Sufferings of the army on the retreat—Jokes of the Connaught Rangers—Letter of Lord Wellington—The junior officers—Costume of the author during the retreat—An unusual enjoyment.

Notwithstanding the attitude of Pakenham’s troops, and the excellent arrangement of the park of artillery under Douglas, the troopers of O‘Shea still menaced the ford. A brigade of French guns ascended the heights, and opened their fire upon the 3rd Division, but they were replied to with vigour by Douglas, who on this day surpassed himself; and the decided superiority which his fire had over that of the enemy was so palpable that, after a short trial, the French left the heights. Day was drawing to its close, and our march, as usual, commenced soon after dark. The entire day had been one of drizzling wet, but, towards evening, the rain came down in torrents; the army had to march two leagues ere they reached the point marked out for them on the line of retreat, and it would be difficult to describe the wretched state of the troops. The cavalry half dismounted; the artillery without the requisite number of horses to draw the ammunition-cars, much less the guns; the infantry without shoes, or nearly so; and the roads, even in the broad day, nearly impassable, made the march of this night one of great loss. When a halt occurred, which was often unavoidable in consequence of the guide mistaking the way, or because of the narrowness of a part of the road, or the difficulty of ascertaining the pass of a river, those in the rear fell down asleep, and it was next to impossible to awaken them, so much were they exhausted; it then became incumbent on every man who was awake to rouse those in his front, who impeded the line of march, not only of the individual himself, but of the army in general. Nevertheless, many were obliged to stay behind, and were abandoned to their fate. None but the stout and hale could bear up against the inclemency of the weather and the want of food; but the worst of all was the wretched state of the horses of the cavalry and artillery. These poor animals, when they reached the place marked out for our resting for the night, had not one morsel to eat, for it was absolutely impossible to forage for them at such an hour and under such circumstances, and the consequence was that many died from cold and famine, either in the harness of the artillery or under the saddles of the dragoons.

It was nine o’clock this night of the retreat before we reached the ground where we were to rest, and we had scarcely lit our fires when the bullocks and kettles arrived. This circumstance—a rare one—put us in good spirits, and by the time we had eaten our first meal that day we became more gay, and the “boys” of the 88th had their joke about the slaughter of the pigs by the 4th Division, of which I have made some slight mention in the last chapter. That I might have said more on the subject I am aware, for it was a subject that much might be said upon; but, had I done so, my readers, perhaps, would consider me a bore. However, the Connaught Rangers would have, and had, their joke at the expense of the defunct pigs. Jack Richardson, of the light infantry company, said, “The poor craturs must be blind intirely when they run into the mouth of the 4th Division.”—“No,” replied my man, Dan Carsons, “they wern’t blind all out, but perhaps they had a stye in their eye!” This sally of Dan was loudly applauded; and this kind of gaiety of spirit never forsook the men of the 88th under any circumstances. It was well for themselves, and for the service also; for I believe no regiment in the Peninsula had more uphill work to contend against than the ill-fated 88th. No matter!—all that is past and gone now; and those who survive, and recollect the events that took place during their stay in the 3rd Division, are now changing positions; they had uphill work then—now they are going down the hill. It is, nevertheless, a galling reflection to those who bravely earned notice and promotion, to find themselves passed over, while others, of regiments in the same division, and under the same General, and placed in circumstances the same, and sometimes less hazardous, have been lauded and promoted, when we of the 88th were not even noticed!

But I am digressing. After Carsons' pun we soon fell asleep, and were again on our legs at four in the morning; but our appearance was greatly changed for the worse: several soldiers had died during the night from exhaustion and cold, and those who had shoes on them were soon stripped of so essential a necessary; and many a young fellow was too happy to be allowed to stand in a “dead man’s shoes.” Others were so crippled as to be scarcely able to stand to their arms. Ague and dysentery had, more or less, affected us all; and the men’s feet were so swollen that they threw away their shoes in preference to wearing them.

