Chapter X

Battle of Buzaco. Flag of truce. General Simon’s baggage brought in.
Wounded of the two armies removed from the field. Terrible carnage
in and near Sula. The light troops constantly engaged. Deserters
come over to us. Their reports of Massena’s intentions. The French
army breaks up, and marches away to our left. Lord Wellington
retires from Buzaco to the lines of Torres Vedras. Occurrences on
the march. Stores destroyed at Pombal. King John’s coffin in the
cathedral at Battalha. Affair between our rear-guard and the French
advanced guard. Our habitation takes fire, and we are nearly burnt
out of it,—horses, mules, donkeys, and baggage. Affair of cavalry
near Alcoentre. Speculations on Massena not having pursued us more
vigorously in the retreat. The Light Division reaches Alemquer. The
French turn us out of it without our dinners. We retire to Arruda in
bad humour and in dreadful weather. An agreeable surprise. A word or
two relative to the lines of Torres Vedras. Gun-boats on the Tagus.
Jack Tar’s zeal. Great sufferings of the Portuguese from the French
invasion. Reconnoissances made by Massena, and skirmishes brought on
by it. Sharp affair between Sir Brent Spencer’s division and the
enemy. Scarcity of provisions in the country in our front. Our
employments whilst we remained in the lines. The French army falls
back to a position behind the Rio Maior. Sentries of straw. We march
in pursuit and take some prisoners. Dead Frenchmen, horses, mules,
and donkeys, on the road-side. The Light Division comes up with the
enemy near Cartaxo. We are preparing to attack, when Lord Wellington
arrives and countermands it. Causes thereof. The French retire
across the Rio Maior. Rough sketch of their position. General Hill
crosses the Tagus. The Light Division bivouac in a pine-wood. Washed
out of a water-course by the rain. Lord Wellington makes
demonstrations against the French position. The Light Division
engaged with the enemy’s light troops on the left. The troops are
withdrawn.

BATTLE OF BUZACO.

_27th._—Day had scarcely made its appearance when Massena inundated the valley with light troops, with whom we were soon warmly engaged; and, as their columns of attack moved forward to their support, we were driven gradually up the face of the mountain on our reserves. A considerable portion of the infantry of Marshal Ney’s corps advanced steadily and in excellent order by the road leading to the crest of that part of the position where the Light Division was drawn out in line. General Loison’s division, which led the attack, was allowed by General Crawford to reach nearly the summit of the ridge, when he ordered a volley from his division, and a charge with the bayonet. The effect was instantaneous and most decisive; and it is impossible to describe the confusion and carnage which instantly ensued in the enemy’s ranks.

It can be readily conceived, that so large a column, wedged close in a road of no great width, being once broken and forced back, those pressing on from the rear to support it were literally borne back down the mountain by the tide of fugitives, in spite of any exertions of theirs to retrieve matters.

The instant the attacking columns were turned back, they were exposed to the fire of our whole division; whilst our battalion and some caçadores were ordered to pursue, and to give them a flanking fire, and the horse artillery continued to pour on them a murderous fire of grape, as they were struggling through the narrow streets of Sula, and trampling each other to death in their great haste to escape. Men, muskets, knapsacks, and bayonets, rolled down the side of the mountain in such a confused mass, as it is impossible to convey a just idea of.

The village of Sula, and the ground on each side of it, as also the road by which the columns of attack advanced, were heaped with killed and wounded, all lying within a small space of ground. Whilst we were thus employed, General Regnier made an attack equally desperate on Generals Picton, Leith, and Pack, far to our right. Those troops served Regnier’s corps with much the same description of sauce which the Light Division had administered to Marshal Ney’s. We were at too great a distance to distinguish what passed between the troops of Picton, Leith, and Regnier; but we were near enough to witness the gallant manner in which General Pack’s Portuguese brigade charged and drove back with the bayonet a formidable attack made on it by the enemy, covering the ground with their dead. This was the first trial made of the new Portuguese levies, organised by British officers, and it proved most satisfactory.

The 32d and 70th French regiments, both of high renown, were stated to have been nearly destroyed by Picton’s division. The French general, Simon, whose brigade was at the head of the column which attacked the Light Division, was wounded and made prisoner, with three hundred of his men, near the summit of the Sierra. No further attack was made by Massena after these failures, except by his light troops, who, like swarms of bees, filled the valley, and kept us constantly employed until towards evening, when the firing ceased on both sides, and a flag of truce came in, bringing General Simon’s baggage, and with it a pretty little Spanish woman, part of his establishment. The fair one was in tears, and appeared much agitated. During this cessation of hostilities, unarmed parties of both armies were employed in bringing away their wounded.

