TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
More detail can be found at the end of the book.
English Men of Action
COLIN CAMPBELL
LORD CLYDE
[Illustration: (Publisher's colophon.)]
[Illustration: SIR COLIN CAMPBELL, LORD CLYDE
After the Picture by Sir FRANCIS GRANT, P.R.A.]
COLIN CAMPBELL
LORD CLYDE
BY
ARCHIBALD FORBES
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1895
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
EARLY LIFE--THE PENINSULA 1
CHAPTER II
COLONIAL AND HOME SERVICE 22
CHAPTER III
CHINA AND INDIA 39
CHAPTER IV
THE CRIMEA 82
CHAPTER V
THE INDIAN MUTINY--ORGANISATION--RELIEF OF
LUCKNOW--DEFEAT OF GWALIOR CONTINGENT 110
CHAPTER VI
THE STORMING OF LUCKNOW 144
CHAPTER VII
THE CAMPAIGN IN ROHILCUND 173
CHAPTER VIII
THE CAMPAIGN IN CENTRAL INDIA 187
CHAPTER IX
THE PACIFICATION OF OUDE--END OF THE MUTINY 198
CHAPTER X
FROM SIMLA TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY 212
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE--THE PENINSULA
The British Military Service is fertile in curious contrasts. Among
the officers who sailed from England for the East in the spring of
1854 were three veterans who had soldiered under the Great Duke in
Portugal and Spain. The fighting career of each of those men began
almost simultaneously; the senior of the three first confronted
an enemy's fire in 1807, the two others in the following year. In
1854 one of these officers, who was the son of a duke and who had
himself been raised to the peerage, was the Commander-in-Chief of
the expeditionary army. Lord Raglan was a lieutenant-colonel at
the age of twenty-four, a colonel at twenty-seven, a major-general
at thirty-seven. He had been colonel-in-chief of a regiment since
1830 and a lieutenant-general since 1838; and he was to become
a field-marshal before the year was out. Another, who belonged,
although irregularly, to an old and good family, whose father was a
distinguished if unfortunate general, and who enjoyed the patronage
and protection of one of our great houses, belonging though he
did to an arm of the service in which promotion has always been
exceptionally slow, was a lieutenant-colonel at thirty and a colonel
at forty, and was now a lieutenant-general on the Staff and second
in command of the expeditionary force. The third, who was the son
of a Glasgow carpenter, sailed for the East, it is true, with the
assurance of the command of a brigade; but, after a service of
forty-six years, his army-rank then and for three months later, was
still only that of colonel. Neither Lord Raglan nor Sir John Burgoyne
had ever heard a shot fired in anger since the memorable year of
Waterloo; but during the long peace both had been attaining step
after step of promotion, and holding lucrative and not particularly
arduous offices. Since the Peninsular days Colin Campbell had been
soldiering his steadfast way round the world, taking campaigns
and climates alike as they came to him in the way of duty,--now
a brigade-major, now serving and conquering in the command of a
division, now holding at the point of the bayonet the most dangerous
frontier of British India against onslaught after onslaught of the
turbulent hill-tribes beyond the border. He had fought not without
honour, for his Sovereign had made him a Knight of the Bath and
appointed him one of her own aides-de-camp. But there is a certain
barrenness in honours when unaccompanied by promotion, and it had
fallen to the lot of the son of the Glasgow carpenter to serve for
eighteen years in the capacity of a field-officer commanding a
regiment.
Yet even in the British military service the aphorism occasionally
holds good, that everything comes to him who knows how to wait. Colin
Campbell, the half-pay colonel of 1854, was a full general in 1858
and a peer of the realm in the same year; in 1862 he was gazetted
a field-marshal. In less than nine years the half-pay colonel had
attained the highest rank in the service,--a promotion of unique
rapidity apart from that conferred on soldiers of royal blood. Along
with Lord Clyde were gazetted field-marshals Sir Edward Blakeney and
Lord Gough, both of whom were lieutenant-generals of some twenty
years' standing when Colin Campbell was merely a colonel. Sir John
Burgoyne, almost immeasurably his senior in 1854, did not become a
field-marshal until 1868.