Scarcely any provisions were to be found, but an abundance of wine could have been easily procured from the different wine-caves in each village. The troops, once let loose in this kind of way, could not be restrained, and all discipline would have been at an end; therefore, no one ought to be surprised that Lord Wellington forbade the occupation of a town. He did his part in the grand scale, but those who acted under him were deficient in every way. Sometimes the troops were bivouacked in a muddy swamp, when dry ground, in comparison at least, was nigh. The consequence of all this bungling was fatal: the troops became ill and inefficient; they became discontented; and, to wind up all, the junior officers of the army were blamed for those things over which they had as much control as they had over the actions of the Dey of Algiers or the Great Mogul. The officers divided the misery of the retreat with their men, and it is well known that many of them had scarcely a covering to their backs. Scarcely a subaltern in the army had a dollar in his pocket, the troops being four months in arrear of pay; but, even supposing he had money in abundance, what use could he make of it? There was nothing to be had for love or money—we had no money, and few of us were inclined to make love; but even if we were, there was no one (the worst of it) to make love to.

Such was the end of a campaign, the commencement of which augured the most fortunate results. The men who composed this fine army—which, at Rodrigo, Badajoz, and Salamanca, carried all before them—were now greatly changed for the worse. Scarcely a man had shoes; not that they were not amply supplied with them before the retreat commenced, but the state of the roads, if roads they could be called, was such, that so soon as a shoe fell off or stuck in the mud, in place of picking it up again, the man who had thus lost one kicked its fellow-companion after it. Yet the infantry was efficient, and able to do any duty. No excesses were committed, for Lord Wellington having taken the precaution of keeping the army away from the different villages, no man had an opportunity of obtaining wine or spirits, and thus drunkenness and insubordination were not added to the list of our misfortunes.

But the cavalry and artillery were in a wretched state indeed. The artillery of the 3rd, 6th, and 7th Divisions, the heavy cavalry, together with the 7th and 12th Light Dragoons, were nearly a wreck; and the artillery of the 3rd Division lost seventy horses between Salamanca and Rodrigo. It was next to impossible that the artillery and cavalry could have made, if vigorously pursued, three marches beyond the latter place. What force, then, was to arrest the enemy in his pursuit?—The infantry, and the infantry alone; yet this main-prop of the army was, by mismanagement, left without the means of nourishment! Had not the infantry, by their firmness in bearing up against all the evils they had to surmount—such as bad clothing, no tents to shelter them from the heavy rains that fell, and no means of dressing their food—presented the front they did, the army must have been lost before it could have reached Gallegos; and, if equal zeal had been exhibited by the general officers in providing for the wants of their troops, as was shown by the subordinate officers in the maintenance of discipline amongst them, the well-known letter of Lord Wellington would never have been written.^[36]

The officers asked each other, and asked themselves, how or in what manner they were to blame for the privations the army endured on the retreat? The answer uniformly was—in no way whatever. The junior officers had nothing to do with it at all. Their business was to keep their men together, and, if possible, to keep up with their men on the march, and this was the most difficult duty they had to perform; for many, very many, of these officers were young lads, badly clothed, with scarcely a shoe or boot to their feet—some attacked with dysentery, others with ague, and more with a burning fever raging through their system, they had scarcely strength left to hobble on in company with their more hardy comrades, the soldiers. Nothing but a high sense of honour could have borne them on; and there were many who would have remained behind, and run all risks as to the manner in which they would be treated as prisoners, were it not for this feeling. The different bivouacs each morning presented a sad spectacle—worn-out veterans, or young lads unable to move, were abandoned to their fate. Some were thrown across the backs of the commissariat mules, and conveyed to the rear; but this was rare, for the drivers were obliged to make all haste to reach their destination, and the frames of the men, worn down by sickness, unhealed wounds, or old ones breaking out afresh, were unable to bear the jolting of the mules, and these men generally preferred taking their chance on the line of march to submitting to such an uneasy mode of conveyance.

