Battle of Busaco—Daring advance of the French—The achievements of the 88th—Adventure of Captain Seton—AlcobaÇa—Remarks on the battle.

This battle, fought upon the 27th September 1810, was one in which the losses of the French, and of the British and Portuguese army, commanded by Lord Wellington, were not of that magnitude to give it a first-rate place on the battle list;^[6] this same battle of Busaco was, nevertheless, one of the most serious ever fought in the Peninsula, and for this reason—it was the first in which the Portuguese levies were brought under fire, and upon their conduct in this, their maiden effort against their veteran opponents, depended the fate of Portugal, and the Peninsula also. Such being the case, it must ever be classed as a very important event, and one that should be recorded by the historian with great care and fidelity, yet, strange to say, there is not, that I have read, any faithful report of it in print. In vain do we turn even to Colonel Napier’s splendid history of the war in the Peninsula in expectation of finding a correct account; no such account is there to be found. In all, therefore, that I am going to relate as to the part which the 3rd Division took in it, I shall keep as close as I possibly can to what I know to be the facts.

On the morning of the 27th the haze was so thick that little could be seen at any great distance, but the fire of the light troops along the face of the hill put it beyond doubt that a battle would take place. Lord Wellington was close to the brigade of Lightburne, and from the bustle amongst his staff, it was manifest that the point held by Picton’s division was about to be attacked. Two guns belonging to Captain Lane’s troop of artillery were ordered upon the left of the 88th Regiment, and immediately opened their fire, while the Portuguese battery, under the German Major Arentschildt, passed at a trot towards the Saint Antonio Pass, in front of the 74th British.

A rolling fire of musketry, and some discharges of cannon, in the direction of Saint Antonio, announced what was taking place in that quarter, and the face of the hill immediately in front of the brigade of Lightburne, and to the left of the 88th Regiment, was beginning to show that the efforts of the enemy were about to be directed against this portion of the ground held by the 3rd Division.

The fog cleared away, and a bright sun enabled us to see what was passing before us. A vast crowd of tirailleurs were pressing onward with great ardour, and their fire, as well as their numbers, was so superior to that of our advance, that some men of the brigade of Lightburne, as also a few of the 88th Regiment, were killed while standing in line; a colour-sergeant named Macnamara was shot through the head close beside myself and Ensign Owgan. Colonel King, commanding the 5th Regiment, which was one of those belonging to Lightburne’s brigade, oppressed by a desultory fire he was unable to reply to without disturbing the formation of his battalion, brought his regiment a little out of its range, while Colonel Alexander Wallace, of the 88th, took a file of men from each company of his regiment, and placing them under the command of Captain George Bury and Lieutenant William Mackie, ordered them to advance to the aid of our people, who were overmatched and roughly handled at the moment. Our artillery still continued to discharge showers of grape and canister at half range, but the French light troops, fighting at open distance, heeded it not, and continued to multiply in great force. Nevertheless, in place of coming up direct in front of the 88th, they edged off to their left, out of sight of that corps, and far away from Lightburne’s brigade, and from the nature of the ground they could be neither seen nor their exact object defined; as they went to their left, our advance inclined to the right, making a corresponding movement; but though nothing certain could be known, as we soon lost sight of both parties, the roll of musketry never ceased, and many of Bury’s and Mackie’s men returned wounded. Those two officers greatly distinguished themselves, and Bury, though badly wounded, refused to quit the field. A soldier of Bury’s company, of the name of Pollard, was shot through the shoulder; but seeing his captain, though wounded, continue at the head of his men, he threw off his knapsack, and fought beside his officer; but this brave fellow’s career of glory was short, a bullet penetrated the plate of his cap, passed through his brain, and he fell dead at Bury’s feet. These were the sort of materials the 88th were formed of, and these were the sort of men that were unnoticed by their General!

Lord Wellington was no longer to be seen, and Wallace and his regiment, standing alone without orders, had to act for themselves. The Colonel sent his captain of Grenadiers (Dunne) to the right, where the rocks were highest, to ascertain how matters stood, for he did not wish, at his own peril, to quit the ground he had been ordered to occupy without some strong reason for so doing. All this time the brigade of Lightburne, as also the 88th, were standing at ordered arms.

In a few moments Dunne returned almost breathless; he said the rocks were filling fast with Frenchmen, that a heavy column was coming up the hill beyond the rocks, and that the four companies of the 45th were about to be attacked. Wallace asked if he thought half the 88th would be able to do the business. “You will want every man,” was the reply.

