Chapter IX

General Crawford falls back to Junsa, on the Coa. The French advance.
Fort Conception is destroyed by mines. Action of the Coa, 24th July,
1810. Major M’Leod of the 43d regt. French grenadiers storm the
bridge, and are destroyed. General Crawford retires at night to
Valverde. Reflections on the events of the day. We march to
Celerico, and make huts near the town. The Light Division is divided
into two brigades. Massena besieges Almeida. The Light Division
moves up to support the cavalry. The powder magazine in Almeida
explodes and destroys the town. The garrison capitulates. Affair
between our cavalry and the French near Freixadas. The army retires
towards Coimbra. Excursion to the summit of a mountain to see a
lake. Discussion with a padre as to the qualities attributed to its
waters. We continue the retreat. The Light Division arrives at
Mortagoa. Affair of cavalry. We fall back on Buzaco, engaged with
the French advanced guard. Sketch of the position.

Leaving his cavalry at Val de la Mula, General Crawford withdrew the Light Division, on the 16th of July, to Junsa, a poor village about half a league distant from the Portuguese fortress of Almeida, and on the same side of the Coa, situated amongst some rocks overlooking the river.

On the 19th, a trifling affair took place between the cavalry in front of Val de la Mula, in which we made a few prisoners.

At break of day on the 21st, the Light Division and the artillery were ordered out of their bivouac near Junsa. Our battalion, with the horse artillery, advanced on the road towards the Turon, to support the cavalry, who were falling back from Val de la Mula, before a superior force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. The remainder of the division was placed amongst some rocks and walls near Almeida.

On the advance of the French towards Fort Conception, on the 21st, the mines which our engineers had formed there were fired, and the whole exploded with a tremendous noise, and rendered the works useless to the invading army.

On the 22d, General Crawford drew his whole force back near Almeida, observing with pickets of cavalry the different roads on the great plain in front.

On the 23d, I happened to be on picket with my company in front of Junsa, amongst some granite rocks, as a support to the hussars on the plain. A more tremendous night of thunder, lightning, and rain, I never remember before or since, from which our only shelter was the lee side of the rocks. This was merely a prelude to what occurred on the following day.

ACTION AT THE COA

_24th July._—Soon after daybreak, the whole of Marshal Ney’s corps, consisting of troops of all arms, to the amount of about twenty-five thousand men, advanced for the purpose of investing and laying siege to Almeida, and of driving General Crawford’s corps of observation over the Coa, should it be found on the same side of the river.

General Crawford placed his infantry in line amongst some rocky ground and stone walls, his left being within seven or eight hundred yards of the walls of Almeida, and his right thrown back in a convex form towards the Coa. Our cavalry posts in the plain were soon forced back on the infantry, and a brisk cannonade commenced. The advance of the French cavalry were brought to bay by our infantry in the intersected ground; but Marshal Ney having more than twenty thousand infantry at his back, was not long to be delayed in this manner. Although the left of our line was under the protection of the guns of the fortress, the French assailed it with great impetuosity; and the right and centre also soon found itself beset with a swarm of light troops, supported by heavy columns constantly advancing, and aided by their artillery, which cannonaded us warmly.

It is not improbable that at this moment our brigadier began to think it would have been more prudent, and equally beneficial to the cause for which the British army was contending in the Peninsula, had he implicitly obeyed the positive orders of the Commander-in-Chief, to withdraw his corps of observation behind the Coa, on the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo, or on the first symptom of Massena’s advance on Almeida, and by no means to risk an action against the superior numbers with which the French would undoubtedly advance towards that fortress. I never heard it yet doubted or denied that such were the orders transmitted to General Crawford from head-quarters, long before the 24th of July.

The baggage, artillery, cavalry, and the two Portuguese light battalions, were directed to retire instantly to the bridge over the Coa, and to gain the opposite bank without delay. Those who have seen and know this narrow and difficult defile, need not be informed, that to keep at bay as many thousand infantry as Marshal Ney might think proper to send forward, whilst the road was choked with troops, baggage, and artillery, which it was absolutely necessary should be covered and protected, during a retreat of a mile or more, and until they had crossed the bridge in safety, was no easy matter.