Colin Campbell was born in Glasgow on the 20th of October 1792, the
eldest of the four children of John Macliver, the Glasgow carpenter,
and his wife Agnes Campbell. How Colin Macliver came to bear the
name of Colin Campbell will presently be told. The family had gone
down in the world, but Colin Campbell came of good old stock on both
sides of the house. His grandfather, Laird of Ardnave in the island
of Islay, had been out in the Forty-five and so forfeited his estate.
General Shadwell, the biographer of Colin Campbell, states that his
mother was of a respectable family which had settled in Islay near
two centuries ago with its chief, the ancestor of the existing Earls
of Cawdor. But the Campbell who was the ancestor of the Cawdors was a
son of the second Earl of Argyle who fell at Flodden in 1513, and he
belonged to the first half of the sixteenth century; so that, since
Colin Campbell's maternal family settled in Islay with its chief, it
could reckon a longer existence than that ascribed to it by General
Shadwell. Not a few of Colin Campbell's kinsmen had served in the
army; and the uncle after whom he was christened had fallen as a
subaltern in the war of the American Revolution.
His earliest schooling he received at the Glasgow High School,
whence at the age of ten he was removed by his mother's brother,
Colonel John Campbell, and placed by him in the Royal Military and
Naval Academy at Gosport. Scarcely anything is on record regarding
young Colin's school-days there. The first Lord Chelmsford was one
of his schoolfellows; and there is a tradition that he spent his
holidays with the worthy couple by whom the Academy was established,
and by a descendant of whom it is still carried on. When barely
fifteen and a half his uncle presented him to the Duke of York, then
Commander-in-Chief, who promised him a commission; and supposing
him to be, as he said, "another of the clan," put down his name
as Colin Campbell, the name which he thenceforth bore. General
Shadwell states that on leaving the Duke's presence with his uncle,
young Colin made some comment on what he took to be a mistake on
the Duke's part in regard to his surname, to which the shrewd uncle
replied by telling him that "Campbell was a name which it would suit
him, for professional reasons, to adopt." The youngster was wise in
his generation, and does not appear to have had any compunction in
dropping the not particularly euphonious surname of Macliver. On the
26th of May 1808 young Campbell received the commission of ensign in
the Ninth Foot, now known as the Norfolk regiment; and within five
weeks from the date of his first commission he was promoted to a
lieutenancy in the same regiment.
He entered the service at an eventful moment. Napoleon had attained
the zenith of his marvellous career. He was the virtual master of
the whole of continental Europe. The royal family of Spain were in
effect his prisoners, and his brother Joseph had been proclaimed
King of Spain. The royal family of Portugal had departed to the New
World lest worse things should befall it, and Junot was ruling in
Lisbon in the name of his imperial master. But the Spaniards rose _en
masse_ in a national insurrection; and no sooner had they raised the
standard of independence than they felt the necessity of applying
to England for aid. Almost simultaneously the Portuguese rose, and
no severity on Junot's part availed to crush the universal revolt.
Almost on the very day on which young Campbell joined his regiment
in the Isle of Wight, the British force of nine thousand men to the
command of which Sir Arthur Wellesley was appointed, sailed from Cork
for the Peninsula. Spencer's division joined Wellesley in Mondego
Bay, and on the night of the 8th of August 1808 thirteen thousand
British soldiers bivouacked on the beach--the advanced guard of
an army which, after six years of many vicissitudes and much hard
fighting, was to expel from the Peninsula the last French soldier and
to contribute materially to the ruin of Napoleon.
Campbell was posted to the second battalion of the Ninth, commanded
by Colonel Cameron, an officer of whom he always spoke with
affectionate regard. The first battalion of the regiment had
already sailed from Cork, and the second, which belonged to General
Anstruther's brigade, took ship at Ramsgate for the Peninsula on
July 20th. Reaching the open sandy beach at the mouth of the Maceira
on the 19th of August, it was disembarked the same evening, and
bivouacked on the beach. Campbell notes, "lay out that night for the
first time in my life;" many a subsequent night did he lie out in
divers regions! On the following day the battalion joined the army
then encamped about the village of Vimiera. Wellesley had only landed
on the 8th, but already he had been the victor in the skirmish of
Obidos and the battle of Roleia; and now, on the 21st, he was again
to defeat Junot on the heights of Vimiera.
