Sufferings of the army on the retreat—Jokes of the Connaught
Rangers—Letter of Lord Wellington—The junior officers—Costume of the
author during the retreat—An unusual enjoyment.
Notwithstanding the attitude of Pakenham’s troops, and the excellent
arrangement of the park of artillery under Douglas, the troopers of
O‘Shea still menaced the ford. A brigade of French guns ascended the
heights, and opened their fire upon the 3rd Division, but they were
replied to with vigour by Douglas, who on this day surpassed himself;
and the decided superiority which his fire had over that of the enemy
was so palpable that, after a short trial, the French left the heights.
Day was drawing to its close, and our march, as usual, commenced soon
after dark. The entire day had been one of drizzling wet, but, towards
evening, the rain came down in torrents; the army had to march two
leagues ere they reached the point marked out for them on the line of
retreat, and it would be difficult to describe the wretched state of the
troops. The cavalry half dismounted; the artillery without the requisite
number of horses to draw the ammunition-cars, much less the guns; the
infantry without shoes, or nearly so; and the roads, even in the broad
day, nearly impassable, made the march of this night one of great loss.
When a halt occurred, which was often unavoidable in consequence of the
guide mistaking the way, or because of the narrowness of a part of the
road, or the difficulty of ascertaining the pass of a river, those in
the rear fell down asleep, and it was next to impossible to awaken them,
so much were they exhausted; it then became incumbent on every man who
was awake to rouse those in his front, who impeded the line of march,
not only of the individual himself, but of the army in general.
Nevertheless, many were obliged to stay behind, and were abandoned to
their fate. None but the stout and hale could bear up against the
inclemency of the weather and the want of food; but the worst of all was
the wretched state of the horses of the cavalry and artillery. These
poor animals, when they reached the place marked out for our resting for
the night, had not one morsel to eat, for it was absolutely impossible
to forage for them at such an hour and under such circumstances, and the
consequence was that many died from cold and famine, either in the
harness of the artillery or under the saddles of the dragoons.
It was nine o’clock this night of the retreat before we reached the
ground where we were to rest, and we had scarcely lit our fires when the
bullocks and kettles arrived. This circumstance—a rare one—put us in
good spirits, and by the time we had eaten our first meal that day we
became more gay, and the “boys” of the 88th had their joke about the
slaughter of the pigs by the 4th Division, of which I have made some
slight mention in the last chapter. That I might have said more on the
subject I am aware, for it was a subject that much might be said upon;
but, had I done so, my readers, perhaps, would consider me a _bore_.
However, the Connaught Rangers would have, and had, their joke at the
expense of the defunct pigs. Jack Richardson, of the light infantry
company, said, “The poor craturs must be blind intirely when they run
into the mouth of the 4th Division.”—“No,” replied my man, Dan Carsons,
“they wern’t blind all out, but perhaps they had a _stye in their eye_!”
This sally of Dan was loudly applauded; and this kind of gaiety of
spirit never forsook the men of the 88th under any circumstances. It was
well for themselves, and for the service also; for I believe no regiment
in the Peninsula had more uphill work to contend against than the
ill-fated 88th. No matter!—all that is past and gone now; and those who
survive, and recollect the events that took place during their stay in
the 3rd Division, are now changing positions; they had uphill work
_then_—_now_ they are going down the hill. It is, nevertheless, a
galling reflection to those who bravely earned notice and promotion, to
find themselves passed over, while others, of regiments in the same
division, and under the same General, and placed in circumstances the
same, and sometimes less hazardous, have been lauded and promoted, when
we of the 88th were not even noticed!
But I am digressing. After Carsons' pun we soon fell asleep, and were
again on our legs at four in the morning; but our appearance was greatly
changed for the worse: several soldiers had died during the night from
exhaustion and cold, and those who had shoes on them were soon stripped
of so essential a necessary; and many a young fellow was too happy to be
allowed to stand in a “dead man’s shoes.” Others were so crippled as to
be scarcely able to stand to their arms. Ague and dysentery had, more or
less, affected us all; and the men’s feet were so swollen that they
threw away their shoes in preference to wearing them.
Scarcely any provisions were to be found, but an abundance of wine could
have been easily procured from the different wine-caves in each village.
