pontons passed through it; and there I accidentally met with a young
officer, whose subsequent greatness I little thought then depended
so on the success of our campaign, as it afterwards turned out. This
officer was Captain De Grammont, then of the 10th Hussars, but now
his Grace the Duc de Guiche. He is a part of the royal family of
France, aid-de-camp to the Duke d’Angoulême, and high in favour at the
Tuilleries. When I saw him at Palencia, he appeared one of the finest
models of a young Hussar chief I ever beheld: he wore his beard, which
curled upon his chin; his regimentals were sufficiently field-rubbed
to have lost that _very_ bright gloss which distinguished them on the
parade at home; and there was a melancholy cast about his countenance
and manner, which, from being mixed with the most affable address,
made a strong impression upon me--particularly when I learnt his true
situation. He was engaged against his countrymen--but for his country’s
rights; and he had only a day or two before met them in the charge. It
was _his_ troop that spilled the first French blood of that campaign,
and it was _his_ subaltern who gave the first wound. He described
the charge to me: it was thus:--The French having crossed the Esla,
a strong guard covered their retreat, and the 10th Hussars attacked
their rear, which was defended by light dragoons. In advancing to the
charge, the Subaltern of Captain De Grammont, Cornet Fitzgerald--a lad
of only sixteen years of age--happened to have been somewhat in advance
of the troop, owing to the mettle of his horse: the Cornet’s servant
rode beside him in the ranks, and determined to protect his master. The
French dragoons came on gallantly; their swords were nearly as long
again as those of our Hussars; and a ferocious looking Sergeant was
coming at full gallop--right in front of the Cornet: in vain was the
young officer called on to pull in his horse--on he went, his servant
closing up to him in order to avert the steel of the opponent: a moment
more and the long straight sword of the French dragoon would have been
cased in the youth’s breast; for the servant’s horse could not head his
master’s. The Captain expected to see him fall; but just as the point
of the weapon approached, the cornet grasped his pistol--fired--and
down the dragoon tumbled from his saddle! This was but an instant
before the remainder of the hussars were mixed with their opponents;
and in a few minutes more, they were pursuing them as fugitives,
killing, wounding, and taking many of them. I remembered having seen
this heroic youth at Lisbon, when the regiment landed there: he was
a mere stripling, with light hair, and rosy cheeks--anything but the
man destined to kill the first Frenchman on the campaign; and I still
more admired him when I heard that he was a son of the celebrated
Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and cousin to the present Duke of Leinster.
I met Captain De Grammont afterwards, at the close of the campaign,
and he assured me joyfully, that he had had the pleasure, the day
before, of looking from the Pyrenees, while on piquet, at the lawful
estates of his family; and only a very few months after this, I had the
gratification of seeing him enter the town of Bordeaux as a Duke, and
on the staff of his lawful Prince, the Duke d’Angoulême. This officer,
although born in France, is in language and manners a perfect English
gentleman, from having been since his infancy in England. He received
his commission in the 10th Hussars when very young, and remained in the
regiment until the restoration of the Bourbons. Should we yet go to
war with France, I should be sorry to see the gallant soldier arrayed
against us, and I am sure it would be no pleasurable office to himself.
We moved on the left of Burgos, which city the French, contrary to our
expectation, had not shut up, but quickly abandoned at the approach
of the British. I slept in the house of an intelligent peasant, about
two miles from the fortress, and of course the war was the subject
of our chat. I found the man very communicative: he had the fullest
hope of our success, and gave it as his opinion, that the French
would _not_ stand at the Ebro. He talked of the time when the British
were before on his ground; and showed me in his fields some of their
bones--bleached white and dry: he informed me that a great number of
our army perished there. This man, from his apparent acquaintance
with the events of the war in Spain, I have no doubt had taken an
active part in it--perhaps on the French side; for if it had been on
the other, he most probably would not have made it a secret in our
conversation; however, many of the Spaniards sided with the strongest
party, and now that the British held the sway, this peasant was their
warmest well-wisher.