Directly in front of the village of that name rose a rugged isolated
height, with a flat summit commanding the ground in front and to
the left. Here was posted Anstruther's brigade, its left resting
on the village church and graveyard. Young Campbell was with the
rear company of his battalion, which stood halted in open column of
companies under the fierce fire of Laborde's artillery covering the
impending assault of his infantry. The captain of Campbell's company,
an officer inured to war, chose the occasion for leading the lad
out to the front of the battalion and walking with him along the
face of the leading company for several minutes, after which little
piece of experience he sent him back to his company. In narrating
the incident in after years Campbell was wont to add: "It was the
greatest kindness that could have been shown to me at such a time,
and through life I have been grateful for it." It is not unlikely
that the gallant and considerate old soldier may have intended not
alone to give to his young subaltern his baptism of fire, but also to
brace the nerves of the men of a battalion which, although part of a
regiment subsequently distinguished in many campaigns and battles,
was now for the first time in its military life to confront an enemy
and endure hostile fire.
The brigade was assailed at once in front and flank. The main
French column, headed by Laborde in person and preceded by swarms of
tirailleurs, mounted the face of the hill with great fury and loud
shouts. So impetuous was the onset that the British skirmishers were
driven in upon the lines, but steady volleys arrested the advance of
the French, and they broke and fled without waiting for the impending
bayonet charge. It would be interesting to know something of the
impressions made on young Campbell by his first experience of actual
war; but the curt entry in his memorandum is simply--"21st (August),
was engaged at the battle of Vimiera."
At the end of the brief campaign Campbell was transferred to the
first battalion of the Ninth, and had the good fortune to remain
under the command of Colonel Cameron, who had also been transferred.
In the beginning of October a despatch from England reached Lisbon,
instructing Sir John Moore to take command of the British army
intended to co-operate with the forces of Spain in an attempt to
expel the French from the Peninsula. The disasters which befell the
enterprise committed to Moore need not be recounted in detail because
of the circumstance that a young lieutenant shared in them in common
with the rest of the hapless force. The battalion in which Campbell
was serving was among the earliest troops to be put in motion. It
quitted its quarters at Quelus, near Lisbon on October 12th, and
reached Salamanca on November 11th. When Moore's army was organised
in divisions, the battalion formed part of Major-General Beresford's
brigade belonging to the division commanded by Lieutenant-General
Mackenzie Fraser. On reaching Salamanca Moore found that the Spanish
armies which he had come to support were already destroyed, and
that he himself was destitute alike of supplies and money. In this
situation it was his original intention to retire into Portugal,
which might have been his wisest course; but Moore was a man of a
high and ardent nature. When on the point of taking the offensive in
the hope of affording to the Spaniards breathing-time for organising
a defence of the southern provinces, he became aware that French
forces were converging on him from diverse points; and on the 24th of
December began the memorable retreat, the disasters of which cannot
be said to have been compensated for by the nominal victory of Coruña.
In the hardships and horrors of that midwinter retreat young Campbell
bore his share. Little, if any fighting came in his way, since the
division to which his battalion belonged was for the most part in
front. During the retreat it experienced a loss of one hundred and
fifty men; but they are all specified as having died on the march or
having been taken prisoners by the enemy. Nor had it the good fortune
to take part in the battle of Coruña, having been stationed in the
town during the fighting. There fell to a fatigue party detailed from
it the melancholy duty of digging on the rampart of Coruña the grave
of Moore, wherein under the fire of the French guns he was laid in
his "martial cloak" by his sorrowing Staff in the gray winter's dawn.
Beresford's brigade, to which Campbell's battalion belonged, covered
the embarkation and was the last to quit a shore of melancholy
memory. General Shadwell writes that, "To give some idea of the
discomforts of the retreat, Lord Clyde used to relate how for some
time before reaching Coruña he had to march with bare feet, the soles
of his boots being completely worn away. He had no means of replacing
them, and when he got on board ship he was unable to remove them, as
from constant wear and his inability to take them off the leather had
adhered so closely to the flesh of the legs that he was obliged to
steep them in water as hot as he could bear and have the leather cut
away in strips--a painful operation, as in the process pieces of the
skin were brought away with it."
After a stay in England of little more than six months Campbell's
battalion was again sent on foreign service, an item of the fine
army of forty thousand men under the command of the Earl of Chatham.
