We withdraw from Badajoz—Dislike of the British soldier for siege-work—Affair of El Bodon—Gallant conduct of the 5th and 77th Regiments—Narrow escape of the 88th from being made prisoners—Picton’s conduct on the retreat of Guinaldo.

At eleven o’clock at night, on the 9th of June 1811, the siege of Badajoz virtually ceased. From the moment the second attack against San Christoval was repulsed, Lord Wellington resolved to make the best of a bad business, and he converted the siege into a blockade. On the 10th, the battering train and stores were removed from the trenches, and by the 13th our works were clear. The town was closely blockaded until the 17th, on which day we broke up from before the place, and crossing the Guadiana by the ford above San Christoval, reached the banks of the Caya, in the neighbourhood of Aronches, a little after noon.

It appeared from the different reports of our spies that the whole disposable force, not only of Soult’s army of the South, but also of that of Portugal, were in march against us; and Lord Wellington accordingly took up a defensive position near Elvas, with his vanguard at Campo Mayor, consisting of the 3rd and 7th Divisions of infantry. The Dukes of Dalmatia and Ragusa formed their junction at Badajoz on the 28th, and the two Marshals dined there together on that day. Great praise was bestowed upon General Phillipon for his fine defence of the place, and, as a matter of course, much bombastic stuff was trumpeted forth in the papers about the valour displayed by the Imperial soldiers on the occasion. Our losses were rated at more than four times their real amount; and though no blame was attached by the enemy to our troops, the Engineers were attacked with a severity that I have reason to think was unjust. One writer speaking on the subject says:—

“Had the Engineers followed the rules of fortification with as much ability as his lordship displayed in the application of the principles of the higher branches of tactics, Badajoz would, no doubt, have surrendered about the 14th or 15th of June. It scarcely would be believed, were it not expressly mentioned in the official reports, that in the beginning of the nineteenth century, troops should have been sent to the assault with ladders after the breach had been judged practicable.”

I shall leave it to the gentlemen of the Engineers to answer these remarks; but as far as I have been able to collect the facts, and I have received my information from good, I might say the best, authority, our defeat before San Christoval arose from three causes: first, the want of knowledge displayed by the officer commanding the first attack of the real situation of the breach, owing to the unfortunate circumstance of the engineer being killed at the onset; secondly, the shortness of the ladders, and the smallness of the storming party each night; and thirdly, the conduct of the men who were entrusted with the charge of the ladders—a foreign corps, it is true;^[17] but why employ troops of this description upon a service so desperate?

There is no duty which a British soldier performs before an enemy that he does with so much reluctance—a retreat always excepted—as working in trenches. Although essentially necessary to the accomplishment of the most gallant achievement a soldier can aspire to—the storming a breach—it is an inglorious calling; one full of danger, attended with great labour, and, what is even worse, with a deal of annoyance; and for this reason, that the soldiers are not only taken quite out of their natural line of action, but they are, if not entirely, at least partially, commanded by officers, those of the Engineers, whose habits are totally different from what they have been accustomed to.

No two animals ever differed more completely in their propensities than the British engineer and the British infantry soldier. The latter delights in an open field, and a fair “stand-up fight,” where he meets his man or men (for numbers, when it comes to a hand-to-hand business, are of little weight with the British soldier); if he falls there, he does so, in the opinion of his comrades, with credit to himself; but a life lost in the trenches is looked upon as one thrown away and lost ingloriously. The engineer, on the contrary, braves all the dangers of a siege with a cheerful countenance; he even courts them, and no mole ever took greater delight in burrowing through a sandhill than an engineer does in mining a covered way, or blowing up a counterscarp. Not so with the infantry soldier, who is obliged to stand to be shot at, with a pick-axe or shovel in his hand instead of his firelock and bayonet. If, then, this is a trying situation, as it unquestionably is for a soldier, where death by round-shot and shell in the works is comparatively less than it is at the moment of the assault of a breach, how much more care should there be taken in the selection of the ladder men than appears to have been the case at San Christoval?