The troops destined to cover the retreat consisted of our own battalion, and a considerable part, or the whole, of the 43d and 52d regiments. No further description of this rocky defile is necessary, than that the road is very narrow, and as bad as the generality of mountain-roads in the Peninsula are; and moreover, that it is overhung by huge rocks in many places, from which, had our pursuers been permitted to possess themselves of them, they might have annihilated the troops underneath, without their being able to retaliate; and thus, the only option left them would have been a walk to Verdun as prisoners of war, or an instantaneous passage across the Styx instead of the Coa.

By this time the fight had begun in good earnest; and, in order that my story may not be too long, it will be sufficient to say, that from the commencement of the action at the edge of the plain until we reached the river, every inch of ground admitting of defence was obstinately contested by the rear-guard, which was followed by fresh troops every instant arriving to support their comrades. The French artillery failed not to help us along, whenever they had an opportunity, with a nine-pound shot.

As the rear-guard approached the Coa, we perceived that a part only of our cavalry, infantry, and artillery, had yet crossed the bridge; it became, therefore, indispensably requisite for us to keep possession of a small hill looking down on, and perfectly commanding the bridge, until every thing had passed over, cost what it might.

I trust I shall be pardoned for saying that the soldiers of the old and gallant 43d, and that part also of our own battalion whose lot it was to defend this important hill, against a vast superiority of numbers, proved themselves worthy of the trust.

In ascending the hill, a musket-shot grazed the left side of my head, and buried itself in the earth close by. Both my subalterns, who were brothers, were severely wounded in the defence of this hill; and we had but barely time to send them, with other wounded officers and men, across the river, ere we were obliged to retire, and to make a push in double-quick time to reach the bridge; the whole time exposed to such a fire from the hill which we had just abandoned, as might have satisfied the most determined fire-eater in existence.

If any are now living of those who defended the little hill above the bridge, they cannot fail to remember the gallantry displayed by Major M’Leod, of the 43d, who was the senior officer on the spot. How either he or his horse escaped being blown to atoms, when, in the most daring manner, he charged on horseback, at the head of a hundred or two skirmishers of the 43d and of our regiment mixed together, and headed them in making a dash at a wall lined with French infantry, which we soon dislodged, I am at a loss to imagine. It was one of those extraordinary escapes tending strongly to implant in the mind some faith in the doctrine of fatality. This gallant officer was killed afterwards whilst heading his regiment at the storming of Badajoz, and was sincerely regretted by all who knew him.

The whole of General Crawford’s corps at length gained the opposite bank of the Coa, and was strongly posted near the bridge, behind walls, rocks, and broken ground. The torrents of rain which fell the night before had so swollen the river, that all the fords were at that moment impassable; a fortunate circumstance, as the only way by which we could now be attacked was over the narrow bridge, on which we could bring a destructive fire; and we likewise commanded the approach to it from the opposite side with musketry. An incessant fire was kept up across the river by both parties, and after it had continued some time, the French sent a party of grenadiers to storm the bridge, with the vain hope of driving us from our new position. They advanced most resolutely in double-quick time, and charged along the bridge; but few, if any, went back alive, and most of those who reached our side of it unhurt were killed afterwards. This experiment was repeated, and it is almost needless to add, that it met the same fate each time.

The French officer who directed those attacks on the bridge, might have known, before he caused the experiment to be made, that a few hundred French grenadiers, advancing to the tune of “Vive l’Empereur!” “En avant, mes enfans!” and so forth, were not likely to succeed in scaring away three British and two Portuguese regiments, supported by artillery. It was a piece of unpardonable and unjustifiable butchery on the part of the man who ordered those brave grenadiers to be thus wantonly sacrificed, without the most remote prospect of success. They deserved a better fate, for no men could have behaved with more intrepidity.