We proceeded through Villa Diego towards the Ebro, and came in sight
of that river from the plain--or high table land--over which I had
been travelling ever since I had left Portugal. The advanced troops
had passed the river that morning without opposition, for the French
had continued their retreat. The view of the valley--or rather
amphitheatre--at the bottom of which the Ebro runs, astonished me by
its beauty: for several days I had been accustomed to little variation
of scenery--all level country; and now the bosom of luxuriant and
romantic nature suddenly presented itself to my sight, as if it were
done by magic. Half a dozen steps brought me from a view of mere sky
and corn plains, to a scene of the most splendidly varied character--a
deep valley, or rather hollow, of about ten miles in circumference,
surrounded by woody mountains, except at that part directly facing
me. This part opened, and there the eye might travel over blue hills,
until the more distant could not be distinguished from the light clouds
of the horizon. In this circular valley, every variation of rural
beauty was to be seen--cultivated fields--luxuriant foliage--bubbling
streams--winding paths--villas, and farm-houses. At the bottom ran the
Ebro,--in this place a river of no great breadth; and here the main
body of the liberating army had crossed a few hours before me.
The line of march now lay along a small branch of a river, which
watered the foot of high and bold rocks, shelved and wooded in the most
picturesque manner; trees, rooted over trees, hung out in grotesque
attitudes, or dipped downwards, as if seeking the black and clear water
beneath--thick moss, streaming underwood, wild flowers, and massy
trunks, mingled to beautify the first day’s march after we crossed the
Ebro:--this repaid me amply for the toil of the preceding days.
I remained an hour behind the division, to refresh my horses--they
having been nearly knocked up; and it was at this place I perceived the
first effects of fatigue in some of the soldiers. The army had, for
the preceding march, pressed onwards more rapidly than before, and the
weather had become very hot; several men, therefore, lagged behind, and
I met eight or ten of them sitting by the side of the river--some only
severely blistered on the feet from walking, but others extremely ill.
There was no depôt nearer than Valladolid--about ninety miles distant;
for the army’s advance was so rapid and so unexpected, that no time
could be allowed for considerations of this kind; and the soldiers,
if left behind, would have fared but miserably indeed--particularly
those who were ill there. I, without hesitation, laid an embargo upon
a sort of cart, which was drawn by two horses, and which happened,
fortunately, to be near; in this vehicle I directed the men to place
themselves and their kits, which they had unbuckled from their backs,
and dispatched them to continue their march. I also desired the men
not to permit the carter to return until they overtook their division.
“All is fair in war,” says the unamiable adage: it was a hard case
for the Castilian carter, but for the poor disabled soldiers it would
have been a still harder; and I thought I could not do better, under
the circumstances, than to oblige the peasant, who seemed well-fed and
hearty, to do “the state some service,” whether he was so disposed or
not.
Our march was now ten times more a march of pleasure than it had
been before we crossed the Ebro, although it did not long hold that
character: there was soon something for the army to do besides to
admire the scenery, sing songs, and smoke cigars. Each day’s march
was concluded about twelve or one o’clock, and the men encamped or
bivouacked usually on some open glade, near or in a small wood; or
perhaps in a valley by a river: here they unbent from the toils of the
morning, and escaped the meridian heat of the sun, within their tents,
or beneath the thick foliage with which nature so profusely stocked the
country. A considerable distance right and left of the road, where the
army encamped each day, was changed from the silence in which it had so
long dwelt, to the hum and bustle of a populated city. The first thing
done, on arriving at the ground for encampment, was to cook:--rations
were served out; wood, water, and fire, made ready: and while the meat
was boiling--or _broiling_, more frequently, upon a wooden spit--the
men would sit together in groups on the grass, and chat. After dinner,
they employed themselves for a short time in washing both themselves
and their linen in the neighbouring streams--cleaning their arms,
clothes, &c., and then a pipe and a cup of grog prepared the way for a
sweet and sound sleep on the turf.
