CAMPAIGN OF 1812: THE STORMING OF BADAJOS—HARRY SMITH’S MARRIAGE.
At this period of the year (February, March) the coursing in this part
of Spain is capital, and by help of my celebrated dog Moro and two
other excellent ones, I supplied the officers’ mess of every Company
with hares for soup. We had a short repose, for the army moved into
Estremadura for the purpose of besieging Badajos. We Light, 3rd and
4th Divisions, thought, as we had taken Ciudad Rodrigo, others would
have the pleasure of the trenches of Badajos, but on our reaching Elvas
[17 Feb., 1812] we were very soon undeceived, and we were destined
for the duty,—to our mortification, for soldiers hate sieges and
working-parties. The Guards work better than any soldiers, from their
habits in London. Badajos was invested by the 3rd, 4th, and Light
Divisions on the Spanish side, or left bank of the river, and by the
5th Division[26] on the Portuguese side, or right bank. On the night
of the 17th March, St. Patrick’s Day, the Light Division broke ground
under a deluge of rain, which swelled the Guadiana so as to threaten
our bridge of boats. Our duties in the trenches were most laborious
during the whole siege, and much hard fighting we had, sorties, etc.
The night [26 Mar.] the outworks La Picurina was carried by my dear
friend Sir James Kempt, part of the 3rd Division (which was his) were
to compose the storming party. The Light Division, the working party,
consequently were sent to the Engineer Park for the ladders. When they
arrived, General Kempt ordered them to be planted (Sir H. Hardinge,
D.Q.M.G. of the Portuguese army, was here distinguished). The boys of
the 3rd Division said to our fellows, “Come, stand out of the way;”
to which our fellows replied, “D—— your eyes, do you think we Light
Division fetch ladders for such chaps as you to climb up? Follow
us”—springing on the ladders, and many of them were knocked over. A
notorious fellow, a Sergeant Brotherwood, a noble fellow on duty, told
me this anecdote. The siege was prosecuted with the same vigour from
without with which it was repelled from within.
After some hours in the trenches, when we returned I invariably ate and
went out coursing, and many is the gallant course I had, and many the
swift hare I and my dog Moro brought home from the right bank of the
Guadiana. One day James Stewart, I, and Charlie Eeles set off, having
three hours off duty, to look for a hare or two at a celebrated spot
where the hares ran very strong because there was a rabbit warren
which saved them. Moro, of course, was of the party. We soon found
an unusually strong hare, and, although the greyhounds fetched round
a dozen times, she still worked her way for the warren. I was riding
a great stupid Irish horse bought from General Vandeleur, called
Paddy, and as it was important for the soup to kill this hare, however
unsportsmanlike on quiet occasions it would be deemed, I rode to head
her from the warren. My stupid beast of a horse put his foot into a
hole and rolled over me. Stewart and Eeles picked me up, but I was
insensible. Although I have generally managed on such occasions to get
away from the horse, the animal had rolled over me, and when I came to
myself I was sitting on Eeles’ knee, my arms tied up with a whip-thong,
and James Stewart, with a blunt-looking penknife, trying to bleed me,
an operation I quickly prohibited by starting on to my legs. Moro
killed his hare, though, without my help.
On the night of the 6th April the 3rd Division were to storm the
citadel, the 4th and Light the great breach, the 5th the Olivença
Gate, and to escalade, if possible. The command of the Light Division
had devolved on Colonel Barnard. Vandeleur was wounded, and stayed at
Portalegre, and poor Beckwith had gone to the rear with violent ague;
he never joined us again, noble soldier that he was.