About five o’clock in the evening the firing ceased on each side, as if by mutual consent; partly because, having been engaged since six o’clock in the morning, both parties found themselves pretty much exhausted, to say nothing, perhaps, of the hopeless case which our antagonists found it to drive us from our tenable position. Floods of rain fell after mid-day, which continued for some hours.

We permitted a party of the enemy, unarmed, to come on the bridge, and on our side of it, to bring away their wounded. Two officers of grenadiers of their 66th regiment lay dead at the head of the bridge, which, as well as the ground on each side of it, was covered with killed and wounded. The loss of our regiment in this action was two officers killed and eight wounded, three of whom died a few days afterwards. We lost several sergeants, bugle-boys, and about one hundred and twenty rank and file. The total loss of the Light Division was from three to four hundred men. Thus ended the affair of the Coa; a day which will not easily be forgotten by those who were present; and I may also add, that although an overwhelming French force obliged the Light Division to retreat, and to contend with it under every possible disadvantage, until it had gained the opposite bank of the river, the retreat was so well covered and protected by the excellent disposition of the troops forming the rear-guard, that we may, without being accused either of vanity or bravado, look back on it as a day of glory, not of defeat.

Soon after dark, General Crawford retired with his whole force from the Coa to a wild rocky country, near the village of Valverde, where we bivouacked late that night amongst some granite rocks, drenched to the skin with the rains of the preceding day and night. We had here time to reflect on the events which the last twenty-four hours had produced, and were extremely puzzled to conjecture why General Crawford, if he was determined to give battle with the Light Division, consisting of four thousand men, to Marshal Ney’s whole corps of twenty-five thousand, did not cross the Coa, without waiting to be forcibly driven over, and having taken up a position on the left bank, then and there challenge his opponent. The investment of Almeida was not retarded five minutes by our waiting under its walls for the approach of the besieging army.

At midnight of the 25th we fell back from Valverde in a deluge of rain, and bivouacked near Freixadas, into which village we were sent on the 26th, by Lord Wellington’s orders, who left his head-quarters at Celerico, on hearing of the action on the Coa, and came to meet us. Here we had the luxury of a roof over our heads,—quite a novelty in those times; and we lost no time in making ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would admit. One night of sound sleep in an old uninhabited house, and dry clothes, put us in condition again for whatever might be forthcoming.

On the 28th, passing through several villages from which the inhabitants had all fled, in fear of the approach of the French, we arrived at Celerico, and made huts of the branches of trees, in some woods near the town, in which were Lord Wellington’s head-quarters. Here the Commander-in-Chief directed that our division should be divided into two brigades, and be commanded as follows: the first brigade by Lieutenant-Colonel Beckwith, consisting of one half of his own battalion, the 43d regiment, and the 3d Portuguese Caçadores; the second brigade by Lieutenant-Colonel Barclay, of the 52d, consisting of his own regiment, the other wing of the 95th Rifle Corps, and the 1st Portuguese Caçadores.

Immediately after our retreat across the Coa, on the 24th of July, Massena commenced the siege of Almeida, the governor of which, Colonel Cox, was an English officer in the Portuguese service.

On the 5th of August we were again ordered to the front to support the cavalry; and during the ensuing fortnight were constantly on the move from bivouac to bivouac, according to the reports received of the enemy.

Although the villages in this part of Portugal are, in general, extremely poor and wretched, the valleys in which some are situated, with the Estrella mountains frowning over them, are equally beautiful with most that are to be found in the Peninsula; and, from the secluded situation of some, one would have thought that an invading army, in its march from the frontier to the capital, might have passed near them without discovering that they existed.

Notwithstanding that we were night and day on the _qui vive_, sleeping in our clothes, and liable to be under arms at the shortest notice, some sportsmen amongst us contrived to slay many hares, partridges, quails, and rabbits, which proved a happy addition to the lean ration beef.

On the 26th, 27th, and 28th of August, the rains fell almost without intermission, accompanied by lightning and thunder. As we were at this time vegetating under some huts made of the branches of trees, which kept out about as much rain as a large sieve would have done, we had the full benefit of this shower-bath.

