and Lieutenants Bedell and M’Gregor were wounded, the two
former severely; 8 rank and file were killed, and 22 wounded;[110]
and 2 sergeants and 7 rank and file of the 3rd Battalion were wounded.
Besides these losses in the Regiment they had to regret the loss
of their leader in so many glorious fields, Major-General Robert
Craufurd, who, soon after starting them from the San Francisco
Convent with the inspiriting words, ‘Now, lads, for the breach,’ was
struck down mortally wounded, and died on the 24th. He was buried
with military honours at the foot of the breach his Division had so
gallantly carried, borne to the grave by four Sergeant-Majors of
his Division, and followed by Lord Wellington, his Staff, and the
officers of his Division. Though not of the Regiment, he had led
them in so many a glorious field that he seemed to be of them. At
Buenos Ayres, in the retreat to Corunna, and now in Portugal and
Spain, he had been their Brigadier or divisional General. At first
dreaded and disliked for his strict rules of discipline and for his
unswerving punishment of all breaches of them, he had come to be
beloved by men and officers, who saw to what a pitch of excellence
that code and that enforcement of it had brought the Division he
commanded, making it the admiration or the envy of the whole army;
who recognised that if he was exacting, he always was just; who felt
that he cared for their wants or their comfort; and who knew that he
always led them bravely, always to conquer.
I am not writing a memoir of General Craufurd; yet two anecdotes
connected specially with the Regiment I may here record.
On one occasion he was riding in front of the lines when two
Riflemen rushed out of a house, pursued by a Spanish woman calling
out _‘Ladrone! ladrone!’_ They had stolen bread. Craufurd with his
orderly immediately pursued them, the guard was turned out, and
they were made prisoners. The next day they were tried by a brigade
Court-Martial, found guilty, and sentenced to a punishment of a
hundred-and-fifty lashes. One, a Corporal Miles, was of course to be
reduced to the ranks. They were brought out to a wood to be punished.
As soon as the Brigade Major had read the proceedings, Craufurd
addressed the men on their cruelty to the Spaniards. Then, turning to
the Regiment, he upbraided them in no measured terms: ‘You think that
because you are Riflemen, and more exposed to the enemy’s fire than
other troops, you may rob the inhabitants with impunity; but while I
command you, you shall not.’ Then addressing Corporal Miles, he said
in a stern voice, ‘Strip, sir.’
When Miles was tied up to a tree to receive his punishment, he turned
his head and said: ‘General Craufurd, I hope you will forgive me.’
Craufurd answered: ‘No; your crime is too great.’
On this Corporal Miles, in a quiet and most respectful voice and
manner, addressed the General: ‘Do you remember, sir, when you and I
were taken prisoners, when under the command of General Whitelocke
at Buenos Ayres? We were marched prisoners to a sort of pound,
surrounded with a wall. There was a well in the centre, from which
I drew water in my mess-tin, by means of canteen-straps which I
collected from the men who were prisoners like myself. You sat on my
knapsack; and I parted my last biscuit with you. You then told me
that you would never forget my kindness to you. It is now in your
power, sir. You know how short of rations we have been for some time.’
These simple words, and the soldier’s respectful manner, affected not
only Craufurd but every man in the square. Meanwhile the Bugle-Major
gave the fatal nod, and Miles received a lash. But before a second
fell, Craufurd called out: ‘What’s that? who taught that bugler to
flog? send him to drill; he cannot flog. Stop, stop, take him down; I
remember it well; I remember it well!’ Then he paced up and down the
square, evidently much moved. In a dead silence Miles was untied; and
at last the General said to him: ‘Why does a brave soldier like you
commit these crimes?’ and calling his orderly, he mounted, and rode
off without a word more. The other man was pardoned, and Miles had
his corporal’s stripes restored in a few days.