This escalade has been so frequently described, I shall only say that
when the head of the Light Division arrived at the ditch of the place
it was a beautiful moonlight night. Old Alister Cameron, who was in
command of four Companies of the 95th Regiment, extended along the
counterscape to attract the enemy’s fire, while the column planted
their ladders and descended, came up to Barnard and said, “Now my men
are ready; shall I begin?” “No, certainly not,” says Barnard. The
breach and the works were full of the enemy, looking quietly at us,
but not fifty yards off and most prepared, although _not firing a
shot_. So soon as our ladders were all ready posted, and the column in
the very act to move and rush down the ladders, Barnard called out,
“_Now_, Cameron!” and the first shot from us brought down such a hail
of fire as I shall never forget, nor ever saw before or since. It was
most murderous. We flew down the ladders and rushed at the breach, but
we were broken, and carried no weight with us, although every soldier
was a hero. The breach was covered by a breastwork from behind, and
ably defended on the top by _chevaux-de-frises_ of sword-blades, sharp
as razors, chained to the ground; while the ascent to the top of the
breach was covered with planks with sharp nails in them. However, devil
a one did I feel at this moment. One of the officers of the forlorn
hope, Lieut. Taggart of the 43rd, was hanging on my arm—a mode we
adopted to help each other up, for the ascent was most difficult and
steep. A Rifleman stood among the sword-blades on the top of one of
the _chevaux-de-frises_. We made a glorious rush to follow, but, alas!
in vain. He was knocked over. My old captain, O’Hare, who commanded
the storming party, was killed. All were awfully wounded except, I do
believe, myself and little Freer of the 43rd. I had been some seconds
at the _revêtement_ of the bastion near the breach, and my red-coat
pockets were literally filled with chips of stones splintered by
musket-balls. Those not knocked down were driven back by this hail
of mortality to the ladders. At the foot of them I saw poor Colonel
Macleod with his hands on his breast—the man who lent me his horse when
wounded at the bridge on the Coa. He said, “Oh, Smith, I am mortally
wounded. Help me up the ladder.” I said, “Oh no, dear fellow!” “I am,”
he said; “be quick!” I did so, and came back again. Little Freer and I
said, “Let us throw down the ladders; the fellows shan’t go out.” Some
soldiers behind said, “D—— your eyes, if you do we will bayonet you!”
and we were literally forced up with the crowd. My sash had got loose,
and one end of it was fast in the ladder, and the bayonet was very
nearly applied, but the sash by pulling became loose. So soon as we got
on the glacis, up came a fresh Brigade of the Portuguese of the 4th
Division. I never saw any soldiers behave with more pluck. Down into
the ditch we all went again, but the more we tried to get up, the more
we were destroyed. The 4th Division followed us in marching up to the
breach, and they made a most uncommon noise. The French saw us, but
took no notice. Sir Charles Colville, commanding the 4th Division (Cole
having been wounded at Albuera), made a devil of a noise, too, on the
glacis. Both Divisions were fairly beaten back; we never carried either
breach (nominally there were two breaches).
After the attacks upon the breaches, some time before daylight Lord
Fitzroy Somerset came to our Division. I think I was almost the first
officer who spoke to him. He said, “Where is Barnard?” I didn’t know,
but I assured his Lordship he was neither killed nor wounded. A few
minutes after his Lordship said that the Duke desired the Light and
4th Divisions to storm again. “The devil!” says I. “Why, we have had
enough; we are all knocked to pieces.” Lord Fitzroy says, “I dare say,
but you must try again.” I smiled and said, “If we could not succeed
with two whole fresh and unscathed Divisions, we are likely to make
a poor show of it now. But we will try again with all our might.”
Scarcely had this conversation occurred when a bugle sounded within
the breach, indicating what had occurred at the citadel and Puerto de
Olivença; and here ended all the fighting. Our fellows would have gone
at it again when collected and put into shape, but we were just as well
pleased that our attempt had so attracted the attention of the enemy as
greatly to facilitate that success which assured the prize contended
for.
There is no battle, day or night, I would not willingly react except
this. The murder of our gallant officers and soldiers is not to be
believed. Next day I and Charlie Beckwith, a brother Brigade-Major,
went over the scene. It was _appalling_. Heaps on heaps of slain,—in
one spot lay nine officers. Whilst we were there, Colonel Allen of
the Guards came up, and beckoned me to him. I saw that, in place of
congratulating me, he looked very dull. “What’s the matter?” I said.
“Do you not know my brother in the Rifles was killed last night?” “God
help him and you! no, for I and we all loved him.” In a flood of tears,
he looked round and pointed to a body. “There he lies.” He had a pair
of scissors with him. “Go and cut off a lock of his hair for my mother.
I came for the purpose, but I am not equal to doing it.”
