March 15th.—We overtook the enemy a little before dark this afternoon. They were drawn up behind the Ceira, at Fez D'Aronce, with their rear-guard, under Marshal Ney, imprudently posted on our side of the river, a circumstance which Lord Wellington took immediate advantage of; and, by a furious attack, dislodged them, in such confusion, that they blew up the bridge before half of their own people had time to get over. Those who were thereby left behind,not choosing to put themselves to the pain of being shot, took to the river, which received them so hospitably that few of them ever quitted it. Their loss, on this occasion, must have been very great, and, we understood, at the time, that Ney had been sent to France, in disgrace, in consequence of it.
About the middle of the action, I observed some inexperienced light troops rushing up a deep road-way to certain destruction, and ran to warn them out of it, but I only arrived in time to partake the reward of their indiscretion, for I was instantly struck with a musket-ball above the left ear, which deposited me, at full length, in the mud.
I know not how long I lay insensible, but, on recovering, my firstfeelingwas for my head, to ascertain if any part of it was still standing, for it appeared to me as if nothing remained above the mouth; but, after repeated applications of all my fingers and thumbs to the doubtful parts, I, at length, proved to myself, satisfactorily, that it had rather increased thandiminished by the concussion; and, jumping on my legs, and hearing, by the whistling of the balls from both sides, that the rascals who had got me into the scrape had been driven back and left me there, I snatched my cap, which had saved my life, and which had been spun off my head to the distance of ten or twelve yards, and joined them, a short distance in the rear, when one of them, a soldier of the sixtieth, came and told me that an officer of ours had been killed, a short time before, pointing to the spot where I myself had fallen, and that he had tried to take his jacket off, but that the advance of the enemy had prevented him. I told him that I was the one that had been killed, and that I was deucedly obliged to him for hiskindintentions, while I felt still more so to the enemy for their timely advance, otherwise, I have no doubt, but myfriendwould have taken a fancy to my trousers also, for I found that he had absolutely unbuttoned my jacket.
There is nothing so gratifying to frail mortality as a good dinner when most wanted and leastexpected. It was perfectly dark before the action finished, but, on going to take advantage of the fires which the enemy had evacuated, we found their soup-kettles in full operation, and every man's mess of biscuit lying beside them, in stockings, as was the French mode of carrying them; and it is needless to say how unceremoniously we proceeded to do the honours of the feast. It ever after became a saying among the soldiers, whenever they were on short allowance, "well, d—n my eyes, we must either fall in with the French or the commissary to-day, I don't care which."
As our baggage was always in the rear on occasions of this kind, the officers of each company had a Portuguese boy, in charge of a donkey, on whom their little comforts depended. He carried our boat-cloaks and blankets, was provided with a small pig-skin for wine, a canteen for spirits, a small quantity of tea and sugar, a goat tied to the donkey, and two or three dollars in his pocket, for the purchase of bread, butter, or any other luxury which goodfortune might throw in his way in the course of the day's march. We were never very scrupulous in exacting information regarding the source of his supplies; so that he had nothing to dread from our wrath, unless he had the misfortune to make his appearance empty-handed. They were singularly faithful and intelligent in making their way to us every evening, under the most difficult circumstances. This was the only night during Massena's retreat in which ours failed to find us; and, wandering the greater part of the night in the intricate maze of camp-fires, it appeared that he slept, after all, among some dragoons, within twenty yards of us.[Back to Contents]
Passage of the Mondego. Swearing to a large Amount. Two Prisoners, with their Two Views. Two Nuns, Two Pieces of Dough, and Two Kisses. A Halt. Affair near Frexedas. Arrival near Guarda. Murder. A stray Sentry. Battle of Sabugal. Spanish and Portuguese Frontiers. Blockade of Almeida. Battle-like. Current Value of Lord Wellington's Nose. Battle of Fuentes D'Onor. The Day after the Battle. A grave Remark. ThePadre'sHouse. Retreat of the Enemy.
March 17th.—Found the enemy's rear-guard behind the Mondego, at Ponte de Marcella, cannonaded them out of it, and then threw a temporary bridge across the river, and followed them until dark.
The late Sir Alexander Campbell, who commanded the division next to ours, by a wantonexcess of zeal in expecting an order to follow, would not permit any thing belonging to us to pass the bridge, for fear of impeding the march of his troops; and, as he received no order to march, we were thereby prevented from getting any thing whatever to eat for the next thirty-six hours. I know not whether the curses of individuals are recorded under such circumstances, but, if they are, the gallant general will have found the united hearty ones of four thousand men registered against him for that particular act.
March 19th.—We, this day, captured the aide-de-camp of General Loison, together with his wife, who was dressed in a splendid hussar uniform.Hewas a Portuguese, and a traitor, and looked very like a man who would be hanged.Shewas a Spaniard, and very handsome, and looked very like a woman who would get married again.