On one occasion during Moore’s retreat, Lieutenant Thomas Smith, then
a very young officer who had but lately joined, was accompanying
ammunition which was in charge of a Quartermaster (Ross). On their
arrival at Craufurd’s head-quarters, the wily Quartermaster advised
Smith to go and report their arrival to the General. The other
demurred; saying that he was not in charge of the ammunition,
but only accompanying it. However, the Quartermaster urged him,
reminding him that he must be hungry; they had not, in fact, tasted
food for twenty-four hours; and that the General would probably ask
him to dinner. Thus counselled by his senior and impelled by his
hunger, he presented himself at the General’s quarter and saw his
Aide-de-Camp, who going upstairs returned with an order to proceed
at once a further march of some three leagues. Smith returned to
the Quartermaster with this woful order, adding that as he was in
charge of it, he might remain with it, for that he should go on and
overtake his Battalion. The Quartermaster declared he should do no
such thing; and after a sharp argument they both started and joined
the Battalion. In the morning as Smith was sitting down to breakfast,
an order came from Craufurd, who had come up, that he and the
Quartermaster should attend him. On being ushered into the General’s
presence they found him warming himself before a comfortable brazier,
while breakfast stood on the table. In a voice of great severity he
asked which of the two had received his order the night before.
‘I did, sir,’ said Smith, ‘but’--
‘No _but_, sir,’ interrupted Craufurd; ‘consider yourself under
arrest; and,’ adding a tremendous oath, ‘I will smash you.’
Poor Smith--for Craufurd would not hear a word more--returned in
dismay to his brother officers, whom he found at breakfast; but
hungry as he was and pressed by them to be of good heart, food had
now no charms for him.
Eventually Beckwith represented to Craufurd that the offender was
but a boy just joined; and his pleadings, coupled perhaps with the
fact that they were just going to fight, when every available officer
would be wanted, induced Craufurd, contrary to his wont, to relax his
severity and to release Smith from his arrest.
Long afterwards as Craufurd was standing talking with the officers of
the Battalion, round a camp fire, he turned to him.
‘Smith,’ said he, ‘did I not once put you under arrest?’
‘Yes, sir, you did.’
‘And do you know,’ he continued, ‘what became of the ammunition? I
found it steadily going towards the French lines, and had but just
time to put spurs to my horse and to turn it back. So that through
your default I had nearly lost my ammunition.’[112]
On the 20th the Regiment marched back to its cantonments. Nothing
could exceed the extraordinary appearance it presented. The men
were dressed in every possible variety of costume which they had
found in the houses. Some wore French uniforms, some breeches and
jack-boots, some cocked hats; many had pieces of salt beef, hams and
any provisions they could lay hands on stuck on their swords fixed
to their rifles. In fact so strange was their appearance that Lord
Wellington, who saw them on their march, asked ‘What regiment that
could be.’
One of the Riflemen, a day or two after, playing the game of
‘nine-holes’ with what he fancied to be a cannon-ball brought from
the place, was blown to pieces. It proved to be a live shell, which
passing over some hot ashes, exploded just as he had it between his
legs.
The Regiment soon after the fall of Rodrigo moved to Ituera. And
while here a military execution took place of some deserters of the
Light Division who had been found in the place. They had been tried
by a Court-Martial, of which General Sir James Kempt was president,
and were shot in the presence of the whole Division. Two of them were
Riflemen; one was in the highland company, which was then kept up in
the 3rd Battalion, of the name of M’Guinniss, a shoemaker by trade.
He had once been a man of good character, but had been led away by
another, named Hudson, of Uniacke’s company.
To conclude this painful subject I will add here that a month later
when the Regiment was at Castello de Vide another man of the 1st
Battalion was shot for desertion. His name was Arnal, and he was, or
had been, a Corporal. When Ciudad Rodrigo was taken he in some way
escaped and endeavoured to join the French troops at Salamanca; but
in crossing the country he fell in with some Spanish soldiers, who
made him prisoner and marched him back to the Regiment. He had been a
man of good character, and it was hoped that this might have weighed
in his favour; but discipline had to be vindicated, and so great
a crime as desertion to the enemy could not be condoned. This man
met his death with amazing firmness; settling his accounts with the
Pay-sergeant of his company, and distributing his balance among his
comrades the night before his death. When brought out to execution
he refused to have his eyes bound, saying to the Provost Sergeant:
‘There is no occasion; I shall not flinch;’ nor did he.