The troops, once let loose in this kind of way, could not be restrained,
and all discipline would have been at an end; therefore, no one ought to
be surprised that Lord Wellington forbade the occupation of a town. He
did his part in the grand scale, but those who acted under him were
deficient in every way. Sometimes the troops were bivouacked in a muddy
swamp, when dry ground, in comparison at least, was nigh. The
consequence of all this bungling was fatal: the troops became ill and
inefficient; they became discontented; and, to wind up all, the junior
officers of the army were blamed for those things over which they had as
much control as they had over the actions of the Dey of Algiers or the
Great Mogul. The officers divided the misery of the retreat with their
men, and it is well known that many of them had scarcely a covering to
their backs. Scarcely a subaltern in the army had a dollar in his
pocket, the troops being four months in arrear of pay; but, even
supposing he had money in abundance, what use could he make of it? There
was nothing to be had for love or money—we had no money, and few of us
were inclined to make love; but even if we were, there was no one (the
worst of it) to make love to.
Such was the end of a campaign, the commencement of which augured the
most fortunate results. The men who composed this fine army—which, at
Rodrigo, Badajoz, and Salamanca, carried all before them—were now
greatly changed for the worse. Scarcely a man had shoes; not that they
were not amply supplied with them before the retreat commenced, but the
state of the roads, if roads they could be called, was such, that so
soon as a shoe fell off or stuck in the mud, in place of picking it up
again, the man who had thus lost one kicked its fellow-companion after
it. Yet the infantry was efficient, and able to do any duty. No excesses
were committed, for Lord Wellington having taken the precaution of
keeping the army away from the different villages, no man had an
opportunity of obtaining wine or spirits, and thus drunkenness and
insubordination were not added to the list of our misfortunes.
But the cavalry and artillery were in a wretched state indeed. The
artillery of the 3rd, 6th, and 7th Divisions, the heavy cavalry,
together with the 7th and 12th Light Dragoons, were nearly a wreck; and
the artillery of the 3rd Division lost seventy horses between Salamanca
and Rodrigo. It was next to impossible that the artillery and cavalry
could have made, if vigorously pursued, three marches beyond the latter
place. What force, then, was to arrest the enemy in his pursuit?—The
infantry, and the infantry alone; yet this main-prop of the army was, by
mismanagement, left without the means of nourishment! Had not the
infantry, by their firmness in bearing up against all the evils they had
to surmount—such as bad clothing, no tents to shelter them from the
heavy rains that fell, and no means of dressing their food—presented the
front they did, the army must have been lost before it could have
reached Gallegos; and, if equal zeal had been exhibited by the general
officers in providing for the wants of their troops, as was shown by the
subordinate officers in the maintenance of discipline amongst them, the
well-known letter of Lord Wellington would never have been written.[36]
-----
Footnote 36:
Almost every officer of the Peninsular army who has written on the
Burgos retreat, from William Napier downward, joins in the protest
against Wellington’s objurgatory general order against his regimental
officers, published at the end of this retreat. Grattan’s murmurs are
but a sample of the rest.
-----
The officers asked each other, and asked themselves, how or in what
manner they were to blame for the privations the army endured on the
retreat? The answer uniformly was—in no way whatever. The junior
officers had nothing to do with it at all. Their business was to keep
their men together, and, if possible, to keep up with their men on the
march, and this was the most difficult duty they had to perform; for
many, very many, of these officers were young lads, badly clothed, with
scarcely a shoe or boot to their feet—some attacked with dysentery,
others with ague, and more with a burning fever raging through their
system, they had scarcely strength left to hobble on in company with
their more hardy comrades, the soldiers. Nothing but a high sense of
honour could have borne them on; and there were many who would have
remained behind, and run all risks as to the manner in which they would
be treated as prisoners, were it not for this feeling. The different
bivouacs each morning presented a sad spectacle—worn-out veterans, or
young lads unable to move, were abandoned to their fate. Some were
thrown across the backs of the commissariat mules, and conveyed to the
rear; but this was rare, for the drivers were obliged to make all haste
to reach their destination, and the frames of the men, worn down by
sickness, unhealed wounds, or old ones breaking out afresh, were unable
to bear the jolting of the mules, and these men generally preferred
taking their chance on the line of march to submitting to such an uneasy
mode of conveyance.