I went down into the village of Sula, and had some conversation with several French officers and soldiers. They acknowledged their loss to have been very severe; and one man assured me, that his company, which numbered one hundred men in the morning, could only muster twenty-two effective men after their repulse. Amongst the dead in the immediate front of the Light Division, I found men belonging to the following French regiments, and I cut some buttons off their coats:—the 6th, 26th, 66th, and 82d, the Legion du Midi, and a regiment of Germans.

The time agreed on for the cessation of hostilities having expired, and the French evincing a disposition to hold the village of Sula with a few men, Lord Wellington, who was with our division at the moment, ordered a company of the 95th to drive them from it, which was speedily accomplished, and we established strong pickets in it for the night.

Thus ended the battle of Buzaco, a day in which the Marshal Prince of Esling was completely foiled in all his attempts, and was defeated with severe loss.

_28th._—The next morning we were in expectation of another attack, as several deserters, who had come over to us in the night, agreed in the report that General Junot, whose corps had not been engaged the day before, had volunteered to storm, with fifteen thousand grenadiers, that point of the position where the Light Division stood.

No general attack, however, was made on the 28th; but Massena let slip swarms of light troops, as heretofore, and kept us eternally at work with them, until night put an end to the contest. The French erected a half-moon battery on a hill immediately fronting us, and our artillery endeavoured to throw shells on their working parties, but the distance was rather too long. Being on picket with my company in Sula, seven deserters came in during different periods of the night, all agreeing in the same story, that the French army had broken up, and was marching away to turn our left.

When day dawned on the 29th, we found that the reports of the deserters were correct, and that the whole allied army, except the Light Division and a small force of light cavalry, which were left on the position as a rear-guard, was already retiring on Coimbra. About nine o’clock in the morning we followed the main body, and bivouacked at night in a wood some miles from Buzaco.

Despairing of forcing the allied army from its formidable position, Massena had recourse to a wide movement, by which he was enabled to outflank us, and to advance on Coimbra by a road far to our left. It was now pretty evident that, having given up the position at Buzaco, the next spot on which Lord Wellington would challenge his opponent would be in the lines of Torres Vedras; nor were we deceived. At Pombal, near which we bivouacked on the night of the 3d of October, some provisions and stores which the commissariat could not remove in time, were ordered to be destroyed. The streets flowed with rum, many casks of which had been staved, and the contents spilt, that the French might not benefit by them. So inveterate is the propensity of drink in the soldier, that, in spite of every precaution, many of them contrived to get drunk by dipping the rum out of the streets, on our march through the town, in tin cups, or in any vessel nearest at hand.

The 5th brought us to Battalha, where there was a magnificent cathedral, which was in some measure destroyed the following year in Massena’s retreat out of Portugal. In the cathedral were buried many of the royal family of Braganza, and amongst the number a King John, in whose reign, I think, the cathedral was built. I know not who the culprits were, nor to what division of the army they belonged; but in going into the cathedral, I saw the coffin of the said King John open, and the body, which was of course embalmed, exposed to view, wrapped in rich robes of crimson velvet and gold. By way of a relic, I cut off a button and some gold fringe from his majesty’s robes; whilst others, more ambitious, could be satisfied with nothing less than a royal finger.

On the same day, our cavalry of the rear-guard had an affair with the enemy’s advanced guard, which it drove back in a spirited manner, and took some prisoners.

On the 6th, 7th, and 8th, we continued the retreat in unceasing rains, and halted one night in an uninhabited cottage with only half a roof on it, in which four of us, besides our servants, horses, mules, and donkeys, were huddled together. In endeavouring, by dint of a fire, to dry our clothes, which were fairly rusted on us by constant exposure to the weather by day and night, the remnant of the cottage, as the devil would have it, caught fire; and with great difficulty we succeeded in dragging forth from the flames and smoke our miserable quadrupeds and the baggage, and depositing them in the street, under as tremendous a torrent of rain as would have satisfied old Noah himself. With the assistance of the soldiers, aided also by the continued rain, the flames were got under, and we re-entered our hut, where we passed the night, and started the following morning, in another delicious day of rain, to Alemquer.