The main object of the undertaking, which is known as the Walcheren
Expedition, whose story occupies one of the darkest pages of
our military history, was to reduce the fortress of Antwerp and
destroy the French fleet lying under its shelter, in the hope of
disconcerting Napoleon and creating a diversion in favour of Austria.
But opportunities were lost, time was squandered, and the expedition
ended in disastrous failure. Montresor's brigade, to which Campbell's
battalion belonged, disembarked on the island of South Beveland in
the beginning of August, to be the gradual prey of fever and ague in
the pestilential marshes of the island. Nothing was achieved save
the barren capture of the fortress of Flushing; and towards the end
of September most of the land forces of the expedition, including
Campbell's battalion, returned to England. Over one-sixth of the
original army of forty thousand men had been buried in the swamps
of Walcheren and South Beveland; the survivors carried home with
them the seeds of the "Walcheren fever," which affected them more or
less for the rest of their lives. Colin Campbell was an intermittent
sufferer from it almost if not quite to the end of his life.
The second battalion of the Ninth had been in garrison at Gibraltar
since July, 1809, and to it Colin Campbell was transferred some
time in the course of the following year. In the beginning of 1811
the French Marshal Victor was blockading Cadiz, and General Graham
(afterwards Lord Lynedoch) determined on an attempt in concert with a
Spanish force to march on his rear and break the blockade. Landing at
Tarifa he picked up a detachment, which included the flank companies
of the Ninth in which Campbell was serving. Graham's division of
British troops was now somewhat over four thousand strong, and the
Spanish army of La Peña was at least thrice that strength. The allied
force reached the heights of Barrosa on March 5th. Graham anxiously
desired to hold that position, recognising its value; but he had
ceded the command to La Peña, who gave him the order to quit it and
move forward. In the conviction that La Peña himself would remain
there, he obeyed, leaving on Barrosa as baggage-guard the flank
companies of the Ninth and Eighty-Second regiments under Major Brown.
Graham had not gone far when La Peña abandoned the Barrosa position
with the mass of his force. Victor had been watching events under
cover of a forest, his three divisions well in hand; and now he saw
his opportunity. Villatte was to stand fast; Laval to intercept
the return of the British division to the height; Ruffin to seize
the height, sweep from it the allied rear-guard left there, and
disperse the baggage and followers. Major Brown held together the
flank companies he commanded, and withdrew slowly into the plain.
Graham promptly faced about and made haste to attack. Brown had sent
to Graham for orders, and was told that he was to fight; and the
gallant Brown, unsupported as he was, charged headlong on Ruffin's
front. Half his detachment went down under the enemy's first fire;
but he maintained the fight staunchly until Dilke's division came up,
when the whole, Dilke's people and Brown's stanch flank companies,
"with little order indeed, but in a fierce mood," in Napier's words,
rushed upwards to close quarters. The struggle lasted for an hour
and a half and was "most violent and bloody"; only the unconquerable
spirit of the British soldiers averted disaster and accomplished the
victory. Many a fierce fight was Colin Campbell to take part in, but
none more violent and bloody than this one on the heights of Barrosa.
His record of his own share in it is characteristically brief and
modest: "At the battle of Barrosa Lord Lynedoch was pleased to take
favourable notice of my conduct when left in command of the two flank
companies of my regiment, all the other officers being wounded."
Late in the same year Campbell saw some casual service while
temporarily attached to the Spanish army commanded by Ballasteros in
the south of Spain. In the disturbed state of the surrounding region
many Spanish families of rank were glad to find quiet shelter within
the fortress of Gibraltar, and their society was eagerly sought by
young Campbell, who was anxious to take the opportunity of improving
himself in the French and Spanish languages. When in December, 1811,
a French force under Laval undertook what proved an abortive and
final attempt to reduce the fortified town of Tarifa, he accompanied
the light company of his battalion to take part in the vigorous and
successful defence of the place, a result achieved by the courage and
devotion of the British garrison sent to hold it by General Campbell,
the wise and energetic governor of Gibraltar, and by the skill and
resource of Sir Charles Smith the chief engineer.