March 20th.—We had now been three days without any thing in the shape of bread, and meat without it, after a time, becomes almostloathsome. Hearing that we were not likely to march quite so early as usual this morning, I started, before daylight, to a village about two miles off, in the face of the Sierra D'Estrella, in the hopes of being able to purchase something, as it lay out of the hostile line of movements. On my arrival there, I found some nuns who had fled from a neighbouring convent, waiting outside the building of the village-oven for some Indian-corn-leaven, which they had carried there to be baked, and, when I explained my pressing wants, two of them, very kindly, transferred me their shares, for which I gave each a kiss and a dollar between. They took the former as an unusual favour; but looked at the latter, as much as to say, "our poverty, and not our will, consents." I ran off with my half-baked dough, and joined my comrades, just as they were getting under arms.
March 21st.—We, this day, reached the town of Mello, and had so far outmarched our commissary that we found it necessary to wait for him; and, in stopping to get a sight of ourfriends, we lost sight of our foes, a circumstance which I was by no means sorry for, as it enabled my shoulders, once more, to rejoice under the load of a couple of biscuits, and made me no longer ashamed to look a cow or a sheep in the face, now that they were not required to furnish more than their regulated proportions of my daily food.
March 30th.—We had no difficulty in tracing the enemy, by the wrecks of houses and the butchered peasantry; and overtook their rear-guard, this day, busy grinding corn, in some windmills, near the village of Frexedas. As their situation offered a fair opportunity for us to reap the fruits of their labours, we immediately attacked and drove them from it, and, after securing what we wanted, we withdrew again, across the valley, to the village of Alverca, where we were not without some reasonable expectations that they would have returned the compliment, as we had only a few squadrons of dragoons in addition to our battalion, and we had seen them withdraw a much stronger forcefrom the opposite village; but, by keeping a number of our men all night employed in making extensive fires on the hill above, it induced them to think that our force was much greater than it really was; and we remained unmolested.
The only person we had hit in this affair was our adjutant, Mr. Stewart, who was shot through the head from a window. He was a gallant soldier, and deeply lamented. We placed his body in a chest, and buried it in front of Colonel Beckwith's quarters.
March 31st.—At daylight, this morning, we moved to our right, along the ridge of mountains, to Guarda: on our arrival there, we saw the imposing spectacle of the whole of the French army winding through the valley below, just out of gun-shot.
On taking possession of one of the villages which they had just evacuated, we found the body of a well-dressed female, whom they had murdered by a horrible refinement in cruelty. She had been placed upon her back, alive, in the middle of the street, with the fragment of arock upon her breast, which it required four of our men to remove.
April 1st.—We overtook the enemy this afternoon, in position, behind the Coa, at Sabugal, with their advanced posts on our side of the river.
I was sent on piquet for the night, and had my sentries within half-musket shot of theirs: it was wet, dark, and stormy when I went, about midnight, to visit them, and I was not a little annoyed to find one missing. Recollecting who he was, a steady old soldier and the last man in the world to desert his post, I called his name aloud, when his answering voice, followed by the discharge of a musket, reached me nearly at the same time, from the direction of one of the French sentries; and, after some inquiry, I found that in walking his lonely round, in a brown study, no doubt, he had each turn taken ten or twelve paces to his front, and only half that number to the rear, until he had gradually worked himself up to within a few yards of his adversary; and it would be difficult to say whichof the two was most astonished—the one at hearing a voice, or the other a shot so near, but all my rhetoric, aided by the testimony of the serjeant and the other sentries, could not convince the fellow that he was not on the identical spot on which I had posted him.
April 2d.—We moved this day to the right, nearer to the bridge, and some shots were exchanged between the piquets.
Early this morning our division moved still farther to its right, and our brigade led the way across a ford, which took us up to the middle; while the balls from the enemy's advanced posts were hissing in the water around us, we drove in their light troops and commenced a furious assault upon their main body. Thus far all was right; but a thick drizzling rain now came on, in consequence of which the third division, which wasto have made a simultaneous attack to our left, missed their way, and a brigade of dragoons under Sir William Erskine, who were to have covered our right, went the Lord knows where, but certainly not into the fight, although they started at the same time that we did, and had themusicof our rifles to guide them; and, even the second brigade of our own division could not afford us any support, for nearly an hour, so that we were thus unconsciously left with about fifteen hundred men, in the very impertinent attempt to carry a formidable position, on which stood as many thousands.