On February 14 the Regiment marched to Portalegre, on the 15th to
Arronches, and on the 17th to Elvas.
On March 17 the Regiment marched out of Elvas, the band playing
‘St. Patrick’s Day,’ to take up their position before Badajos, and
after dusk began to break ground. A very heavy rain came on, and the
weather continued very broken during the whole time of the siege
operations. The ground to be occupied being extensive, and the force
employed comparatively small, the men were required to be in the
trenches six hours by day, and as many in the night; and this amount
of time, with the addition of the marches to and from their camp, and
the continued inclemency of the weather, made the period of the siege
one of unusual hardship to the men and officers of the Regiment.
On the 19th the enemy made a sortie with about 1,500 infantry and
some cavalry at the moment when the relief of the working parties in
the trenches was taking place. The weather being, as usual, dull, and
a drizzling rain falling, these troops got very close before they
were perceived; and their cavalry, being mistaken for Portuguese,
made their way through the camp of the Light Division. The men flew
to their arms, and the sortie was repulsed; but the enemy succeeded
in carrying off intrenching tools from the Engineers’ camp, and in
injuring the works of the approaches. In this sortie Lieutenant
Freer, of the 1st Battalion, was wounded.
On the 22nd, the enemy having brought some field-guns out of San
Cristobal, and placed them in position enfilading the trenches, some
Riflemen were ordered out, to get as near the Guadiana as possible,
and to fire across the river, and shoot their gunners. This they did
so effectually that the guns were soon withdrawn, many of the men
working them being killed or wounded.
On the 26th Fort Picurina was attacked and carried a little after
dark; and a party of Riflemen, taken from the working party, was
ordered to carry the ladders. Lieutenant Stokes, then of the 3rd
Battalion, who was in command of this party, was the first man in
the fort; and it was owing to these men (with others of the Light
Division) that, according to Napier, the capture of the place was
effected. They were provided with axes, and broke down the palisades
and gates of the fort. It being evident that the enemy, as soon as
they knew the place was in our hands, would redouble their fire, the
working parties were urged by their officers to work hard to cover
themselves. The Riflemen did so; and so effectually, that when at
daybreak the enemy opened a furious fire of shell and grape, the men
had made such good cover that they were comparatively uninjured.
On April 4 George Simmons with a party was in an advanced sap, and
observing that some large guns of the place were doing much injury
to our artillery in an advanced battery, he selected some of the
best shots and directed them to fire steadily into the embrasures.
In half-an-hour he found that the guns were not fired so regularly
as before; and soon gabions were brought and stuffed into the
embrasures. These were withdrawn when the guns were about to be
fired. The Riflemen took note of this, and the moment the gabions
were removed fired steadily into the embrasure. Very soon the gabions
began to be replaced without the guns having been discharged. They
were thus effectually silenced. And from daylight till dark Simmons
kept up this practice with ‘forty as prime fellows as ever pulled
trigger.’ A French officer, probably a celebrated marksman, half
hidden, lying on the grass of the parapet, set up his cocked hat some
way in front of him to deceive our people, and to draw their fire.
Some soldiers by him handed him loaded muskets to enable him to fire
more rapidly. Simmons, leaning over the top of the trench, got a good
view of this man; he selected a good shot, and being anxious that
he should see the Frenchman, desired him to lay his rifle over his
shoulder and steady his aim. The Rifleman fired; and nothing more was
seen of the Frenchman, whom, no doubt, he killed or wounded, though
the cocked hat remained in position until dark. But Simmons, in his
anxiety, had forgotten that the priming of the old Baker rifle was
close to his ear, which was much burnt and the whole side of his head
singed.
Some of the best shots in the Regiment were selected also to occupy
pits which had been dug between our approaches and the crest of the
glacis, in order to pick off the gunners. This was most arduous
and dangerous work; for not only were the men exposed to a deadly
fire in running out to the pits, and in returning when relieved, but
sometimes a man was wounded or killed in the pit, and the relieving
Rifleman had to pull him or help him out before he could shelter
himself, all the time exposed to a murderous fire from the place.