At the close of 1812 Colin Campbell had just turned his twentieth
year, and had been a soldier for four and a half years, during which
time he had seen no small variety of service. Vimiera and Barrosa
had been stiff fights, but neither belonged to the category of "big
wars" which are said to "make ambition virtue." Young Campbell had
virtue, and certainly did not lack honest ambition. In a sense he
had as yet not been very fortunate. In a period when interest was
almost everything, he had absolutely none. While he had been on a
side track of the great war, his more fortunate comrades of the
first battalion had fought at Busaco and Salamanca under the eye of
the Great Captain himself. But the time had now come when he, too,
was to belong to the army which Wellington was to lead to final and
decisive victory. He accompanied a draft from the second battalion
of his regiment which in January 1813 was sent to join the first
battalion lying in its winter cantonments in the vicinity of Lamego
on the lower Douro, and to his great joy found himself again under
the command of his original chief, Colonel Cameron. In its winter
quarters the allied army had recovered the cohesion and discipline
so sadly impaired during the retreat from Burgos in the preceding
autumn, and, strengthened by large reinforcements, was now in fine
form and high heart. The advance began in the middle of May, when
Wellington's army, seventy thousand strong, swept onward on a broad
front, turning the positions of the French and driving them before
it towards the Pyrenees. Of the three corps constituting that army
Sir Thomas Graham's had the left, consisting of the first, third,
and fifth divisions, to the second brigade of which, commanded by
General Hay, belonged the first battalion of the Ninth, to the light
company of which Colin Campbell was posted. The march of Graham's
corps through the difficult mountainous region of Tras-os-Montes and
onward to Vittoria was exceptionally arduous, but the obstacles were
skilfully surmounted. Of the part taken by his battalion on this
advance Colin Campbell kept a minute daily record, which has been
preserved. He acted as orderly officer to Lieutenant-Colonel Crawford
of his battalion, who commanded the flank companies of the third and
fifth divisions in the operation of crossing the Esla at Almandra
on May 31st. Continuing its march towards the north-east Graham's
corps crossed the Ebro with some skirmishing, and on the morning of
the 18th of June its advance debouched from the defile of Astri and
marched on Osma, where the French General Reille with two divisions
was unexpectedly met. Reille occupied the heights of Astalitz. The
light companies of the first brigade were sent against the enemy, who
were evincing an intent to retreat, and Campbell accompanied his
company. He notes as follows:--"This being our first encounter of the
campaign, the men were ardent and eager, and pressed the French most
wickedly. When the enemy began their movement to the rear, they were
constrained to hurry the pace of their columns, notwithstanding the
cloud of skirmishers which covered their retreat. Lord Wellington
came up about half-past three. We continued the pursuit until dusk,
when we were relieved by the light troops of the fourth division. The
ground on which we skirmished was so thickly wooded and so rugged and
uneven, that when we were relieved by the fourth division, and the
light companies were ordered to return to their respective regiments,
I found myself incapable of further exertion from fatigue and
exhaustion, occasioned by six hours of almost continuous skirmishing."
On the 20th Wellington's army moved down into the basin of Vittoria.
King Joseph's dispositions for the battle of Vittoria, which was
fought on June 21st, were distinctly bad. His right flank at Gamara
Mayor was too distant to be supported by the main body of his army,
yet the safe retreat of the latter in the event of defeat depended
on the staunchness of this isolated wing. Graham, moving southward
from Murguia by the Bilbao road, was to attack Reille who commanded
the French right, and to attempt the passage of the Zadora at Gamara
Mayor and Ariaga; should he succeed, the French would be turned, and
in great part enclosed between the Puebla mountains on one side and
the Zadora on the other by the corps of Hill and Wellington.
Graham approached the valley of the Zadora about noon. Before moving
forward on the village of Abechuco, it became necessary to force
across the river the enemy's troops holding the heights on the
left and covering the bridges of Ariaza and Gamara Mayor. This was
accomplished after a short but sharp fight in which Colin Campbell
participated. Sarrut's French division retired across the stream,
and the British troops occupied the ground from which the enemy had
been driven. Campbell thus describes the sequel:--"While we were
halted the enemy occupied Gamara Mayor in considerable force, placed
two guns at the principal entrance into the village, threw a cloud
of skirmishers in front among the cornfields, and occupied with six
pieces of artillery the heights immediately behind the village on
the left bank. About 5 P.M. an order arrived from Lord Wellington
to press the enemy in our front. It was the extreme right of their
line; and the lower road leading to France, by which alone they could
retire their artillery and baggage, ran close to Gamara Mayor. The
left brigade moved down in contiguous columns of companies, and our
light companies were sent to cover the right flank of this attack.
