THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL
Sir Harry Smith
BART., G.C.B.

Harry Smith

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL
Sir Harry Smith
BARONET OF ALIWAL ON THE SUTLEJ
G.C.B.

EDITED
WITH THE ADDITION OF SOME SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTERS
By G. C. MOORE SMITH, M.A.

WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1903

PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.

PREFACE.

The Life of Sir Harry Smith here offered to the public consists of an Autobiography covering the period 1787 to 1846 (illustrated by notes and appendices), and some supplementary chapters contributed by myself on the last period of Sir Harry’s life (1846-1860). Chapter XXXI. carries the reader to the year 1829. This, it is interesting to remark, is a true turning point in the life of the great soldier. Till then he had seen warfare only on two continents, Europe and America (the Peninsula, France, the Netherlands, Monte Video, Buenos Ayres, Washington, New Orleans); from that date onwards the scene of his active service was Africa and Asia. Till 1829 his responsibility was small; after 1829 he had a large or paramount share in directing the operations in which he was engaged. This difference naturally affects the tone of his narrative in the two periods.

The Autobiography (called by its author “Various Anecdotes and Events of my Life”) was begun by Sir Harry Smith, then Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, at Glasgow in 1824. At that time it was only continued as far as page 15 of the present volume. On 11th August, 1844, when he had won his K.C.B., and was Adjutant-General of Her Majesty’s Forces in India, he resumed his task at Simla. He then wrote with such speed that on 15th October he was able to tell his sister that he had carried his narrative to the end of the campaign of Gwalior, that is, to 1844 ([p. 490]). Finally, on 7th September, 1846, when at Cawnpore in command of a Division, he began to add to what he had previously written an account of the campaign of the Sutlej, which had brought him fresh honours. This narrative was broken off abruptly in the middle of the Battle of Sobraon ([p. 550]), and was never completed. Accordingly, of Sir Harry Smith’s life from February, 1846, to his death on 12th October, 1860, we have no record by his own hand.

The Autobiography had been carefully preserved by Sir Harry’s former aide-de-camp and friend, General Sir Edward Alan Holdich, K.C.B., but, as it happened, I was not myself aware of its existence until, owing to the fresh interest awakened in Sir Harry Smith and his wife by the siege of Ladysmith early in 1900, I inquired from members of my family what memorials of my great-uncle were preserved. Sir Edward then put this manuscript and a number of letters and documents at my disposal. It appeared to me and to friends whom I consulted that the Autobiography was so full of romantic adventure and at the same time of such solid historical value that it ought no longer to remain unpublished, and Mr. John Murray, to whom I submitted a transcription of it, came at once to the same conclusion.

My task as Editor has not been a light one. In Sir Harry’s letter to Mrs. Sargant of 15th October, 1844,[1] he says of his manuscript, “I have never read a page of it since my scrawling it over at full gallop;” and in a letter of 14th January, 1845, “Harry Lorrequer would make a good story of it. You may ask him if you like, and let me know what he says of it.” It is clear from these passages that Sir Harry did not contemplate the publication of his story in the rough form in which he had written it, but imagined that some literary man, such as Charles Lever, might take it in hand, rewrite it with fictitious names, and so fashion out of it a military romance. The chapters[2] on Afghanistan and Gwalior, already written, were, however, of a serious character which would make them unsuitable for such treatment; and the same was the case with the chapters on the Sikh War, afterwards added. Whether Lever ever saw the manuscript I do not know; at any rate, the author’s idea was never carried out.

It is obvious that now that fifty years have passed, some of the reasons which made Sir Harry suggest such a transformation of his story are no longer in force. The actors in the events which he describes having almost all passed away, to suppress names would be meaningless and would deprive the book of the greater part of its interest. And for the sake of literary effect to rewrite Sir Harry’s story would be to destroy its great charm, the intimate relation in which it sets us with his fiery and romantic character.

The book here given to the public is not indeed word for word as Sir Harry wrote it. It has often been necessary to break up a long sentence, to invert a construction—sometimes to transpose a paragraph in order to bring it into closer connexion with the events to which it refers. But such changes have only been made when they seemed necessary to bring out more clearly the writer’s intention; the words are the author’s own, even where a specially awkward construction has been smoothed; and it may be broadly said that nothing has been added to Sir Harry’s narrative or omitted from it. Such slight additions to the text as seemed desirable, for example, names and dates of battles,[3] have been included in square brackets. In some cases, to avoid awkward parentheses, sentences of Sir Harry’s own have been relegated from the text to footnotes. Such notes are indicated by the addition of his initials (“H. G. S.”).

Sir Harry’s handwriting was not of the most legible order, as he admits, and I have had considerable difficulty in identifying some of the persons and places he mentions. Sometimes I have come to the conclusion that his own recollection was at fault, and in this case I have laid my difficulty before the reader.

I have not thought it my duty to normalize the spelling of proper names, such as those of towns in the Peninsula and in India, and the names of Kafir chiefs. Sir Harry himself spells such names in a variety of ways, and I have not thought absolute consistency a matter of importance, while to have re-written Indian names according to the modern official spelling would have been, as it seems to me, to perpetrate an anachronism.

I have, indeed, generally printed “Sutlej,” though Sir Harry frequently or generally wrote “Sutledge;” but I have kept in his own narrative his spelling “Ferozeshuhur” (which is, I believe, more correct) for the battle generally called “Ferozeshah.” Even Sir Harry’s native place (and my own) has two spellings, “Whittlesey” and “Whittlesea.” In his narrative I have preserved his usual spelling “Whittlesea,” but I have myself used the other, as I have been taught to do from a boy.

Perhaps it is worth while to mention here that Sir Harry’s name was strictly “Henry George Wakelyn Smith,” and it appears in this form in official documents. But having been always known in the army as “Harry Smith,” after attaining his knighthood he stoutly refused to become “Sir Henry,” and insisted on retaining the more familiar name.[4] As the year of his birth is constantly given as 1788, it is worth while to state that the Baptismal Register of St. Mary’s, Whittlesey, proves him to have been born on 28th June, 1787.

While the documents put into my hands by Sir Edward Holdich enabled me to throw a good deal of additional light on the events recorded in the Autobiography, I thought it a prime duty not to interrupt Sir Harry’s own narrative by interpolations. Accordingly I have thrown this illustrative matter into Appendices. In some of these, especially in his letters to his wife of 1835 (Appendix iv.), one sees the writer, perhaps, in still more familiar guise than in the Autobiography.

But I had not merely to illustrate the period of Sir Harry’s life covered by his Autobiography; I had a further task before me, viz. to construct a narrative of the rest of his life (1846-1860), including his Governorship of the Cape (1847-1852). For the manner in which I have done this, I must crave indulgence. At the best it would have been no easy matter to continue in the third person a story begun by the main actor in the first, and in this case the letters and personal memoranda, which were tolerably abundant for Sir Harry’s earlier years, suddenly became very scanty when they were most required. Accordingly, for much of Sir Harry’s life I had no more sources to draw on than are accessible to anybody—histories, blue-books, and newspapers. I can only say that in this situation I have done the best I could. My chief difficulty was, of course, in dealing with the time of Sir Harry’s command at the Cape. It would have been inconsistent with the scope of the whole book to have attempted a systematic history of the colony or of the operations of the Kafir War. At the same time I could not enable my readers to form an estimate of Sir Harry’s conduct at this time without giving them some indication of the circumstances which surrounded him. If I am found by some critics to have subordinated biography too much to history, I can only hope that other critics will console me by finding that I have subordinated history too much to biography.

Amid a certain dearth of materials of a private kind, I do congratulate myself on having been able to use the packet of letters docketed by Sir Harry, “John Bell’s and Charlie Beckwith’s Letters.” General Beckwith was an earlier General Gordon, and his letters are so interesting in matter and so brilliant in expression that one is tempted to wish to see them printed in full. Perhaps some readers of this book may be able to tell me of other letters by the same remarkable man which have been preserved.

The latter part of this book would have been balder than it is, if it had not been for the help I have received from various friends, known and unknown. I must express my thanks in particular to the Misses Payne of Chester, who lent me letters addressed to their father, Major C. W. Meadows Payne; to Mrs. Thorne of Chippenham, who lent me letters addressed to her father, Major George Simmons; to Mrs. Fasson, daughter of Mr. Justice Menzies of the Cape, and Mr. W. F. Collier of Horrabridge, who gave me their reminiscences; to Colonel L. G. Fawkes, R.A., Stephen A. Aveling, Esq., of Rochester, Major J. F. Anderson of Faringdon, R. Morton Middleton, Esq., of Ealing, Captain C. V. Ibbetson of Preston, Mrs. Henry Fawcett, my aunt Mrs. John A. Smith, Mrs. Farebrother of Oxford, Mr. B. Genn of Ely, Mr. Charles Sayle of Cambridge, Mr. G. J. Turner of Lincoln’s Inn, Mr. A. E. Barnes of the Local Government Board, the Military Secretary of the War Office, and others, for kind assistance of various kinds. I am indebted to my cousins, Mrs. Lambert of 1, Sloane Gardens, S.W., and C. W. Ford, Esq., for permission to reproduce pictures in their possession, and to General Sir Edward Holdich for much aid and interest in my work in addition to the permission to use his diary of the Boomplaats expedition. Lastly, my thanks are due to my brothers and sisters who assisted in transcribing the Autobiography, and in particular to my sister, Miss M. A. Smith, who did most of the work of preparing the Index.

I shall feel that any labour which I have bestowed on the preparation of this book will be richly repaid if through it Harry and Juana Smith cease to be mere names and become living figures, held in honour and affection by the sons and daughters of the Empire which they served.

G. C. MOORE SMITH.

Sheffield,
September, 1901.

For some of the corrections now introduced I am indebted to Lieut.-Col. Willoughby Verner, Rifle Brigade, and to the Rev. Canon C. Evans, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

G. C. M. S.

University College, Sheffield,
April, 1902.

DATES OF LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR HARRY SMITH’S COMMISSIONS AND APPOINTMENTS.

STEPS IN THE ORDER OF THE BATH.

BOOKS USEFUL FOR REFERENCE IN CONNEXION WITH SIR HARRY SMITH’S LIFE.

An Authentic Narrative of the Proceedings of the Expedition under ... Craufurd until its Arrival at Monte Video, with an Account of the Operations against Buenos Ayres.... By an Officer of the Expedition (1808).

Sir William F. P. Napier: History of the War in the Peninsula.

Sir H. E. Maxwell: Life of Wellington.

Sir William H. Cope: History of the Rifle Brigade (1877).

Edward Costello: Adventures of a Soldier (1852).

A British Rifleman (Major George Simmons’ Diary), edited by Lt.-Colonel Willoughby Verner (1899).

Sir John Kincaid: Random Shots by a Rifleman.

Sir John Kincaid: Adventures in the Rifle Brigade.

Recollections of Rifleman Harris (1848).

Surtees: Twenty-five Years in the Rifle Brigade (1833).

Colonel Jonathan Leach: Rough Sketches in the Life of an Old Soldier (1831).

A Narrative of the Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans. By an Officer (1821).

Charles Dalton: The Waterloo Roll Call (1890).

George McC. Theal: History of South Africa, vol. iv. (1893).

R. Godlonton: A Narrative of the Irruption of the Kafir Hordes into the Eastern Province of the Cape of Good Hope, 1834-5 (1836).

Sir J. E. Alexander: Narrative of a Voyage, etc. (1837). This work contains in vol. ii. a history of the Kafir War of 1835, with illustrations.

H. Cloete: The Great Boer Trek.

The War in India. Despatches of Viscount Hardinge, Lord Gough, Major-General Sir Harry Smith, Bart., etc. (1846).

J. D. Cunningham: History of the Sikhs.

McGregor: History of the Sikhs.

General Sir Chas. Gough and A. D. Innes: The Sikhs and the Sikh Wars (1897).

J. W. Clark and T. McK. Hughes: Life of Adam Sedgwick.

Harriet Ward: Five Years in Kaffirland.

J. Noble: South Africa (1877).

A. Wilmot and J. C. Chase: Annals of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope (1869).

Alfred W. Cole: The Cape and the Kaffirs (1852).

W. R. King: Campaigning in Kaffirland (with illustrations), (1853).

W. A. Newman: Memoir of John Montagu (1855).

Correspondence of General Sir G. Cathcart (1856).

Earl Grey: The Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell’s Administration (1853).

Blue-Books: Cape of Good Hope (1830-1852).

M. Meille: Memoir of General Beckwith, C.B. (1873).

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

On the Cover.

Arms granted to Sir Harry Smith in 1846.

They are thus described by Sir Bernard Burke:—

Arms—Argent, on a chevron between two martlets in chief gules, and upon a mount vert in base, an elephant proper, a fleur-de-lis between two lions rampant, of the first: from the centre-chief, pendant by a riband, gules, fimbriated azure, a representation of the Waterloo medal.

