CAMPAIGN OF 1812: STORMING OF CIUDAD RODRIGO.
As the winter approached we had private theatricals. The Duke appointed
so many days for horse races, greyhound matches, etc., and the very
day they were to come off, which was well known to the French army, we
invested Ciudad Rodrigo, namely, on the 8th of January, 1812, and that
very night carried by storm the outworks called Fort San Francisco, up
to which spot it took the French several days to approach. We broke
ground, and thus the siege commenced.
When the detachments of the Light Division Brigades were parading,
my Brigade was to furnish 400 men. I understood four Companies, and
when Colonel Colborne (now Lord Seaton) was counting them, he said,
“There are not the complement of men.” I said, “I am sorry if I
have mistaken.” “Oh, never mind; run and bring another Company.” I
mention this to show what a cool, noble fellow he is. Many an officer
would have stormed like fury. He only thought of storming Fort San
Francisco, which he carried in a glorious manner.[24]
The siege was carried on by four Divisions—1st, 3rd, 4th, and Light,
cantoned as near Ciudad Rodrigo as possible. One Division was on duty
at a time, and each had to ford the Agueda the day it was for duty. The
Light was at El Bodon. We had a distance of nine miles to march every
fourth day, and back on the fifth, so that we had only three days’
halt. The frost was excessive, and there was some little snow, but
fortunately the weather was fine above head.
The Light Division stormed the little breach on the evening of the 19th
of January (nine o’clock). I was supping with my dear friend Captain
Uniacke, and brother Tom, his only subaltern not wounded. When I parted
from Uniacke—he was a noble, light-hearted fellow—he says, “Harry, you
will be a Captain before morning.” Little, poor fellow, did he think he
was to make the vacancy. I was senior subaltern of the 95th, and I went
to General Craufurd and volunteered the forlorn hope that was given to
Gurwood. Craufurd said, “Why, you cannot go; you, a Major of Brigade,
a senior Lieutenant, you are sure to get a Company. No, I must give it
to a younger officer.” This was to me a laborious night. Just as my
Brigade had to march, I discovered the Engineer officer had not brought
up the ladders, fascines, and bundles of hay, and old George Simmons
was sent for them.
In ascending the breach, I got on a ravelin at the head of the 43rd and
52nd, moving in column together. Colborne pulled me down again, and up
the right breach we ascended. I saw the great breach, stormed by the
3rd Division, was ably defended, and a line behind a work which, as
soon as we rushed along the ramparts, we could enfilade. I seized a
Company of the 43rd and rushed on the flank, and opened a fire which
destroyed every man behind the works. My conduct caused great annoyance
to the Captain, Duffy, with whom I had some very high words; but the
Company obeyed me, and then ran on with poor Uniacke’s Company to meet
the 3rd Division, or rather clear the ramparts to aid them, when the
horrid explosion took place which killed General Mackinnon of the 3rd
Division on the spot and many soldiers, awfully scorching others. I and
Uniacke were much scorched, but some splinters of an ammunition chest
lacerated him and caused his death three days after the storm. Tom, my
brother, was not hurt.
I shall never forget the concussion when it struck me, throwing me back
many feet into a lot of charged fuses of shells, which in the confusion
I took for shells. But a gallant fellow, a Sergeant MacCurrie, 52nd
Regiment, soon put me right, and prevented me leaping into the ditch.
My cocked hat was blown away, my clothes all singed; however the
sergeant, a noble fellow, lent me a catskin forage-cap, and on we
rushed to meet the 3rd Division, which we soon did. It was headed by a
great, big thundering Grenadier of the 88th, a Lieutenant Stewart, and
one of his men seized me by the throat as if I were a kitten, crying
out, “You French ——.” Luckily, he left me room in the windpipe to d——
his eyes, or the bayonet would have been through me in a moment.
Gurwood got great credit here unfairly. Willie Johnstone[25] and poor
Uniacke were the two first on the ramparts, Gurwood having been knocked
down in the breach and momentarily stunned, which enabled them to get
before him. However, Gurwood’s a sharp fellow, and he cut off in search
of the Governor, and brought his sword to the Duke, and Lord Fitzroy
Somerset buckled it on him in the breach. Gurwood made the _most_ of it.
We had many officers of rank wounded. George Napier, of the 52nd, lost
an arm; the General of Brigade, Vandeleur, was wounded severely in the
shoulder; and Colonel Colborne, of the 52nd, received an awful wound,
but he never quitted his Regiment until the city was perfectly ours,
and his Regiment all collected. A musket-ball had struck him under
the epaulette of his right shoulder, and broken the head of the bone
right off in the socket. To this the attention of the surgeons was of
course directed. Some months after Colborne complained of a pain four
inches below where the ball entered, and suppuration took place, and
by surgical treatment the bone was gradually exposed. The ball, after
breaking the arm above, had descended and broken the arm four inches
below, and was firmly embedded in the bone. The pain he suffered in the
extraction of the ball was more even than his iron heart could bear. He
used to lay his watch on the table and allow the surgeons five minutes’
exertions at a time, and they were three or four days before they
wrenched the ball from its ossified bed. In three weeks from that day
Colborne was in the Pyrenees, and in command of his Regiment. Of course
the shoulder joint was anchylosed, but he had free use of the arm below
the elbow.
After this siege we had a few weeks’ holiday, with the exception of
shooting some rascals who had deserted to the enemy. Eleven knelt on
one grave at Ituero. It is an awful ceremony, a military execution.
I was Major of Brigade of the day. The Provost-Marshal had not told
the firing off, so that a certain number of men should shoot one
culprit, and so on, but at his signal the whole party fired a volley.
Some prisoners were fortunate enough to be _killed_, others were only
wounded, some untouched. I galloped up. An unfortunate Rifleman called
to me by name—he was awfully wounded—“Oh, Mr. Smith, put me out of my
misery,” and I literally ordered the firing-party, when reloaded, to
run up and shoot the poor wretches. It was an awful scene.
“Blood he had viewed, but then
It flowed in combat....”