Chapter XII

The French army re-enters Spain. They leave a garrison in Almeida, which
is blockaded. The Light Division and 1st German Hussars take up
their original line of posts. Skirmishes at Marialva bridge. Some
companies of our corps are sent to shoot the cattle at Almeida.
Massena assembles his army to relieve Almeida. The Light Division
and 1st German Hussars fall back and join the army in position, near
Fuentes d’Onoro. Battle of Fuentes d’Onoro. Flag of truce in the
evening. The wounded removed. Conversation with some French
officers. A sprig of nobility in the French army at the head of one
of their Hussar regiments. Colonel Beckwith’s brigade occupies
Fuentes d’Onoro for the night. Precautions for its defence. The
hostile armies remain close to each other for many days.
Waggon-loads of wounded Frenchmen sent to Rodrigo. Marshal Marmont
arrives from France. Assumes the command of the army in our front,
and supersedes Massena. He inspects the infantry of the Imperial
Guard within view of our position. The French army retires behind
the Agueda. We resume our original line of outposts. Almeida is
blown up, and the garrison escape. Marmont sends a cavalry force to
reconnoiter Colonel Beckwith’s brigade. We send them back faster
than they advanced. Intelligence reaches us of the battle of
Albuera. We celebrate the king’s birth-day. Sudden order to march in
the midst of our festivity. Affair between the 1st Royal Dragoons
and the French cavalry. We march into Alemtejo. A few lines relative
to the march thither. Encamp on the Caya. Gallant but unsuccessful
attempts against Fort San Christoval. The army offers battle to the
united armies of Soult and Marmont. They decline the challenge, and
fall back to Seville and Placentia. Terrible sickness in our army.
Action of cavalry near Campo Maior. Fort La Lippe. I receive a
present from a Portuguese don. Starved state of our horses. The army
marches back to the northern frontier of Portugal. A bee-hive
captured. Staff characters.

The Light Division, with its old friends the First German Hussars, soon took up the same line of outposts on the Azarva which they held last summer, during the period that Massena was laying siege to Ciudad Rodrigo. One brigade was at Gallegos, the other at Espeja, having Hussar pickets across the Azarva at Carpio and Marialva, and on the Agueda, at Moulina dos Flores.

Several sharp skirmishes between the infantry pickets took place at Marialva bridge, in the month of April. The French were invariably the aggressors; but what good result they expected from it, was known only to themselves.

The French garrison in Almeida was blockaded by General Pack’s Portuguese brigade, and some British battalions. Several companies of our regiment were also sent to shoot the cattle that were turned out to graze under cover of the guns of the fortress. This frequently brought a cannonade on our men. Towards the end of April Massena concentrated his army near Ciudad Rodrigo, for the purpose of attacking the allies, and of raising the blockade of Almeida.

On the 2d of May he crossed the Azarva in great force, obliging the Light Division and the German Hussars to fall gradually back; and we bivouacked between Espeja and the Duas Casas, close to the enemy’s advanced guard.

On the 3d, before daybreak, we were again in motion; and having crossed the Duas Casas at Fuentes d’Onoro, without molestation from the French, took up the ground allotted for us on the heights above that village. Here we found the 1st, 3d, 5th, 6th, and 7th Divisions in position; the 2d and 4th being employed before Badajoz, under Marshal Beresford. The 7th Division, under General Houston, was on the extreme right, near Navis d’Avair, the 1st and 3d to the right and rear of the village of Fuentes d’Onoro, the 5th and 6th on the left towards Fort Conception, and the Light Division near the centre, as a flying corps, ready to be despatched to any point of this extended position most menaced.

The village of Fuentes d’Onoro was occupied by troops detached from the 1st and 3d Divisions; the greater part of the cavalry were towards the right, where the ground was favourable for their operations. This was nearly the disposition of our army, although I cannot answer for trifling inaccuracies. If the general outline be correct, it is enough for my purpose.

On the evening of the 3d the French made a brisk attack on the village, but were beaten back in handsome style, and with considerable loss, by the light troops of General Picton’s division, commanded by Colonel Williams, of the 60th regiment, and, I believe, by some light infantry of the 1st Division also. In the midst of this attack the Light Division was marched off in great haste to support General Erskine’s division on the left, which was menaced by General Regnier’s corps; but nothing further than an affair of light troops took place at that point. The whole of the following day, which Massena employed in reconnoitering, passed as quietly as possible, although the sentries of the two armies were within pistol-shot of each other in some parts of the line. About sunset the Light Division was ordered to move from the left to the centre of the position.

BATTLE OF FUENTES D’ONORO.