The weather, which had deprived us of the aid of our friends, favoured us so far as to prevent the enemy from seeing the amount of our paltry force; and the conduct of our gallant fellows, led on by Sir Sidney Beckwith, was so truly heroic, that, incredible as it may seem, we had the best of the fight throughout. Our first attack was met by such overwhelming numbers, that we were forced back and followed by three heavy columns, before which we retired slowly,and keeping up a destructive fire, to the nearest rising ground, where we re-formed and instantly charged their advancing masses, sending them flying at the point of the bayonet, and entering their position along with them, where we were assailed by fresh forces. Three times did the very same thing occur. In our third attempt we got possession of one of their howitzers, for which a desperate struggle was making, when we were at the same moment charged by infantry in front and cavalry on the right, and again compelled to fall back; but, fortunately, at this moment we were reinforced by the arrival of the second brigade, and, with their aid, we once more stormed their position and secured the well-earned howitzer, while the third division came at the same time upon their flank, and they were driven from the field in the greatest disorder.
Lord Wellington's despatch on this occasion did ample justice to Sir Sidney Beckwith and his brave brigade. Never were troops more judiciously or more gallantly led. Never was a leader more devotedly followed.
In the course of the action a man of the name of Knight fell dead at my feet, and though I heard a musket ball strike him, I could neither find blood nor wound.
There was a little spaniel belonging to one of our officers running about the whole time, barking at the balls, and I saw him once smelling at a live shell, which exploded in his face without hurting him.
The strife had scarcely ended among mortals, when it was taken up by the elements with terrific violence. TheScotch mistof the morning had now increased to torrents, enough to cool the fever of our late excitement, and accompanied by thunder and lightning. As a compliment for our exertions in the fight, we were sent into the town, and had the advantage of whatever cover its dilapidated state afforded. While those who had not had the chance of getting broken skins, had now the benefit of sleeping in wet ones.
On the 5th of April we entered the frontiers of Spain, and slept in a bed for the first timesince I left the ship. Passing from the Portuguese to the Spanish frontier is about equal to taking one step from the coal-hole into the parlour, for the cottages on the former are reared with filth, furnished with ditto, and peopled accordingly; whereas, those of Spain, even within the same mile, are neatly whitewashed, both without and within, and the poorest of them can furnish a good bed, with clean linen, and the pillow-cases neatly adorned with pink and sky-blue ribbons, while their dear little girls look smiling and neat as their pillow-cases.
After the action at Sabugal, the enemy retired to the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo, without our getting another look at them, and we took up the line of the Agueda and Axava rivers, for the blockade of the fortress of Almeida, in which they had left a garrison indifferently provisioned.
The garrison had no means of providing for their cattle, but by turning them out to graze upon the glacis; and we sent a few of ourrifles to practice against them, which very soon reduced them to salt provisions.
Towards the end of April the French army began to assemble on the opposite bank of the Agueda to attempt the relief of the garrison, while ours began to assemble in position at Fuentes D'Onor to dispute it.
Our division still continued to hold the same line of outposts, and had several sharp affairs between the piquets at the bridge of Marialva.
As a general action seemed now to be inevitable, we anxiously longed for the return of Lord Wellington, who had been suddenly called to the corps of the army under Marshal Beresford, near Badajos, as we would rather see his long nose in the fight than a reinforcement of ten thousand men any day. Indeed, there was a charm not only about himself but all connected with him, for which no odds could compensate. The known abilities of Sir George Murray, the gallant bearing of thelamented Pakenham, of Lord Fitzroy Somerset, of the present Duke of Richmond, Sir Colin Campbell, with others, the flower of our young nobility and gentry, who, under the auspices of such a chief, seemed always a group attendant on victory; and I'll venture to say that there was not a bosom in that army that did not beat more lightly, when we heard the joyful news of his arrival, the day before the enemy's advance.
He had ordered us not to dispute the passage of the river, so that when the French army advanced, on the morning of the 3d of May, we retired slowly before them, across the plains of Espeja, and drew into the position, where the whole army was now assembled. Our division took post in reserve, in the left centre. Towards evening, the enemy made a fierce attack on the Village of Fuentes, but were repulsed with loss.
On the 4th, both armies looked at each other all day without exchanging shots.
The day began to dawn, this fine May morning, with a rattling fire of musketry on the extreme right of our position, which the enemy had attacked, and to which point our division was rapidly moved.
Our battalion was thrown into a wood, a little to the left and front of the division engaged, and was instantly warmly opposed to the French skirmishers; in the course of which I was struck with a musket-ball on the left breast, which made me stagger a yard or two backward, and, as I felt no pain, I concluded that I was dangerously wounded; but it turned out to be owing to my not being hurt. While our operations here were confined to a tame skirmish, and our view to the oaks with which we were mingled, we found, by the evidence of our ears, that the division which we had come to support was involved in a more serious onset, fortherewas thesuccessive rattle of artillery, the wild hurrah of charging squadrons, and the repulsing volley of musketry; until Lord Wellington, finding his right too much extended, directedthatdivision to fall back behind the small river Touronne, and ours to join the main body of the army. The execution of our movement presented a magnificent military spectacle, as the plain, between us and the right of the army, was by this time in possession of the French cavalry, and, while we were retiring through it with the order and precision of a common field-day, they kept dancing around us, and every instant threatening a charge, without daring to execute it.