Crest—Upon an Eastern crown or, a lion rampant argent, supporting a lance proper; therefrom flowing to the sinister, a pennon gules, charged with two palm-branches, in saltier, or.

The supporters are a soldier of the Rifle Brigade and a soldier of the 52nd Regiment.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

Lt.-Gen. Sir Harry Smith,

BARONET OF ALIWAL, G.C.B.

CHAPTER I.
MONTE VIDEO AND BUENOS AYRES.
1806-7.

Written in Glasgow in 1824.—H. G. Smith.

I was born in the parish of Whittlesea and county of Cambridgeshire in the year [1787]. I am one of eleven children, six sons and five daughters. Every pains was taken with my education which my father could afford, and I was taught natural philosophy, classics, algebra, and music.[5]

In 1804 the whole country was en masse collected in arms as volunteers from the expected invasion of the French, and being now sixteen years of age, I was received into the Whittlesea troop of Yeomanry Cavalry, commanded by Captain Johnson. During this year the Yeomanry in the neighbourhood patrolled through Norman Cross Barracks, where 15,000 French prisoners were kept, when the Frenchmen laughed exceedingly at the young dragoon, saying, “I say, leetel fellow, go home with your mamma; you most eat more pudding.” In the spring of 1805 the Whittlesea Yeomanry kept the ground at a review made by Brigadier-General Stewart (now Sir W. Stewart), when I was orderly to the General, who said, “Young gentleman, would you like to be an officer?” “Of all things,” was my answer. “Well, I will make you a Rifleman, a green jacket,” says the General, “and very smart.” I assure you the General kept his word, and upon the 15th [8th?] May, 1805, I was gazetted second lieutenant in the 95th Regiment Riflemen,[6] and joined at Brabourne Lees upon the 18th of August. A vacancy of lieutenant occurring for purchase, my father kindly advanced the money, and I was gazetted lieutenant the 15th September [August?], 1805. This fortunate purchase occurred when the 2nd Battalion of the corps was raising and the officers had not been appointed, by which good luck twenty-seven steps were obtained by £100.

In the summer of 1806 a detachment of three Companies was directed to proceed from the 2nd Battalion of the corps from Faversham to Portsmouth, there to embark and form part of an army about to proceed to South America under the command of Sir Samuel Auchmuty. This detachment was under the command of Major Gardner, and I was appointed Adjutant, a great honour for so young an officer.[7] The army sailed for America, touching at Plymouth, Falmouth, Peak of Teneriffe, and Rio Janeiro, at which place it stayed one week to take in water, stores, etc., and, covered by the detachment of Riflemen, landed within a few miles of Monte Video upon the 16th of January, 1807. Some skirmishing took place the whole day with the light troops of the enemy. Upon the 17th and 18th the army halted for the artillery, stores, etc., to be landed. The outposts (Riflemen) were employed both of these days.

Upon the 19th the army moved forward, and a general action took place, the result of which was most favourable to the British, and a position was taken up in the suburbs of Monte Video. Upon the 20th the garrison made a most vigorous sortie in three columns, and drove in our outposts, and a heavy and general attack lasted for near two hours, when the enemy were driven to the very walls of the place. The Riflemen were particularly distinguished on this occasion.

The siege of Monte Video was immediately commenced, and upon the morning of the 3rd of February, the breach being considered practicable, a general assault was ordered in two columns, the one upon the breach, the other an escalade. Both ultimately succeeded. Not a defence was destroyed nor a gun dismounted upon the works. The breach was only wide enough for three men to enter abreast, and when upon the top of the breach there was a descent into the city of twelve feet. Most of the men fell, and many were wounded by each other’s bayonets. When the head of the column entered the breach, the main body lost its communications or was checked by the tremendous fire. Perceiving the delay, I went back and conducted the column to the breach, when the place was immediately taken. The slaughter in the breach was enormous owing to the defence being perfect, and its not being really practicable. The surrender of this fortress put the English in the possession of this part of the country.

I was now afflicted with a most severe fever and dysentery, and owe my life to the kind attentions of a Spanish family in whose house I was billeted. My own relations could not have treated me with greater kindness. My gratitude to them can never be expressed or sufficiently appreciated.[8]

In the autumn[9] an outpost was established on the same side of the river as Monte Video, but nearly opposite to Buenos Ayres, at Colonia del Sacramento. This had formerly belonged to the Portuguese. It was situated on a neck of land, and a mud wall was carried from water to water. There were no guns up, and in one place a considerable breach. One particular night a column of Spaniards which had crossed the river from Buenos Ayres stormed this post, and were near carrying it by surprise had it not been for the valour of Scott and his guard of Riflemen, who most bravely defended the breach until the troops got under arms. The enemy were not pursued, as their numbers were not known and the night was dark. Why this breach was not repaired one cannot say, except that in those days our commanders understood little of the art of war, and sat themselves down anywhere in a state of blind security without using every means to strengthen their posts. Experience taught us better.

The enemy did not re-cross the river, but took up a position about fourteen miles from Colonia, in which Colonel Pack (afterwards Sir Denis Pack), who commanded the British force, resolved to attack them. The column consisted of three companies of Riflemen, the 40th Regiment, two 6-pounders, and three light companies. It marched upon the night of [6-7 June], and arrived in sight of the enemy at daylight in the morning. They were drawn up on an elevated piece of ground, with a narrow but deep, muddy, and miry river in their front. Their cavalry formed a right angle upon the right of their infantry and they had seven guns upon the left. The Rifle Brigade covered the troops whilst crossing the rivulet, and in about twenty minutes by a rapid advance the position was carried, the enemy leaving behind him his guns, tents, stores, etc., with a great quantity of ammunition. In the destroying of the latter poor Major Gardner and fourteen soldiers suffered most dreadfully from an explosion. Some flints had been scattered upon the field; the soldiers took the shot to break the cartridges, and thus the whole blew up. About two hundred shells also exploded. The army at a short distance lay down, and not an individual was touched. Colonel Pack, with his army, the captured guns, etc., returned to Colonia in the evening.[10]

A considerable force having arrived under General Whitelock, who took the command, the army was remodelled and embarked in August [really on the 17th of June], 1807, to attack Buenos Ayres. The post of Colonia was abandoned, and the three companies of the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade were embodied with five of the 1st just arrived from England, and I was appointed adjutant of the whole under the command of Major McLeod. The army landed upon [28 June], and was divided into two columns, the one consisting of the light troops under General Craufurd, and of a heavy brigade, the whole under Major-General Leveson-Gower. [Some uncomplimentary epithets are here omitted.] His column was one day in advance of the main body commanded by General Whitelock in person. His orders were to march up to the enemy’s outposts and take up a position. In place of obeying his orders, General Leveson-Gower immediately attacked the enemy in the suburbs of Buenos Ayres, and drove them in with great loss, leaving their cannon behind them. Having thus committed himself, in lieu of following up the advantage he had gained and pushing forward into Buenos Ayres, which would have immediately surrendered, he halted his column and took up a position. The enemy recovered from his panic, and with the utmost vigour turned to and fortified the entrances of all the streets. (Buenos Ayres is perfectly open on the land side, but has a citadel of some strength within the town and upon the river. The houses are all flat-roofed, with a parapet of about three feet high.) The day after the affair alluded to, General Whitelock with his column arrived. The next day he reconnoitred the enemy, drove in their outposts, and partially invested the city. Some very heavy skirmishing took place in the enclosures, the fences consisting of aloe hedges, very difficult to get through, but making excellent breastworks. The Rifle Corps particularly distinguished themselves.

Upon the [5 July] the whole army attacked in four columns. The men were ordered to advance without flints in their musquets, and crowbars, axes, etc., were provided at the head of the column to break open the doors, which were most strongly barricaded. It must be stated that the streets of Buenos Ayres run at right angles from each other. Each street was cut off by a ditch and a battery behind it. Thus the troops were exposed to a cross fire. The tops of the houses were occupied by troops, and such a tremendous fire was produced of grape, canister, and musquetry, that in a short time two columns were nearly annihilated without effecting any impression. The column I belonged to, under Brigadier-General Craufurd, after severe loss, took refuge in a church, and about dusk in the evening surrendered to the enemy. Thus terminated one of the most sanguinary conflicts Britons were ever engaged in, and all owing to the stupidity of the General-in-chief and General Leveson-Gower. Liniers, a Frenchman by birth, who commanded, treated us prisoners tolerably well, but he had little to give us to eat, his citadel not being provisioned for a siege. We were three or four days in his hands, when, in consequence of the disgraceful convention entered into by General Whitelock, who agreed within two months to evacuate the territory altogether and to give up the fortress of Monte Video, we were released. The army re-embarked with all dispatch and sailed to Monte Video. Our wounded suffered dreadfully, many dying from slight wounds in the extremity of lockjaw.

The division of troops I belonged to sailed upon [12 July], under the command of Brigadier-General Lumley. I confess I parted from the kind Spanish family, who during my illness had treated me with such paternal kindness, with feelings of the deepest sorrow and most lively gratitude. The old lady offered me her daughter in marriage and $20,000, with as many thousand oxen as I wished, and she would build me a house in the country upon any plan I chose to devise.

Now that I am brought to leave the fertile plains of the Plate, let me make some little mention of its climate, soil, and productions. Its summer is, of course, in January; during this time it is very hot. Still you have a sea breeze and a land breeze, which is very refreshing. During the rainy seasons the weather is very tempestuous. The climate altogether is, however, most mild and salubrious. Corn of all descriptions grows with the least possible care. The fertile grass plains are immense. The country is not a dead flat, but undulated like the great Atlantic a few days after a gale of wind. Upon these plains thousands of oxen and horses are grazing; they are so thick that were an individual ever entangled amongst them he would be lost as in a wood. These animals are, however, all the property of individuals, and not wild as supposed, and each horse and ox is branded. You could buy a most excellent horse for two dollars (I gave ten for one, he being very handsome, which was a price unheard of before), a cow and calf one dollar, a pair of draft oxen five (they are thus dear in consequence of being trained). The country abounds in all sorts of wild fowl and innumerable wild dogs, which nature must have provided to eat the carcases of the slaughtered cattle, many of which are killed merely for their hides, a few of the prime pieces alone being made use of for food. The marrow is usually also taken and rendered into bladders, with which they cook everything, using it, in short, as we use butter, which makes their dishes very palatable. The native inhabitants, called “peons,” or labourers, are a very superior race of men, almost Patagonians, are beautiful horsemen, and have a peculiar art of catching horses and oxen by what is termed the “lasso.” This is a leathern thong of about thirty feet resembling the lash of a hunting-whip. An iron ring is at one end, through which the other end is passed, by which means a noose is formed; the end is then fastened to the girths of the horse. The lasso is collected in the man’s hand, he swings it circularly round his head, and when the opportunity offers, he throws it over the head of the animal he wishes to catch. He is sure of his aim; the noose draws tight round the animal’s throat, and he is of course choked, and down he drops.

In killing bullocks they are very dexterous. The moment the bullock finds himself caught he begins to gallop round; the end being fast to the saddle, the horse turns gradually round so that he is not entangled. A second peon with his lasso gallops after the bullock, and throws his lasso round the hind leg above the hough and rides in a contrary direction to the other horseman, consequently the bullock is stretched between the two horses. The riders jump off and plunge their knives into the bullock, and other persons are employed to dress it, etc.

The fleet separated in a gale of wind off the Azores. During this gale the transport I was in carried away its rudder. Our captain had kept so bad a reckoning we ran four hundred miles after he expected to make the Lizard. In the chops of the Channel we fell in with the Swallow, sloop of war, to whom we made a signal of distress, and she towed us into Falmouth Harbour [5 Nov.]. It blew the most tremendous gale of wind that night. A transport with the 9th Dragoons aboard was wrecked near the Lizard, and this would inevitably have been our fate had we not been towed in by the sloop of war. The rudder was repaired, we were driven into Plymouth, and in the middle of December anchored at Spithead, where we delighted to have arrived. However, to our great mortification, we were ordered to the Downs, there to disembark.

I obtained leave of absence, and was soon in the arms of a most affectionate family, who dearly loved me. My mother’s delight I shall never forget. There are feelings we possess in our youth which cannot be described. I was then only nineteen. My brothers and sisters were all well, and every moment called to my recollection some incident of juvenile delight and affection.

CHAPTER II.
WITH SIR JOHN MOORE—BATTLE OF CORUÑA. 1808-9.