A description of the manner in which I have seen bullocks slaughtered
on the march, may not be uninteresting. We had our own butchers,--men
from the ranks; but, in general, the oxen were slaughtered by Spaniards
or Portuguese: and, in my mind, their mode of depriving a bullock of
life is by far the most expeditious; it certainly gives little, if any,
torture to the animal. They, having tied a noose about the horns of the
beast, drew the end of it round a tree, and secured the head close to
it; then instantly pushed a sharp-pointed knife down between the back
of the skull and the first vertebræ of the neck: this was no sooner
done than the animal was dead: the veins of the neck were then opened,
and the blood flowed.
In the division with which I marched, the Spanish butcher adopted
a singular mode of securing the bullock destined for slaughter;
he had trained a huge mastiff to be his assistant, and thus they
operated:--the butcher held his dog by a chain, and having let loose
one of the drove of oxen, took the chain off the mastiff, and gave him
the word; the dog ran instantly to the bullock; seized him by the nose
in his teeth; and, without the least noise, held him forcibly down: the
butcher then plunged the knife in, and the animal rolled lifeless. All
this was done in less than half a minute. The first place at which I
witnessed this dog at his calling, was at Villa Diego; and no sooner
were the veins of the neck opened, than several Spanish old women, with
pans in their hands, squabbled about catching the blood: the greatest
vixen succeeded in obtaining it; and I learnt that it was to be used
as food for her family. It is said that the poor of Connaught eat the
blood of oxen; if so, may not the practice have been brought over
by the Spaniards, from whom the inhabitants of that province claim
extraction?
We were now in a mountainous country, and consequently the army, which
had been all united on the march after crossing the Esla, was obliged
to separate, and move by various roads to one point. In a day or two
we found that the French were about to give up their running, and try
their fortune by a stand. We were halted on the 20th of June, about
four or five miles from Vittoria, and our columns closed in from
various directions: we were told by several peasants that the French,
under the command of Joseph Buonaparte and Marshal Jourdain, were
between us and Vittoria; and when we saw the Duke of Wellington pass
along the road close to us, with several of his generals, we suspected
we should not long lie idle: we knew his Grace was going to the front
to reconnoitre. I never saw him look better in my life; the march had
improved his health, and success had brightened his looks in such a
manner, that I fancied he felt confident of beating the enemy in “off
hand” style at the first brush. I observed the several Portuguese
battalions pass, as fresh for work as if they had not marched two
miles; and in several Spanish corps which crossed us to the left under
the command of Colonel Longa, I saw physical strength, although neither
equipment nor high spirits. Our own troops looked as well as ever they
did--the sun-browned and laughing faces of Johns, Pats, and Sawneys,
gave assurance that they were highly disposed to enjoy “a bit of
diversion.”
During the 20th the men refreshed themselves with change of linen, &c.
in the best way they could, and enjoyed the evening of that day as
happily as if they were reposing after a hunting excursion; every shade
had its group, and the country afforded the most picturesque situations
for bivouacking. My dinner was spread upon a green spot beneath an
overhanging bank, covered with thick foliage, which shut out the hot
sun; a clear stream rippling beneath; and here six of us enjoyed an
evening’s chat as comfortably as if we were on the banks of one of the
Cumberland lakes. We expected to be engaged next day, and the allusions
which this expectation brought forth, although calculated to stir up
some thoughts of home and friends, did not abate that cheerfulness
which the scene present diffused. Our mortal enemy, old Death, was
spoken of occasionally, but it was with a smile; no more was thought
about him than about Marshal Jourdain or the ex-king Joe.
The night closed around, and the thousands lay down to sleep upon the
turf; some by large fires, some beneath the cover of temporary huts,
and some with nothing over them but their blankets, and the universal
coverlid--beneath which many were to lie the following night for ever
without waking! The weather was mild and delightful--the sky was
beautiful, and many eyes were employed in gazing on it, and picturing
over its blue breast the sweet scenes of home--the faces of those
friends then far away! That was the hour for thinking; and I have no
doubt it was so spent by thousands of the soldiers before they sunk
into sleep.