Thus ended the year 1812, and thus ended our retreat upon Portugal. The
details I have given of that retreat have not been the least
exaggerated. It had, nevertheless, but little effect on my regiment, the
88th, for we scarcely lost a man by fatigue or sickness. The “boys of
Connaught” were not much put out of their way by the want of shoes, a
good coat to their backs, or a full allowance of rations: they took all
those wants _aisy_! In short, it was astonishing to see the effective
state of the regiment, as compared with others, when we reached our
cantonments.
Since I commenced these pages, I have endeavoured to impress my readers
with the idea—and I hope I have succeeded—that the 88th were none of
those humdrum set of fellows that ought to be classed with other
regiments; they, in fact, had a way of their own! There are many who
will agree—cordially on this point, at least—with me; but their reading
and mine of the text may be widely different, nevertheless.
The 88th was a regiment whose spirit it was scarcely possible to break,
and the many curious incidents which occurred during this retreat
afforded them ample food for that ready humour for which they were
proverbial, and for which they got _full credit_; but, nevertheless,
they still are _in arrear_, and they owe a debt to themselves which they
must pay off—no matter what the price may be. It was well for them that
they had food for their humour, for they had little for their stomachs;
but that did not cause them much uneasiness. The state in which some of
the officers were placed was quite pitiable. Many were obliged to throw
off their boots, their feet having become so swollen that they could not
bear them. Those so circumstanced were necessitated to look to the
soldiers for a new fit-out. But where could that be found? The men
themselves, not caring much whether they had or had not shoes, left
those they had worn in the muddy roads, and it would not be an easy
matter to find on this same retreat a second pair with any man. However,
by hook or by crook, those who wanted shoes were supplied; yet, though
the soldiers might be termed the _shoemakers_ of their officers, they
never got the _upper_ hand of them!
[Illustration:
SERGEANT AND PRIVATE
IN WINTER MARCHING ORDER 1813.
London, Edward Arnold, 1902
]
To describe the state of the officers would be impossible; for myself, I
can truly say I was in rags. I wore a frock-coat, made out of a dress
belonging to a priest that was captured by my man Dan Carsons at
Badajoz. I wore it during our sojourn at Madrid: it was lined with silk,
and might be termed a good turn-out there; but, as it turned out on the
retreat, it was the worst description of clothing I, or rather my man
Dan, could have pitched on. Every copse I passed, and they were many,
took a slice off my Madrid frock, and by the time I had undergone three
marches, it was reduced to a spencer! My feet never quitted the shoes in
which they were placed, from the moment of the retreat until its close.
I knew too well their value, and if I once got my feet out of them (no
easy matter), I knew right well it would take some days to get them back
again, they were so swollen; and even if I were dead, much less
crippled, there were many to be found anxious to stand in my shoes—to
boot!
There were others, and many others, as badly off as I was. My friend
Meade was obliged to leave his shoes behind him. He tried to walk
barefooted for a while, but it was impossible. The gravel so lacerated
his feet that he could not move, and he was obliged to make some shift
to get a pair in place of those he had abandoned. Captain Graham of the
21st Portuguese, a lieutenant in my regiment, was so worn out with
fatigue, barebacked and barefooted, that, on one night of the retreat,
having been fortunate enough to get a loaf of bread, he joined me and my
companion Meade; but, so unable was he to eat of the food he brought to
share with us, that he fell down on the ground and never tasted a morsel
of it. It is, therefore, tolerably clear to any man possessing common
understanding, that the junior officers of the army, from the neglect of
their superiors, were not in a state to do more than they did.
The retreat still continued, but the army was unmolested, and at length,
after an absence of so many days, we once more got sight of our baggage.
The poor animals that carried it were in a bad state; but they were even
better than our cavalry or artillery horses. Of the former,
three-fourths of the men were dismounted; and the latter could, with
difficulty, show three horses, in place of eight, to a gun.
On this night, I think it was the 26th of November (that is to say, four
weeks, less by two days, since we left Madrid), I enjoyed what I never
expected to see again—a hearty meal. A knot of us got together under a
tent belonging to Captain Robert Nickle, whose batman was one of the
first to arrive with his baggage, and he kept open house for as many as
the tent could accommodate. In the centre was placed a huge pannella of
chocolate, which was garnished by a couple of large loaves of Spanish
bread. The contents of the pannella, as also the dimensions of the
loaves, were soon altered in appearance, and so, indeed, were we. Our
stomachs, which before were as lank as half-starved greyhounds, now
became plump and full, and, moreover, some fragments were left even
after the servants were fed, and abundantly fed.