[Illustration:
ASSAULT of BADAJOS
6^{TH} APRIL, 1812.
E. Weller, _Litho._
_London, Chatto & Windus._
]
The breaches being reported practicable on the 6th, the assault was
ordered to take place on that evening. It is needless, after Napier’s
magnificent description of this combat, to do more than specify
what part the Regiment took in it. The Light Division, under the
command of Barnard, formed at about eight o’clock in close column
of companies, left in front, about 300 yards from the ditch. They
were detailed to attack the breach in the Santa Maria bastion. Four
companies (the left wing) of the 1st Battalion, under Major Cameron,
were in front, with orders to extend to the left on reaching the
covered way, in order (as at Ciudad Rodrigo) to keep down the fire
from the ramparts. Next came six volunteers of that Battalion, under
Lieutenant William Johnston, provided with ropes, to endeavour to
pull the _chevaux-de-frise_, with which it was known the garrison
had defended the breaches, out of their place. Then followed the
forlorn hope;[113] and then the storming party, consisting of 100
men from each regiment of the Division. The officers of the Regiment
with this party were Captains Crampton of the 1st Battalion; Hart
of the 2nd; and Diggle of the 3rd; and Lieutenants Bedell, Manners,
Coxen, and M’Gregor, of the 2nd Battalion. The rest of the Division
followed. So noiselessly did Cameron’s four companies advance, and so
accurately had he reconnoitred the ground, that he reached the place
indicated for the head of his column, and extended along the covered
way to his left, without being perceived by the garrison. Every man
as he got into his place, silently lay down, placing the muzzle
of his rifle through the palisades, and at the edge of the ditch.
The men could see the heads of the troops lining the rampart; for
the night was clear, though a sort of haze rising from the ground
and the dark dress of the Riflemen enabled them to get into position
unperceived. Yet a French sentry challenged twice; and his ‘_qui
vive_’ being unanswered, he fired, and drums were heard, beating
to arms. Yet Cameron reserved his fire for about ten minutes, till
the forlorn hope coming up, he began while the heads of the troops
lining the rampart could still be seen immovable. Then began from the
place that murderous and unceasing fire of grape, shell, and musketry
which has been compared by more than one of those who saw it, to
the central fires of the earth, or even hell itself, vomiting forth
their fury. Surtees, who as Quartermaster of the 3rd Battalion and
a non-combatant (though he wished to be in the fray and was hardly
restrained) witnessed it from the quarries, between the Picurina and
the Pardeleras, says that it was so bright and so incessant that he
could plainly see the faces of the defenders, though nearly a mile
off. Yet Johnston with his volunteers, the forlorn hope and the
stormers advanced, slid down the ladders or leaped into the ditch.
The rest of the Division followed, tore up the palisades and ran up
the glacis. There Captain Charles Gray was shot in the mouth, and
many officers and men fell. Yet all pressed on; even the firing party
in the covered way, carried away by frenzy, seeing their comrades
fall, and their aim baffled by the smoke, leaped into the ditch,
and passing, how they could, the drain cut in it and filled with
water, in which not a few were drowned, they surged like the wave
of a raging sea up the breach. But as the wave is repelled from
the rock, so were they checked by the insuperable obstacles; the
_chevaux-de-frise_ of sword-blades fixed in beams; the murderous fire
from behind the wall of sand-bags; the planks studded with nails and
fixed at the upper end; the shells, powder-barrels, grenades and even
cart-wheels, which were hurled down upon them. Again and again as one
wave fell or melted away under that slaughtering shower, another took
its place. O’Hare fell in the breach, shot through the breast with
two or three musket balls. His sergeant, Fleming, who had stood by
him in many a bloody field, fell at his side. Many officers of the
Regiment and many valiant Riflemen lay dead or wounded, or pressed
down by those who were so, in that heap which extended from the top
of the breach to the counterscarp. At last, after two hours of this
murderous work, Lord Wellington gave orders for the Light Division
to draw off. Still the intrepid Barnard, who had more than once
himself ascended the breach, was unwilling to give way; and it was
not till after renewed attempts had been made, and till he saw all
hopeless, that he gave the order for his Division to withdraw. Even
then in that deafening turmoil the order was imperfectly heard; and
many officers were keeping their men from retiring. At last, however,
almost all that lived and could move came away, and the remnant of
the Regiment was formed a little distance from the place between
midnight and one o’clock. Here Surtees found them, having posted off
as soon as he knew (for he was near Lord Wellington when Picton’s
hurried note was brought to him) that the 3rd Division had stormed,
and was in possession of, the Castle. He was scarcely believed;
so incredible did it seem to the assailants of these impregnable
breaches, that any troops could have entered the place. The men and
the officers were lying down, in gloomy sullenness, after their
terrible conflict. A staff officer brought word, ‘Lord Wellington
desires the Light Division to return immediately and attack the
breach.’ The men leaped up, resumed their formation, and advanced
as cheerfully and as steadily as if it had been the first attack.