Wallace, with a steady but cheerful countenance, turned to his men, and looking them full in the face, said, “Now, Connaught Rangers, mind what you are going to do; pay attention to what I have so often told you, and when I bring you face to face with those French rascals, drive them down the hill—don’t give the false touch, but push home to the muzzle! I have nothing more to say, and if I had it would be of no use, for in a minit or two there’ll be such an infernal noise about your ears that you won’t be able to hear yourselves.”

This address went home to the hearts of us all, but there was no cheering; a steady but determined calm had taken the place of any lighter feeling, and it seemed as if the men had made up their minds to go to their work unruffled and not too much excited.

Wallace then threw the battalion from line into column, right in front, and moved on our side of the rocky point at a quick pace; on reaching the rocks, he soon found it manifest that Dunne’s report was not exaggerated; a number of Frenchmen were in possession of this cluster, and so soon as we approached within range we were made to appreciate the effects of their fire, for our column was raked from front to rear. The moment was critical, but Wallace, without being in the least taken aback, filed out the Grenadiers and the first battalion-company, commanded by Captains Dunne and Dansey, and ordered them to storm the rocks, while he took the fifth battalion-company, commanded by Captain Oates, also out of the column, and ordered that officer to attack the rocks at the opposite side to that assailed by Dunne and Dansey. This done, Wallace placed himself at the head of the remainder of the 88th, and pressed on to meet the French column.

At this moment the four companies of the 45th, commanded by Major Gwynne, a little to the left of the 88th, and in front of that regiment, commenced their fire, but it in no way arrested the advance of the French column, as it, with much order and regularity, mounted the hill, which at this point is rather flat. But here, again, another awkward circumstance occurred. A battalion of the 8th Portuguese Infantry, under Colonel Douglas, posted on a rising ground on our right, and a little in our rear, in place of advancing with us, opened a distant and ill-directed fire, and one which would exactly cross the path of the 88th, as that corps was moving onward to meet the French column, which consisted of three splendid regiments, viz. the 2nd Light Infantry, the 36th, and the 70th of the line. Wallace, seeing the loss and confusion that would infallibly ensue, sent Lieutenant John Fitzpatrick, an officer of tried gallantry, with orders to point out to this regiment the error into which it had fallen; but Fitzpatrick had only time to take off his hat, and call out “Vamos commarades,” when he received two bullets—one from the Portuguese, which passed through his back, and the other in his left leg from the French, which broke the bone, and caused a severe fracture; yet this regiment continued to fire away, regardless of the consequences, and a battalion of militia, which was immediately in rear of the 8th Portuguese, took to their heels the moment the first volley was discharged by their own countrymen!

Wallace threw himself from his horse, and placing himself at the head of the 45th and 88th, with Gwynne of the 45th on the one side of him, and Captain Seton of the 88th on the other, ran forward at a charging pace into the midst of the terrible flame in his front. All was now confusion and uproar, smoke, fire and bullets, officers and soldiers, French drummers and French drums knocked down in every direction; British, French, and Portuguese mixed together; while in the midst of all was to be seen Wallace, fighting—like his ancestor of old—at the head of his devoted followers, and calling out to his soldiers to “press forward!” Never was defeat more complete, and it was a proud moment for Wallace and Gwynne when they saw their gallant comrades breaking down and trampling under their feet this splendid division composed of some of the best troops the world could boast of. The leading regiment, the 36th, one of Napoleon’s favourite battalions, was nearly destroyed; upwards of two hundred soldiers and their old colonel, covered with orders, lay dead in a small space, and the face of the hill was strewed with dead and wounded, which showed evident marks of the rapid execution done at this point; for Wallace never slackened his fire while a Frenchman was within his reach. He followed them down the edge of the hill, and then he formed his men in line, waiting for any orders he might receive, or for any fresh body that might attack him. Our gallant companions, the 45th, had an equal share in the glory of this short but murderous fight—they suffered severely; and the 88th lost nine officers and one hundred and thirty-five men. The 8th Portuguese also suffered, but in a less degree than the other two regiments, because their advance was not so rapid, but that regiment never gave way nor was it ever broken; indeed there was nothing to break it, because the French were all in front of the 45th and 88th, and if they had broken the Portuguese they must have first broken the two British regiments, which it is well known they did not! The regiment of militia in their rear ran away most manfully; and if they were able to continue for any length of time the pace at which they commenced their flight, they might, I should say, have nearly reached Coimbra before all matters had been finally settled between us and the French. Two of their officers stood firm and reported themselves in person to Wallace on the field of battle; so there could be no mistake about them, no more than there was about the rest of their regiment.