A dog belonging to Nickle, that had been absent with the baggage, and
which had been on as short rations as his master, also got a bellyful,
and soon after came into the tent, but his owner was so changed in
appearance and dress that the dog did not at first recognise him—which
proves the old adage to be correct that “a man is sometimes so changed
that his own dog don’t know him.”
The army continued its retrograde movement unassailed, and by the 30th
of November was established in its different stations; but here the real
effects of the retreat began to be felt. The soldiers, while in action,
or in a state of activity, had not time to get ill! So long as the mind
and body are occupied, everything, in comparison, goes on well; but
after a storm a calm succeeds, and that calm is sometimes as bad, and
even worse, than the storm that has preceded it. So it was in the
present instance. More than half the men were attacked with some
complaint; but fever and dysentery, from overwork and bad treatment,
were most prevalent, and the number of bayonets which we counted at the
conclusion of the retreat was considerably diminished before we were
settled in our winter quarters.
Many men, whose frames were as robust as their minds were ardent, began
to sink under the accumulation of the miseries they had endured during
the retreat. The continued and unsparing exposure of their bodies under
such heavy rains as had fallen, and their being obliged to lie out,
without any covering, for so many nights, during so inclement a season,
now began to be felt, and made visible ravages amongst our ranks. The
oldest and most hardy soldiers, as well as the youngest, sank alike
under diseases, and it was heart-breaking to see our ranks thinned, not
only of the hardy old stock, but of the promising young suckers also.
But so it was! The men died by tens—twenties—thirties—and in the course
of a short time every battalion was reduced to the half of its original
strength. In less than a month the hospitals were overstocked, and many
officers were taken ill. I, for once, was amongst the number on the
sick-list. A bad ill-healed wound, which I received in the breast on the
night of the storming of Badajoz, now began to revisit me. A high fever
was the consequence, but I was at length relieved by the taking away of
three pieces from one of my ribs. The reader is not to suppose from this
confession that I was a married man at the time this operation was
performed; but I had, nevertheless, a “rib,” though not a wife; and as
to the “pieces” which I lost, it would be but a useless task to look
after them now.
The Sergeant-Majors wife, a fine, fat, well-looking woman, amongst many
others, was taken ill, and visited with a bad fever. She was the sister
of my man, Dan Carsons, and had kept close with the regiment from the
time of its first landing in the Peninsula to the time I am now speaking
of. She acted in many a useful capacity towards the officers. She
supplied us with wine and bread, and every other comfort she could
afford us, and was, in fact, a necessary appendage to the officers, for
she was one of the best foragers I ever saw in the 88th regiment; and
the army knows—the Peninsular army, I mean—that we had some good ones.
But this poor woman lost two fine mules during our retrograde movement,
as also the cargoes with which they were laden, amounting to a good
round sum, which, at the lowest estimate, I must value to be worth three
hundred dollars. This loss affected her. She had left no stone unturned
to realise it, and this untoward event brought on a violent fit of
illness. The fatigue she had undergone, no doubt, aided the cause of her
disorder; but, be this as it may, she became quite delirious. While in
her bed she could not be made to understand that the army was not in
full retreat. “Where,” she would exclaim, “are my mules?” My man, Dan,
was in constant attendance upon his sister, and was, as a matter of
course, continually intoxicated! If she got better, he would say that he
took a little dhrop “more than usual” for joy; if she relapsed, he did
the same “to dhrown grief.” So that, between Dan’s “joy” and Dan’s
“grief,” to say nothing of my own helpless state, I was anything but
well off.
At length the poor woman became quite insane, but she still looked up to
Dan as her sheet-anchor; nevertheless, Dan always paid her that respect
which he conceived due to the wife of the Sergeant-Major, and always
called her Misthress O‘Neil; she, on the contrary, forgetting the
station she held, always called her brother “Dan.” “Och, then,” said
she, “Dan, what do the Frinch mane at all—where do they mane to dhrive
us to?—an’t my mules gone, and our baggage gone, and still we’re on the
rethrate? Haven’t they taken all from us, even our necessaries?—where do
they mane to send us to?”—“By gob! Misthress O‘Neil,” replied Dan, with
a broad grin, “I think they mane to _send us all to pot_!”