Proceeding past, and often over, their fallen comrades, they again
mounted the breach; but now the defenders having been called away,
the resistance was slight, and they soon established themselves on
the ramparts. Then Cameron formed his Regiment there; and told them
that when all danger from the enemy was over, he would let them fall
out; but that, until then, if a man left the ranks he would have him
put to death on the spot. They remained under arms and perfectly
steady till between nine and ten next morning; when, as the whole
garrison were prisoners and being marched out, he dismissed them,
and they joined in that madness of intemperance, rapine and lust, on
which it is more agreeable to their historian to draw a veil.
Great were the losses of the Regiment. Twenty-three officers and 292
non-commissioned officers and Riflemen fell, killed and wounded in
that fatal night.
In the 1st Battalion (eight companies), Major O’Hare and Lieutenant
Stokes, 3 sergeants, and 24 rank and file were killed; Captains
Crampton, Balvaird, Charles Gray, and M’Dermid, Lieutenants William
Johnston, Gardiner, McPherson (who died of his wounds), Forster, and
FitzMaurice, 15 sergeants, 3 buglers, and 136 rank and file were
wounded. In the 2nd Battalion (two companies), Captain Diggle, 1
sergeant and 20 rank and file were killed; Lieutenants Bedell and
Manners, 3 sergeants, and 31 rank and file were wounded. In the 3rd
Battalion (five companies), Lieutenants Hovenden, Cary, Allix, and
Croudace, and 9 rank and file were killed; and Lieutenants Macdonell
(who died of his wounds), Worsley, Duncan Stewart, Farmer, and
volunteer Lawson,[114] 2 sergeants, and 45 rank and file were wounded.
Well may Sir William Napier sum up his glowing description of the
assault with this stirring appeal: ‘Who shall measure out the glory
of ... O’Hare, of the ninety-fifth, who perished on the breach at
the head of the stormers, and with him nearly all the volunteers for
that desperate service? Who shall describe ... the martial fury of
that desperate soldier of the ninety-fifth who, in his resolution
to win, thrust himself beneath the chained sword-blades, and there
suffered the enemy to dash his head to pieces with the ends of their
muskets?’[115]
O’Hare, a gallant soldier, beloved by his men, had a foreboding of
his death. As the stormers assembled, he observed, in conversation to
Captain Jones of the 52nd, that ‘he thought that night would be his
last.’ To George Simmons, with whom he shook hands as the stormers
were moving off, his last words were: ‘A Lieutenant-Colonel or cold
meat in a few hours.’ He was found the next morning by Simmons on
the breach, naked. Cary was found by Surtees next day under one of
the ladders, shot through the head. He had, no doubt, been wounded
in ascending it, and fallen from it. He also was stripped. He still
breathed; and Surtees pressed some of the soldiers about the place to
carry him to the camp. They were so drunk that they let him fall; but
he was past all feeling, and died soon after he was laid in his tent.
Croudace also was brought out alive, but died almost immediately. Of
the wounded officers, McPherson died a few days after. He was a man
of herculean stature, and great bravery. ‘He had been true to man
and true to his God, and he looked his last hour in the face like a
soldier and a Christian.’[116]
Macdonell died a few months after he received his wound.