Meanwhile, Captains Dunne, Dansey, and Oates had a severe struggle with the French troops that occupied the rocks. Dunne’s sergeant (Brazil) killed a Frenchman by a push of his halbert, who had nearly overpowered his captain. Dansey was slightly wounded in four places, but it was said at the time that he killed three Frenchmen—for he used a firelock. Oates suffered less, as the men opposed to him were chiefly composed of those that fled from Dunne and Dansey. Dunne’s company of Grenadiers, which at the onset counted about sixty, lost either two or three-and-thirty, and Dansey’s and Oates’s companies also suffered, but not to the same amount. The French troops that defended those rocks were composed of the 4th Regiment and the Irish Brigade; several of the latter were left wounded in the rocks, but we could not discover one Irishman amongst them.^[7]

Lord Wellington, surrounded by his staff and some general officers, was a close observer of this attack. He was standing on a rising ground in rear of the 88th Regiment, and so close to that corps that Colonel Napier of the 50th—who was on leave of absence—was wounded in the face by a musket shot quite close to Lord Wellington. His Lordship passed the warmest encomiums on the troops engaged, and noticed the conduct of Captain Dansey in his despatch. It has been said, and I believe truly, that Marshal Beresford, who was colonel of the 88th, expressed some uneasiness when he saw his regiment about to plunge into this unequal contest; but when they were mixed with Reynier’s men and pushing them down the hill, Lord Wellington, tapping him on the shoulder, said, “Well, Beresford, look at them now!”

While these events which I have described were taking place, Picton in person took the command against the other division of Reynier’s corps and had a sharp dispute with it at the pass of Saint Antonio; but General Mackinnon, who led on the troops, never allowed it to make any head. A shower of balls from Arentschildt’s battery deranged its deployment, and a few volleys from the 74th British and the Portuguese brigade of Champlemond totally routed this column before it reached the top of the ridge. This attack was feeble in comparison with the one directed against Wallace, and, besides, Picton’s force was vastly superior to that commanded by Wallace, while the troops opposed to him were little, if anything, more numerous. Picton had at this point five companies of the 45th under Major Smyth, all the light companies of the 3rd Division, one company of the 60th Rifles, the 74th British and the Portuguese brigade of Champlemond, besides Arentschildt’s battery of guns. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that Reynier made little or no impression on Picton’s right.

The 5th Division, commanded by General Leith, was in movement towards the contested point, and reached it in time either to take the fugitives in flank or to drive back any fresh body destined to support their defeated comrades. It made great efforts to join Picton when he was attacked, but the advance was so rapid, the defeat so signal, and the distance—two miles across a rugged mountain—so great, that Leith and his gallant division could only effect in part what they intended. The arrival of this force was, however, fully appreciated; for although the brigade of Lightburne, belonging to Picton’s division, had not fired a shot or been at all molested, and although the 74th Regiment was nearly at liberty, still, had another attack with fresh troops been made, Leith might have stood in Picton’s shoes on the extreme right, while the latter could in a short time concentrate all his battalions, and either fight beside Leith or turn with vigour against any effort that might be made against his centre or left. But it would seem that no reserve was in hand—at all events none was thrown into the fight; and MassÉna gave up without a second trial that in which he lost many men and much glory!

While Picton, Mackinnon, Wallace and Champlemond, and Leith’s division, were occupied as I have described, the Light Division, under the gallant Robert Craufurd, maintained a severe struggle against a large proportion of Ney’s corps. Those French troops were driven down the hill with great loss, and the general of brigade, Simon, who headed and led the attack, was taken prisoner by the 52nd Regiment, and between two and three hundred unwounded men shared the fate of their general. The leading brigade of Leith’s division put to flight some of the enemy who kept a hold of a rocky point on Picton’s right, and had Picton been aware of their being there he might have cut off their retreat, while Leith attacked them in front and flank; but their numbers were scanty, and they might not have been aware of the fate of their companions, otherwise they would in all probability have got out of Leith’s clutches before his arrival, for their remaining in the rocks could be of no possible avail, and their force was too wreak to hazard any serious attack on Picton’s right. Indeed, they were routed by a battalion or two of Leith’s division; and the entire British loss at this point did not count above forty or fifty. And thus ended a battle of which so many accounts have been given: all at variance with each other—and none more so than what I have just written.