I stayed in this happy land of my sires for two months, when I was ordered to join. The Regiment was then quartered at Colchester. Although there were many subalterns present who were senior to me, I had given to me, for my exertions abroad as Adjutant, the command of a Company. This was the act of my kind and valued friend Colonel Beckwith, whom I shall have occasion frequently to mention in these memoirs, but never without feelings of affection and gratitude. The Company was in very bad order when I received it, which Colonel Beckwith told me was the reason he gave it me. I now procured a commission for my brother Tom, who was gazetted over the heads of several other candidates.

In the summer [spring] of 1808 10,000 men were ordered to Sweden under the command of Sir J. Moore. Three Companies of the Rifle Brigade under Major Gilmour were to form part of the expedition. By dint of great exertion I was appointed Adjutant to this detachment. We marched to Harwich to embark. When the fleet was collected, we anchored a few days in Yarmouth roads. The fleet arrived at Gottenburgh [on 7 May], blowing a heavy gale of wind. The harbour of this place is most beautiful. The army never landed, but the men were drilled, embarking and disembarking in flat-bottomed boats. I jumped against three regiments, 95th, 43rd, and 52nd, and beat them by four inches, having leaped 19 feet and 4 inches.

Commenced at Simla, Himalayas, 11th Aug. 1844—H.G.S.

At this period Napoleon announced his unjust invasion of Spain, and Sir John Moore’s army was ordered to sail and unite with the forces collecting on the coast of Portugal for the purpose of expelling Junot’s army from Lisbon. On approaching the mouth of the Mondego, a frigate met us to say Sir Arthur Wellesley’s army had landed in Mondego and pushed forward, and that Sir John Moore was to sail for Peniche, and there land on arrival. The battle of Vimiera had been fought [21 Aug. 1808], and the Convention was in progress. Sir John Moore’s army landed one or two days after the battle and took the outposts. The three Companies to which I was Adjutant joined Colonel Beckwith and the headquarters of the Regiment, and I was appointed to Captain O’Hare’s Company (subalterns Smith, W. Eeles, Eaton).

After the embarcation of the French army, an army was formed under Sir John Moore for the aid of the Spaniards, and it moved on the frontier of Alemtejo.

The 95th were quartered in Villa Viciosa, in an elegant palace. I occupied a beautiful little room with a private staircase, called the Hall of Justice. I was sent by Sir Edward Paget to examine the fort Xuramenha and report upon it, the fords of the Guadiana, etc., near the important fortress of Badajos.

In the autumn of this year (1808), Sir John Moore’s army moved on Salamanca. As I could speak Spanish, I was employed by Colonel Beckwith to precede the Regiment daily to aid the Quartermaster in procuring billets and rations in the different towns, and various were the adventures I met with. The army was assembled at Salamanca, and never did England assemble such a body of organized and elegant troops as that army of Sir John Moore, destined to cover itself with glory, disgrace, victory, and misfortune. The whole of this campaign is too ably recorded by Napier for me to dwell on. I shall only say that never did corps so distinguish itself during the whole of this retreat as my dear old Rifles. From the severe attack on our rear-guard at Calcavellos [3 Jan. 1809], where I was particularly distinguished, until the battle of Coruña, we were daily engaged with a most vigorous and pushing enemy, making most terrific long marches (one day 37 miles). The fire of the Riflemen ever prevented the column being molested by the enemy; but the scenes of drunkenness, riot, and disorder we Reserve Division witnessed on the part of the rest of the army are not to be described; it was truly awful and heartrending to see that army which had been so brilliant at Salamanca so totally disorganized, with the exception of the reserve under the revered Paget and the Brigade of Guards. The cavalry were nearly all dismounted, the whole a mass of fugitives and insubordinates; yet these very fellows licked the French at Coruña like men [16 Jan.]. The army embarked the following day. I shall never forget the explosion of a fortress blown up by us—the report cannot be imagined. Oh, the filthy state we were all in! We lost our baggage at Calcavellos; for three weeks we had no clothes but those on our backs; we were literally covered and almost eaten up with vermin, most of us suffering from ague and dysentery, every man a living still active skeleton. On embarcation many fell asleep in their ships and never awoke for three days and nights, until in a gale we reached Portsmouth [21 Jan.]. I was so reduced that Colonel Beckwith, with a warmth of heart equalling the thunder of his voice, on meeting me in the George Inn, roared out, “Who the devil’s ghost are you? Pack up your kit—which is soon done, the devil a thing have you got—take a place in the coach, and set off home to your father’s. I shall soon want again such fellows as you, and I will arrange your leave of absence!” I soon took the hint, and naked and slothful and covered with vermin I reached my dear native home, where the kindest of fathers and most affectionate of mothers soon restored me to health. [11]

CHAPTER III.
BACK TO THE PENINSULA UNDER SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY. 1809.

In two months I rejoined the Regiment at Hythe. From Hythe we marched for Dover, where we embarked for Lisbon [25 May] to join the Duke’s[12] army. Having landed at Lisbon, we commenced our march for Talavera. On this march—a very long one—General Craufurd compiled his orders for the march of his Brigade, consisting of the 43rd, 52nd, and 95th, each upwards of 1000 strong. These orders he enforced with rigour (as it seemed at the moment), but he was in this way the means of establishing the organization and discipline of that corps which acquired for it its after-celebrity as the “Light Division.”

We had some long, harassing, and excessively hot marches. In the last twenty-eight hours we marched from Oropesa to Talavera, a distance of fourteen Spanish leagues (56 miles), our soldiers carrying their heavy packs, the Riflemen eighty rounds of ammunition. But the battle of Talavera was thundering in our ears, and created a spirit in the Brigade which cast away all idea of fatigue. We reached the sanguinary field at daylight after the battle [29 July], greeted as if we were demi-gods by all the gallant heroes who had gained such a victory. We took up the outposts immediately, and some of us Riflemen sustained some heavy skirmishing. The field was literally covered with dead and dying. The bodies began to putrefy, and the stench was horrible, so that an attempt was made to collect the bodies and burn them. Then, however, came a stench which literally affected many to sickness. The soldiers were not satisfied with this mode of treating the bodies of their dead comrades, and the prosecution of the attempt was relinquished. After our stay at Talavera [29 July-3 Aug.], during which we were nearly starved, the army commenced its retreat, passing the bridge of Arzobispo in the most correct and soldier-like manner, our Brigade forming the rear-guard. The army retired on Deleytosa, the Light Brigade remaining in a position so as to watch the bridge of Almaraz. Here for three weeks we were nearly starved [6 Aug.-20 Aug.], and our position received the name of Doby Hill.[13] We marched every evening and bivouacked so as to occupy the passage of the Tagus, and at daylight returned to our hill. Honey was plentiful, but it gave dysentery. My mess—Leach’s Company (Leach, Smith, Layton, and Bob Beckwith)—were not as badly off as our neighbours. We had a few dollars, and as I could speak Spanish, I rode into the lines of the Spanish troops, where I could always purchase some loaves of bread at a most exorbitant price. With this and some horrid starved goats we lived tolerably for soldiers in hard times. The army retired into quarters—the headquarters to Badajos, our Division (which had added to it Sir Rufane Donkin’s Brigade, the 45th, 87th, and 88th Regiments) to Campo Mayor [11 Sept.], where sickness and mortality commenced to an awful extent. On our reaching the frontier of Portugal, Castello de Vidi, wine was plentiful, and every man that evening had his skin full.

During the period we were at Campo Mayor [11 Sept.-12 Dec.], the Hon. Captain James Stewart and I got some excellent greyhounds. We were always out coursing or shooting, and were never sick a day; our more sedentary comrades many of them distressingly so. The seven right-hand men of Leslie’s Company died in the winter of this year.

While at Campo Mayor the convalescents of my Light Brigade were ordered to our old fortress, called Onguala, on the immediate frontier of Portugal, and opposite to Abuchucha, the frontier of Spain. They consisted of forty or fifty weakly men. I was first for Brigade duty, and I was sent in command, with a Lieut. Rentall of the 52nd Regiment and my brother Tom, who was sick. I knew this country well, for we had had some grand battues there, and shot red deer and wild boars. So soon, therefore, as I was installed in my command, lots of comrades used to come from Campo Mayor to breakfast with me and shoot all day. On one occasion Jack Molloy, Considine, and several fellows came, and while out we fell into the bivouac of a set of banditti and smugglers. We hallooed and bellowed as if an army were near us. The bandits jumped on their horses and left lots of corn-sacks, etc., in our hands; but on discovering our numbers, and that we fired no balls (for we had only some Rifle buttons pulled off my jacket), being well armed, they soon made us retreat. This, after my friends returned to Campo Mayor, so disconcerted me that I made inquiry about these same rascals, and ascertained there were a body of about twenty under a Catalan, the terror of the country. I immediately sent for my sergeant (a soldier in every sense of the word) to see how many of our convalescents he could pick out who could march at all. He soon returned. He himself and ten men, myself, Rentall, and my sick brother Tom (who would go) composed my army. I got a guide, and ascertained that there were several haunts of these bandits; so off I started. We moved on a small chapel (many of which lone spots there are in all Roman Catholic countries), at which there was a large stable. On approaching we heard a shot fired, then a great and lawless shouting, which intimated to us our friends of the morning were near at hand. So Pat Nann and I crept on to peep about. We discovered the fellows were all inside a long stable, with a railed gate shut, and a regular sentry with his arms in his hand. They were all about and had lights, and one very dandy-looking fellow with a smart dagger was cutting tobacco to make a cigar. Pat and I returned to our party and made a disposition of attack, previously ascertaining if the stable had a back door, which it had not. I then fell in our men very silently, Mr. Rentall being much opposed to our attack, at which my brother Tom blew him up in no bad style of whispering abuse, and our men went for the gate. The sentry soon discovered us and let fly, but hit no one. The gate was fast and resisted two attempts to force it, but so amazed were the bandits, they [never] attempted to get away their horses, although their arms were regularly piled against the supports of the roof of the stable, and we took twelve banditti with their captain, a fine handsome fellow, horses, etc. His dagger I sent to my dear father. I sent my prisoners on the next day to Campo Mayor, galloping ahead myself, in an awful funk lest General Craufurd should blow me up. However, I got great credit for my achievement in thus ridding the neighbourhood of a nest of robbers; and the captain and five of his men (being Spaniards) were sent to Badajos and sentenced to the galleys for life, being recognized as old offenders. The remainder received a lesser punishment. My men got forty Spanish dollars each prize money, the amount I sold the horses for. I bought for forty dollars the captain’s capital horse. The men wanted me to keep him as my share, but I would not. Dr. Robb, our surgeon, gave sixty Spanish dollars for a black mare. Thus ended the Battle of the Bandits.

CHAPTER IV.
CAMPAIGN OF 1810—THE 1ST GERMAN HUSSARS.

In the winter of this year [12 Dec. 1809] we marched towards the northern frontier of Portugal. We marched towards Almeida, and were cantoned in villages to its rear—Alameda, Villa de Lobos, Fequenas, not far from the Douro. Here too was good shooting and coursing; but I was not permitted to be idle. We moved into Spain [19 Mar. 1810], and at Barba del Puerco had a most brilliant night attack, in which Colonel Beckwith greatly distinguished himself.

At Villa de Ciervo a detachment of one sergeant and twelve Hussars (1st German) were given me by General Craufurd to go right in among the French army, which had moved on Ciudad Rodrigo and then retired. Many are the hairbreadth escapes my Hussars and I had, for we were very daring; we were never two nights in the same place. One night at Villa de Ciervo, where we were watching a ford over the Agueda, two of my vedettes (two Poles elegantly mounted) deserted to the enemy. The old sergeant, a noble soldier, came to me in great distress. “O mein Gott, upstand and jump up your horse; she will surely be here directly!” I was half asleep, with my horse’s reins in my hand, and roared out, “Who the devil is she?” “The Franzosen, mein Herr. Two d——d schelms have deserted.” So we fell back to the rear of the village, sitting on our horses the remainder of the night, every moment expecting the weakness of our party would cause an attempt to cut us off. At daylight we saw fifty French dragoons wending their way on the opposite bank to the ford. I immediately got hold of the padre and alcalde (priest and magistrate), and made them collect a hundred villagers and make them shoulder the long sticks with which they drive their bullock-carts and ploughs, which of course at a distance would resemble bayonets. These villagers I stationed in two parties behind two hills, so that the “bayonets” alone could be seen by the enemy. Then with my sergeant and ten Hussars (two having deserted) I proceeded to meet the enemy, first riding backwards and forwards behind a hill to deceive him as to my numbers. The French sent over the river about half their number. I immediately galloped up to them in the boldest manner, and skirmished advancing. The enemy were deceived and rapidly retired, and I saved the village from an unmerciful ransacking, to the joy of all the poor people.