We took up our new position at a right angle with the then right of the British line, on which our left rested, and with our right on the Touronne. The enemy followed our movement with a heavy column of infantry; but, when they came near enough to exchange shots, they did not seem to like our looks, as we occupied a low ridge of broken rocks, against which even a rat could scarcely have hoped to advance alive;and they again fell back, and opening a tremendous fire of artillery, which was returned by a battery of our guns. In the course of a short time, seeing no further demonstration against this part of the position, our division was withdrawn, and placed in reserve in rear of the centre.
The battle continued to rage with fury in and about the village, whilst we were lying by our arms under a burning hot sun, some stray cannon-shot passing over and about us, whose progress we watched for want of other employment. One of them bounded along in the direction of anamateur, whom we had for some time been observing securely placed, as he imagined, behind a piece of rock, which stood about five feet above the ground, and over which nothing but his head was shown, sheltered from the sun by an umbrella. The shot in question touched the ground three or four times between us and him; he saw it coming—lowered his umbrella, and withdrew his head. Its expiring bound carried it into the very spot where he had that instantdisappeared. I hope he was not hurt; but the thing looked so ridiculous that it excited a shout of laughter, and we saw no more of him.
A little before dusk, in the evening, our battalion was ordered forward to relieve the troops engaged in the village, part of which still remained in possession of the enemy, and I saw, by the mixed nature of the dead, in every part of the streets, that it had been successively in possession of both sides. The firing ceased with the daylight, and I was sent, with a section of men, in charge of one of the streets for the night. There was a wounded Serjeant of highlanders lying on my post. A ball had passed through the back part of his head, from which the brain was oozing, and his only sign of life was a convulsive hiccough every two or three seconds. I sent for a medical friend to look at him, who told me that he could not survive; I then got a mattress from the nearest house, placed the poor fellow on it, and made use of one corner as a pillow for myself, on which, afterthe fatigues of the day, and though called occasionally to visit my sentries, I slept most soundly. The highlander died in the course of the night.
When we stood to our arms, at daybreak next morning, we found the enemy busy throwing up a six-gun battery, immediately in front of our company's post, and we immediately set to work, with our whole hearts and souls, and placed a wall, about twelve feet thick, between us, which, no doubt, still remains there in the same garden, as a monument of what can be effected, in a few minutes, by a hundred modern men, when their personal safety is concerned; not but that the proprietor, in the midst of his admiration, would rather see a good bed of garlic on the spot, manured with the bodies of the architects.
When the sun began to shine on the pacific disposition of the enemy, we proceeded to consign the dead to their last earthly mansions, giving every Englishman a grave to himself, and putting as many Frenchmen into one as it couldconveniently accommodate. Whilst in the superintendence of this melancholy duty, and ruminating on the words of the poet:—
"There's not a form of all that lieThus ghastly, wild and bare,Tost, bleeding, in the stormy sky,Black in the burning air,But to his knee some infant clung,But on his heart some fond heart hung!"
I was grieved to think that the souls of deceased warriors should be so selfish as to take to flight in their regimentals, for I never saw the body of one with a rag on after battle.
The day after one of those negative sort of victories is always one of intense interest. The movements on each side are most jealously watched, and each side is diligently occupied in strengthening such points as the fight of the preceding day had proved to be the most vulnerable.
Lord Wellington was too deficient in his cavalry force to justify his following up his victory;and the enemy, on their parts, had been too roughly handled, in their last attempt, to think of repeating the experiment; so that, during the next two days, though both armies continued to hold the same ground, there was scarcely a shot exchanged.
They had made a few prisoners, chiefly guardsmen and highlanders, whom they marched past the front of our position, in the most ostentatious way, on the forenoon of the 6th; and, the day following, a number of their regiments were paraded in the most imposing manner for review. They looked uncommonly well, and we were proud to think that we had beaten such fine-looking fellows so lately!
Our regiment had been so long and so often quartered in Fuentes that it was like fighting for our fire-sides. ThePadre'shouse stood at the top of the town. He was an old friend of ours, and an old fool, for he would not leave his house until it was too late to take anything with him; but, curious enough, although it had been repeatedly in the possession of both sides,and plundered, no doubt, by many expert artists, yet none of them thought of looking so high as the garret, which happened to be the repository of his money and provisions. He came to us the day after the battle, weeping over his supposed loss, like a sensitive Christian, and I accompanied him to the house, to see whether there was not some consolation remaining for him; but, when he found his treasure safe, he could scarcely bear its restoration with becoming gravity. I helped him to carry off his bag of dollars, and he returned the compliment with a leg of mutton.