The returns of killed and wounded and the evident thin appearance
of our camp at once too plainly told the loss we had sustained. O
memorable night of glory and woe! for, although the 4th and Light were
so beaten, our brilliant and numerous attacks induced the governor to
concentrate all his force in the breaches; thus the 3rd escaladed the
citadel, and the 5th got in by the Olivença gate. Although we lost so
many stout hearts, so many dear friends and comrades, yet not one staff
officer of our Division was killed or wounded. We had all been struck.
My clothes were cut by musket-balls, and I had several contusions,
particularly one on my left thigh.
Now comes a scene of horror I would willingly bury in oblivion.
The atrocities committed by our soldiers on the poor innocent and
defenceless inhabitants of the city, no words suffice to depict.
Civilized man, when let loose and the bonds of morality relaxed, is a
far greater beast than the savage, more refined in his cruelty, more
fiend-like in every act; and oh, too truly did our heretofore noble
soldiers disgrace themselves, though the officers exerted themselves to
the utmost to repress it, many who had escaped the enemy being wounded
in their merciful attempts! Yet this scene of debauchery, however cruel
to many, to me has been the solace and the whole happiness of my life
for thirty-three years. A poor defenceless maiden of thirteen years was
thrown upon my generous nature through her sister, as described so ably
in Johnny Kincaid’s book, of which this is an extract—
“I was conversing with a friend the day after, at the door of his
tent, when we observed two ladies coming from the city, who made
directly towards us; they seemed both young, and when they came near,
the elder of the two threw back her _mantilla_ to address us, showing
a remarkably handsome figure, with fine features; but her sallow,
sun-burnt, and careworn, though still youthful, countenance showed
that in her ‘the time for tender thoughts and soft endearments had
fled away and gone.’
“She at once addressed us in that confident, heroic manner so
characteristic of the high-bred Spanish maiden, told us who they
were—the last of an ancient and honourable house—and referred to an
officer high in rank in our army, who had been quartered there in the
days of her prosperity, for the truth of her tale.
“Her husband, she said, was a Spanish officer in a distant part of the
kingdom; he might, or he might not, still be living. But yesterday
she and this her young sister were able to live in affluence and in
a handsome house; to-day they knew not where to lay their heads,
where to get a change of raiment or a morsel of bread. Her house, she
said, was a wreck; and, to show the indignities to which they had
been subjected, she pointed to where the blood was still trickling
down their necks, caused by the wrenching of their ear-rings through
the flesh by the hands of worse than savages, who would not take the
trouble to unclasp them!
“For herself, she said, she cared not; but for the agitated and almost
unconscious maiden by her side, whom she had but lately received over
from the hands of her conventual instructresses, she was in despair,
and knew not what to do; and that, in the rapine and ruin which was
at that moment desolating the city, she saw no security for her but
the seemingly indelicate one she had adopted—of coming to the camp and
throwing themselves upon the protection of any British officer who
would afford it; and so great, she said, was her faith in our national
character, that she knew the appeal would not be made in vain, nor the
confidence abused. Nor was it made in vain! Nor could it be abused,
for she stood by the side of an angel! A being more transcendingly
lovely I had never before seen—one more amiable I have never yet known!
“Fourteen summers had not yet passed over her youthful countenance,
which was of a delicate freshness—more English than Spanish; her face,
though not perhaps rigidly beautiful, was nevertheless so remarkably
handsome, and so irresistibly attractive, surmounting a figure cast in
nature’s fairest mould, that to look at her was to love her; and I did
love her, but I never told my love, and in the mean time another and
a more impudent fellow stepped in and won her! But yet I was happy,
for in him she found such a one as her loveliness and her misfortunes
claimed—a man of honour, and a husband in every way worthy of her!
“That a being so young, so lovely, and so interesting, just
emancipated from the gloom of a convent, unknowing of the world and to
the world unknown, should thus have been wrecked on a sea of troubles,
and thrown on the mercy of strangers under circumstances so dreadful,
so uncontrollable, and not have sunk to rise no more, must be the
wonder of every one. Yet from the moment she was thrown on her own
resources, her star was in the ascendant.