It has been said that Picton directed the attack of the 45th under Major Gwynne, the 88th under Wallace, and the 8th Portuguese under Douglas. Not one syllable of this is true. The conception of this attack, its brilliant execution, which ended in the total overthrow of Reynier’s column, all belong to Colonel Alexander Wallace of the 88th Regiment. At the time it was made Generals Picton and Mackinnon had their hands full at the pass of Saint Antonio, and were, in effect, as distant from Wallace as if they had been on the Rock of Lisbon; neither was General Lightburne to be seen. The nearest officer of rank to Wallace was Lord Wellington, who saw all that was passing and never interfered pro or con, which is a tolerably strong proof that his lordship thought no alteration for the better could be made; and Wallace had scarcely reformed his line, a little in front and below the contested ground, when Lord Wellington, accompanied by Marshal Beresford and a number of other officers, galloped up, and passing round the left of our line, rode up to Wallace, and seizing him warmly by the hand, said—

“Wallace, I never witnessed a more gallant charge than that made just now by your regiment!”

Wallace took off his hat—but his heart was too full to speak. It was a proud moment for him; his fondest hopes had been realised, and the trouble he had taken to bring the 88th to the splendid state of perfection in which that corps then was, had been repaid in the space of a few minutes by his gallant soldiers, many of whom shed tears of joy. Marshal Beresford addressed several of the soldiers by name who had served under him when he commanded the regiment; and Picton, who at this time came up, expressed his satisfaction. Lord Wellington then took leave of us; and Beresford, shaking the officers by the hand, rode away with his lordship, accompanied by the officers about him. We were once more left to ourselves; the arms were piled, the wounded of all nations collected and carried to the rear, and in a short time the dead were left without a stitch of clothes to cover their bodies. All firing had ceased, except a few shots low down the hill on our right; and shortly after the picquets were placed in front, a double allowance of spirits was served out to Wallace’s men.

We had now leisure to walk about and talk to each other on the events of the morning, and look at the French soldiers in our front. They appeared as leisurely employed cooking their rations as if nothing serious had occurred to them, which caused much amusement to our men, some of whom remarked that they left a few behind them that had got a “bellyful” already. The rocks which had been forced by the three companies of the 88th presented a curious and melancholy sight; one side of their base strewed with our brave fellows, almost all of them shot through the head, while in many of the niches were to be seen dead Frenchmen, in the position they had fought; while on the other side, and on the projecting crags, lay numbers who, in an effort to escape the fury of our men, were dashed to pieces in their fall!

Day at length began to close, and night found the two armies occupying the ground they held on the preceding evening; our army, as then, in utter darkness, that of the enemy more brilliant than the preceding night, which brought to our recollection the remark of a celebrated general when he saw bonfires through France after a signal defeat which the troops of that nation had sustained. “Gad!” said the general, “those Frenchmen are like flint-stones—the more you beat them the more fire they make!”

Captain Seton, Ensign Owgan, and myself, with one hundred of the Connaught Rangers, formed the picquet in advance of that regiment, and immediately facing the outposts of the enemy in our front. The sentries of each, as is customary in civilised armies, although within half-shot range of each other, never fired except upon occasions of necessity. Towards midnight Seton, a good and steady officer, went in front, for the third time, to see that the sentinels which he himself had posted were on the alert. He found all right; but upon his return to the main body he missed his way, and happening in the dark to get too close to a French sharpshooter, he was immediately challenged, but not thinking it prudent to make any noise, in the shape of reply or otherwise, he held his peace. Not so with the Frenchman, who uttered a loud cry to alarm his companions, and discharged the contents of his musket at Seton; the ball passed through his hat, but did no other injury, and he might have rejoiced at his escape had the matter ended here; but the cry of the sentinel and the discharge of his musket alarmed the others, and one general volley from the line of outposts of both armies warned Seton that his best and safest evolution would be to sprawl flat on his face amongst the heath with which the hill was copiously garnished. He did so, and as soon as the tumult had in a great degree abated, he got up on his hands and knees and essayed to gain the ground which no doubt he regretted he had ever quit. He was nearing the picquet fast, when the rustling in the heath, increased by the awkward position in which he moved, put us on the qui vive. Owgan, who was a dead shot with a rifle, and who on this day carried one, called out, in a low but clear tone, “I see you, and if you don’t answer you’ll be a dead man in a second”; and he cocked his rifle, showing he meant to make good his promise.

Whether it was that Seton knew the temperament of the last speaker, or was flurried by the recollection of what he was near receiving from his obstinate taciturnity with the French soldier, is uncertain. But in this instance he completely changed his plan of tactics, and replied in a low and scarcely audible tone, “Owgan! don’t fire—it’s me.” So soon as he recovered his natural and more comfortable position—for he was still “all-fours”—we congratulated him on his lucky escape, and I placed my canteen of brandy to his mouth; it did not require much pressing to prevail upon him to take a hearty swig, which indeed he stood much in need of.