Some personal anecdotes of the storm may be given. George Simmons, on
going into the town, went into a house, the Spanish owner of which
told him that the French Quartermaster-General had been billeted
there. He showed him the room he had occupied; and there he found on
the table a paper on which he had made a sketch of the two breaches,
showing the line by which our columns would probably move to attack,
and the spot where our ladders might best be planted to avoid the
fire from the place and the inundation in the ditch. The owner of
the house informed him that the French officers had left it in great
alarm, on being informed of our attack. There were also a bottle of
wine and some glasses on the table; and, as Theodore Hook somewhere
observes, eating and drinking must go on, whatever the vicissitudes
of life, George Simmons sate down, ordered some eggs and bacon to be
fried, and drank the French officers’ bottle of wine.
Kincaid was acting Adjutant with Cameron’s four companies who lined
the glacis. When they were established in the place, he went to
post picquets in streets leading to the ramparts. While so engaged,
a Rifleman brought him a French officer prisoner, who he said was
the Governor. The officer at once said that he was not; but that he
had passed himself off as such to ensure the soldier’s protection
and better treatment. He added that he was Colonel of a regiment
in the garrison; that his officers were all assembled in a house
near at hand, to which he would conduct Kincaid, and who would
give themselves up as prisoners to anyone who would ensure their
safety. Taking a few men with him to guard against surprise, Kincaid
accompanied him, and found fifteen or sixteen officers assembled, who
professed great astonishment at our being in possession of the town.
As in Simmons’ case refreshment was to be thought of; and Kincaid
and his prisoners discussed some cold meat, and sundry bottles of
wine which their chief placed upon the table. At last Kincaid marched
them off; and before parting the French Colonel told him that he
had two good horses in the stable, of which he advised him to take
possession. This counsel was not lost on Kincaid, who thus became the
owner of a black mare, which carried him till the end of the war. As
he was making his way to the ramparts, many French soldiers, who were
skulking in out-of-the-way corners to escape the fury of the British
troops already in the town, joined him. And marching at the head of
this party, he was very nearly fired on by a picquet of our men whom
Barnard was placing across a street, and who, seeing so many French
uniforms together, fancied it was a rallied party of the enemy.
Happily the challenge of the picquet, which owing to the noise of his
prisoners he had not heard, was repeated and answered; and he handed
over his prisoners to be marched with others to Elvas.
Surtees was occupied in a more benevolent work. Directly the place
was in our hands, he and Percival, who was in command of the 3rd
Battalion, set about finding and removing the wounded of the
Regiment. This was an arduous work; for the wounded were numerous,
and their claims for assistance incessant. And Percival was lame,
from his wound at Sobral, and not well able to move about; yet they
were obliged to carry the wounded themselves; for of the soldiers
they called on to help them many were drunk; and even those whose
help they secured, soon went off to share in the rapine of the
town. Many are the heartrending details Surtees relates; and many
are the horrors he and all the Riflemen who were present record of
the plunder of the town. No doubt the men were furious with the
inhabitants, who had here assisted the French, while at Rodrigo they
had resisted them; no doubt they were frenzied with the difficulty
of the assault, and savage at the wholesale slaughter of their
comrades. These envenoming motives, added to the usual and (so to
say) admitted license in a town taken by storm, have made the sack
of Badajos one of exceptional violence. Yet all that men could do
to resist it was done. Barnard, commanding the Division, opposed
not only his commands but even his great personal strength to the
plunderers. He endeavoured to prevent the men from entering the town;
but they rushed past him, and while striving to wrest a musket from
a soldier of the 52nd, he fell and was very nearly thrown into the
ditch. He then, with others, went into the streets, and strove to
check the madness of his men; but in vain.
Cameron, as I have said, got the men of the 1st Battalion together
after the assault and kept them formed on the ramparts till between
nine and ten; he then thanked them for their conduct throughout. ‘And
now, men,’ he added, ‘you may fall out and amuse yourselves; but I
expect you all to be in camp at tattoo to-night.’ It was a vain hope;
and it was two days before the absentees returned, and discipline was
restored.