_May 5th._—The moment daylight appeared Massena sent a powerful body of cavalry, supported by heavy masses of infantry, with artillery, under the command of General Junot, to attack our extreme right. The Light Division was instantly ordered to occupy a wood in front of and to the right of the 1st Division. The vast superiority in numbers of the French cavalry obliged the 7th Division to fall back from near Navis d’Avair; and in performing this movement, some of General Houston’s regiments checked the enemy’s dragoons by their steadiness, and by well-directed vollies, whilst the British cavalry, under the Hon. General Stewart, made a brilliant charge on that of the enemy, who were endeavouring to interrupt General Houston’s movement.

The 7th Division was now taking up a new alignement, with its right thrown back towards the heights near Villa Formosa, and communicating by its left with the 1st Division. Whilst this was in progress, the French attacked, with many battalions of infantry, the wood into which the Light Division had been ordered, and a sharp fire was kept up for some time on both sides. The British right being turned at Navis d’Avair, the mass of French cavalry, with artillery, continued to advance along the plain, threatening to cut off the Light Division from the position on the heights. We were, therefore, directed to retire from the wood, to form squares of battalions, and to fall back over the plain on the 1st Division. The steadiness and regularity with which the troops performed this movement, the whole time exposed to a cannonade, and followed across a plain by a numerous cavalry, ready to pounce on the squares if the least disorder should be detected, has been acknowledged by hundreds of unprejudiced persons (unconnected with the Light Division), who witnessed it from the heights, to have been a masterpiece of military evolutions. We sustained a very trifling loss from the cannonade, and reached our station in the position near the 1st Division.

Massena now halted Junot’s corps pretty well out of range of our artillery; and contented himself by keeping up a heavy cannonade, and sending out swarms of light troops to amuse us, as the term is. Four companies of our corps, under Major O’Hare, being sent into the rocky valley of the Turon, to check some of these gentry who were endeavouring to penetrate between the 1st and 7th Divisions, drove them out from amongst the rocks and stone walls which they endeavoured to occupy. Our old comrades, the 1st Germans, and 14th and 16th Light Dragoons, headed by General Stewart, supported the high character of their respective corps; and, although very inferior in numbers to the French cavalry, taught them a useful lesson on that day.

About this period several desperate attacks were made on the village of Fuentes d’Onoro, in each of which the brave troops stationed there for its defence drove back their antagonists with great slaughter. The village was defended by troops from the 1st and 3d Divisions. The French were charged with the bayonet through the village again and again, in spite of all their strenuous and energetic attempts to carry it. Lord Wellington sent down regiment after regiment, in detail, for its defence, according to the numbers detached against it by the enemy; and towards evening, the 88th regiment, on arriving at the head of the village from the heights above, met a French column pressing boldly on, and in great force, which this distinguished Irish corps instantly charged with the bayonet, and drove through the village with great slaughter. Judging by the number of killed and wounded lying near the spot where they came in contact with their enemy, Pat made excellent use of powder, ball, and bayonet. The 71st, 79th, the 2d battalion of the 24th, and all the regiments employed in the defence of the village, rivalled each other in gallantry and good conduct. On the left no serious attack was made; but the light troops of the 5th Division were sharply engaged with those of General Regnier, near Fort Conception.

Thus did Massena utterly fail in every attempt, and left the village and the ground near it covered with killed and wounded. Shortly before dark, Colonel Beckwith’s brigade of the Light Division was ordered into the village, to relieve the troops of the 1st and 3d, who rejoined their respective divisions on the heights.

We had been but a short time at Fuentes d’Onoro, when a flag of truce came in, requesting permission to send into the village unarmed parties to bring away their wounded, who filled the streets and houses. During this truce, several French officers came down to the little bridge over the Duas Casas, at the foot of the village, on which happened to be posted a file of men of my own company, whilst two French grenadiers were on sentry at the other end of it. On the centre of the bridge three French officers met and conversed a considerable time with the officers of my company, and were politeness itself. After offering us a pinch of snuff, by way of prelude, the events which had taken place during the day were discussed. They paid many compliments to the gallant conduct of our army, and declared that to-morrow would be a great and decisive day, and full of glory for one of the two armies.

The captain of the 9th Light Infantry was a remarkably smart, talkative, Frenchman-like, little fellow. He had two musket-shots through his cap, one of which had grazed his head, and the blood was trickling down his face at the moment. He treated it very lightly, saying it was a mere nothing—the fortune of war!

Our attention was just then called, by our little friend of the 9th Light Infantry, to a flashy young man, dressed in a gay hussar uniform, who came galloping along near the bridge: “Do you see that boy?” said he: “he is about twenty years of age only; has just arrived from France to commence his career in Spain, and commands one of our hussar regiments. But,” added our friend (with a shrug of his shoulders), “he is the nephew of the war minister, which accounts for it.”