At this period General Craufurd had officers at two or three of the most advanced vedettes where there were beacons, who had orders to watch the enemy with their telescopes, and, in case of any movement, to report or fire the beacon. I was on this duty in rather a remote spot on the extreme left of our posts. The vedette was from the 1st Hussar picquet. These men would often observe a patrol or body of the enemy with the naked eye which was barely discernible through a telescope, so practised were they and watchful. Towards the evening my servant ought to have arrived with my dinner (for we officers of the look-out could take nothing with us but our horse and our telescope), but he must have missed his way, and as my appetite was sharpened by a day’s look-out, I began to look back, contrary to the vedette’s idea of due vigilance. He asks, “What for Mynheer so much look to de rear?” I, sad at the fast, “Hussar, you are relieved every two hours. I have been here since daylight. I am confounded hungry, and am looking out for my servant and my dinner.” “Poor yonge mans! but ’tis notings.” “Not to you,” said I, “but much to me.” “You shall see, sir. I shall come off my horse, you shall up clim, or de French shall come if he see not de vedette all right.” Knowing the provident habits of these Germans, I suspected what he was about. Off he got; up get I en vedette. With the greatest celerity, he unbuckled his valise from behind his saddle, and took out a piece of bacon (I had kept up a little fire from the sticks and bushes around me), from a cloth some ground coffee and sugar, from his haversack some biscuit, and spread on the ground a clean towel with knife, fork, and a little tin cup. He had water in his canteen—his cooking-tin. He made me a cup of coffee, sliced some bacon, broiled it in the embers, and in ten minutes coffee, bacon, biscuit were ready and looked as clean as if in a London tavern. He then says, “Come off.” Up he mounts, saying, “Can eat. All you sall vant is de schnaps.” I fell to, and never relished any meal half so much; appetite was perfect, and the ingenious, quick and provident care of the Hussar added another to the many instances I had witnessed of this regiment to make them be regarded, as indeed they were, as exemplary soldiers for our emulation.

My servant soon after arrived. The contents of his haversack I transferred to my kind friend the Hussar’s, and half the bottle of wine, on which the Hussar remarked, “Ah, dat is good; the schnaps make nice;” and my servant put up his valise again for him. I was highly amused to observe the momentary glances the Hussar cast on me and my meal, for no rat-catcher’s dog at a sink-hole kept a sharper look-out to his front than did this vedette. In the whole course of my service I never was more amused, and nothing could be more disinterested than the Hussar’s conduct, which I never forgot.

CHAPTER V.
CAMPAIGN OF 1810—BATTLE OF THE COA.

Soon after this the French invested Ciudad Rodrigo, and regularly commenced the siege. The Light Division (into which fell the three regiments 43rd, 52nd, and two Battalions of Rifles, 1st and 3rd Portuguese Caçadores, the latter under Elder, a most brilliant Rifle officer), 1st Hussars, 14th Light Dragoons, 16th Light Dragoons occupied Gallegos, Exejo, etc., our advanced post being at Marialva, on the road to Ciudad Rodrigo. During the whole siege our alerts were innumerable, and at Marialva we had several very smart skirmishes, but so able were Craufurd’s dispositions, we never lost even a vedette.

The French were in the habit of patrolling over the Agueda with cavalry and infantry, about 30 Dragoons and 200 foot. General Craufurd determined to intercept one of these patrols [10 July], and [moved out with] the cavalry, 1st Hussars, 14th and 16th Light Dragoons, and Light Division. It may now be asked, Was it necessary to take out such a force to intercept so small a party? Certainly. Because the enemy might have crossed the Agueda to support the patrols. We were all moved to where directed, the infantry were halted, some of the cavalry moved on. At grey daylight the patrols of the enemy appeared, their Dragoons some way in advance of the infantry. The patrol was very incautiously conducted (not like our 1st Hussars), and the Dragoons were taken in a moment. The infantry speedily retired to an eminence above the ford and formed square. Craufurd ordered them to be attacked by the cavalry, and several right good charges were made; but the French were steady, the dead horses in their front became a defence, and our cavalry never made the slightest impression. Craufurd never moved one of us. The charges of cavalry ceased for a few seconds—the fields around were high-standing corn. The gallant fellow in command gave the word, “Sauve qui peut.” In a moment all dispersed, ran through the standing corn down to the banks of the river, and were saved without the loss of a man. The officer was promoted on his arrival in his camp.

Our loss was very considerable. Poor Colonel Talbot of the 14th (commanding) killed, and a lot of men. I and Stewart, Adjutant of the Rifle Brigade, asked leave to go ahead, and we saw it all. Indeed, it was in sight of the whole division. Had two Companies of ours only been moved to threaten the ford, the enemy would have laid down their arms. Such a piece of soldiering as that morning presented the annals of war cannot produce.[14]

While we were at a village called Valde Mula, in the neighbourhood of Fort Concepcion, that most perfect little work was blown up [21 July]. It was the neatest fortification I ever saw (except the Moro in the Havana subsequently), and the masonry was beautifully executed.

After the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo, which made a brilliant defence, our advanced line fell back to the Dos Casas, and in front of Alameda we had a brilliant affair with the French, in which Krauchenberg 1st Hussars and McDonald Royal Artillery greatly distinguished themselves. The 3rd Caçadores were this day first under fire, and behaved nobly. After this our advanced posts were retired behind the Dos Casas to cover Almeida. While Massena prepared his army to invade Portugal and besiege Almeida, we were daily on the alert and had frequent skirmishes. General Craufurd, too, by a variety of ruses frequently made the whole French army turn out.

In the early morning of the 24th of July (I was on picquet with Leach and my Company that night) the enemy moved forward with 40,000 men. Our force, one Brigade of Horse Artillery, three Regiments of cavalry, five of infantry, were ordered by the Duke to remain as long as possible on the right bank of the Coa, where there was a bridge over the river on the road from Almeida into Portugal to Celerico and Pinhel, posting ourselves between the fortress and the bridge, so as to pass over so soon as the enemy advanced in force. In place of doing this, Craufurd took up a position to our right of Almeida, and but for Colonel Beckwith our whole force would have been sacrificed. Fortunately a heavy rain had fallen, which made the Coa impassable except by the bridge, which was in our possession, and the enemy concentrated his force in one rush for the bridge [24 July].

During the Peninsular War there never was a more severe contest. The 43rd lost 17 officers and 150 men, my Regiment 10 officers and 140 men. When we passed the bridge my section was the rear-guard of the whole, and in a rush to drive back the enemy (with whom we were frequently absolutely mixed), my brother Tom and I were both severely wounded, and a Major Macleod, a noble fellow, afterwards killed at Badajos, put me on his horse, or I should have been taken. The enemy made several attempts to cross, but old Alister Cameron, Captain in the Rifle Brigade, had posted his Company in a ruined house which commanded the bridge, and mainly contributed to prevent the passage of the enemy, who made some brilliant attempts. The bridge was literally piled with their dead and they made breastworks of the bodies. On this day, on going to the rear wounded, I first made the acquaintance of my dear friend Will Havelock,[15] afterwards my whipper-in, who was joining the 43rd fresh from England, with smart chako and jacket. I had a ball lodged in my ankle-joint, a most painful wound. We were sent to Pinhel, where the 3rd Division was seven leagues from the action, the nearest support (?). Sir Thomas Picton treated us wounded en princes.

The wounded were ordered to the rear, so as to embark on the Mondego at Pinhel. In collecting transport for the wounded, a sedan chair between two mules was brought, the property of some gentleman in the neighbourhood, and, fortunately for me, I was the only person who could ride in it, and by laying my leg on the one seat and sitting on the other, I rode comparatively easy to the poor fellows in the wretched bullock-cars, who suffered excruciating agony, poor brother Tom (who was very severely wounded above the knee) among the rest. This little story will show what wild fellows we were in those days. George Simmons’ (1st Rifles) bullocks at one stage had run away. As I was the spokesman, the surgeon in charge came to me in great distress. I sent for the village magistrate, and actually fixed a rope in my room to hang him if he did not get a pair of bullocks (if the Duke of W. had known he would have hung me). However, the bullocks were got, and off we started. The bullocks were not broken, and they ran away with poor George and nearly jolted him to death, for he was awfully wounded through the thick of the thigh. However, we all got down to Pinhel [31 July], and thence descended the Mondego by boats, landing every night. At one house a landlord was most insolent to us, and Lieut. Pratt of the Rifles, shot through the neck, got very angry. The carotid artery must have been wounded, for it burst out in a torrent of blood, and he was dead in a few seconds, to our horror, for he was a most excellent fellow. On the same bed with me was a Captain Hull of the 43rd Regiment with a similar wound. I never saw any man in such a funk.

On our reaching the mouth of the Mondego, we were put on board a transport. In the ship with me was a stout little officer, 14th Light Dragoons, severely wounded, whose thigh afterwards disgorged a French 6-lb. shot. On arrival in Lisbon [7 Aug.] we were billeted in Buenos Ayres, poor Tom and I in awful agony in our miserable empty house. However, we got books, and I, although suffering, got on well enough. But poor Tom’s leg was in such an awful state he was sent home. George Simmons’s wound healed.[16] My ball was lodged on my ankle-joint, having partially divided the tendo Achillis. However, we heard of the army having retired into the celebrated lines of Torres Vedras, and nothing would serve us but join the Regiment. So our medical heroes very unwillingly sent us off to Belem, the convalescent department under Colonel Tucker, 29th Regiment, a sharp fellow enough. When I, George Simmons, and Charlie Eeles, 3rd Battalion, just arrived sick from Cadiz, waited on him to express our desire to join, he said, “Oh, certainly; but you must be posted to do duty with convalescents going up the country.” I was lame and could not walk. George Simmons cantered on crutches, and Charlie Eeles was very sick. However, go or no go, and so we were posted to 600 villains of every Regiment in the army under a long Major Ironmonger of the 88th (afterwards of Almeida celebrity, when the garrison escaped). We marched in a day [7 Oct.]. On the first day’s march he pretended to faint. George Simmons, educated a surgeon, literally threw a bucket of water over him.[17] He recovered the faint, but not the desire to return; and the devil would have it, the command devolved on me, a subaltern, for whom the soldiers of other corps have no great respect, and such a task I never had as to keep these six hundred rascals together. However, I had a capital English horse, good at riding over an insubordinate fellow, and a voice like thunder. The first bivouac I came to was the Guards (these men were very orderly). The commanding officer had a cottage. I reported myself. It was raining like the devil. He put his head out of the window, and I said, “Sir, I have 150 men of your Regiment convalescent from Belem.” “Oh, send for the Sergeant-major,” he very quietly said;—no “walk in out of the rain.” So I roared out, “We Light Division men don’t do duty with Sergeant-majors, nor are we told to wait. There are your men, every one—the only well-conducted men in 600 under my charge—and these are their accounts!” throwing down a bundle of papers, and off I galloped, to the Household man’s astonishment. That day I delivered over, or sent by officers under me, all the vagabonds I had left. Some of my own men and I reached our corps that night at Arruda, when old Sydney Beckwith, dear Colonel, said, “You are a mad fool of a boy, coming here with a ball in your leg. Can you dance?” “No,” says I; “I can hardly walk but with my toe turned out.” “Can you be my A.D.C.?” “Yes; I can ride and eat,” I said, at which he laughed, and was kind as a brother; as was my dear friend Stewart, or Rutu, as we called him, his Brigade Major, the actual Adjutant of the Regiment.

That very night General Craufurd sent for me, and said, “You have come from Sobral, have you not, to-day, and know the road?” I said, “Yesterday.” “Well, get your horse and take this letter to the Duke for me when it is ready.” I did not like the job, but said nothing about balls or pains, which were bad enough. He kept me waiting about an hour, and then said, “You need wait no longer; the letter won’t be ready for some time, and my orderly dragoon shall take it. Is the road difficult to find?” I said, “No; if he keeps the chaussée, he can’t miss it.” The poor dragoon fell in with the French patrol, and was taken prisoner. When the poor fellow’s fate was known, how Colonel Beckwith did laugh at my escape!

At Arruda we marched every day at daylight into position in the hills behind us, and by the ability of Craufurd they were made impregnable. The whole Division was at work. As Colonel Beckwith and I were standing in the camp one day, it came on to rain, and we saw a Rifleman rolling down a wine-cask, apparently empty, from a house near. He deliberately knocked in one of the heads; then—for it was on the side of a rapidly shelving hill—propped it up with stones, and crept in out of the rain. Colonel Beckwith says, “Oh, look at the lazy fellow; he has not half supported it. When he falls asleep, if he turns round, down it will come.” Our curiosity was excited, and our time anything but occupied, so we watched our friend, when in about twenty minutes the cask with the man inside came rolling down the hill. He must have rolled over twenty times at least before the rapidity disengaged him from his round-house, and even afterwards, such was the impetus, he rolled over several times. To refrain from laughing excessively was impossible, though we really thought the noble fellow must be hurt, when up he jumped, looked round, and said “I never had any affection for an empty wine-cask, and may the devil take me if ever I go near another—to be whirled round like a water-mill in this manner!” The fellow was in a violent John Bull passion, while we were nearly killed with laughing.