Thus ended the year 1812, and thus ended our retreat upon Portugal. The details I have given of that retreat have not been the least exaggerated. It had, nevertheless, but little effect on my regiment, the 88th, for we scarcely lost a man by fatigue or sickness. The “boys of Connaught” were not much put out of their way by the want of shoes, a good coat to their backs, or a full allowance of rations: they took all those wants aisy! In short, it was astonishing to see the effective state of the regiment, as compared with others, when we reached our cantonments.

Since I commenced these pages, I have endeavoured to impress my readers with the idea—and I hope I have succeeded—that the 88th were none of those humdrum set of fellows that ought to be classed with other regiments; they, in fact, had a way of their own! There are many who will agree—cordially on this point, at least—with me; but their reading and mine of the text may be widely different, nevertheless.

The 88th was a regiment whose spirit it was scarcely possible to break, and the many curious incidents which occurred during this retreat afforded them ample food for that ready humour for which they were proverbial, and for which they got full credit; but, nevertheless, they still are in arrear, and they owe a debt to themselves which they must pay off—no matter what the price may be. It was well for them that they had food for their humour, for they had little for their stomachs; but that did not cause them much uneasiness. The state in which some of the officers were placed was quite pitiable. Many were obliged to throw off their boots, their feet having become so swollen that they could not bear them. Those so circumstanced were necessitated to look to the soldiers for a new fit-out. But where could that be found? The men themselves, not caring much whether they had or had not shoes, left those they had worn in the muddy roads, and it would not be an easy matter to find on this same retreat a second pair with any man. However, by hook or by crook, those who wanted shoes were supplied; yet, though the soldiers might be termed the shoemakers of their officers, they never got the upper hand of them!

To describe the state of the officers would be impossible; for myself, I can truly say I was in rags. I wore a frock-coat, made out of a dress belonging to a priest that was captured by my man Dan Carsons at Badajoz. I wore it during our sojourn at Madrid: it was lined with silk, and might be termed a good turn-out there; but, as it turned out on the retreat, it was the worst description of clothing I, or rather my man Dan, could have pitched on. Every copse I passed, and they were many, took a slice off my Madrid frock, and by the time I had undergone three marches, it was reduced to a spencer! My feet never quitted the shoes in which they were placed, from the moment of the retreat until its close. I knew too well their value, and if I once got my feet out of them (no easy matter), I knew right well it would take some days to get them back again, they were so swollen; and even if I were dead, much less crippled, there were many to be found anxious to stand in my shoes—to boot!

There were others, and many others, as badly off as I was. My friend Meade was obliged to leave his shoes behind him. He tried to walk barefooted for a while, but it was impossible. The gravel so lacerated his feet that he could not move, and he was obliged to make some shift to get a pair in place of those he had abandoned. Captain Graham of the 21st Portuguese, a lieutenant in my regiment, was so worn out with fatigue, barebacked and barefooted, that, on one night of the retreat, having been fortunate enough to get a loaf of bread, he joined me and my companion Meade; but, so unable was he to eat of the food he brought to share with us, that he fell down on the ground and never tasted a morsel of it. It is, therefore, tolerably clear to any man possessing common understanding, that the junior officers of the army, from the neglect of their superiors, were not in a state to do more than they did.

The retreat still continued, but the army was unmolested, and at length, after an absence of so many days, we once more got sight of our baggage. The poor animals that carried it were in a bad state; but they were even better than our cavalry or artillery horses. Of the former, three-fourths of the men were dismounted; and the latter could, with difficulty, show three horses, in place of eight, to a gun.

On this night, I think it was the 26th of November (that is to say, four weeks, less by two days, since we left Madrid), I enjoyed what I never expected to see again—a hearty meal. A knot of us got together under a tent belonging to Captain Robert Nickle, whose batman was one of the first to arrive with his baggage, and he kept open house for as many as the tent could accommodate. In the centre was placed a huge pannella of chocolate, which was garnished by a couple of large loaves of Spanish bread. The contents of the pannella, as also the dimensions of the loaves, were soon altered in appearance, and so, indeed, were we. Our stomachs, which before were as lank as half-starved greyhounds, now became plump and full, and, moreover, some fragments were left even after the servants were fed, and abundantly fed.

