CAMPAIGN OF 1812: BATTLE OF SALAMANCA—OCCUPATION OF MADRID—RETREAT TO
SALAMANCA.
But to the thread of my narrative. Hardly had we reached the frontier
of Portugal [24 April, 1812], our old haunts, Ituero, Guinaldo,
etc., when our army moved on again for Spain, and fought the Battle
of Salamanca. Before this battle we had an immense deal of marching
and manœuvring. The armies of Marmont and Wellington were close to
each other for several days, so that a trifling occurrence would have
brought on a general action, and we were frequently under cannonade.
My wife could not ride in the least at first, and oh, the difficulty
I had! although she had frequently ridden a donkey on her pilgrimage
to Olivença, once to avoid the siege of Badajos, and at other times
to her grandmother’s at Almendrajos.[30] However, I had one of my
saddles turned into a side-saddle most ably by a soldier of Ross’s
Troop of Horse Artillery, and at first made her ride a great brute
of a Portuguese horse I had; but she so rapidly improved, took such
pains, had so much practice and naturally good nerves, that she soon
got ashamed of her Portuguese horse, and wanted to ride my Spanish
little fellow, who had so nobly carried me at Redinha and in many other
fights. I always said, “When you can ride as well as you can dance
and sing, you shall,” for in those accomplishments she was perfect.
In crossing the Tormes [21 July], the very night before the battle of
Salamanca (there are quicksands in the river), her Portuguese horse was
so cowardly he alarmed me, and hardly had we crossed the river when
a clap of thunder, louder than anything that can be described, burst
over our heads. The Portuguese horse was in such a funk, she abjured
_all Portuguese_, and insisted hereafter on riding her own gallant
countryman, as gallant as any Arab. He was an Andalusian, which is a
thorough-bred descendant of the Moosul horse, which is literally an
Arab. The next day she mounted her Tiny, and rode him ever afterwards
over many an eventful field, until the end of the war at Toulouse. She
had him afterwards at my father’s house. The affection between them
was of the character of that between spaniel and master. The dear,
gallant horse lived to twenty-nine years of age, and died a happy
pensioner on my brother Charles’s estate.
It is difficult to say who was the proudest on the morning of the
battle [22 July], horse, wife, or Enrique (as I was always called).
She caracoled him about among the soldiers, to their delight, for he
was broken in like a Mameluke, though very difficult to ride. (The
soldiers of the whole Division loved her with enthusiasm from the
events so peculiar in her history, and she would laugh and talk with
all, which a soldier loves. Blackguards as many of the poor gallant
fellows were, there was not a man who would not have laid down his life
to defend her, and among the officers she was adored, and consulted on
all occasions of baggage-guard, etc.) Her attendant, who also had a led
horse in case of accident, with a little tent and a funny little pair
of lanterns, my dear, trusty old groom West, as the battle began, took
her to the rear, much to her annoyance, and in the thunder of cannon,
the pride of equestrianism was buried in anxiety for him on whom her
all depended. She and West slept on the field of battle, he having made
a bed for her with the green wheat he had cut just in full ear. She had
to hold her horse all night, and he ate all her bed of green wheat, to
her juvenile amusement; for a creature so gay and vivacious, with all
her sound sense, the earth never produced.
Next morning soon after daylight she joined me on the march. I was at
that time so afflicted with boils, I could hardly live on horseback.
I had eleven immense ones at the time on my legs and thighs, the
excruciating pain of which is not to be described. Our surgeon, old Joe
Bowker, insisted on my going to Salamanca, and one particular boil on
the bone of the inside of my knee proved a more irresistible argument.
So to Salamanca I had to go, my brother Tom doing my duty. I stayed
fourteen days at Salamanca, a time of love and excitement, although,
so distressed was the army for money, we lived almost on our rations,
except for a little assistance from the lady of our house in coffee,
etc. Wade, Sir Lowry Cole’s A.D.C., lent me one dollar out of forty
which he had received to support his General (who had been severely
wounded in the battle), and his staff. In such times of privation
heroism is required which our countrymen little dream of.
At the end of the fourteen days I had as many boils as ever, but, boils
and all, off we started, and rode some terrible distances for three or
four days. We overtook the Division, to the joy of the soldiers, before
we crossed the Guadarama Pass [11 Aug.]. There had been no fighting in
my absence, thank God.
We soon reached the neighbourhood of Madrid. No city could be better
laid out for pomp and show, and the Duke’s entry [13 Aug.] was a most
brilliant spectacle. My vivacious wife used to enjoy her native
capital, and in her admiration treated London and Paris as villages in
comparison. We spent a very happy time. It was a great amusement to
improve our wardrobe for the walk on the elegant Prado of an evening,
in which no love among the Spanish beauties showed to greater advantage
than my Estremenha, or native of Estremadura. During our stay in the
vicinity of Madrid we made several agreeable acquaintances, among
others the vicar of one of the many rich villages around Madrid,
Vicalbaro, a highly educated and clever fellow, a great sportsman and
excellent shot, with a morbid hatred to a Frenchman. Upon our moving
forward beyond Madrid as far as the beautiful and _clean_ city Alcala
[23 Oct.], I was brought in contact with the celebrated and unfortunate
General Elio, whom I had known in South America at Monte Video. He was
very conversational, and we had a long talk as to that colonial war;
but, as I was acting as interpreter for my friend James Stewart, the
A.Q.M.G. of our Division, who was making arrangements of march with
Elio, conversation on the past turned into plans for the future. We
moved forwards towards our right to Arganda [27 Oct.]. At this period
the Duke had gone to Burgos, and Lord Hill commanded. We soon felt
the loss of our decided and far-seeing chief, and we made marches and
counter-marches we were unaccustomed to. At ten at night, at Arganda,
Major-General Vandeleur received an order from General Alten, who
remained in Alcala, to march immediately back to Alcala with the whole
Division. Vandeleur sent for me and told me to order the assembly to
sound. I remonstrated and prayed him to wait until two hours before
daylight, for every soldier in the Division had more or less indulged
in the wine for which Arganda was celebrated. The good general had been
at the shrine of Bacchus too, and was uncontrollable. Blast went the
assembly, and staggering to their alarm-posts went the soldiers. Such
a scene of good-natured riot I had never seen in my own Division. With
the Duke we generally had a sort of hint we might be wanted, and our
tried soldiers would be as steady as rocks. Oh, such a dark night’s
march as we had back to Alcala! Vandeleur repented of his obstinacy,
and well he might.