On the 22nd of June, the two French Marshals moved a large body of troops towards Elvas and Campo Mayor, in order to cover their reconnoissance of our position. Our army at this time counted about sixty-six thousand men, of which number only six thousand were cavalry. The combined French army exceeded us by about ten thousand, and in the arm of horse they were upwards of three thousand our superiors. Notwithstanding this disproportion of force, Lord Wellington had made able dispositions to beat the French Marshals in detail, and there is little or no doubt but that he would have succeeded, had Marmont been acting in concert with a man as presumptuous as himself; but Soult was too good a judge not to see the sort of adversary he was opposed to, and it was not possible to entrap him. Albuera taught him a lesson.

After the reconnoissance of the 22nd, and after supplies had been thrown into Badajoz, the enemy took up the quarters he had occupied previous to the junction of the armies of Portugal and the South—the army of Soult in the neighbourhood of Seville, that of Marmont at Placentia. The 7th and 3rd Divisions of our army occupied Campo Mayor: and having got ourselves and our appointments into good order, we began to have all the annoyances of garrison duty, which was not lessened by the presence of three or four general officers. The mounting of guard, the salute, and all the minutiÆ of our profession, were attended to with a painful particularity; and poor old General Sontag was near falling a sacrifice to his zeal on this particular point of duty. This officer was by birth either a German or Prussian, I don’t know which, but, from his costume, I should myself say that he was a disciple of the Grand Frederick; he was a great Martinet, and had all the appearance of one brought up in the school of that celebrated warrior, and might have passed, and deservedly so, for aught I know to the contrary, for one who had served in the “Seven Years' War.” His dress was singular, though plain; he usually wore a cocked hat and jacket, tight blue pantaloons, and brown top hunting-boots.

One day, when it came to my tour of duty, General Sontag was the senior officer on the parade. Mounted on a spirited horse, he took his station in front to receive the “salute,” when the band of my regiment, much more celebrated for its harshness and noise than its sweetness, struck up as discordant a jumble of sounds as ever proceeded from the same number of wind instruments. The animal, a German horse, and no doubt with a good ear for music, took fright, and standing upright on his hinder legs, commenced pawing and snorting in a manner that astounded every one present, the old General alone excepted; he continued immovably steady in his saddle, from which a less skilful or an inexperienced rider must inevitably have been flung, and sawed his horse’s mouth with such effect as to compel him to resume his former and more natural position. But, unfortunately, at this moment the drum-major, who justly estimated the cause of the refractory movements of the brute, made a flourish with his mace as a token for the band—music I can’t call it—to desist, and so terrified the animal that he made a sudden plunge to get away, but was so firmly held by the grip of his rider, that his feet came from under him, and both the General and his charger were prostrate on the ground in a second.

It was an alarming, as well as a ludicrous exhibition. For a moment the General was unable to disentangle his foot from one of the stirrups, and when he got rid, after much exertion, of this encumbrance, he lost not only his hat but his wig also; providentially he sustained no injury, and every one was glad of it. He was a man much esteemed in his brigade, and had, perhaps, the largest nose in the world! He was humorously styled by some Marshal (Nez) Ney! His nose hung in two huge flaps under his cheek-bone, and their colour and size were like two red mogul plums. Joe Kelly said that he would be a capital gardener, “because he always had his fruit under his eye”!

A few weeks terminated our sojourn here, and the day of our leaving it was a delightful one to us all. We marched to the northern frontier, which we considered as our own natural element; for in Estremadura we witnessed nothing but reverses, and our division had no opportunity of keeping up its established name. The country between the river Coa and the Agueda was filled with troops. The 3rd Division occupied Aldea de Ponte, Albergaria, and the neighbouring villages. Gallegos, Espeja, Carpio, El Bodon, and Pastores, were likewise occupied; and Ciudad Rodrigo might be said to be invested; the garrison were, at all events, much circumscribed in the extent of country for their foragers, but, nevertheless, they made some successful excursions to the nearest villages, such as Pastores and El Bodon. The 11th Light Dragoons, stationed at the latter, were considerably annoyed by the nocturnal visits of the garrison. A regiment of infantry was, therefore, thought necessary to co-operate with the cavalry, and mine (the 88th) was the one selected. General Picton, no matter what his other faults might be (and who is there amongst us without one?), knew well what he was about when he sent “the Rangers of Connaught” to support the 11th; he was aware that before many hours after their arrival in their quarters they would be tolerably well acquainted with the resources of the country about them; and that though now and then, perhaps, in a case of emergency, they might enlist an odd sheep or goat into their own corps, they would not allow the French to do it. The General was right, and thought it better that a few sheep should be lost than an entire pen of them carried off in triumph, and our dragoons (the worst of it!) bearded to the edge (almost) of their sabres.