A dog belonging to Nickle, that had been absent with the baggage, and which had been on as short rations as his master, also got a bellyful, and soon after came into the tent, but his owner was so changed in appearance and dress that the dog did not at first recognise him—which proves the old adage to be correct that “a man is sometimes so changed that his own dog don’t know him.”

The army continued its retrograde movement unassailed, and by the 30th of November was established in its different stations; but here the real effects of the retreat began to be felt. The soldiers, while in action, or in a state of activity, had not time to get ill! So long as the mind and body are occupied, everything, in comparison, goes on well; but after a storm a calm succeeds, and that calm is sometimes as bad, and even worse, than the storm that has preceded it. So it was in the present instance. More than half the men were attacked with some complaint; but fever and dysentery, from overwork and bad treatment, were most prevalent, and the number of bayonets which we counted at the conclusion of the retreat was considerably diminished before we were settled in our winter quarters.

Many men, whose frames were as robust as their minds were ardent, began to sink under the accumulation of the miseries they had endured during the retreat. The continued and unsparing exposure of their bodies under such heavy rains as had fallen, and their being obliged to lie out, without any covering, for so many nights, during so inclement a season, now began to be felt, and made visible ravages amongst our ranks. The oldest and most hardy soldiers, as well as the youngest, sank alike under diseases, and it was heart-breaking to see our ranks thinned, not only of the hardy old stock, but of the promising young suckers also. But so it was! The men died by tens—twenties—thirties—and in the course of a short time every battalion was reduced to the half of its original strength. In less than a month the hospitals were overstocked, and many officers were taken ill. I, for once, was amongst the number on the sick-list. A bad ill-healed wound, which I received in the breast on the night of the storming of Badajoz, now began to revisit me. A high fever was the consequence, but I was at length relieved by the taking away of three pieces from one of my ribs. The reader is not to suppose from this confession that I was a married man at the time this operation was performed; but I had, nevertheless, a “rib,” though not a wife; and as to the “pieces” which I lost, it would be but a useless task to look after them now.

The Sergeant-Majors wife, a fine, fat, well-looking woman, amongst many others, was taken ill, and visited with a bad fever. She was the sister of my man, Dan Carsons, and had kept close with the regiment from the time of its first landing in the Peninsula to the time I am now speaking of. She acted in many a useful capacity towards the officers. She supplied us with wine and bread, and every other comfort she could afford us, and was, in fact, a necessary appendage to the officers, for she was one of the best foragers I ever saw in the 88th regiment; and the army knows—the Peninsular army, I mean—that we had some good ones. But this poor woman lost two fine mules during our retrograde movement, as also the cargoes with which they were laden, amounting to a good round sum, which, at the lowest estimate, I must value to be worth three hundred dollars. This loss affected her. She had left no stone unturned to realise it, and this untoward event brought on a violent fit of illness. The fatigue she had undergone, no doubt, aided the cause of her disorder; but, be this as it may, she became quite delirious. While in her bed she could not be made to understand that the army was not in full retreat. “Where,” she would exclaim, “are my mules?” My man, Dan, was in constant attendance upon his sister, and was, as a matter of course, continually intoxicated! If she got better, he would say that he took a little dhrop “more than usual” for joy; if she relapsed, he did the same “to dhrown grief.” So that, between Dan’s “joy” and Dan’s “grief,” to say nothing of my own helpless state, I was anything but well off.

At length the poor woman became quite insane, but she still looked up to Dan as her sheet-anchor; nevertheless, Dan always paid her that respect which he conceived due to the wife of the Sergeant-Major, and always called her Misthress O‘Neil; she, on the contrary, forgetting the station she held, always called her brother “Dan.” “Och, then,” said she, “Dan, what do the Frinch mane at all—where do they mane to dhrive us to?—an’t my mules gone, and our baggage gone, and still we’re on the rethrate? Haven’t they taken all from us, even our necessaries?—where do they mane to send us to?”—“By gob! Misthress O‘Neil,” replied Dan, with a broad grin, “I think they mane to send us all to pot!”