The French batteries opened on Almeida about this period; and a few hours after the bombardment commenced, most unfortunately a shell exploded in the great magazine, blew half the town about the ears of the garrison, and so injured the works, that the governor was under the necessity of capitulating. This was a most unexpected misfortune, as Massena was now able to prosecute his march on Lisbon some weeks earlier than Lord Wellington had calculated on.

On the 28th, the French drove back our cavalry from Freixadas, after a skirmish in which we lost a few men and horses, and the enemy some prisoners, belonging to their far-famed 32d regiment of light infantry, said to have been the corps which in Egypt was styled “Invincible.” The same night we made a long march in dreadful rain towards Celerico.

Early in September the army began to retrograde slowly towards Coimbra, which many people affirmed was a prelude to its embarkation at Lisbon for England. The Light Division and the cavalry followed the main body a few marches in the rear; and we were not molested by the enemy’s advanced guard, until a few days before we approached the position at Buzaco, on which Lord Wellington had determined to measure his strength with Massena.

Being halted one day in a village at the foot of the Sierra d’Estrella, I started on an expedition with a brother-officer, to see a lake on the summit of a mountain, having read the following account of it in an old Portuguese book belonging to the padre of the village: “This lake is bottomless; the properties of its waters are to turn wine into vinegar in a short space of time. It communicates with the sea, notwithstanding its vast distance from the ocean; for when the sea is rough, the waters of the lake are troubled also.”

As we did not for a moment doubt that, from the padre’s direction, we should easily find the object of our search without a guide, we were rightly served, after a tedious ascent on foot, which occupied three hours and a quarter, up the face of a mountain covered with rocks, and with heath of an incredible height and thickness, to learn, from a shepherd on its summit, that we were still some leagues from the lake.

The day was far advanced, and we were too much fatigued to prosecute the search; so we descended, and arrived late in the evening at the village, drenched with rain, and in no great good humour with the padre, on whom we threw the whole blame of the failure. Discussing some wine the same night with our clerical friend, we endeavoured to enlighten him as to the wonderful history of the lake, and the properties ascribed to it. It might or might not be bottomless, for any thing we knew to the contrary; but, as for its turning wine into vinegar, we assured him, that had we been wise enough to have transported to its banks a bottle of his good wine, we should have taken for granted one part of its wonderful properties, and, instead of committing the bottle to the deep, to be converted into vinegar, the contents should have been put to a far better use. As for the latter part of the story, we accounted for it by concluding that the self-same gale of wind which agitates the sea, will have a similar effect on a body of fresh water, if exposed to its fury on the very summit of one of the highest mountains to be found in the Peninsula. The padre shook his head at our logic, and, I have no doubt, concluded that we were a couple of sceptical and heretical rascals.

On the 20th September we commenced our daily labours before daybreak, and, by a movement to the right, we left the road leading from Celerico to Coimbra, crossed the Mondego by a ford, after having marched along its beautiful serpentine banks several miles, and found ourselves on the main road leading from Vizeu to Coimbra. General Pack’s Portuguese brigade, and some cavalry, were likewise on this road, by which the mass of the French army was moving down on Coimbra. The four following days we were constantly getting under arms, owing to the incessant arrival of reports from our cavalry pickets in front. In short, we slept with one eye open the whole time, and the men were always accoutred.

Lord Wellington arrived at the outposts on the 23d, just as our cavalry were skirmishing with and retiring before the French advanced guard near Mortagoa; and he immediately ordered Generals Crawford and Pack, and the whole of the cavalry, except a few squadrons, to retire by the road leading towards the Sierra de Buzaco. We bivouacked that night on a bleak cold hill, covered with heath; and having no provisions, nor any fluid stronger than water to counteract the effect of the dews and piercing wind, we were not sorry when ordered to stand to arms as usual, an hour before daybreak on the 24th. We then moved a short distance to the rear, and took up our ground in some pine-woods; several of our companies being posted as pickets to support those of the cavalry in their front.

Soon after mid-day the French came on with a body of cavalry, on whom our dragoons made a spirited charge, and drove them back with some loss. The remainder of the day we were tolerably quiet.