Near Alcoentre our rear-guard was again attacked on the 8th, and beat back the French with loss. It has ever been a matter of surprise, that Massena did not press more closely on the rear-guard from Coimbra to the lines of Torres Vedras. No doubt that able chief had sufficient reasons for not doing so; but that he might sometimes have come up with us, had he been determined to do so, there can be no doubt, as the allied army did not make any forced marches in its retreat.

Our division entered Alemquer on the 9th, a good town, commanding a pretty view of the Tagus. Here we enjoyed the supreme luxury of a roof over our heads, and made up for lost time by a good night’s sleep. The town was deserted by the inhabitants, through fear of the invading army.

On the 10th, as we were anticipating with great glee an attack on a turkey, that by some extraordinary piece of good fortune had found its way into the camp-kettle of our company’s mess, we were suddenly called to arms by sound of bugle; for, in spite of the rain, those miscreants of the French advanced guard would not remain quiet;—I suppose because they envied us the glorious feast which was nearly ready for use. A few shots from the pickets soon explained how matters stood; and in less than ten minutes the whole division was under arms, and some companies engaged with the French advanced guard at the outside of the town. We were forthwith put in march towards Arruda, where, after wading through oceans of mud and water, and with an incessant shower-bath from above, we arrived after nightfall. The raging of the elements rendered our retreat comparatively quiet and comfortable; as the French were glad enough, no doubt, to shelter themselves from the storm in our late quarters at Alemquer, and to allow us to proceed unmolested. We were, nevertheless, in an exceedingly bad humour at being obliged to vacate in their favour, and to lose our dinners into the bargain. I think there is an old saying about “might giving right;” and as the French were by far the stronger party, I do not blame them for turning us adrift in the manner they did.

It sometimes happens, when we are anticipating every sort of evil and mishap, that a bright gleam of sunshine appears when least expected. This was just the case when we reached Arruda, in a dark tempestuous night, soaked with rain, half-famished with hunger, bitterly cursing the fellows who had, a few hours before, turned us out of our comfortable quarters, and expecting neither more nor less than to bivouac in some snipe-marsh. Our joy may be conceived, at finding, not only a roof over our heads in Arruda, but a prospect of not going to bed supperless. We consoled ourselves for the loss of the turkey at Alemquer with some fowls, and a good allowance of capital wine, which we found in the house allotted to myself and my subalterns.

Never was a town more completely deserted than Arruda. The inhabitants, dreading the approach of the French, had taken flight to Lisbon, leaving their houses, many of which were magnificently furnished, without a human being in them. The chairs and tables were subsequently carried up to the camp, which was formed on the fortified ridge of hills running from the Tagus to the sea, so well known by the name of the lines of Torres Vedras, and they proved highly useful to us in our canvass habitations.

The army had now reached those far-famed lines, which have been already so often described. The right rested on the Tagus, at or near the village of Alhandra, and the left somewhere near Torres Vedras on the sea. Gun-boats, manned from our fleet at Lisbon, gave additional strength to the right; and Jack Tar never lost an opportunity of bombarding with great zeal any party of the French which happened to heave in sight. On one occasion, a French general officer, whose name I have forgotten, was killed by a round shot from the gun-boats.

At certain parts of the chain of hills which were not scarped by nature, and therefore accessible, works of different kinds had been constructed, to impede the enemy in his attack. Numerous redoubts and field-works, mounting heavy ship-guns, had also been formed along the summit of the position. In addition to these defences, immediately on the arrival of the army each division had some hundreds of men constantly employed throughout the day, fair or foul, to give additional strength to that part of the position allotted it to defend. It was therefore evident that every day Massena delayed the attack was much in our favour, as our position was increasing in strength hourly.

Thousands of the unfortunate inhabitants of the provinces through which our army had recently retreated, had abandoned their homes, and were endeavouring to exist between Lisbon and the lines. There was, therefore, an immense population hemmed up in a small space of country, hundreds of them without a house to cover them, or food to eat, except what was afforded by the bounty of the rich at Lisbon, and by the liberal subscriptions raised for them in England.

In the course of the winter, the number of Portuguese who actually died of want was quite dreadful. It was not unusual to see hordes of those poor wretches, old and young, male and female, in rags, the very pictures of death, seated in despair on the wet ground, round a miserable fire, on which was placed an earthen vessel, full of such herbs as could be gathered in the fields and hedges. Thousands contrived to drag on a miserable existence on this vile sustenance. Their death-like, emaciated faces were sufficient to have touched the heart of the most callous and unfeeling. The British soldiers assisted them by every means in their power; and in the Light Division (as well as, I conclude, in every other) soup was made from the heads and offal of the cattle killed for the troops, and distributed amongst the starving inhabitants.