The French army retired on the night of the 7th, leaving Almeida to its fate; but, by an extraordinary piece of luck, the garrison made their escape the night after, in consequence of some mistake or miscarriage of an order, which prevented a British regiment from occupying the post intended for it.
May 8th.—We advanced this morning, and occupied our former post at Espeja, with some hopes of remaining quiet for a few days; butthe alarm sounding at daylight on the following morning, we took post on the hill, in front of the village. It turned out to be only a patrole of French cavalry, who retired on receiving a few shots from our piquets, and we saw no more of them for a considerable time.[Back to Contents]
March to Estremadura. At Soito, growing Accommodations for Man and Beast. British Taste displayed by Portuguese Wolves. False Alarm. Luxuries of Roquingo Camp. A Chaplain of the Forces. Return towards the North. Quarters near Castello de Vide. Blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo. Village of Atalya; Fleas abundant; Food scarce. Advance of the French Army. Affairs near Guinaldo. Our Minister administered to. An unexpected Visit from our General and his Followers. End of the Campaign of 1811. Winter Quarters.
Lord Wellington, soon after the battle of Fuentes, was again called into Estremadura, to superintend the operations of the corps of the army under Marshal Beresford, who had, in the mean time, fought the battle of Albuera, andlaid siege to Badajos. In the beginning of June our division was ordered thither also, to be in readiness to aid his operations. We halted one night at the village of Soito, where there are a great many chestnut trees of very extraordinary dimensions; the outside of the trunk keeps growing as the inside decays. I was one of a party of four persons who dined inside of one, and I saw two or three horses put up in several others.
We halted, also, one night on the banks of the Coa, near Sabugal, and visited our late field of battle. We found that the dead had been nearly all torn from their graves, and devoured by wolves, who are in great force in that wild mountainous district, and shew very little respect either for man or beast. They seldom, indeed, attack a man; but if one happens to tie his horse to a tree, and leaves him unattended, for a short time, he must not be surprised if he finds, on his return, that he has parted with a goodrump steak;thatis the piece that they alwaysprefer; and it is, therefore, clear to me, that the first of the wolves must have been reared in England!
We experienced, in the course of this very dark night, one of those ridiculous false alarms which will sometimes happen in the best organized body. Some bullocks strayed, by accident, amongst the piles of arms, the falling clatter of which, frightened them so much that they went galloping over the sleeping soldiers. The officers' baggage-horses broke from theirmoorings, and joined in the general charge; and a cry immediately arose, that it was the French cavalry. The different regiments stood to their arms, and formed squares, looking as sharp as thunder for something to fire at; and it was a considerable time before the cause of therowcould be traced. The different followers of the army, in the mean time, were scampering off to the rear, spreading the most frightful reports. One woman of the 52d succeeded in getting three leagues off before daylight, and swore, "that, as God was her judge, she did not leaveher regiment until she saw the last man of them cut to pieces!!!"
On our arrival near Elvas, we found that Marshal Beresford had raised the siege of Badajos; and we were, therefore, encamped on the river Caya, near Roquingo. This was a sandy unsheltered district; and the weather was so excessively hot, that we had no enjoyment, but that of living three parts of the day up to the neck in a pool of water.
Up to this period it had been a matter of no small difficulty to ascertain, at any time, the day of the week; that of the month was altogether out of the question, and could only be reckoned by counting back to the date of the last battle; but our division was here joined by a chaplain, whose duty it was to remind us of these things. He might have been a very good man, but he was not prepossessing, either in his appearance or manners. I remember, the first Sunday after his arrival, the troops were paraded for divine service, and had been some time waiting in square, when he at length rodeinto the centre of it, with his tall, lank, ungainly figure, mounted on a starved, untrimmed, unfurnished horse, and followed by a Portuguese boy, with his canonicals and prayer-books on the back of a mule, with a hay-bridle, and having, by way of clothing, about half a pair of straw breeches. This spiritual comforter was the least calculated of any one that I ever saw to excite devotion in the minds of men, who had seen nothing in the shape of a divine for a year or two.
In the beginning of August we began to retrace our steps towards the north. We halted a few days in Portalegré, and a few more at Castello de Vide.
The latter place is surrounded by extensive gardens, belonging to the richer citizens; in each of which there is a small summer-house, containing one or two apartments, in which the proprietor, as I can testify, may have the enjoyment of being fed upon by a more healthy and better appetized flea, than is to be met with in town houses in general.
Thesequintasfell to the lot of our battalion; and though their beds, on that account, had not much sleep in them, yet, as those who preferred the voice of the nightingale in a bed of cabbages, to the pinch of a flea in a bed of feathers, had the alternative at their option; I enjoyed my sojourn there very much. Each garden had a bathing tank, with a plentiful supply of water, which at that season was really a luxury; and they abounded in choice fruits. I there formed an attachment to a mulberry-tree, which is still fondly cherished in my remembrance.