When Massena retired, an order came to the Light Division to move on De Litte, and to Lord Hill to do the same on our right at [Vallada?]. This dispatch I was doomed to carry. It was one of the utmost importance, and required a gallop. By Jove, I had ten miles to go just before dark, and when I got to Colborne’s position, who had a Brigade under Lord Hill, a mouse could not get through his works. (Colborne was afterwards my Brigadier in the Light Division, and is now Lord Seaton.) Such a job I never had. I could not go in front of the works—the French had not retired; so some works I leaped into, and led my noble English horse into others. At last I got to Lord Hill, and he marched immediately, night as it was. How I got back to my Division through the night I hardly know, but horse and rider were both done. The spectacle of hundreds of miserable wretches of French soldiers on the road in a state of starvation is not to be described.

We moved viâ Caccas to Vallé on the [Rio Mayor], where our Division were opposite Santarem. The next day [20 Nov.] the Duke came up and ordered our Division to attack Santarem, which was bristling on our right with abattis, three or four lines. We felt the difficulty of carrying such heights, but towards the afternoon we moved on. On the Duke’s staff there was a difference of opinion as to the number of the enemy, whether one corps d’armée or two. The Duke, who knew perfectly well there were two, and our move was only a reconnaissance, turned to Colonel Beckwith. “Beckwith, my Staff are disputing whether at Santarem there is one corps d’armée or two?” “I’ll be d——d if I know, my Lord, but you may depend on it, a great number were required to make those abattis in one night.” Lord Wellington laughed, and said, “You are right, Beckwith; there are two corps d’armée.”[18] The enemy soon showed themselves. The Duke, as was his wont, satisfied himself by ocular demonstration, and the Division returned to its bivouac. Whilst here, Colonel Beckwith was seized with a violent attack of ague.

Our outposts were perfectly quiet, although sentries, French and English, were at each end of the bridge over the Rio Mayor, and vedettes along each bank. There was most excellent coursing on the plains of Vallé, and James Stewart and I were frequently out. Here I gave him my celebrated Spanish greyhound, Moro, the best the world ever produced, with a pedigree like that of an Arab horse, bred at Zamora by the Conde de Monteron; but the noble dog’s story is too long to tell here. In one year Stewart gave me him back again to run a match against the Duke of Wellington’s dog. But the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo prevented our sports of that description. Colonel Beckwith going to Lisbon, and I being his A.D.C., it was voted a capital opportunity for me to go to have the ball cut out from under the tendon Achillis, in the very joint. I was very lame, and the pain often excruciating, so off I cut.

Soon after we reached Lisbon, I was ordered to Buenos Ayres to be near the surgeons. A board was held consisting of the celebrated Staff Surgeon Morell, who had attended me before, Higgins, and Brownrigg. They examined my leg. I was all for the operation. Morell and Higgins recommended me to remain with a stiff leg of my own as better than a wooden one, for the wounds in Lisbon of late had sloughed so, they were dubious of the result. Brownrigg said, “If it were my leg, out should come the ball.” On which I roared out, “Hurrah, Brownrigg, you are the doctor for me.” So Morell says, “Very well, if you are desirous, we will do it directly.” My pluck was somewhat cooled, but I cocked up my leg, and said, “There it is; slash away.” It was five minutes, most painful indeed, before it was extracted. The ball was jagged, and the tendonous fibres had so grown into it, it was half dissected and half torn out, with most excruciating torture for a moment, the forceps breaking which had hold of the ball. George Simmons was present, whose wound had broken out and obliged him to go to Lisbon.[19] The surgeon wanted some linen during the operation, so I said, “George, tear a shirt,” which my servant gave him. He turned it about, said, “No, it is a pity; it is a good shirt;” at which I did not —— him a few, for my leg was aching and smoking from a wound four or five inches long. Thank God Almighty and a light heart, no sloughing occurred, and before the wound was healed I was with the regiment. Colonel Beckwith’s ague was cured, and he had joined his Brigade before I could move, so when I returned to Vallé he was delighted to see his A.D.C.

CHAPTER VI.
CAMPAIGN OF 1811.

I found the army in hourly expectation to move, and the Captain of my Company—Leach—was gone sick to the rear, so I said to my Colonel, “I must be no longer A.D.C., sir. However grateful I am, my Company wants me.” “Ah, now you can walk a little, you leave me! Go and be d——d to you; but I love you for the desire.” Off I started, and the very next day we marched [6 Mar. 1811], Massena retreating out of Portugal, and many is the skirmish we had. My leg was so painful, the wound open, and I was so lame. When others could lie down I was on horseback, on a dear little Spanish horse given me by James Stewart, afterwards an animal of still greater renown.

At Pombala I had with my Company a very heavy skirmish [11 Mar.]. At Redinha my Company was in the advance [12 Mar.], supported by Captain O’Hare’s. A wood on our front and right was full of Frenchmen. The Light Companies of the 3rd Division came up. I asked, “Are you going to attack that wood?” A Captain of the 88th Light Company, whom I knew, quite laughed at my question. I said very quietly, “You will be beat back, and when you are, I will move on the edge of the wood and help you.” How he laughed! My prediction was very soon verified: he was wounded, and picked up by my Company, which I moved on the right flank of the French and stopped them immediately. I sent to my support, O’Hare, to move up to me. The obstinate old Turk would not, and so I was obliged to come back, and had most unnecessarily five or six men wounded.

The Plain of Redinha is a fine field for military display, and our lines formed to attack Ney’s rearguard were magnificent. The enemy had many guns in the field, with prolonged lines, an excellent mode for retreat on such ground, and no rearguard was ever drawn off in more masterly style, while I thought our attack in lines was heavy, slow, and not half so destructive as a rush of many contiguous columns would have been. The enemy had to retire over a bridge through the village of Redinha, and we Riflemen sorely pressed them on their left. A line of French infantry, concealed behind an atalaya (or tower) on a hill good for the purpose, were lying down as my Company and the one commanded by that wonderful Rifleman, Willie Johnstone, got within twenty yards of them. To our astonishment, up jumped the line, fired a volley (they did not hit a man), and went about. At them we all went like devils, a regular foot race, except for me and my little horse Tiny, from which I could not dismount. In the pursuit he carried me down a rock twelve feet high, and Johnstone and I got to the bridge and cut off half a Battalion of French. So many Legions of Honour I scarcely ever saw in a group, but the eagle was off! We never told what we had done, though we enjoyed the fun, but it is an anecdote worthy of record in Napier’s History.

We were engaged with the enemy every day. The next turn up was at Condesia [Condeixa]; the next at Casal Nova [14 Mar.], where we had as heavy a skirmishing fight as ever occurred. We Light Division gentlemen had our full complement of fighting, for the French were obliged to hold a village to give their column time to retire, and if the Duke’s orders had been obeyed, our Division ought not to have attacked until the 3rd and 4th Divisions were well up on the Frenchmen’s left. I lost several men that day, as did all our Companies, and particularly the 52nd. Poor Major Jack Stewart,[20] a dear little fellow, a friend of mine, was shot through the lungs and died in three days, (Beckwith’s Brigade-Major, Lieut. James Stewart, was in three days [28 Mar., near Freixadas] killed off the very same little English horse, called Tom); Strode, a Lieutenant, received his death-wound while talking to me, etc. That night I was on picquet. The enemy were retiring all night, but their sentries and ours were in sight. At daylight a thick fog came on. Beckwith’s Brigade, with him at its head, moved up to where I was posted. He said, “Come, Harry, get your Company together, and fall in at the head of the column.” At this moment two of the 16th Dragoons rode back, and Beckwith said, “Where do you come from?” “We have patrolled a league and a half in the front, and seen naught.” “A league and a half, my friend,” says old Sydney, “in a thick fog is a d——d long way. Why, Harry, you said the vedettes were close to you.” “So they are,” I said, “and you will be fired at the moment you advance.” We had not gone fifty yards when “Pop! pop!” Oh, how old Sydney laughed! “A league and a half!” But the fog was so thick we could not move, and the enemy, hearing our column on their rear, being clear, moved off.

In a few days, as we had got well up to the French rear-guard and were about to attack, a General Order was received, to my astonishment, appointing me Brigade Major[21] to the 2nd Light Brigade, not dear old Sydney’s. He expected it, since he and Colonel Pakenham (dear Sir Edward!) were trying to do something for me on account of my lame leg. Beckwith says, “Now give your Company over to Layton, and set off immediately to Colonel Drummond,” who commanded the Brigade. Hardly had I reached it, when such a cannonade commenced, knocking the 52nd about in a way I never saw before and hardly since. We were soon all engaged, and drove the French, with very hard fighting, into and over the river, with a severe loss in killed, prisoners, and drowned. A very heavy fight it was, ending just before dark. I said to my Brigadier, “Have you any orders for the picquets, sir?” He was an old Guardsman, the kindest though oddest fellow possible. “Pray, Mr. Smith, are you my Brigade Major?” “I believe so, sir.” “Then let me tell you, it is your duty to post the picquets, and mine to have a d—d good dinner for you every day.” We soon understood each other. He cooked the dinner often himself, and I commanded the Brigade.

Our next great fight was a bitter one, Sabugal [3 April]. I shall never forget the German 1st Hussars, my old friends, moving on that day; their singing was melodious. Sir W. Erskine commanded the cavalry and Light Division, a near-sighted old ass, and we got meléed with Reynier’s corps d’armée strongly posted on heights above Sabugal, and attacked when the Duke intended we should have moved round their left to Quadraseyes, as the 5th, 4th, and 3rd Divisions were to attack their front in the centre of their position. However, we began, and never was more gallantry mutually displayed by friend and foe than on this occasion, particularly by dear old Beckwith and his 1st Brigade. Some guns were taken and retaken several times. A French officer on a grey horse was most gallant. Old Beckwith, in a voice like thunder, roared out to the Riflemen, “Shoot that fellow, will you?” In a moment he and his horse were knocked over, and Sydney exclaimed, “Alas! you were a noble fellow.”

My Brigadier, as I soon discovered, left the command to me, so I led away, and we came in for a pretty good share in preventing Reynier’s turning the left of Beckwith’s Brigade. Fortunately, the 5th Division got into action just in time, for the French at the moment were squeezing us awfully. The Light Division, under the shout of old Beckwith, rushed on with an impetuosity nothing could resist, for, so checked had we been, our bloods were really up, and we paid off the enemy most awfully. Such a scene of slaughter as there was on one hill would appal a modern soldier. The night came on most awfully wet, and the 5th and Light Division were sent back to Sabugal for shelter. Most dilapidated the place was, but the roofs were on, and Sir W. Gomm, A.Q.M.G. of the 5th, and I divided the town between us, our poor wounded lying out in the rain and cold all night. The next morning was fine, and as the sun rose we marched over the field of battle. Our soldiers’ blood was then cool, and it was beautiful to hear the remarks of sympathy for the distress of the numerous dying and wounded all around us. Oh, you kings and usurpers should view these scenes and moderate ambition!

This evening [4 April] we had a long march into Quadraseyes, but did not see a vestige of the enemy all day, nor of our commissariat either. We were literally starving. That old rogue Picton had seized the supplies of the Light Division for his 3rd. If he be now in the Purgatory that we condemned him to, he is to be pitied.

We closely pursued the French over the frontier, but never had a real slap at them. Almeida, which was garrisoned by their troops, was invested by the 5th Division, while the Light Division moved into its old lines, Gallegos, Marialva, Carpio, and Espeja. From the French garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo the enemy frequently came out. The Duke had gone into the Alemtejo, and Sir Brent Spencer commanded—a regular old woman, who allowed the French to commit all sorts of extravagances under our noses, when a rapid move on their rear from Espeja would have punished them. Sir W. Erskine commanded the advance Cavalry and Light Division.

I was at breakfast one morning with Sir William Erskine, who, early in the morning, with his staff had taken out a small party to reconnoitre Ciudad Rodrigo. The enemy immediately sent over a detachment of cavalry to check the advance, and a great argument occurred between Sir William and his A.A.G., Macdonald, whether the enemy crossed one or two squadrons. During the discussion in came Sir William’s orderly, a clever old dragoon of the 1st German Hussars. “Ah!” says Sir William, “here is my old orderly; he can tell us. Hussar, how many squadrons of the enemy crossed the Agueda this morning?” With a body as stiff and erect as a statue, and a salute with an arm braced as if in the act of cutting down his enemy, “Just forty-nine mans, no more; I count him.” The laugh was against both disputants.