On the morning of the 21st, we commenced our march early, and in two
hours we came to an open country, on the right of which was a ridge of
hills; about a mile distant on the left, a gradual descent of even land
to a village about two miles off; far in the front--perhaps at three
miles’ distance--were the spires of Vittoria to be seen rising to our
view as we advanced; while about half a mile in our front we could spy
the Frenchmen’s huts, and they themselves running to arms as if we had
surprised them:--indeed this _was_ the case; for their cooking utensils
were on their fires when our advanced troops trod over their ground.
Columns of French were now to be seen moving about in the distance,
and columns of our own men were every moment emerging from cover. The
Staff was everywhere to be seen galloping to and fro--brigades of
artillery and regiments of cavalry taking up their ground; and in about
twenty minutes a column of Spaniards, led by General Murillo, moved out
from the right of our line--Hill’s divisions--up towards the heights,
and commenced firing upon the enemy stationed there: these hills are
called the heights of La Puebla, and here rested the enemy’s left.
The Spaniards, we could see, made good their ground on the hills; but
reinforcements of French troops advanced against them, and Lord Hill
ordered out two regiments of British troops to support the Spaniards,
led by the Hon. Colonel Cadogan of the 71st. Now began the fight, and
every moment increased it. The red coats were met by increased numbers
of the blue, and the firing became incessant; the Spaniards poured
in their balls in good style on the advancing French, who attemped
to overwhelm with numbers their small force; but Lord Hill detached
column after column to the attack: we could only distinguish the men
as a body, but could not see the individuals; however, the colour of
the coats sufficiently marked out friend from foe, and the _reds_ were
evidently “doing the business.” The 71st had fired and stood the fire a
considerable time, but could not mount the hill effectually (as I have
heard from an officer then present): at this time their commander, the
Hon. Colonel Cadogan received a ball in the groin: he fell, and was
immediately surrounded by some of his men, and lifted up by them in
order to be removed to the rear: the 71st was then about to apply to
their old friend the bayonet--ready for the charge: their Colonel lay
in the arms of two soldiers, the balls showering from the hills--“Stop!
stop!” said he, “don’t take me away until I see my men charge!” It was
done, and gallantly--up hill too: the Colonel cheered as well as his
failing voice would allow, and his last moments were blessed with the
smile of victory. The hills were very soon taken, and the enemy driven
in.
The artillery now thundered from both sides; and down to the left we
could see General Graham’s wing advancing against a distant village
there. This was the part of the army to which I belonged; and now, for
the first time since the march began, had an opportunity of gaining my
division. The centre of the army, with which I then stood, now advanced
to cross the Zadora, a small river--for Lord Hill _had_ crossed it soon
after he gained the heights; firing was everywhere along the line,
before me and on both sides; the French stood bravely and poured in
their musketry; their cannon was not a moment silent, unless stormed
and taken by our men. I saw a couple of field pieces attacked by a
regiment of Portuguese, and they astonished me with their courage and
activity--they leaped over the guns like madmen, although blazing in
their teeth, and captured them gallantly.
Having now seen where my station ought to be, I determined to proceed
to it, and without a moment’s delay galloped to the left, in the rear
of the line, just as the troops crossed the river; and I arrived at the
village attacked by Sir T. Graham (Gamarra Mayor) just as the bridge
was carried. Three pieces of artillery fortified this bridge; but
notwithstanding this, as well as a powerful force of infantry for its
defence, our troops overcame all; but not without considerable loss. At
this place, both the Colonels of the 59th (Weare and Fane) fell, while
gallantly leading their men to the bridge.