It was now nearly dark, and the greater part of their wounded were carried into their own lines; so, having made profound bows to our new acquaintance on the bridge, we commenced preparations for the defence of the village from a night attack. One part of it was still in possession of the French; and I may therefore safely assert, that on no occasion during the war was extreme vigilance more necessary than at this moment. The sentries of the two armies were so near each other that they might easily have conversed. We blocked up with large stones the narrow streets and paths leading to our part of the village; and Lord Wellington caused trenches and field-works to be made during the night, on the open ground in front of his right, where it was favourable for the operations of the numerous cavalry of his adversary.

The morning of the 6th found the two armies precisely in the same positions as on the preceding day. There was a dead calm and perfect silence: not a shot was exchanged throughout the day. From the highest point of our position could be seen carts-load of wounded French moving in the direction of Rodrigo.

The 7th, 8th, and 9th, passed just in the same manner as the 6th: not a shot was fired by either party. The French still continued to remove their wounded towards Rodrigo.

At break of day on the 10th, the Light Division and cavalry followed the enemy, who retreated during the night of the 9th behind the Agueda, and we soon found ourselves once more in our old quarters at Gallegos and Espeja.

Marshal Marmont (the Duke of Ragusa) arrived from France, in the midst of these operations, to take command of the “army of Portugal,” and to supersede Massena. Marmont drew out the Imperial Guards, in review order, one day between the 5th and 10th, whilst the two armies remained inactive near Fuentes d’Onoro; and we were able clearly to distinguish this fine body of infantry without the assistance of our telescopes.

On the night of the 10th May, the French garrison in Almeida contrived to effect its escape through the force employed to blockade it, and to reach San Felicis by the pass of Barba del Puerco. In this bold and well-conducted movement the French lost some hundred men. General Brenier, the French governor, spiked and destroyed all the cannon on the works; and having placed mines in various places, and left slow matches in them, a terrible explosion took place some time after the garrison had left it, which blew the town and ramparts to atoms.

On the 12th, Marshal Marmont sent from Ciudad Rodrigo three regiments of cavalry to reconnoiter our post at Espeja. Colonel Beckwith formed his three battalions into squares, near the village, and opened a fire on the French dragoons as soon as they came within reach, which instantly sent them back over the Azarva, with the loss of a few horses.

On the 22d of May, intelligence reached us of the sanguinary battle fought at Albuera, between the French, under Marshal Soult, and the little army under Marshal Beresford, consisting of the 2d and 4th British Divisions, Colonel Alten’s German Light Brigade, and a corps of Spaniards. The particulars of this hardly contested day are well known; and as the Light Division, with the other five of Lord Wellington’s army, were at that time employed in the neighbourhood of Fuentes d’Onoro, many marches from Albuera, I am unable to give any account of it. We know, however, that British valour never shone more conspicuously, nor has the steady and unflinching bravery displayed by the regiments on that bloody day ever been surpassed. To their invincible courage was the victory due.

In the middle of May, the 3d and 7th Divisions of infantry marched from the north to join Marshal Beresford on the Guadiana; and towards the end of the month, the Light Division received orders to move in the same direction. Marmont was, about this time, detaching troops into Spanish Estremadura, through the passes of the Sierra de Gata, to form a junction with Soult, and to raise the siege of Badajoz, which Marshal Beresford had now a second time commenced, after having defeated Soult at Albuera. In proportion, therefore, as Marmont detached to the southward, were the British divisions directed to move in a parallel direction, by way of Castello Branco and Villa Velha.

It was not until early in June that the Light Division marched towards that point; and on the 4th, whilst we were celebrating the birth-day of George the Third, in the village of Espeja, with wine, cigars, and a dance with the Spanish fair ones, an order reached us to march before break of day. I will be sworn that our fair partners would have been fully as well pleased, as we should also, if the order had arrived some twelve hours later, for it broke up a merry party, and obliged us to retire to our hovels, to order our baggage-mules to be saddled, and to march without a wink of sleep; no, not even enough to give us a chance of dreaming of our black-eyed signoras.

On the 6th June, the 1st Royal Dragoons had an affair in the open country near Espeja, in which that distinguished old corps repeatedly repulsed the French cavalry, and made some prisoners. On the 7th, the Light Division bivouacked near Sabugal; and as the day was favourable for fishing, I ardently longed for the necessary apparatus to wage war on the trout, which are remarkably fine in this part of the Coa; but I had neither rod, lines, nor flies. We were now on our route into Alemtejo, and prosecuted our march there, day after day, under a scorching sun, without meeting with any adventure on the road worthy of being noticed. We took the route by Memoa, Penamacor, San Miguel, Castello Branco, Villa Velha, Neza, &c.

On the 11th of June, many hundreds of men were left by the road-side, quite exhausted by the intense heat. This obliged us to make frequent halts in the day, and to proceed at night; and by some mishap we were without our baggage, and consequently without provisions for forty hours. Passing from Neza through Alpalhao, Portalegre, and Aronches, halting a day or two here and there, we bivouacked, on the 23d of June, in the hottest and most parched piece of ground in the Peninsula, lying between Aronches and Campo Maior, and on the left bank of the Caya. In this neighbourhood Lord Wellington had concentrated his whole army.