Now occurred the dreadful disaster of the escape of the French garrison of Almeida. I shall never forget the mortification of our soldiers or the admiration of our officers of the brilliancy of such an attempt, the odds being a hundred to one against success. My long friend Ironmonger, then of the Queen’s, into whose face George Simmons threw the bucket of water when marching, as before described, from Belem,[22] was grievously to blame.

Massena’s army were rapidly recovering. They had received reinforcements, and were preparing to throw into Ciudad Rodrigo a large convoy of provisions. For this, it was necessary for them to put us back, and the present moment seemed a favourable one, as it was the intention ultimately to withdraw the French army to Salamanca and the neighbouring large towns, so that no demand might be made on the ample supplies required for Ciudad Rodrigo. At this moment Soult was making a formidable demonstration in the Alemtejo and Estremadura, our attempt on Badajoz had failed, and a large portion of our army had moved towards the south; it was therefore a fair opening for Massena to drive us over the Coa.

However, the dear Duke of Wellington took a braver view of the situation, and concentrated his army behind Fuentes D’Oñoro, and there fought that celebrated battle which lasted a day and a half [5 May]. General Craufurd joined us here on the day of the general action. The soldiers received him with every demonstration of joy. The officers at that time execrated him. I did not; he had appointed me his A.D.C., though I would not go to him, and he was always most kind and hospitable to me.

On the morning of this day old Sydney again distinguished himself, for the enemy from Poza Velha turned our right flank and licked our cavalry (14th Light Dragoons and Royals) awfully, bringing 4000 fresh fellows against them. There never was a more heavy fight than for several hours in the village of Fuentes. Here I saw the 79th Regiment, in an attack on the head of a French column coming up the road, bayonet eight or nine French officers and upwards of 100 men, the only real bayonet conflict I ever witnessed. After the battle of Fuentes d’Oñoro, the French retired unmolested, for we were glad to get rid of them. As they had such a formidable body of cavalry, on that open country we literally could not molest them.

At this time almost all our army moved into the Alemtejo viâ Arronchas, where, on Sir John Moore’s advance to Salamanca, I had a nice quarter which I occupied four different times during the war. The poor family were always delighted to see me. On our advance into the Alemtejo we heard of the bloody battle of Albuera [16 May], and many of us rode on to see the field, which was well demonstrated by the lines of dead bodies, a most sanguinary conflict, and beautifully and truly described by Napier.

I must here record a most ridiculous night alarm the Light Division had, although leagues from any enemy, on their march into the Alemtejo. A drove of bullocks galloped over our men asleep in the bivouac, and for some time the officers could hardly persuade our best soldiers they were not French cavalry. My Brigadier, Drummond, was sleeping under a tree on his little portable iron bedstead. The light of a fire showed him, to my amusement, in his shirt (not a very long one), endeavouring to climb into the tree. I fell in his guard, and manfully charged nothing up a road leading to our camp, while General Craufurd lay on his back laughing to hysterics, poor fellow. Drummond soon after died at Guinaldo, in my arms, of a putrid sore throat, and Craufurd was killed in the storm of Ciudad Rodrigo.

During all this summer our army was assembled watching Soult, who neither attacked us nor we him. Never did we spend a more inactive summer. The enemy from Ciudad Rodrigo moved on Castello Branco, and threatened thereby our left flank and line of communication over the Tagus. When Soult could no longer feed his assembled army, he retired, and our Light Division were rapidly moved on Castello Branco, the remainder of the army of the north following.

Our army this autumn was cantoned, as near as it could be fed, on the frontiers to watch Ciudad Rodrigo, which the Duke contemplated besieging. After the death of General Drummond, Major-General Vandeleur was appointed to my Brigade, a fine, gentleman-like old Irish hero. We were quartered at Martiago, and our Division, some at El Bodon, others at Zamora, Guinaldo, etc. It was a very hot autumn, but towards the end of the year, when the rains commenced, there was capital coursing.

General Craufurd this year, in one of his mad freaks, reported that the Light Division was in want of clothing, etc., and it must go to the rear. The Duke ordered us to march one cold night over the Agueda to Larade, not far from Guinaldo, for his inspection. A great scene occurred. Craufurd had not arrived before the Duke rode down the line, and the Duke laughed and said, “Craufurd, you are late.” “No, my Lord; you are before your time. My watch is to be depended on.” (I was riding a brown mare which I gave £120 for to Charlie Rowan, who had been thrown by her, after buying her from General Craufurd because he could not ride her. The mare charged the Duke, I on her back. “Hallo, Smith,” says the Duke, “your horse masters you.”) The Duke, to our delight, says to General Craufurd, “I never saw the Light Division look better or more ready for service. March back to your quarters; I shall soon require you in the field.” About this time Marmont moved up to Ciudad Rodrigo with an enormous convoy of provisions, and he compelled the Duke to assemble, and the brilliant affair of cavalry and squares of infantry behind El Bodon took place [24 Sept.].

About this time we had some heavy and laborious manœuvring, night marches, etc. During these movements we marched a dark night’s march from Guinaldo, and, as the road was wet and far from good, we had several checks in the column, when I heard a conversation between a 16th Light Dragoon and one of the German 1st Hussars, neither of whom had abstained from the ingredient which formed the subject. 16th Dragoon: “I say, Hussar, I likes it strong and hot and sweet, and plenty of ——. How do you like it?” Hussar: “I likes him raw.”

Marmont, having accomplished his object, fell back, and we returned to our old cantonments. The Duke of Wellington’s dispatch dated “Quadrasies, Sept. 29,” so fully details all these operations and shows the beauty of the manœuvres so distinctly, I may confine myself to what occurred the evening General Pakenham’s brigade had such a formidable brush at Aldea de Ponte.

The 4th Division was to return at dusk, as was the Light. I was lying in bivouac, talking to General Craufurd and John Bell, when a dragoon rode up with a note from General Cole, requesting Craufurd to send an officer as a guide to lead his division to the heights of Rendo at dusk. I said, “Oh, John Bell will go, of course.” “No,” says John; “Harry Smith knows the road best.” So I was ordered to go. Before I reached Cole it was dark. I found his Division moving: they were all right. I reported myself to him—the first time I had ever spoken to him. Colonel Brooke, brother of the “Shannon” Brooke, his Q.M.G., was with him. “Oh,” says Cole, “sent by Craufurd, are you? Do you know the road?” We Light Division gentlemen were proper saucy fellows. I said, “I suppose I should not have been sent if I had not.” “Ugh,” says Cole, as hot as pepper. Here I may remark upon the difficulty there is at night to know roads, even for one well acquainted with them. Fires lighting, fires going out, the covering of the country with troops—such things change the face of nature, and a little anxiety adds to the difficulty. Cole, a most anxious man, kept saying, “Are you sure you know the road, sir?” etc., etc., etc. At last I said, “General Cole, if you will let me alone, I will conduct your Division; if you thus attract my attention, I cannot.” It was an anxious moment, I admit. I was just at a spot where I might miss the road, a great road which I knew was near. I galloped ahead to look for it, and oh, how General Cole did blow me up! I found my road, though, and so soon as the head of the column had fairly reached it, I said, “Good night, General,” and in a moment was in full speed, while he was hallooing to me to come back. I had some difficulty in finding my own Division, which was moving parallel with the force. When I told Craufurd of my first acquaintance with that hot Irishman Cole, how he laughed! Poor dear Sir Lowry! I was afterwards A.Q.M.G. to him after the battle of Waterloo, and served under him as Commandant of Cape Castle and Senior Member of Council when he was Governor, and many is the laugh we have had at our first acquaintance.

On one of our marches from the Alemtejo to the north, in a house where General Drummond and I were quartered at Idanha a Nova, a very facetious Portuguese gentleman showed us a sort of a return of the British, so incorrect that General Drummond laughed at it; but Charlie Rowan, our A.A.G. (now the great policeman in London[23]), who was dining with General Drummond, told this anecdote at the Duke’s table at Guinaldo, and I was sent back about 150 miles to fetch my friend. I could speak Portuguese as well as English. I therefore persuaded our hero to accompany me to the Duke without telling why, but a more unpleasant ride than this, in charge of my friend and all alone, without groom, etc., I never had, and many was the blessing I bestowed on Charlie Rowan’s tongue. I delivered my friend to the Adjutant-General at Guinaldo, and had twenty-four miles to join my General at Robledillo.

CHAPTER VII.
CAMPAIGN OF 1812: STORMING OF CIUDAD RODRIGO.

As the winter approached we had private theatricals. The Duke appointed so many days for horse races, greyhound matches, etc., and the very day they were to come off, which was well known to the French army, we invested Ciudad Rodrigo, namely, on the 8th of January, 1812, and that very night carried by storm the outworks called Fort San Francisco, up to which spot it took the French several days to approach. We broke ground, and thus the siege commenced.

When the detachments of the Light Division Brigades were parading, my Brigade was to furnish 400 men. I understood four Companies, and when Colonel Colborne (now Lord Seaton) was counting them, he said, “There are not the complement of men.” I said, “I am sorry if I have mistaken.” “Oh, never mind; run and bring another Company.” I mention this to show what a cool, noble fellow he is. Many an officer would have stormed like fury. He only thought of storming Fort San Francisco, which he carried in a glorious manner.[24]

The siege was carried on by four Divisions—1st, 3rd, 4th, and Light, cantoned as near Ciudad Rodrigo as possible. One Division was on duty at a time, and each had to ford the Agueda the day it was for duty. The Light was at El Bodon. We had a distance of nine miles to march every fourth day, and back on the fifth, so that we had only three days’ halt. The frost was excessive, and there was some little snow, but fortunately the weather was fine above head.

The Light Division stormed the little breach on the evening of the 19th of January (nine o’clock). I was supping with my dear friend Captain Uniacke, and brother Tom, his only subaltern not wounded. When I parted from Uniacke—he was a noble, light-hearted fellow—he says, “Harry, you will be a Captain before morning.” Little, poor fellow, did he think he was to make the vacancy. I was senior subaltern of the 95th, and I went to General Craufurd and volunteered the forlorn hope that was given to Gurwood. Craufurd said, “Why, you cannot go; you, a Major of Brigade, a senior Lieutenant, you are sure to get a Company. No, I must give it to a younger officer.” This was to me a laborious night. Just as my Brigade had to march, I discovered the Engineer officer had not brought up the ladders, fascines, and bundles of hay, and old George Simmons was sent for them.

In ascending the breach, I got on a ravelin at the head of the 43rd and 52nd, moving in column together. Colborne pulled me down again, and up the right breach we ascended. I saw the great breach, stormed by the 3rd Division, was ably defended, and a line behind a work which, as soon as we rushed along the ramparts, we could enfilade. I seized a Company of the 43rd and rushed on the flank, and opened a fire which destroyed every man behind the works. My conduct caused great annoyance to the Captain, Duffy, with whom I had some very high words; but the Company obeyed me, and then ran on with poor Uniacke’s Company to meet the 3rd Division, or rather clear the ramparts to aid them, when the horrid explosion took place which killed General Mackinnon of the 3rd Division on the spot and many soldiers, awfully scorching others. I and Uniacke were much scorched, but some splinters of an ammunition chest lacerated him and caused his death three days after the storm. Tom, my brother, was not hurt.

I shall never forget the concussion when it struck me, throwing me back many feet into a lot of charged fuses of shells, which in the confusion I took for shells. But a gallant fellow, a Sergeant MacCurrie, 52nd Regiment, soon put me right, and prevented me leaping into the ditch. My cocked hat was blown away, my clothes all singed; however the sergeant, a noble fellow, lent me a catskin forage-cap, and on we rushed to meet the 3rd Division, which we soon did. It was headed by a great, big thundering Grenadier of the 88th, a Lieutenant Stewart, and one of his men seized me by the throat as if I were a kitten, crying out, “You French ——.” Luckily, he left me room in the windpipe to d—— his eyes, or the bayonet would have been through me in a moment.

Gurwood got great credit here unfairly. Willie Johnstone[25] and poor Uniacke were the two first on the ramparts, Gurwood having been knocked down in the breach and momentarily stunned, which enabled them to get before him. However, Gurwood’s a sharp fellow, and he cut off in search of the Governor, and brought his sword to the Duke, and Lord Fitzroy Somerset buckled it on him in the breach. Gurwood made the most of it.