We halted the next day at Alcala. Here, although it was now October,
it was evident to me that a long retreat to the frontier was about to
be undertaken, and I got from a Spanish officer, called Labrador, his
fine large Andalusian horse in exchange for an Irish brute I had bought
from General Vandeleur. He gave me three Spanish doubloons to boot, a
fortune in those days, particularly to me.
These three doubloons were given to my vivacious Spanish wife, who
put them up most carefully in my portmanteau, among my few shirts. On
the march the motion of the mule had shaken them out of place, the
doubloons were gone, and all our fortune! Her horror, poor girl, is not
to be described. She knew it was our all, and her delight when I gave
the treasure into her charge was now more than eclipsed by the misery
of the loss. I only laughed, for in those days hardships and privations
were so common, they were missed when comparative affluence supplied
their place.
We marched [30 Oct.] to Madrid, or rather its suburbs, where the poor
inhabitants were in indescribable distress, seeing that they were
again to be abandoned to French clemency and contributions. While our
troops were halted, waiting for orders whether to bivouac or whether
to retire, to our astonishment up came the Vicar of Vicalbaro. He
took me on one side, and told me most pathetically that he had made
himself so obnoxious to the French, he feared to stay, and had come
to crave my protection. This I gladly promised. While I described to
him the hardships a winter retreat would impose upon him and us, he
said gallantly, “I am young and healthy like yourselves; what you
suffer, I can. My only fear is that I may inconvenience you and my
young countrywoman, your wife.” I laughed, and called her. She was
all fun, notwithstanding the loss of the doubloons, and began to quiz
him; but in the midst of her raillery he observed, as he said to me
afterwards, her soul of kindness, and the Padre was installed in my
establishment, while my old comrades laughed and said, “Harry Smith
will do, now he has a father confessor,” by which name the Padre always
went—“Harry Smith’s confessor.” The hour or two of halt was occupied by
the Padre in buying a pony, which he soon effected, and his marching
establishment, a few shirts, with an immense _capa_, or cloak, almost
as much as the pony could carry.
It rained in torrents, and we marched to Aravaca, some miles to the
rear of the capital, where we found Lord Hill’s headquarters in
possession of every hole in the village, which was a very small one.
General Vandeleur, who was still suffering from his wound at Ciudad
Rodrigo, found a Captain of the Waggon Train in possession of a small
house. In walks the General to a nice clean little room with a cheerful
fire. “Who are you, sir?” says the General. “I am Captain ——, of the
Royal Waggon Train, attached to Lord Hill, and this house is given
me for my quarters.” “I, sir, am General Vandeleur, and am d——d glad
to see you in my quarters for _five minutes_.” The poor Captain very
quietly packed up his traps and went—I know not where.
I, my young wife, the Padre, all my greyhounds and dogs, about
thirteen, got into a little hole about six feet square, and were glad
enough to get out of the rain, for, though my wife had her little tent,
that, pitched on exceedingly wet ground, was a horrid shelter for any
one. Owing to the kindness of our Provost-Marshal (Mr. Stanway), I got
my horses also under a kind of out-office. We marched the next day to
the foot of the Guadarama Pass, where our soldiers, when dismissed in
bivouac, had a fine hunt after a wild boar, which they killed. The
sunshine brightened, and when I returned from a variety of duties I
found the young wife as neat as a new pin in her little tent, her habit
and all her things which had got wet in yesterday’s rain hung out to
dry. So after breakfast I proposed to decorate my person (shave I need
not, for as yet that operation was unnecessary), and _the_ portmanteau
was opened, the delinquent from which our doubloons had escaped. Some
of the shirts were wet from the rain, and in searching for a dry one,
out tumbled the three doubloons, which had been shaken into the folds
of the shirt by the motion of the mule, and so lost. Oh, such joy and
such laughing! We were so rich. We could buy bread and chocolate and
sausages and eggs through the interest of the Padre (for we found the
holy friar could get things when, however much money was exhibited,
it proved no talisman), and our little fortune carried us through the
retreat even to Ciudad Rodrigo, where money was paid to us.
This retreat was a very severe one as to weather, and although the
enemy did not actually press us, as he did the column from Burgos,
we made long marches and were very broad awake, and lost some of our
baggage and stores, which the wearied bullocks obliged us to abandon.
On reaching Salamanca, my wife, with the foresight of age rather than
youth, expended some of the doubloons in buying me two pairs of worsted
stockings and a pair of worsted mits, and the same for herself, which I
do believe saved her from sickness, for the rain, on the retreat from
Salamanca, came in torrents.