Marshals Soult and Marmont, one from the north and the other from the south, had united their forces, amounting, it was calculated, to eighty thousand men. This obliged Lord Wellington to raise the siege of Badajoz. Several gallant attempts had been made to storm Fort San Christoval, a strong place on the right bank of the Guadiana, connected with Badajoz; but all unfortunately failed, owing, I believe, to the impracticability of the breaches.

I ought to have observed, that during Massena’s retreat out of Portugal, in the month of March, this fortress fell before Marshal Soult’s army, after a trifling siege, and the very shadow of a defence, at a time when the Spanish governor was aware that Marshal Beresford was marching to his relief.

What a favourable opportunity now offered to the Spanish armies (if they had any bodies deserving that name) to make play in the different districts, drained of French troops by the junction of Soult and Marmont on the Guadiana! I never heard that they profited much by it.

Our army remained in position on the Caya about one month; when the two French marshals, not liking to attack us, broke up from the Guadiana, after having completely garrisoned and provisioned Badajoz, without accepting the challenge given by our chief. If our ranks were not thinned by the sword at this moment, they were most terribly so by fevers, agues, and dysenteries, so prevalent and destructive in Alemtejo, particularly in the hot months. In no part of the world have I experienced a more constant, sickening, deadly heat, than in the encampment on the Caya. I never enjoyed better health, nor ever exposed myself more to the sun, with gun and greyhound; and I bathed twice a day in the stagnant waters of the Caya, which abounded with water-snakes, leeches, and all manner of devils.

On the 22d of June there was a sharp affair between some of our cavalry (I think the 13th Light Dragoons and 2d German Hussars,) and a body of French dragoons, supported by infantry, near Campo Maior. We made many prisoners, and sustained a loss of about forty men. This was the report which reached us in camp. We frequently rode over to Elvas, the fort La Lippe, which commands the town, being well worth a morning’s ride to see.

Whilst we remained in this furnace of a camp, I received a present from a Portuguese don, or some big-wig, who had a country house near us, of an exceedingly fine puppy of the breed of Spanish bull, or wild-boar dogs, of a blue slate colour, and as big, when full grown, as the largest and most powerful mastiff. I lost him about a year afterwards, which in reality I was not sorry for, his temper being much on a par with that of my young wolf, already mentioned in these pages.

Had Don Quixote lived at this time, he might have gone blindfold through our camp, quite certain to have found a Rosinante in any horse on which he first laid his hands. Chopped straw and stagnant water, with constant exposure to a broiling sun, and being picketed under a shadeless tree, reduced them to a pitiable state, and established the well-known furrows down the hind quarters, so strongly indicating poverty and starvation.

On the 20th of July the army marched in a northerly direction, retracing its steps by Portalegre, Neza, Villa Velha, &c., and in a few weeks General Hill’s Division alone remained in Alemtejo, with a few regiments of cavalry. On our march back to the north, being encamped one day at Villa Velha, I made an excursion with a brother-officer to the summit of the mountain on the north bank of the Tagus, where a Moorish watch-tower stands: there, amongst the gum cistus, as good fortune would have it, we stumbled on some bee-hives, which the Spaniards and Portuguese make of the outer bark of the cork-tree. We laid an embargo on one of them, and marched triumphantly into camp, smothered the bees with gunpowder, and voted the honey a capital substitute for sugar, of which we had none in our canteens, nor money to purchase any. Is there an old Peninsula man who has not long since ascertained that tea with honey is more palatable than tea without sugar?

I cannot help here observing, (on this as well as on many other long marches, where, from scarcity of forage and hard work, the horses of infantry officers resembled scare-crows, and were fit subjects only for the fox-hound kennel,) the infinite amusement we often derived from witnessing the glance of sovereign contempt which some of the young aides-du-camp deigned to throw on us and on our Rosinantes, as they rode along the flanks of the columns on well fed, pampered chargers, following in the train of their generals. No one will suppose that I am so illiberal as to make this a sweeping clause. Far, very far from it. I have known, and still do know, many excellent fellows who were not spoiled by having held staff appointments; nor did they think themselves degraded at the termination of the war by returning to their regimental duty.

If there is one school worse than another for a youngster, on his first obtaining a commission, it is that of being placed, _instanter_, on the staff as an aide-du-camp, before he has done duty with his regiment for a year or two. If a sprig of aristocracy assumes any airs with his regimental companions, he pretty quickly learns a useful lesson, and finds _that_ system will not do. But once placed on the staff, such foibles are not so likely to be there corrected as at a company’s mess in a bivouac, with a set of merry, hungry, cigar-smoking subs, and a rough and ready captain at their head.