On the 25th, the French again came on with such a numerous and combined force of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, that the Light Division, General Pack’s brigade of Portuguese, and the small cavalry force with us, immediately commenced their retreat towards the Sierra de Buzaco, on which the whole of the allied army, including General Hill’s division from Alemtejo, was now assembling in a position covering Coimbra.

The French adopted a very efficacious plan in their pursuit of our rear-guard, by sending forward light infantry and light cavalry to skirmish, intermixed, side by side; thus affording mutual support to each other, as the ground became either open or intersected. By those means, and aided by their flying artillery, the French pressed our rear-guard closely, which was formed by a squadron or two of the cavalry, and some companies of our battalion and of the 52d regiment. We continued to be engaged until we reached the position at Buzaco. Nothing could exceed the regularity with which this retreat was conducted; and it was effected without much loss.

The French cannonaded Colonel Beckwith’s brigade heavily in the village of Sula, which stands on the side of the Sierra de Buzaco; and they attacked at the same moment with infantry a village farther to the right, which our other brigade, under Colonel Barclay, defended. The French, after a sharp fire on both sides, were driven back, and sustained some loss. The light troops of General Picton’s division were, about the same time, engaged with the advance of General Regnier’s corps far to our right. The two armies remained pretty quiet the rest of the day, except an occasional shot from the pickets.

Long before day dawned on the 26th, the loud brass drums of the French roused both armies from their slumbers, and we stood to our arms as usual. The night had been as cold as nights usually are in the end of September on the tops of high mountains. The appearance of the numberless fires which both armies had kept up throughout the night, and which were still burning when we stood to our arms in the dark, was a sight indescribably grand, and far exceeding all the illuminations that were ever got up at Vauxhall, the Tivoli gardens, or elsewhere.

When day broke, the hostile armies, divided only by a wide valley, were drawn out, waiting for the orders which should bring them in contact. Massena’s army was concentrated in one immense dark mass on the brow of the opposite mountain, and the allied army was formed in lines ready for its reception. The precise disposition of our army I cannot pretend accurately to describe; but I know that General Hill was on the extreme right; on his left, Generals Picton, Leith, and Pack; on the left of the latter some Portuguese; and still further to the left, was the Light Division, with another division of British and Portuguese infantry in continuation to the left. I believe the reserves were in column near the convent, which stands on the highest part of the Sierra de Buzaco. As the mountainous regions, in which the two armies had posted themselves, did not admit of the use of their cavalry, I cannot take upon myself to say how ours was disposed of; but I believe a brigade under General Fane observed the enemy’s movements far to General Hill’s right; and the remainder were either in reserve behind the centre, or detached at a distance to the left.

Along the base of the Sierra ran an extended chain of our infantry pickets; and in like manner at the foot of the French ridge of mountains their pickets were thrown out. The valley, therefore, which divided us, was considered neutral ground.

Early in the morning the French cannonaded our four companies again, which were advanced into the village of Sula, but could not dislodge us. Massena then sent out a cloud of light infantry, who engaged our pickets all along the line; and under cover of this fire he reconnoitered our position. This fire of the light troops lasted without intermission until night.

Massena, during the morning, closed up from his rear all his troops, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, and placed them in one vast solid mass opposite to us; no doubt with the hope of intimidating the allies at the mere sight of such legions. Their numbers I do not pretend to determine; but his whole army was now in view, except the garrisons left in Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, and perhaps some posts of communication with the frontier. He must have sustained no trifling loss in the sieges of the two fortresses, added to which, many hundreds were killed and wounded at the Coa on the 24th July; but nevertheless, out of the 110,000 men, which he boasted being at the head of a short time before, in his proclamation to the Portuguese nation, something considerable must have yet remained to him.

The fire of the light troops throughout the 26th having been kept up without intermission, we relieved our companies at this duty every hour or two. The situation of a light bob, or a rifleman, was found to be no sinecure. The blaze of musketry with which the mountains and valleys had rung for twelve hours, ceased with night; and every thing was as quiet as if the two armies had been in their own countries in profound peace.