We reached the scene of our former operations, in the north, towards the end of August.
The French had advanced and blockaded Almeida, during our absence, but they retired again on our approach, and we took up a more advanced position than before, for the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo.
Our battalion occupied Atalya, a little village at the foot of the Sierra de Gata, and in front of the River Vadilla. On taking possession of my quarter, the people showed me an outhouse,which, they said, I might use as a stable, and I took my horse into it, but, seeing the floor strewed with what appeared to be a small brown seed, heaps of which lay in each corner, as if shovelled together in readiness to take to market, I took up a handful, out of curiosity, and, truly, they were a curiosity, for I found that they were all regular fleas, and that they were proceeding to eat both me and my horse, without the smallest ceremony. I rushed out of the place, and knocked them down by fistfuls, and never yet could comprehend the cause of their congregating together in such a place.
This neighbourhood had been so long the theatre of war, and alternately forced to supply both armies, that the inhabitants, at length, began to dread starvation themselves, and concealed, for their private use, all that remained to them; so that, although they were bountiful in their assurances of good wishes, it was impossible to extract a loaf of their good bread, of which we were so wildly in want that we were obliged to conceal patroles on the different roadsand footpaths, for many miles around, to search the peasants passing between the different villages, giving them an order on the commissary for whatever we took from them; and we were not too proud to take even a few potatoes out of an old woman's basket.
On one occasion, when some of us were out shooting, we discovered about twenty hives of bees, in the face of a glen, concealed among the gumcestus, and, stopping up the mouth of one them, we carried it home on our shoulders, bees and all, and continued to levy contributions on thedepotas long as we remained there.
Towards the end of September, the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo began to get on such "short commons" thatMarmont, who had succeededMassena, in the command of the French army, found it necessary to assemble the whole of his forces, to enable him to throw provisions into it.
Lord Wellington was still pursuing his defensive system, and did not attempt to oppose him; but Marmont, after having effected his object, thought that he might as well take that opportunityof beating up our quarters, in return for the trouble we had given him; and, accordingly, on the morning of the 25th, he attacked a brigade of the third division, stationed at El Bedon, which, after a brilliant defence and retreat, conducted him opposite to the British position, in front of Fuente Guinaldo. He busied himself, the whole of the following day, in bringing up his troops for the attack. Our division, in the mean time, remained on the banks of the Vadillo, and had nearly been cut off, through the obstinacy of General Crawford, who did not choose to obey an order he received to retire the day before; but we, nevertheless, succeeded in joining the army, by a circuitous route, on the afternoon of the 26th; and, the whole of both armies being now assembled, we considered a battle on the morrow as inevitable.
Lord Wellington, however, was not disposed to accommodate them on this occasion; for, about the middle of the night, we received an order to stand to our arms, with as little noise as possible, and to commence retiring, the restof the army having been already withdrawn, unknown to us; an instance of the rapidity and uncertainty of our movements which proved fatal to the liberty of several amateurs and followers of the army, who, seeing an army of sixty thousand men lying asleep around their camp-fires, at ten o'clock at night, naturally concluded that they might safely indulge in a bed in the village behind, until daylight, without the risk of being caught napping; but, long ere that time, they found themselves on the high road to Ciudad Rodrigo, in the rude grasp of an enemy. Amongst others, was the chaplain of our division, whose outward man, as I have already said, conveyed no very exalted notion of the respectability of his profession, and who was treated with greater indignity than usually fell to the lot of prisoners, for, after keeping him a couple of days, and finding that, however gifted he might have been in spiritual lore, he was as ignorant as Dominie Sampson on military matters; and, conceiving good provisions to be thrown away upon him, they stripped him nearly nakedand dismissed him, like the barber in Gil Blas, with a kick in the breech, and sent him in to us in a woful state.
September 27th.—General Crawford remained behind us this morning, with a troop of dragoons, to reconnoitre; and, while we were marching carelessly along the road, he and his dragoons galloped right into our column, with a cloud of French ones at his heels. Luckily, the ground was in our favour; and, dispersing our men among the broken rocks, on both sides of the road, we sent them back somewhat faster than they came on. They were, however, soon replaced by their infantry, with whom we continued in an uninteresting skirmish all day. There was some sharp firing, the whole of the afternoon, to our left; and we retired, in the evening, to Soito.
This affair terminated the campaign of 1811, as the enemy retired the same night, and we advanced next day to resume the blockade of Rodrigo; and were suffered to remain quietlyin cantonments until the commencement of a new year.
In every interval between our active services, we indulged in all manner of childish trick and amusement, with an avidity and delight of which it is impossible to convey an adequate idea. We lived united, as men always are who are daily staring death in the face on the same side, and who, caring little about it, look upon each new day added to their lives as one more to rejoice in.