The regiments, exposed to a heavy fire of musketry and artillery,
did not take a musket from the shoulder until they carried the
village. The enemy brought forward his reserves, and made many
desperate efforts to retake the bridge, but could not succeed. This
was repeated until the bridge became so heaped with dead and wounded
that they were rolled over the parapet into the river below. Our
light companies were closed upon the Ninth, and brought into the
village to support the second brigade. We were presently ordered
to the left to cover that flank of the village, and we occupied the
bank of the river, on the opposite side of which was the enemy. After
three hours' hard fighting they retired, leaving their guns in our
possession. Crossing the Zadora in pursuit, we followed them about a
league, and encamped near Metanco." The French left and centre had
been driven in, and Graham had closed to the enemy their retreat
by the Bayonne road, so that there remained to them only the road
leading towards Pampeluna, which was all but utterly blocked by
vehicles and fugitives. In the words of one of themselves, the French
at Vittoria lost all their equipages, all their guns, all their
treasure, all their stores, all their papers, so that no man could
prove even how much pay was due to him; generals and subordinate
officers alike were reduced to the clothes on their backs, and most
of them were barefooted.
After the battle of Vittoria Graham moved forward to the investment
of San Sebastian. In itself before that battle the fortress was of
little account, but since then the French General Rey had used great
energy in restoring its powers of defence; and its garrison at the
beginning of Graham's operations reached a total of about three
thousand men. San Sebastian is situated on a peninsula jutting out
into the sea, and is connected with the mainland by a narrow isthmus.
The western side of the peninsula is washed by the sea, the eastern
by the estuary of the river Urumea. At its northern extremity rose
the steep height of Monte Urgullo, the summit of which was occupied
by the castle of La Mota, a citadel of great strength, capable
of being defended after the town should have fallen. The town,
surrounded by a fortified _enceinte_, occupied the entire breadth
of the peninsula. The high curtain protecting it on the southern or
landward side had in front of it a large hornwork, with a ravelin
enclosed by a covered way and glacis. The east and west defences were
weak; along the eastern side the water of the Urumea estuary receded
at low tide for some distance from the foot of the wall, leaving
access thereto from the isthmus. At the neck of the peninsula, about
half a mile in advance of the town defences, was the height of San
Bartolomeo, near the eastern verge of which was the convent of the
same name. This building the French had fortified and had thrown up
a redoubt in connection with it, convent and redoubt forming the
advanced post of the garrison.
Graham was in command of the operations, his force amounting to
about ten thousand men. The obvious preliminary was the capture
of the redoubt and convent of San Bartolomeo. An attack on this
position, made on the 14th of July after an artillery preparation,
had failed with heavy loss. A second attempt made on the 17th was
more successful, three days of unintermitting artillery fire having
reduced the convent to ruins and silenced the redoubt. The attack
was made in two columns, the right one of which Colin Campbell
accompanied with his own, the light company. The chief fighting of
the day was done by his regiment, which stormed both convent and
redoubt and after some hard fighting drove the French out of the
adjacent suburb of San Martino and occupied what fire had spared
of it. In this affair the Ninth lost upwards of seventy officers
and soldiers. Campbell's laconic entry in his journal for this day
is simply, "Convent taken." But he must have distinguished himself
conspicuously, since in Graham's despatch to Lord Wellington, among
"the officers whose gallantry was most conspicuous in leading on
their men to overcome the variety of obstacles exposed to them" was
mentioned "Lieutenant Colin Campbell of the Ninth Foot."
The Commander-in-Chief desired judicious speed, and the operations
were hurried on unduly by men who were too impetuous to adhere to
the scheme sanctioned by their chief. After a four days' bombardment
of the place the assault was ordered for the early morning of the
25th. The storming-party consisted of a battalion of the Royals,
with the task of carrying the great breach; of the Thirty-Eighth,
told off to assail the lesser breach further to the right; and of
the Ninth, to act in support of the Royals. Colin Campbell had a
special position and a special duty, of a kind seldom entrusted to
a subaltern and markedly indicative of the estimation which he had
thus early earned. He was placed in the centre of the Royals with
twenty men of his (the light) company, having the light company
of the Royals as his immediate support and under his orders, and
accompanied by a ladder-party under an engineer officer. His specific
orders were on reaching the crest of the breach to gain the ramparts
on the left, sweep the curtain to the high work in the centre of the
main front, and there establish himself. The signal for an advance
to the assault was given prematurely, while it was still dark, by
the explosion of a mine, and the head of the storming-party moved
out of the trenches promptly but in straggling order. The space
between the exit from the parallel and the breach, some three hundred
yards, was very rugged, broken by projecting rocks, pools, seaweed
and other impediments. These difficulties, the darkness, and the
withering fire from the ramparts, increased the tendency to disorder,
and presently Campbell was not surprised to find an actual check.