“Guided by a just sense of rectitude, an innate purity of mind, a
singleness of purpose which defied malice, and a soul that soared
above circumstances, she became alike the adored of the camp and of
the drawing-room, and eventually the admired associate of princes. She
yet lives, in the affections of her gallant husband, in an elevated
situation in life, a pattern to her sex, and everybody’s _beau ideal_
of what a wife should be.”[27]
I confess myself to be the “more impudent fellow,” and if any reward
is due to a soldier, never was one so honoured and distinguished as
I have been by the possession of this dear child (for she was little
more than a child at this moment), one with a sense of honour no knight
ever exceeded in the most romantic days of chivalry, an understanding
superior to her years, a masculine mind with a force of character no
consideration could turn from her own just sense of rectitude, and all
encased in a frame of Nature’s fairest and most delicate moulding,
the figure of an angel, with an eye of light and an expression which
then inspired me with a maddening love which, from that period to this
(now thirty-three years), has never abated under many and the most
trying circumstances. Thus, as good may come out of evil, this scene
of devastation and spoil yielded to me a treasure invaluable; to me
who, among so many dear friends, had escaped all dangers; to me, a wild
youth not meriting such reward, and, however desirous, never able to
express half his gratitude to God Almighty for such signal marks of His
blessing shown to so young and so thoughtless a being. From that day to
this she has been my guardian angel. She has shared with me the dangers
and privations, the hardships and fatigues, of a restless life of war
in every quarter of the globe. No murmur has ever escaped her. Bereft
of every relative, of every tie to her country but the recollection of
it, united to a man of different though Christian religion, yet that
man has been and is her all, on whom have hinged the closed portals
of hope, happiness, and bliss; if opened, misery, destitution, and
bereavement, and every loss language can depict summed up in _one_
word, “_He_ is lost to me.” But, O my God, Thou hast kindly spared us
for each other; we have, through Thy grace, been but little separated,
and we have, in unison of soul, received at Thy holy altar the Blessed
Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.[28] May we, through His
mediation, be still spared to each other in this life, and in the life
to come be eternally united in Heaven!
After the disorganization our troops had rushed into, it became the
duty of every officer to exert himself, and nobly did Colonel Barnard
set about the task, and ably supported was he by every officer in the
Division. We had not marched for the north two days when our soldiers
were, like Richard, “themselves again.” When the French garrison
were marched to the rear, my Brigade furnished an escort to the next
Division _en route_ to Elvas. I paraded upwards of four thousand
very orderly, fine-looking fellows. Many of the officers praised the
gallantry of our men, and all said, “Why break ground at all with such
soldiers? Had you stormed on the rainy night of the 17th March, you
would have taken the place with half the loss.” This is creditable to
us, but the Duke of Wellington would have been by no means borne out in
such an attempt.
However, as all this writing is to show rather my individual
participation in these scenes of glory and bloodshed, I must dwell a
little upon the joy of my marriage. I was only twenty-two, my wife
just on the verge of fourteen.[29] But in southern climates Nature
more early develops herself and attains maturity. Every day was an
increase of joy. Although both of us were of the quickest tempers, we
were both ready to forgive, and both intoxicated in happiness. All
my dearest friends—Charlie Beckwith, John Bell, Johnstone, Charlie
Eeles, Jack Molloy, etc.—were saying to themselves, “Alas! poor Harry
Smith is lost, who was the example of a duty-officer previously. It
is only natural he must neglect duty now.” I assured them all that the
contrary would be the case, for love would incite me to exertions in
hopes of preferment, the only mode I had to look to for a comfortable
maintenance; and my wife’s love, aided by her good sense, would see
I was never neglecting her if engaged in the performance of my duty.
Conscientiously did I act up to my feeling then, and no one ever did or
ever could say, I was out of my place night or day.
My duty was my duty—I gloried in it; my wife even still more so, and
never did she say, “You might have been with me,” or complain if I
was away. On the contrary, after many a day’s fatiguing march, when
I sought her out in the baggage or awaiting me, her first question
invariably was, “Are you sure you have done all your duty?” _Then_ I
admit my attention was unbounded, and we were happy—oh, how happy,
often amidst scenes of distress and privation that would have appalled
stouter hearts, not devoted like ours! And oh, when I reflect on God’s
mercy to us both! In a succession of the most brilliant battles for
years I was never even wounded, and, although I say it, no man ever
exposed himself in every way more as a soldier, or rode harder as a
sportsman. Wonderful, most wonderful, have been my hairbreadth escapes
from falls of horses under and over me all over the world.