We had many officers of rank wounded. George Napier, of the 52nd, lost an arm; the General of Brigade, Vandeleur, was wounded severely in the shoulder; and Colonel Colborne, of the 52nd, received an awful wound, but he never quitted his Regiment until the city was perfectly ours, and his Regiment all collected. A musket-ball had struck him under the epaulette of his right shoulder, and broken the head of the bone right off in the socket. To this the attention of the surgeons was of course directed. Some months after Colborne complained of a pain four inches below where the ball entered, and suppuration took place, and by surgical treatment the bone was gradually exposed. The ball, after breaking the arm above, had descended and broken the arm four inches below, and was firmly embedded in the bone. The pain he suffered in the extraction of the ball was more even than his iron heart could bear. He used to lay his watch on the table and allow the surgeons five minutes’ exertions at a time, and they were three or four days before they wrenched the ball from its ossified bed. In three weeks from that day Colborne was in the Pyrenees, and in command of his Regiment. Of course the shoulder joint was anchylosed, but he had free use of the arm below the elbow.

After this siege we had a few weeks’ holiday, with the exception of shooting some rascals who had deserted to the enemy. Eleven knelt on one grave at Ituero. It is an awful ceremony, a military execution. I was Major of Brigade of the day. The Provost-Marshal had not told the firing off, so that a certain number of men should shoot one culprit, and so on, but at his signal the whole party fired a volley. Some prisoners were fortunate enough to be killed, others were only wounded, some untouched. I galloped up. An unfortunate Rifleman called to me by name—he was awfully wounded—“Oh, Mr. Smith, put me out of my misery,” and I literally ordered the firing-party, when reloaded, to run up and shoot the poor wretches. It was an awful scene.

“Blood he had viewed, but then

It flowed in combat....”

CHAPTER VIII.
CAMPAIGN OF 1812: THE STORMING OF BADAJOS—HARRY SMITH’S MARRIAGE.

At this period of the year (February, March) the coursing in this part of Spain is capital, and by help of my celebrated dog Moro and two other excellent ones, I supplied the officers’ mess of every Company with hares for soup. We had a short repose, for the army moved into Estremadura for the purpose of besieging Badajos. We Light, 3rd and 4th Divisions, thought, as we had taken Ciudad Rodrigo, others would have the pleasure of the trenches of Badajos, but on our reaching Elvas [17 Feb., 1812] we were very soon undeceived, and we were destined for the duty,—to our mortification, for soldiers hate sieges and working-parties. The Guards work better than any soldiers, from their habits in London. Badajos was invested by the 3rd, 4th, and Light Divisions on the Spanish side, or left bank of the river, and by the 5th Division[26] on the Portuguese side, or right bank. On the night of the 17th March, St. Patrick’s Day, the Light Division broke ground under a deluge of rain, which swelled the Guadiana so as to threaten our bridge of boats. Our duties in the trenches were most laborious during the whole siege, and much hard fighting we had, sorties, etc. The night [26 Mar.] the outworks La Picurina was carried by my dear friend Sir James Kempt, part of the 3rd Division (which was his) were to compose the storming party. The Light Division, the working party, consequently were sent to the Engineer Park for the ladders. When they arrived, General Kempt ordered them to be planted (Sir H. Hardinge, D.Q.M.G. of the Portuguese army, was here distinguished). The boys of the 3rd Division said to our fellows, “Come, stand out of the way;” to which our fellows replied, “D—— your eyes, do you think we Light Division fetch ladders for such chaps as you to climb up? Follow us”—springing on the ladders, and many of them were knocked over. A notorious fellow, a Sergeant Brotherwood, a noble fellow on duty, told me this anecdote. The siege was prosecuted with the same vigour from without with which it was repelled from within.

After some hours in the trenches, when we returned I invariably ate and went out coursing, and many is the gallant course I had, and many the swift hare I and my dog Moro brought home from the right bank of the Guadiana. One day James Stewart, I, and Charlie Eeles set off, having three hours off duty, to look for a hare or two at a celebrated spot where the hares ran very strong because there was a rabbit warren which saved them. Moro, of course, was of the party. We soon found an unusually strong hare, and, although the greyhounds fetched round a dozen times, she still worked her way for the warren. I was riding a great stupid Irish horse bought from General Vandeleur, called Paddy, and as it was important for the soup to kill this hare, however unsportsmanlike on quiet occasions it would be deemed, I rode to head her from the warren. My stupid beast of a horse put his foot into a hole and rolled over me. Stewart and Eeles picked me up, but I was insensible. Although I have generally managed on such occasions to get away from the horse, the animal had rolled over me, and when I came to myself I was sitting on Eeles’ knee, my arms tied up with a whip-thong, and James Stewart, with a blunt-looking penknife, trying to bleed me, an operation I quickly prohibited by starting on to my legs. Moro killed his hare, though, without my help.

On the night of the 6th April the 3rd Division were to storm the citadel, the 4th and Light the great breach, the 5th the Olivença Gate, and to escalade, if possible. The command of the Light Division had devolved on Colonel Barnard. Vandeleur was wounded, and stayed at Portalegre, and poor Beckwith had gone to the rear with violent ague; he never joined us again, noble soldier that he was.

This escalade has been so frequently described, I shall only say that when the head of the Light Division arrived at the ditch of the place it was a beautiful moonlight night. Old Alister Cameron, who was in command of four Companies of the 95th Regiment, extended along the counterscape to attract the enemy’s fire, while the column planted their ladders and descended, came up to Barnard and said, “Now my men are ready; shall I begin?” “No, certainly not,” says Barnard. The breach and the works were full of the enemy, looking quietly at us, but not fifty yards off and most prepared, although not firing a shot. So soon as our ladders were all ready posted, and the column in the very act to move and rush down the ladders, Barnard called out, “Now, Cameron!” and the first shot from us brought down such a hail of fire as I shall never forget, nor ever saw before or since. It was most murderous. We flew down the ladders and rushed at the breach, but we were broken, and carried no weight with us, although every soldier was a hero. The breach was covered by a breastwork from behind, and ably defended on the top by chevaux-de-frises of sword-blades, sharp as razors, chained to the ground; while the ascent to the top of the breach was covered with planks with sharp nails in them. However, devil a one did I feel at this moment. One of the officers of the forlorn hope, Lieut. Taggart of the 43rd, was hanging on my arm—a mode we adopted to help each other up, for the ascent was most difficult and steep. A Rifleman stood among the sword-blades on the top of one of the chevaux-de-frises. We made a glorious rush to follow, but, alas! in vain. He was knocked over. My old captain, O’Hare, who commanded the storming party, was killed. All were awfully wounded except, I do believe, myself and little Freer of the 43rd. I had been some seconds at the revêtement of the bastion near the breach, and my red-coat pockets were literally filled with chips of stones splintered by musket-balls. Those not knocked down were driven back by this hail of mortality to the ladders. At the foot of them I saw poor Colonel Macleod with his hands on his breast—the man who lent me his horse when wounded at the bridge on the Coa. He said, “Oh, Smith, I am mortally wounded. Help me up the ladder.” I said, “Oh no, dear fellow!” “I am,” he said; “be quick!” I did so, and came back again. Little Freer and I said, “Let us throw down the ladders; the fellows shan’t go out.” Some soldiers behind said, “D—— your eyes, if you do we will bayonet you!” and we were literally forced up with the crowd. My sash had got loose, and one end of it was fast in the ladder, and the bayonet was very nearly applied, but the sash by pulling became loose. So soon as we got on the glacis, up came a fresh Brigade of the Portuguese of the 4th Division. I never saw any soldiers behave with more pluck. Down into the ditch we all went again, but the more we tried to get up, the more we were destroyed. The 4th Division followed us in marching up to the breach, and they made a most uncommon noise. The French saw us, but took no notice. Sir Charles Colville, commanding the 4th Division (Cole having been wounded at Albuera), made a devil of a noise, too, on the glacis. Both Divisions were fairly beaten back; we never carried either breach (nominally there were two breaches).

After the attacks upon the breaches, some time before daylight Lord Fitzroy Somerset came to our Division. I think I was almost the first officer who spoke to him. He said, “Where is Barnard?” I didn’t know, but I assured his Lordship he was neither killed nor wounded. A few minutes after his Lordship said that the Duke desired the Light and 4th Divisions to storm again. “The devil!” says I. “Why, we have had enough; we are all knocked to pieces.” Lord Fitzroy says, “I dare say, but you must try again.” I smiled and said, “If we could not succeed with two whole fresh and unscathed Divisions, we are likely to make a poor show of it now. But we will try again with all our might.” Scarcely had this conversation occurred when a bugle sounded within the breach, indicating what had occurred at the citadel and Puerto de Olivença; and here ended all the fighting. Our fellows would have gone at it again when collected and put into shape, but we were just as well pleased that our attempt had so attracted the attention of the enemy as greatly to facilitate that success which assured the prize contended for.

There is no battle, day or night, I would not willingly react except this. The murder of our gallant officers and soldiers is not to be believed. Next day I and Charlie Beckwith, a brother Brigade-Major, went over the scene. It was appalling. Heaps on heaps of slain,—in one spot lay nine officers. Whilst we were there, Colonel Allen of the Guards came up, and beckoned me to him. I saw that, in place of congratulating me, he looked very dull. “What’s the matter?” I said. “Do you not know my brother in the Rifles was killed last night?” “God help him and you! no, for I and we all loved him.” In a flood of tears, he looked round and pointed to a body. “There he lies.” He had a pair of scissors with him. “Go and cut off a lock of his hair for my mother. I came for the purpose, but I am not equal to doing it.”

The returns of killed and wounded and the evident thin appearance of our camp at once too plainly told the loss we had sustained. O memorable night of glory and woe! for, although the 4th and Light were so beaten, our brilliant and numerous attacks induced the governor to concentrate all his force in the breaches; thus the 3rd escaladed the citadel, and the 5th got in by the Olivença gate. Although we lost so many stout hearts, so many dear friends and comrades, yet not one staff officer of our Division was killed or wounded. We had all been struck. My clothes were cut by musket-balls, and I had several contusions, particularly one on my left thigh.

Now comes a scene of horror I would willingly bury in oblivion. The atrocities committed by our soldiers on the poor innocent and defenceless inhabitants of the city, no words suffice to depict. Civilized man, when let loose and the bonds of morality relaxed, is a far greater beast than the savage, more refined in his cruelty, more fiend-like in every act; and oh, too truly did our heretofore noble soldiers disgrace themselves, though the officers exerted themselves to the utmost to repress it, many who had escaped the enemy being wounded in their merciful attempts! Yet this scene of debauchery, however cruel to many, to me has been the solace and the whole happiness of my life for thirty-three years. A poor defenceless maiden of thirteen years was thrown upon my generous nature through her sister, as described so ably in Johnny Kincaid’s book, of which this is an extract—

“I was conversing with a friend the day after, at the door of his tent, when we observed two ladies coming from the city, who made directly towards us; they seemed both young, and when they came near, the elder of the two threw back her mantilla to address us, showing a remarkably handsome figure, with fine features; but her sallow, sun-burnt, and careworn, though still youthful, countenance showed that in her ‘the time for tender thoughts and soft endearments had fled away and gone.’

“She at once addressed us in that confident, heroic manner so characteristic of the high-bred Spanish maiden, told us who they were—the last of an ancient and honourable house—and referred to an officer high in rank in our army, who had been quartered there in the days of her prosperity, for the truth of her tale.

“Her husband, she said, was a Spanish officer in a distant part of the kingdom; he might, or he might not, still be living. But yesterday she and this her young sister were able to live in affluence and in a handsome house; to-day they knew not where to lay their heads, where to get a change of raiment or a morsel of bread. Her house, she said, was a wreck; and, to show the indignities to which they had been subjected, she pointed to where the blood was still trickling down their necks, caused by the wrenching of their ear-rings through the flesh by the hands of worse than savages, who would not take the trouble to unclasp them!

“For herself, she said, she cared not; but for the agitated and almost unconscious maiden by her side, whom she had but lately received over from the hands of her conventual instructresses, she was in despair, and knew not what to do; and that, in the rapine and ruin which was at that moment desolating the city, she saw no security for her but the seemingly indelicate one she had adopted—of coming to the camp and throwing themselves upon the protection of any British officer who would afford it; and so great, she said, was her faith in our national character, that she knew the appeal would not be made in vain, nor the confidence abused. Nor was it made in vain! Nor could it be abused, for she stood by the side of an angel! A being more transcendingly lovely I had never before seen—one more amiable I have never yet known!

“Fourteen summers had not yet passed over her youthful countenance, which was of a delicate freshness—more English than Spanish; her face, though not perhaps rigidly beautiful, was nevertheless so remarkably handsome, and so irresistibly attractive, surmounting a figure cast in nature’s fairest mould, that to look at her was to love her; and I did love her, but I never told my love, and in the mean time another and a more impudent fellow stepped in and won her! But yet I was happy, for in him she found such a one as her loveliness and her misfortunes claimed—a man of honour, and a husband in every way worthy of her!

“That a being so young, so lovely, and so interesting, just emancipated from the gloom of a convent, unknowing of the world and to the world unknown, should thus have been wrecked on a sea of troubles, and thrown on the mercy of strangers under circumstances so dreadful, so uncontrollable, and not have sunk to rise no more, must be the wonder of every one. Yet from the moment she was thrown on her own resources, her star was in the ascendant.