I have a thousand times wished it were possible that every man, woman, and child, of all ranks, in England, could have been transported to this heart-rending scene only for five minutes; that by having had an insight into the various miseries to which the ill-fated inhabitants of the theatre of war are inevitably subjected, they might return satisfied, and bless their stars that an army of Frenchmen were not riding rough-shod over old England, and inflicting on its people similar miseries to those which I have attempted to describe.

As soon as tents were sent up from Lisbon, we encamped in due form near the summit of the lines, daily expecting a general attack, and wondering why it was so long delayed.

From the period of our arrival in the lines, on the 10th of October, to the 15th of November, when Massena fell back behind the Rio Maior, the rains, which never ceased falling, soon found their way through the tents, so that we were seldom dry. Massena frequently made reconnoissances on the position, which brought on various affairs with the pickets; and, on the 13th of October, a sharp affair took place between the light troops of Sir Brent Spencer’s division and those of the enemy, who were repulsed with loss. On this occasion a company of our 3d battalion, which had recently arrived from England, and was attached to Sir Brent Spencer’s division, had its captain and a lieutenant severely wounded, and lost many men.

A wide open valley, which divided the pickets of the two armies, in the immediate front of the Light Division, the French frequently made foraging parties into; but after the first week, I do not believe as much provision could have been found for man or horse, in the whole valley, as would have rationed half a squadron of Lilliputian cuirassiers for twenty-four hours.

Deserters were constantly coming over to us from the French lines, bringing all sorts of reports, vague and contradictory, but which, nevertheless, served us to speculate on. Thus, between constantly strengthening our position; endeavouring to keep off agues by dint of cigars, and of such fluids as were sometimes attainable from the sutlers who paid us a visit from Lisbon; reconnoitering our French neighbours with telescopes; trying to keep our horses, mules, and donkeys alive during the inclement weather, with chopped straw, or what little herbage the hills afforded, with, now and then, a very diminutive allowance of barley or Indian corn; and the occasional arrival of letters and newspapers from England,—we passed some five or six weeks, wondering whether Massena would attack us, or walk away from our front.

The 15th of November put to rest all surmises on this point. I happened to be on picket in front of Arruda on the night of the 14th; and looking, as usual, with all our eyes, in the twilight of the following morning, towards our opponents, the French sentries, we thought, could be discovered as heretofore: but when day broke thoroughly, we found that the cunning rogues had played us an old trick of theirs, by placing figures of straw upright, with a soldier’s cap on each, and a pole by their side to represent a musket. Their whole army had retired, during the night, in the direction of Santarem; and we were sent in pursuit some hours afterwards.

We now began to think that the “frightened leopard” would have a respite; and that the operation of “driving him into the sea,” as Massena had promised the Portuguese a few months before, was likely to be postponed for a time. Our division did not come up with the French rear-guard this day, and at night we bivouacked on a heath near Alemquer. Sir Brent Spencer’s column took seventy prisoners near Sobral.

On the 16th, the Light Division made a movement to the right, which brought it close to the Tagus. We pushed on through Villa Nova and Azimbuja; and although we could not reach their rear-guard, we took many prisoners, who, from sickness, fatigue, or in search of plunder, had straggled from their ranks. The road from Alemquer to Azimbuja was covered with horses, mules, and asses, belonging to the French, which had died from want of forage. We passed many French soldiers lying dead by the road-side, whose appearance indicated that disease and want of food had carried them off. Every house in every town or village which lay in their line of retreat was thoroughly ransacked. Desolation and devastation marked their track.

On the 17th, long before day dawned, we were on the move, and about mid-day came up with the enemy, posted on some rising ground near Cartaxo, having a large plain, covered with short heath, in their front. They shewed only a few squadrons of cavalry and about three battalions of infantry; concealing their main force, as it was afterwards ascertained, behind the brow of the hill. General Crawford, conceiving it to be only a small rear-guard, the whole of which was exposed to view, instantly made dispositions for the attack, by forming the Light Division into a single line, which, with the troop of Horse Artillery and one squadron of the 14th Light Dragoons, constituted his whole force.