We were not long unemployed. On the tenth night after our arrival the enemy made a formidable attack on our outposts at the village of Pastores. The advanced sentry, Jack Walsh, passed the word to the next, who communicated with the picket, and in an instant every man was on his legs. Walsh waited quietly until the French officer who headed the advance approached to within a few paces of where he was standing, when he deliberately took aim at him, and shot him dead. The remainder retired for a moment, panic-struck, no doubt, at the fate of their leader; they, however, rallied—for they were not only brave, but, what is almost as great a stimulus, hungry—and they forced our advance to give way; but Colonel Alexander Wallace, placing himself at the head of his men, drove back this band of cormorants, and they never molested us afterwards.

Notwithstanding that we were thus placed with respect to Rodrigo, the army of Portugal maintained its position; the army of the North, commanded by Count Dorsenne, remained in its cantonments on the Douro, and Rodrigo was thus abandoned to its own resources.

Lord Wellington was not an idle spectator of this supineness on the part of the two French generals. As early as the month of August he directed that a large number of the tradesmen^[18] of our army, with a proportion of officers, should be attached to the Engineers, in which branch we were deficient in point of numbers; and these men in less than six weeks gained much useful information, and besides, made a quantity of fascines and gabions sufficient for the intended operations. By the 5th of September the town of Ciudad Rodrigo was completely blockaded, and we were employed in making arrangements for its siege when the two generals, Dorsenne and Marmont, made theirs to drive us back on Portugal.

On the 22nd of September they formed their junction at Tamames, which is about three leagues distant from Rodrigo. Their united force amounted to sixty thousand men, including six thousand horse; ours to not quite fifty thousand, including the force necessary to observe the garrison. We could not, therefore—taking it for granted, as a matter of course, that we wished to maintain the blockade—have brought forty thousand bayonets and sabres into the field, with an inferiority, too, in cavalry of two thousand! This, in a country so well calculated for the operations of that arm, at once decided Lord Wellington, and he raised the blockade on the 24th.

Early on the morning of the 25th the French army were in motion; the cavalry, under General Montbrun, supported by several battalions of infantry, advanced upon the position held by our 3rd Division; but the over-zeal of Montbrun, and the impetuosity of his cavalry, would not allow them to keep pace with the infantry, who were in consequence completely distanced at the onset, and never regained their place during the day.

The ground occupied by the 3rd Division was of considerable extent, and might, to an ordinary observer, appear to be such as to place that corps in some peril of being defeated in detail: for instance, the 5th Regiment, supported by the 77th, two weak battalions, barely reckoning seven hundred men, were considerably to the left, and in advance of El Bodon, and were distant upwards of one mile from the 45th, 74th, and 88th; while the 83rd and 94th British, and the 9th and 21st Portuguese were little, if anything, closer to those two battalions. Some squadrons of the 1st German Hussars and 11th Light Dragoons supported the advance, and a brigade of nine-pounders, drawn by mules, and served by Portuguese gunners, under the command of a German major, named Arentschildt, crowned the causeway occupied by the 5th and 77th.

These dispositions were barely completed when Montbrun, at the head of his veteran host, came thundering over the plain at a sweeping pace; ten of his squadrons dashed across the ravine that separated them from Arentschildt’s battery, which opened a frightful fire of grape and canister at point blank distance. But although the havoc made by those guns was great, it in no way damped the ardour of the French horse; they panted for glory, and nothing of this kind could check their impetuosity; once fairly over the ravine, they speedily mounted the face of the causeway, and desperately, but heroically, charged the battery. Nothing could resist the torrent—the battery was captured and the cannoniers massacred at their guns.