We invited the villagers, every evening, to a dance at our quarters alternately. A Spanish peasant girl has an address about her which I have never met with in the same class of any other country; and she at once enters into society with the ease and confidence of one who had been accustomed to it all her life. We used to flourish away at the bolero, fandango, and waltz, and wound up early in the evening with a supper of roasted chestnuts.
Our villagebelles, as already stated, made themselves perfectly at home in our society, andwe, too, should have enjoyed theirs for a season; but, when month after month, and year after year, continued to roll along, without producing any change, we found that the cherry cheek and sparkling eye of rustic beauty furnished but a very poor apology for the illuminated portion of Nature's fairest works, and ardently longed for an opportunity of once more feasting our eyes on alady.
In the month of December, we heard that the chief magistrate of Rodrigo, with whom we were personally acquainted, had, with his daughter and two other young ladies, taken shelter in Robledillo, a little town in the Sierra de Gata, which, being within our range, presented an attraction not to be resisted.
Half-a-dozen of us immediately resolved ourselves into a committee of ways and means. We had six months' pay due to us; so that the fandango might have been danced in either of our pockets without the smallest risk; but we had this consolation for our poverty, that there was nothing to be bought, even if we had themeans. Our only resource, therefore, was to lighten the cares of such of our brother-officers as were fortunate enough to have any thing to lose; and, at this moment of doubt and difficulty, a small flock of turkeys, belonging to our major, presented themselves, most imprudently, grazing opposite the windows of our council-chamber, two of which were instantly committed to the bottom of a sack, as a foundation to go upon. One of our spies, soon after, apprehended a sheep, the property of another officer, which was committed to the same place; and, getting the commissary to advance us a few extra loaves of bread, some ration beef, and a pig-skin full of wine, we placed a servant on a mule, with the whole concern tackled to him, and proceeded on our journey.
In passing over the mountain, we saw a wild boar bowling along, in the midst of a snow-storm, and, voting them fitting companions, we suffered him to pass, (particularly as he did not come within shot).
On our arrival at Robledillo, we met with themost cordial reception from the old magistrate; who, entering into the spirit of our visit, provided us with quarters, and filled our room in the evening with every body worth seeing in the place. We were malicious enough, by way of amusement, to introduce a variety of absurd pastimes, under the pretence of their being English, and which, by virtue thereof, were implicitly adopted. We, therefore, passed a regular romping evening; and, at a late hour, having conducted the ladies to their homes, some friars, who were of the party, very kindly, intended doing us the same favour, and, with that view, had begun to precede us with their lanterns, but, in the frolic of the moment, we set upon them with snow-balls, some of which struck upon their broad shoulders, while others fizzed against their fiery faces, and, in their astonishment and alarm, all sanctimony was forgotten; their oaths flew as thick as our snow-balls, while they ran ducking their heads and dousing their lights, for better concealment; but we, nevertheless, persevered until we had pelted each to his own home.
We were, afterwards, afraid that we had carried the joke rather too far, and entertained some doubts as to the propriety of holding our quarters for another day; but they set our minds at rest on that point, by paying us an early visit in the morning, and seemed to enjoy the joke in a manner that we could not have expected from the gravity of their looks.
We passed two more days much in the same manner, and, on the third, returned to our cantonments, and found that our division had moved, during our absence, into some villages nearer to Ciudad Rodrigo, preparatory to the siege of that place.
On inquiry, we found that we had never been suspected for theabductionof the sheep and turkeys, but that the blame, on the contrary, had been attached to the poor soldiers, whose soup had been tasted every day to see if it savoured of such dainties. The proprietor of the turkeys was so particularly indignant that we thought it prudent not to acknowledge ourselves as the culprits until some time afterwards, when,as one of our party happened to be killed in action, we, very uncharitably, put the whole of it on his shoulders.[Back to Contents]
Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. The Garrison of an Outwork relieved. Spending an Evening abroad. A Musical Study. An Addition to Soup. A short Cut. Storming of the Town. A sweeping Clause. Advantages of leading a Storming Party. Looking for a Customer. Disadvantages of being a stormed Party. Confusion of all Parties. A waking Dream. Death of General Crawford. Accident. Deaths.
The campaign of 1812 commenced with the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, which was invested by our division on the 8th of January.
There was a smartish frost, with some snow on the ground; and, when we arrived opposite thefortress, about midday, the garrison did not appear to think that we were in earnest, for a number of their officers came out, under the shelter of a stone-wall, within half musket-shot, and amused themselves in saluting and bowing to us in ridicule; but, ere the day was done, some of them had occasion to wear the laugh on the opposite side of the countenance.