The night passed over without further adventure or annoyance, and in the morning the picquets on both sides were relieved. The dead were buried without much ceremony, and the soldiers occupied themselves cleaning their arms, arranging their accoutrements, and cooking their rations. The enemy showed no great disposition to renew his attack, and a few of us obtained leave to go down to the village of Busaco, in order to visit some of our officers, who were so badly wounded as to forbid their being removed further to the rear. Amongst the number was the gallant Major Silver of the 88th. He had been shot through the body, and though he did not think himself in danger, as he suffered no pain, it was manifest to the medical men he could not live many hours. He gave orders to his servant to leave him for a short time, and attend to his horses; the man did so, but on his return in about a quarter of an hour he found poor Silver lying on his right side as if he was asleep—but he was dead! Silver was one of the best soldiers in the army, and was thanked by Colonel Donkin, who commanded the brigade at the battle of Talavera, for his distinguished bravery in that action. He was laid in a deep grave in the uniform he had fought and died in.

The day after the action some English troops passed through the town of AlcobaÇa on their route to join the army; and this circumstance, coupled with our victory, led the inhabitants to suppose they, as well as their property, were perfectly safe; and the idea of removing the one or the other never once occurred to them. Their surprise and confusion was in consequence increased tenfold when they beheld our troops enter the town. AlcobaÇa was at that time a beautiful rich village, notwithstanding that it supported a magnificent convent and several hundred priests and friars. Those gentlemen, although rigid in their mode of living at times, know as well as any other class of people how to live, and, having ample means of making out life at their disposal, it is not to be wondered at that the convent contained that which was far from unacceptable to us, namely quantities of provisions.

On our arrival in the town the inhabitants, terrified at the possibility of being captured by the French, fled, leaving, in many instances, their houses in such haste as not to allow themselves time to take away anything, not even their silver forks and spoons—a luxury which almost the poorest family in Portugal enjoys. These, and other articles, offered a strong temptation to our men to do that which they should not, i.e. possess themselves of whatever they found in those uninhabited mansions. Their doing so, to be sure, was a slight breach of discipline; but it was argued by the “friends of the measure,” that Lord Wellington having directed the country parts as well as the towns to be laid waste, in order to distress the enemy as much as possible, the Portuguese were highly culpable in neither taking away their property nor destroying it. It would be almost superfluous to add that an argument of so sound a nature, and delivered in the nick of time, had its due force; it in fact bore down all opposition, and those whose consciences at first felt anything like a qualm, in a little time became more at ease, so that by the time the houses had been about half-sacked, there was not one who, so far from thinking it improper to do what he had done, would not have considered himself much to blame had he pursued a different line of conduct.

The priests, more cautious, or perhaps better informed, removed their valuables; but in all their hurry they did not forget that hospitality for which they were proverbial. They left some of their brethren behind, who had a dinner prepared for our officers, and when their longer stay was useless to us, and might be attended with danger to themselves, they opened their different stores, and with a generous liberality invited us to take whatever we wished for. Poor men! Their doing so showed more their goodness of heart than their knowledge of the world. Had they been a little longer acquainted with the lads that were now about to stand in their places, they would not have thought such congÉ necessary. As soon as those good men left the dwelling in which they had passed so many tranquil years, we began to avail ourselves of the permission granted us, and which decency forbade our taking advantage of sooner. Every nook was searched with anatomical precision; not even a corner cupboard was allowed to escape the scrutiny of the present inmates of the convent, who certainly were as unlike the former in their demeanour as in their costume.

In taking a survey of the different commodities with which this place was supplied, I had the good fortune or, as it afterwards turned out, the bad fortune, to stumble upon several firkins of Irish butter. Unquestionably I never felt happier, because it was a luxury I had not tasted for months; but my servant, by a good-natured officiousness, so loaded my poor, half-starved, jaded mule with, not only butter, but everything else he could lay his paw upon, that, unable to sustain the shameful burden which had been imposed upon him, he fell exhausted in endeavouring to scramble through a quagmire, and I lost not only the cargo with which he was laden, but the animal himself; however, I had the consolation to know that few of the articles cost me anything, and he himself was a sort of windfall, having been found by my servant on the retreat.

The army continued its march upon Torres Vedras with little interruption from the enemy, and early in October we occupied our entrenched camp. This formidable position had its right at Alhandra on the Tagus; its left rested on the part of the sea where the river Zizambre empties itself, and along its centre was a chain of redoubts armed with cannon of different calibre; between these forts was a double and, in some instances, triple row of breastworks for the infantry, and the position might be considered faultless.

On the night of the 29th the French army made that flank movement which obliged Lord Wellington to retire, and which is so well known as to render any detail from me unnecessary; and on that night we took our leave of the mountain of Busaco, and commenced our march to the Lines of Torres Vedras.