In an instant the 5th, commanded by the gallant Major Ridge, formed line, threw in an effective running fire, steadily ascended the height, charged the astonished French Dragoons, and having repulsed and poured a volley into the latter, as they rushed down the opposite face of the hill, recaptured the guns, with which, joined by the 77th, they deliberately retired across the open plain after a long and determined stand against the enemy’s cavalry and artillery, and only retreating when the approach of a strong body of French infantry rendered such a movement imperative.

Flushed with his first success, Montbrun, at the head of his victorious squadrons, now thought to ride through the 5th and 77th, but this handful of heroes threw themselves into square, and received the attack with unflinching steadiness. Nothing but the greatest discipline, the most undaunted bravery, and a firm reliance on their officers, could have saved these devoted soldiers from total annihilation; they were attacked with a fury unexampled on three faces of the square. The French horsemen rode upon their bayonets, but, unshaken by the desperate position in which they were placed, they poured in their fire with such quickness and precision that the cavalry retired in disorder.

While this was taking place on the left, the regiments of the right brigade were posted on a height parallel to that occupied by the 5th and 77th. We had a clear and painful view of all that was passing, and we shuddered for our companions; the glittering of the countless sabres that were about to assail them, and the blaze of light which the reflection of the sun threw across the brazen helmets of the French horsemen, might be likened to the flash of lightning that preceded the thunder of Arentschildt’s artillery—but we could do nothing. A few seconds passed away; we saw the smoke of the musketry—it did not recede, and we were assured that the attack had failed; in a moment or two more we could discern the brave 5th and 77th following their beaten adversaries, and a spontaneous shout of joy burst from the brigade. What would we have given at that moment to have been near them? They were not only our companions in arms, but our intimate friends (I mean the 5th, for the 77th had but just joined the army, and were, comparatively, strangers to us). But we were now menaced ourselves. From the great space that intervened between the regiments that had been engaged and those that had hitherto been unoccupied, it was not easy, taking into account the mass of French cavalry that covered the plain, to reunite the 3rd Division. Lord Wellington, it is true, was on the spot, but the spot was a large one, with but few troops to cover it, and had the French cavalry done their duty on that day, I doubt much if the 3rd Division would not have ceased to exist! Meanwhile the time was passing away without the enemy undertaking anything serious; but the 5th and 77th, and the other troops under General Colville, seeing the danger of their position, and profiting by the inaction of the French troopers, who seemed to be paralysed after their failure, made one of the most memorable retreats on record, across the plain, surrounded by three times their own number of horse, and exposed to the fire of a battery of eight-pounders. But the 45th, 74th, and 88th had not yet been able to disentangle themselves from the rugged ground and vineyards to the rear of El Bodon, and their junction with the remainder of the division might be said to be at this moment (three o’clock) rather problematical, because the French Light Horse and Polish Lancers, not meeting with a force of our cavalry sufficient to stop their progress, spread themselves over the face of the country, capturing our baggage and stores, and threatening to prevent the junction of the right brigade with the other two.

While the French might be said to have the undisputed possession of the entire field of battle, over which they were pouring an immense mass of dragoons, followed by infantry and artillery, the regiments of our division which were in column continued their retrograde movement upon Fuente-Guinaldo. The 45th and 74th had by this time cleared the rugged ground and enclosures, and were in march to join the remainder of the column; but the 88th were most unaccountably left in a vineyard, which was enclosed by a loose stone wall. In the hurry of the moment they might, and I believe would, have been forgotten, had not the soldiers, who became impatient upon hearing the clashing of weapons outside the enclosure, burst down several openings in the wall, by which means they not only saw the danger of the position in which their comrades were placed, but also the hopelessness of their own, if they did not speedily break down the walls that incarcerated them; for our 1st Hussars and 11th Light Dragoons were giving way before the overpowering weight of the enemy’s horse, while the bulk of the 3rd Division were marching in a line parallel to the enclosure occupied by the 88th; so it was manifest that if this regiment did not at the instant break from its prison, a few moments would have decided its fate, and left the 3rd Division minus the Connaught Rangers.