On the day after the assault two officers of the 1st Battalion
were talking over the events of the past night at the door of a
tent, when two ladies approached from Badajos, and claimed their
protection. They were evidently, from their appearance and manner,
of the upper class of Spanish society. Both were handsome; and the
younger, then about fourteen, very beautiful. The elder, though
still young, addressed the Riflemen, and said that she was the wife
of an officer in the Spanish service, who was in a distant part of
Spain; that the young lady with her was her sister, who, having just
completed her education in a convent, had been placed under her
charge; that yesterday she had a comfortable house and home; that
now it was in the possession of an infuriated and insane soldiery;
that they had already suffered violence, as their bleeding ears,
from which the ear-rings had been rudely torn, bore witness; and
that to escape greater violence and dishonour worse than death,
they had fled; and had resolved (however strange the step might
seem) to throw themselves upon the honour and the protection of the
first English officers they might meet. It need not be told that
it was freely given, and chivalrously observed, and that they were
conveyed to a place of safety. Nor will it seem strange to add that
the acquaintance begun in so romantic a manner ripened into a warmer
feeling; and that within two years, the younger of them, Donna Juana
Maria de los Dolores de Leon, became the wife of him who had saved
her, Harry Smith, then a Captain in the Regiment, and was long known
in English society as Lady Smith, the honoured wife of the conqueror
of Aliwal.
FOOTNOTES:
[92] ‘Wellington Despatches,’ vii. 356-7.
[93] MS. Record 1st Battalion.
[94] ‘Supplementary Despatches,’ vii. 82.
[95] Letter to Marshal Beresford: ‘Wellington Despatches,’ vii. 372.
[96] MS. Journal.
[97] ‘Leach,’ 204-5.
[98] It is said to be more than 4,000 feet above the level of the sea.
[99] ‘Supplementary Despatches,’ xiii. 609.
[100] ‘Despatches,’ vii. 445. He adds: ‘The 43rd Regiment
particularly distinguished themselves; as did part of the 95th
Regiment under Major Gilmour.’
[101] I am indebted for the particulars of this anecdote (which I had
heard old officers of the Regiment mention) to Mrs. Fitz-Maurice’s
‘Recollections of a Rifleman’s Wife.’
[102] ‘Wellington Despatches,’ vii. 515.
[103] This gallant repulse is mentioned by Lord Wellington:
‘Despatches,’ vii. 532.
[104] ‘Recollections of a Rifleman’s Wife.’
[105] ‘Adventures of a Soldier,’ 82.
[106] Costello, 87.
[107] Costello, 93.
[108] Colonel Samuel Mitchell died June 3, 1833.
[109] Just before the attack he had been twitted by a brother officer
(Fitz-Maurice) with having dressed himself in a new pelisse for such
a night’s work. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘I shall be the better worth
taking.’ ‘Recollections of a Rifleman’s Wife.’
[110] The following nine non-commissioned officers of the 2nd
Battalion volunteered for the forlorn hope:
Sergeant Bowley, wounded Sergeant Spencer
” Comerford, ” ” Tuite
” Derby, killed Corporal Larkins, wounded
” Ecke, ” ” Nesbitt, ”
” Fairfoot,[111] wounded
[111] Afterwards Quartermaster.
[112] This anecdote, which I had often heard in the 1st Battalion,
was related to me with graphic distinctness by Colonel Smith. As may
be imagined, his relation differed somewhat from the story, which,
passing through many mouths, I had heard in the Battalion. It was
strange to hear it from the lips of one of the actors in it, when the
other had slept more than sixty years in the breach at Rodrigo.
[113] The following non-commissioned officers of the 2nd Battalion
volunteered for the forlorn hope:
Sergeant Cairns Corporal Coward, wounded
” Fairfoot, wounded ” Derby, killed
” Kennedy, ” ” McCordell, wounded
” Taggart, ” ” Nesbitt.
” Tuite
[114] He was appointed to a second-lieutenancy in the Regiment May 9
following. He left it in 1814, and died at Sligo, March 1874.
[115] Book xvi. chap. v. This incident is also mentioned by Kincaid.
It is to be regretted that the name of this heroic Rifleman has not
been preserved.
[116] Kincaid, ‘Random Shots,’ p. 288.