We lay by our arms until dark, when a party, consisting of a hundred volunteers from each regiment, under Colonel Colborne, of the fifty-second, stormed and carried the Fort of St. Francisco, after a short sharp action, in which the whole of its garrison were taken or destroyed. The officer who commanded it was a chattering little fellow, and acknowledged himself to have been one of our saluting friends of the morning. He kept, incessantly, repeating a few words of English which he had picked up during the assault, and the only ones, I fancy, that were spoken, viz. "dem eyes, b—t eyes!" and, in demanding the meaning of them, herequired that we should, also, explain why we stormed a place without first besieging it; for, he said, that another officer would have relieved him of his charge at daylight, hadwenotrelievedhim of it sooner.
The enemy had calculated that this outwork would have kept us at bay for a fortnight or three weeks; whereas, its capture, the first night, enabled us to break ground at once, within breaching distance of the walls of the town. They kept up a very heavy fire the whole night on the working parties; but, as they aimed at random, we did not suffer much; and made such good use of our time that, when daylight enabled them to see what we were doing, we had dug ourselves under tolerable cover.
In addition to ours, the first, third, and fourth divisions were employed in the siege. Each took the duties for twenty-four hours alternately, and returned to their cantonments during the interval.
We were relieved by the first division, under Sir Thomas Graham, on the morning of the 9th, and marched to our quarters.
Jan. 12th.—At ten o'clock this morning we resumed the duties of the siege. It still continued to be dry frosty weather; and, as we were obliged to ford the Agueda, up to the middle, every man carried a pair of iced breeches into the trenches with him.
My turn of duty did not arrive until eight in the evening, when I was ordered to take thirty men with shovels to dig holes for ourselves, as near as possible to the walls, for the delectable amusement of firing at the embrasures for the remainder of the night. The enemy threw frequent fire-balls among us, to see where we were; but, as we always lay snug until their blaze was extinguished, they were not much the wiser, except by finding, from having some one popt off from their guns every instant, that they had got some neighbours whom they would have been glad to get rid of.
We were relieved as usual at ten next morning, and returned to our cantonments.
January 16th.—Entered on our third day's duty, and found the breaching batteries in full operation, and our approaches close to the walls on every side. When we arrived on the ground I was sent to take command of the highland company, which we had at that time in the regiment, and which was with the left wing, under Colonel Cameron. I found them on piquet, between the right of the trenches and the river, half of them posted at a mud-cottage, and the other half in a ruined convent, close under the walls. It was a very tolerable post when at it; but it is no joke travelling by daylight up to within a stone's throw of a wall, on which there is a parcel of fellows who have no other amusement but to fire at every body they see.
We could not show our noses at any point without being fired at; but, as we were merely posted there to protect the right flank of the trenches from any sortie, we did not fire atthem, and kept as quiet as could be, considering the deadly blast that was blowing around us. There are few situations in life where something cannot be learnt, and I, myself, stand indebted to my twenty-four hours' residence there, for a more correct knowledge of martial sounds than in the study of my whole life time besides. They must be an unmusical pair of ears that cannot inform the wearer whither a cannon or a musket played last, but the variousnotes, emanating from their respective mouths, admit of nice distinctions. My party was too small, and too well sheltered to repay the enemy for the expense of shells and round shot; but the quantity of grape and musketry aimed at our particular heads, made a good concert of first and second whistles, while the more sonorous voice of the round shot, travelling to our friends on the left, acted as a thorough bass; and there was not a shell, that passed over us to the trenches, that did not send back a fragment among us as soon as it burst, as if to gratify a curiosity that I was far from expressing.
We went into the cottage soon after dark, to partake of something that had been prepared for dinner; and, when in the middle of it, a round shot passed through both walls, immediately over our heads, and garnished the soup with a greater quantity of our parent earth than was quite palatable.
We were relieved, as usual, by the first division, at ten next morning; and, to avoid as much as possible the destructive fire from the walls, they sent forward only three or four men at a time, and we sent ours away in the same proportions.
Every thing is by comparison in this world, and it is curious to observe how men's feelings change with circumstances. In cool blood a man would rather go a little out of his way than expose himself to unnecessary danger; but we found, this morning, that by crossing the river where we then were, and running the gauntlet for a mile, exposed to the fire of two pieces of artillery, that we should be saved the distance of two or three miles in returning to our quarters. After coming out of such afurnaceas we had been frying in, the other fire was not considered a fire at all, and passed without a moment's hesitation.
January 19th, 1812.—We moved to the scene of operations, about two o'clock this afternoon; and, as it was a day before our regular turn, we concluded that we were called there to lend a hand in finishing the job we had begun so well; nor were we disappointed, for we found that two practicable breaches had been effected, and that the place was to be stormed in the evening by the third and light divisions, the former by the right breach, and the latter by the left, while some Portuguese troops were to attempt an escalade on the opposite sides of the town.
About eight o'clock in the evening our division was accordingly formed for the assault, behind a convent, near the left breach, in the following order:—viz.