We were just about to advance across the plain when Lord Wellington arrived on the ground, and instantly put a stop to our proceedings; as the force in our front consisted of one whole French corps, numbering, it was believed, eighteen thousand infantry, and from two to three thousand cavalry, with a due proportion of artillery. We could, undoubtedly, have given a good account of the troops which the French general thought proper to expose to our view; but that we could have also mastered the remainder which were in reserve behind the brow, I will not undertake to say. Had other divisions of our army been sufficiently advanced to have aided in the attack, it is more than probable that Lord Wellington would have tried his hand at them. We were stationed for the night with the 4th and 14th Dragoons, in Cartaxo, where General Cotton and the cavalry head-quarters were also. This town had shared the same fate as every other through which we marched.

Before daylight on the 18th, we groped our way forward, and shortly after came up with the French rear-guard near the Rio Maior, which it was about to cross by a bridge and causeway. After some skirmishing, they passed the river, and we had then an opportunity of examining the formidable position on which Massena had fallen back, whereby he was brought nearer his communication with the frontier and his resources, and, moreover, was enabled to canton his army in an infinitely more secure position than that which he occupied whilst fronting us in the lines of Torres Vedras.

The outline of this new position, which he held nearly four months, may be given in a few words. The front was covered by the river Maior, which, during the winter months, is not fordable. The bridge and causeway, leading across it to the foot of the heights of Santarem, are exceedingly long and narrow; and a smaller hill, detached as if it had been placed there for the express purpose, looks down on the causeway, which the French artillery and musketry stationed there completely enfiladed. The French formed breast-works for their infantry in various places near the head of the causeway, and abattis on it.

Rising boldly, and somewhat abruptly, from their end of the causeway, is a high hill, on the top of which stands Santarem, already mentioned in my journal of 1809. In that town were Massena’s head-quarters during the whole winter.

The extensive woods of olive which clothed the sides and summit of the hill the year before, when we passed through on our route to Talavera, were cut down in less than forty-eight hours by the French, who constructed with them a double row of most formidable abattis across the whole of the ridge.

The right extended towards a country difficult of approach in the winter months, from the wretched state of the roads in the neighbourhood. General Hill’s division crossed the Tagus in boats at or near Azimbuja, and occupied Chamusca and other villages on the left bank of the river. The Light Division, on the night of the 18th, was pushed close to the bridge, at which we had strong pickets; and those who were not on that duty turned into some roofless hovels near at hand, drenched with the never-ceasing rain.

Lord Wellington was employed on the 19th in reconnoitering the French position. The same day the First Division closed up from the rear, and joined us at Vallé, a straggling sort of village near the causeway. At night our division was ordered into a large pine-wood, to make ourselves as comfortable as we could; but in which we passed as cheerless a night as one uninterrupted deluge of rain might be supposed to produce. Hoping to escape in some measure from the fury of the storm, many of us crept into an old water-course in the wood, in which, rolled up in our cloaks, and doubled up with wet and cold, we did contrive, nevertheless, to fall asleep. But it is impossible to forget being suddenly awoke, a short time afterwards, and feeling myself all at once buoyed up and floating down the little ravine, in the same plight as if I had been dragged under a ship from stem to stern. There was a general outcry from all the party who had sought refuge in this water-course, and a scramble to get on _terra firma_ took place. Taking a few mouthsful of rum and a cigar, the remainder of the night was spent at the foot of a fir-tree, smoking, shivering, and cursing our stupidity for having taken up so injudicious a position.

Daylight was never more welcome than when it broke next morning, although the rain rather increased. We had, however, something in perspective, which was likely to call into exertion both body and mind, and that pretty quickly.

A general attack, as we then understood, was forthwith to be made on the French position. The First Division made demonstrations near the causeway, as in like manner did other troops further to their left. The Light Division and some cavalry at the same moment crossed the Rio Maior, by a narrow bridge behind Vallé, and advanced along the marshy plain towards the extreme left of the enemy’s position, which rested on the Tagus. We were soon engaged with their pickets, with whom we kept up a skirmish for some hours, and in such rain as might be supposed to have rendered fire-arms useless. Numbers of their light troops were scattered along the base of the position, ready for our reception, if we should advance to the attack; but Massena concealed his masses behind the brow.

Towards evening we were ordered to fall back again towards Vallé; and it was generally understood, that the object of the demonstrations which Lord Wellington had made, was to ascertain whether the whole French army was really there, or only a rear-guard. Finding a strong force concentrated, and posted in a most formidable position, no attack was made.