It was now about half-past two or three o’clock in the afternoon, and
no artillery but ours was to be heard; retreating columns and broken
crowds were to be seen at various distances, to the extent of about
half a mile in breadth, while our men were pursuing. Our dragoons
advanced upon their rear--the infantry after them; but from the
difficulty of the ground, the cavalry could not finish so completely as
was to be wished, what the infantry had begun. The artillery followed
up, and cannonaded the flying in their best style; and it was clear
that victory was our own at every point.
We marched on to Vittoria without firing a shot; and on the left of the
town I had the pleasure of seeing the whole baggage, treasure, &c. of
the enemy, in the hands of our troops. It was now getting late in the
evening; the whole army continued the pursuit; but too much was done
during the day to expect that the troops could advance much beyond
Vittoria; they did, however, a couple of leagues, when they halted; and
thus the scattered French escaped farther punishment. I was sent on
duty to the town of Vittoria, and there passed the night.
The scene which presented itself in the town that evening may be
easily imagined:--prisoners--wounded--drunken Spaniards--stray horses
and mules running to and fro--broken carriages--dead and dying--the
inhabitants panic-struck--the rear of our light dragoons galloping
through the town--fires in the streets--drunken plunderers rolling
about--the groan and the laugh and the imprecation--all mingled! Such
was Vittoria after the battle. To increase the confusion, an explosion
took place, which shook every house and spread consternation around:
none could imagine the cause. I at first supposed treachery from the
Spaniards, but a moment’s consideration removed this suspicion. In a
short time our Provost and his assistants informed us of the nature of
this explosion. The 18th Dragoons, and many stragglers of infantry,
had remained to help themselves to dubloons from a French military
chest, which fell into our hands near the town, and plunder raged for
two or three hours; our soldiers would not _take_ silver--nothing but
gold would _pass_ with them; the former they left to the Spaniards,
for it was absolutely a “_drug in the market_.” About ten o’clock
it became dark, and amongst the crowd of waggons, many, containing
the treasure, might escape; therefore a number of Spanish peasants,
muleteers, &c. procured candles, and went in search of farther golden
discoveries, in order to open an _opposition mine_ for themselves,
as the _English_ showed such monopoly in their _companies_. In the
prosecution of this _speculation_, one of them happened to thrust his
candle into a powder waggon, while his coadjutors were surrounding
it, waiting for the _report_ upon its merits; the _mine_ sprung, and
hurled the _company_ into the air: many were blown to atoms, and those
who escaped immediate death, I saw next day--they were as black as
Africans, their heads and faces swollen, and their eyes closed up: poor
creatures, they presented a pitiable sight! very few of them recovered.
Had these men been satisfied with humble silver, and not have run after
_mining speculations_, they would have done better; but such folly is
not confined to ignorant peasants--the great metropolis of London has
furnished us with examples of far greater avarice and folly in the
pursuit of _gold mines_.
The only _wholesale dealer_ in the plunder of the French military chest
who essayed his talents at Vittoria, was a commissariat _officer_: he
very coolly ordered one of his muleteers to load eight or nine mules
with boxes of dubloons, and dispatched him with a letter of consignment
to Lisbon; where, had the treasure arrived, the commissary’s fortune
would have been made. But it was otherwise ordained; for the muleteer,
in going back through Spain, boasted at a _posado_ that he had immense
treasure in his charge. An Alcaldi was present drinking; and from
the circumstances of the mules being without a military escort, yet
admitted to contain specie, suspicion arose. He continued to drink with
the muleteer, and the latter, in his careless cups, dropped the letter
which the commissary had given him to deliver to his correspondent at
Lisbon. The Alcaldi withdrew; opened the letter--and with the help of
the curate of the village, who knew a little English, discovered that
the treasure was not sent by any authority. In consequence of this, he
seized the whole--mules, muleteer, and all. The result was, that the
gold was sent back, and the commissary thought it right to run away,
without waiting for farther enquiry. Thus ended _his_ speculation: but
speculation at best is _only_ speculation--except in this case; for
here it lost a _letter_, and therefore was clearly--_peculation_.