Each moment that we remained was of consequence, and the delay of five minutes would have been fatal; we were without orders, and were at a loss how to act; but nothing tends more to bring the energies of men into action than their seeing clearly the danger that they are placed in, and the consciousness that their only means of escaping it depends upon their firm reliance on themselves. Some officers called out to have the wall broken down, and in a second several openings were made in it. Every officer made the greatest efforts to supply, by his own particular dispositions, such as were on the whole necessary; but an operation of so delicate a nature, made in the face of a powerful antagonist, could not be performed with as much order and regularity as was desirable. From the great coolness of the men, and the intelligence and gallantry of the officers, the regiment was at last extricated from its dangerous position, but it was far, very far, from being safe yet; and had the French dragoons, at the close of the day, shown the same determination they did at its commencement, not one man of the 88th would have escaped.

We had scarcely cleared the enclosure when we witnessed a series of petty combats between our horse and that of the enemy, some of whom had posted themselves directly between us and our entrenched camp at Fuente-Guinaldo. Immediately in our front, some of Lord Wellington’s staff were personally engaged with the French troopers; and one of them, either Captain Burgh or the young Prince of Orange, owed his life to the excellence of his horse. Lieutenant King, of the 11th Dragoons, lost one arm by a sabre cut; Prior, of the same regiment, had all his front teeth knocked out by a musket shot, and Mrs. Howley, the black cymbal-man’s wife, of the 88th, was captured by a lancer. The fate of the officers I have mentioned was deplored, but the loss of Mrs. Howley was a source of grief to the entire division. The officers so maimed might be replaced by others, but perhaps in the entire army such another woman, take her for all and all, as Mrs. Howley could not be found. The 88th at length took its place in the column at quarter distance, and the 3rd Division continued its retrograde movement.

Montbrun, at the head of fifteen squadrons of light horse, pressed closely on our right flank, and made every demonstration of attacking us with the view of engaging our attention until the arrival of his infantry and artillery, of which latter only one battery was in the field; but General Picton saw the critical situation in which he was placed, and that nothing but the most rapid, and at the same time most regular, movement upon Guinaldo could save his division from being cut off to a man. For six miles across a perfect flat, without the slightest protection from any incident of ground, without artillery, and I might say without cavalry (for what were four or five squadrons to twenty or thirty?) did the 3rd Division continue its march. During the whole time the enemy’s cavalry never quitted them; a park of six guns advanced with the cavalry, and taking the 3rd Division in flank and rear, poured in a frightful fire of round-shot, grape, and canister. Many men fell in this way, and those whose wounds rendered them unable to march were obliged to be abandoned to the enemy.

This was a trying and pitiable situation for troops to be placed in, but it in no way shook the courage or confidence of the soldiers; so far from being dispirited or cast down, the men were cheerful and gay, the soldiers of my corps (the 88th) telling their officers that if the French dared to charge, every officer should have a nate horse to ride upon.

General Picton conducted himself with his accustomed coolness; he remained on the left flank of the column, and repeatedly cautioned the different battalions to mind the quarter distance and the “tellings off.” “Your safety,” added he, “my credit, and the honour of the army, is at stake: all rests with you at this moment.” We had reached to within a mile of our entrenched camp, when Montbrun, impatient lest we should escape from his grasp, ordered his troopers to bring up their right shoulders and incline towards our column: the movement was not exactly bringing his squadrons into line, but it was the next thing to it, and at this time they were within half pistol-shot of us. Picton took off his hat, and holding it over his eyes as a shade from the sun, looked sternly, but anxiously at the French. The clatter of the horses and the clanking of the scabbards were so great when the right half squadron moved up, that many thought it the forerunner of a general charge; some mounted officer called out, “Had we not better form square?”—“No,” replied Picton; “it is but a ruse to frighten us, but it won’t do.”

At this moment a cloud of dust was discernible in the direction of Guinaldo; it was a cheering sight; it covered the 3rd Dragoon Guards, who came up at a slinging trot to our relief. When this fine regiment approached to within a short distance of us they dismounted, tightened their girths, and prepared for battle; but the French horse slackened their pace, and in half an hour more we were safe within our lines. The Light Division, which were also critically circumstanced on this memorable day, joined us in the morning, and thus the whole army was re-united.