The halted mass had opened fire and there was no moving it forward.
He pushed on past the halted body having there lost some men of
his detachment; and reached the breach, the lower part of which
he observed to be thickly strewn with killed and wounded. "There
were," to quote from his journal, "a few individual officers spread
on the face of the breach, but nothing more. These were cheering,
and gallantly exposing themselves to the close and destructive fire
directed on them from the round tower and other defences. In going up
I passed Jones of the Engineers[1] who was wounded; and on gaining
the top I was shot through the right hip and tumbled to the bottom.
Finding on rising that I was not disabled from moving, and observing
two officers of the Royals who were exerting themselves to lead some
of their men from under the line-wall near to the breach, I went
to assist their endeavours and again went up the breach with them,
when I was shot through the inside part of the left thigh." In the
language of the brilliant historian of the Peninsular War--"It was
in vain that Lieutenant Campbell, breaking through the tumultuous
crowd with the survivors of his chosen detachment, mounted the
ruins--twice he ascended, twice he was wounded, and all around him
died." The assault failed; and the siege of San Sebastian was
temporarily exchanged for a blockade. There was much angry discussion
and recrimination as to the causes of the disastrous issue. It was
remarked that no general or staff officer had quitted the trenches,
and that what leading there was devolved entirely on the regimental
officers. They, at least, had fought well and exposed themselves
freely, and none had behaved himself more gallantly than Colin
Campbell. This was heartily and handsomely acknowledged by Graham
when he thus wrote in his despatch to Lord Wellington describing
the assault:--"I beg to recommend to you Lieutenant Campbell of the
Ninth, who led the forlorn hope, and who was severely wounded in
the breach." Such a recognition, barren of immediate results though
it was, Colin Campbell probably thought cheaply earned at the cost
of a mere couple of bullet-holes. These, however, hindered him from
participating in the desperate fighting of the final and successful
assault on San Sebastian; and, indeed, when after the surrender of
the place his division departed, he had to remain an invalid in the
shattered town. He was now about to perpetrate the only breach of
military discipline ever laid to his charge. Having heard of the
early prospect of a battle, he and a brother officer who had also
been wounded took the liberty of deserting from hospital for the
purpose of joining their regiment. How long it took them to limp from
San Sebastian to Oryarzun is not specified; but they reached the
regiment on October 6th just in time to join the midnight march to
the left bank of the Bidassoa opposite Andaya, and on the following
morning to wade the river and enter France. The British cannonade
awoke the French to find their country invaded by an enemy and
hostile cannon-balls falling in their bivouacs.
From Andaya the division in which Colin Campbell marched sprang up
the slopes to assail the key of the position, the Croix des Bouquets.
To that stronghold reinforcements were hurrying, and attacks on it
had already been made in vain; "But," in the burning words of Napier,
"at this moment Cameron arrived with the Ninth regiment, and rushed
with great vehemence to the summit of the first height. The French
infantry opened ranks to let the guns retire, and then retreated
themselves at full speed to a second rise where they could only be
approached in a narrow front. Cameron quickly threw his men into
a single column and bore against this new position, which curving
inwards enabled the French to pour a concentrated fire upon his
regiment; nor did his violent course seem to dismay them until he
was within ten yards, when, appalled by the furious shout and charge
of the Ninth, they gave way and the ridges of the Croix des Bouquets
were won as far as the royal road." The regiment in this encounter
lost nearly one hundred men; and Colin Campbell, who commanded the
light company in its front, was now again severely wounded. The
breach of discipline he had committed in discharging himself from
the hospital his colonel condoned with no sterner punishment than
a severe reprimand, on account of his gallant conduct in the first
action fought on French soil.