“Guided by a just sense of rectitude, an innate purity of mind, a singleness of purpose which defied malice, and a soul that soared above circumstances, she became alike the adored of the camp and of the drawing-room, and eventually the admired associate of princes. She yet lives, in the affections of her gallant husband, in an elevated situation in life, a pattern to her sex, and everybody’s beau ideal of what a wife should be.”[27]

I confess myself to be the “more impudent fellow,” and if any reward is due to a soldier, never was one so honoured and distinguished as I have been by the possession of this dear child (for she was little more than a child at this moment), one with a sense of honour no knight ever exceeded in the most romantic days of chivalry, an understanding superior to her years, a masculine mind with a force of character no consideration could turn from her own just sense of rectitude, and all encased in a frame of Nature’s fairest and most delicate moulding, the figure of an angel, with an eye of light and an expression which then inspired me with a maddening love which, from that period to this (now thirty-three years), has never abated under many and the most trying circumstances. Thus, as good may come out of evil, this scene of devastation and spoil yielded to me a treasure invaluable; to me who, among so many dear friends, had escaped all dangers; to me, a wild youth not meriting such reward, and, however desirous, never able to express half his gratitude to God Almighty for such signal marks of His blessing shown to so young and so thoughtless a being. From that day to this she has been my guardian angel. She has shared with me the dangers and privations, the hardships and fatigues, of a restless life of war in every quarter of the globe. No murmur has ever escaped her. Bereft of every relative, of every tie to her country but the recollection of it, united to a man of different though Christian religion, yet that man has been and is her all, on whom have hinged the closed portals of hope, happiness, and bliss; if opened, misery, destitution, and bereavement, and every loss language can depict summed up in one word, “He is lost to me.” But, O my God, Thou hast kindly spared us for each other; we have, through Thy grace, been but little separated, and we have, in unison of soul, received at Thy holy altar the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.[28] May we, through His mediation, be still spared to each other in this life, and in the life to come be eternally united in Heaven!

After the disorganization our troops had rushed into, it became the duty of every officer to exert himself, and nobly did Colonel Barnard set about the task, and ably supported was he by every officer in the Division. We had not marched for the north two days when our soldiers were, like Richard, “themselves again.” When the French garrison were marched to the rear, my Brigade furnished an escort to the next Division en route to Elvas. I paraded upwards of four thousand very orderly, fine-looking fellows. Many of the officers praised the gallantry of our men, and all said, “Why break ground at all with such soldiers? Had you stormed on the rainy night of the 17th March, you would have taken the place with half the loss.” This is creditable to us, but the Duke of Wellington would have been by no means borne out in such an attempt.

However, as all this writing is to show rather my individual participation in these scenes of glory and bloodshed, I must dwell a little upon the joy of my marriage. I was only twenty-two, my wife just on the verge of fourteen.[29] But in southern climates Nature more early develops herself and attains maturity. Every day was an increase of joy. Although both of us were of the quickest tempers, we were both ready to forgive, and both intoxicated in happiness. All my dearest friends—Charlie Beckwith, John Bell, Johnstone, Charlie Eeles, Jack Molloy, etc.—were saying to themselves, “Alas! poor Harry Smith is lost, who was the example of a duty-officer previously. It is only natural he must neglect duty now.” I assured them all that the contrary would be the case, for love would incite me to exertions in hopes of preferment, the only mode I had to look to for a comfortable maintenance; and my wife’s love, aided by her good sense, would see I was never neglecting her if engaged in the performance of my duty. Conscientiously did I act up to my feeling then, and no one ever did or ever could say, I was out of my place night or day.

My duty was my duty—I gloried in it; my wife even still more so, and never did she say, “You might have been with me,” or complain if I was away. On the contrary, after many a day’s fatiguing march, when I sought her out in the baggage or awaiting me, her first question invariably was, “Are you sure you have done all your duty?” Then I admit my attention was unbounded, and we were happy—oh, how happy, often amidst scenes of distress and privation that would have appalled stouter hearts, not devoted like ours! And oh, when I reflect on God’s mercy to us both! In a succession of the most brilliant battles for years I was never even wounded, and, although I say it, no man ever exposed himself in every way more as a soldier, or rode harder as a sportsman. Wonderful, most wonderful, have been my hairbreadth escapes from falls of horses under and over me all over the world.

CHAPTER IX.
CAMPAIGN OF 1812: BATTLE OF SALAMANCA—OCCUPATION OF MADRID—RETREAT TO SALAMANCA.

But to the thread of my narrative. Hardly had we reached the frontier of Portugal [24 April, 1812], our old haunts, Ituero, Guinaldo, etc., when our army moved on again for Spain, and fought the Battle of Salamanca. Before this battle we had an immense deal of marching and manœuvring. The armies of Marmont and Wellington were close to each other for several days, so that a trifling occurrence would have brought on a general action, and we were frequently under cannonade.

My wife could not ride in the least at first, and oh, the difficulty I had! although she had frequently ridden a donkey on her pilgrimage to Olivença, once to avoid the siege of Badajos, and at other times to her grandmother’s at Almendrajos.[30] However, I had one of my saddles turned into a side-saddle most ably by a soldier of Ross’s Troop of Horse Artillery, and at first made her ride a great brute of a Portuguese horse I had; but she so rapidly improved, took such pains, had so much practice and naturally good nerves, that she soon got ashamed of her Portuguese horse, and wanted to ride my Spanish little fellow, who had so nobly carried me at Redinha and in many other fights. I always said, “When you can ride as well as you can dance and sing, you shall,” for in those accomplishments she was perfect. In crossing the Tormes [21 July], the very night before the battle of Salamanca (there are quicksands in the river), her Portuguese horse was so cowardly he alarmed me, and hardly had we crossed the river when a clap of thunder, louder than anything that can be described, burst over our heads. The Portuguese horse was in such a funk, she abjured all Portuguese, and insisted hereafter on riding her own gallant countryman, as gallant as any Arab. He was an Andalusian, which is a thorough-bred descendant of the Moosul horse, which is literally an Arab. The next day she mounted her Tiny, and rode him ever afterwards over many an eventful field, until the end of the war at Toulouse. She had him afterwards at my father’s house. The affection between them was of the character of that between spaniel and master. The dear, gallant horse lived to twenty-nine years of age, and died a happy pensioner on my brother Charles’s estate.

It is difficult to say who was the proudest on the morning of the battle [22 July], horse, wife, or Enrique (as I was always called). She caracoled him about among the soldiers, to their delight, for he was broken in like a Mameluke, though very difficult to ride. (The soldiers of the whole Division loved her with enthusiasm from the events so peculiar in her history, and she would laugh and talk with all, which a soldier loves. Blackguards as many of the poor gallant fellows were, there was not a man who would not have laid down his life to defend her, and among the officers she was adored, and consulted on all occasions of baggage-guard, etc.) Her attendant, who also had a led horse in case of accident, with a little tent and a funny little pair of lanterns, my dear, trusty old groom West, as the battle began, took her to the rear, much to her annoyance, and in the thunder of cannon, the pride of equestrianism was buried in anxiety for him on whom her all depended. She and West slept on the field of battle, he having made a bed for her with the green wheat he had cut just in full ear. She had to hold her horse all night, and he ate all her bed of green wheat, to her juvenile amusement; for a creature so gay and vivacious, with all her sound sense, the earth never produced.

Next morning soon after daylight she joined me on the march. I was at that time so afflicted with boils, I could hardly live on horseback. I had eleven immense ones at the time on my legs and thighs, the excruciating pain of which is not to be described. Our surgeon, old Joe Bowker, insisted on my going to Salamanca, and one particular boil on the bone of the inside of my knee proved a more irresistible argument. So to Salamanca I had to go, my brother Tom doing my duty. I stayed fourteen days at Salamanca, a time of love and excitement, although, so distressed was the army for money, we lived almost on our rations, except for a little assistance from the lady of our house in coffee, etc. Wade, Sir Lowry Cole’s A.D.C., lent me one dollar out of forty which he had received to support his General (who had been severely wounded in the battle), and his staff. In such times of privation heroism is required which our countrymen little dream of.

At the end of the fourteen days I had as many boils as ever, but, boils and all, off we started, and rode some terrible distances for three or four days. We overtook the Division, to the joy of the soldiers, before we crossed the Guadarama Pass [11 Aug.]. There had been no fighting in my absence, thank God.

We soon reached the neighbourhood of Madrid. No city could be better laid out for pomp and show, and the Duke’s entry [13 Aug.] was a most brilliant spectacle. My vivacious wife used to enjoy her native capital, and in her admiration treated London and Paris as villages in comparison. We spent a very happy time. It was a great amusement to improve our wardrobe for the walk on the elegant Prado of an evening, in which no love among the Spanish beauties showed to greater advantage than my Estremenha, or native of Estremadura. During our stay in the vicinity of Madrid we made several agreeable acquaintances, among others the vicar of one of the many rich villages around Madrid, Vicalbaro, a highly educated and clever fellow, a great sportsman and excellent shot, with a morbid hatred to a Frenchman. Upon our moving forward beyond Madrid as far as the beautiful and clean city Alcala [23 Oct.], I was brought in contact with the celebrated and unfortunate General Elio, whom I had known in South America at Monte Video. He was very conversational, and we had a long talk as to that colonial war; but, as I was acting as interpreter for my friend James Stewart, the A.Q.M.G. of our Division, who was making arrangements of march with Elio, conversation on the past turned into plans for the future. We moved forwards towards our right to Arganda [27 Oct.]. At this period the Duke had gone to Burgos, and Lord Hill commanded. We soon felt the loss of our decided and far-seeing chief, and we made marches and counter-marches we were unaccustomed to. At ten at night, at Arganda, Major-General Vandeleur received an order from General Alten, who remained in Alcala, to march immediately back to Alcala with the whole Division. Vandeleur sent for me and told me to order the assembly to sound. I remonstrated and prayed him to wait until two hours before daylight, for every soldier in the Division had more or less indulged in the wine for which Arganda was celebrated. The good general had been at the shrine of Bacchus too, and was uncontrollable. Blast went the assembly, and staggering to their alarm-posts went the soldiers. Such a scene of good-natured riot I had never seen in my own Division. With the Duke we generally had a sort of hint we might be wanted, and our tried soldiers would be as steady as rocks. Oh, such a dark night’s march as we had back to Alcala! Vandeleur repented of his obstinacy, and well he might.

We halted the next day at Alcala. Here, although it was now October, it was evident to me that a long retreat to the frontier was about to be undertaken, and I got from a Spanish officer, called Labrador, his fine large Andalusian horse in exchange for an Irish brute I had bought from General Vandeleur. He gave me three Spanish doubloons to boot, a fortune in those days, particularly to me.

These three doubloons were given to my vivacious Spanish wife, who put them up most carefully in my portmanteau, among my few shirts. On the march the motion of the mule had shaken them out of place, the doubloons were gone, and all our fortune! Her horror, poor girl, is not to be described. She knew it was our all, and her delight when I gave the treasure into her charge was now more than eclipsed by the misery of the loss. I only laughed, for in those days hardships and privations were so common, they were missed when comparative affluence supplied their place.

We marched [30 Oct.] to Madrid, or rather its suburbs, where the poor inhabitants were in indescribable distress, seeing that they were again to be abandoned to French clemency and contributions. While our troops were halted, waiting for orders whether to bivouac or whether to retire, to our astonishment up came the Vicar of Vicalbaro. He took me on one side, and told me most pathetically that he had made himself so obnoxious to the French, he feared to stay, and had come to crave my protection. This I gladly promised. While I described to him the hardships a winter retreat would impose upon him and us, he said gallantly, “I am young and healthy like yourselves; what you suffer, I can. My only fear is that I may inconvenience you and my young countrywoman, your wife.” I laughed, and called her. She was all fun, notwithstanding the loss of the doubloons, and began to quiz him; but in the midst of her raillery he observed, as he said to me afterwards, her soul of kindness, and the Padre was installed in my establishment, while my old comrades laughed and said, “Harry Smith will do, now he has a father confessor,” by which name the Padre always went—“Harry Smith’s confessor.” The hour or two of halt was occupied by the Padre in buying a pony, which he soon effected, and his marching establishment, a few shirts, with an immense capa, or cloak, almost as much as the pony could carry.

It rained in torrents, and we marched to Aravaca, some miles to the rear of the capital, where we found Lord Hill’s headquarters in possession of every hole in the village, which was a very small one. General Vandeleur, who was still suffering from his wound at Ciudad Rodrigo, found a Captain of the Waggon Train in possession of a small house. In walks the General to a nice clean little room with a cheerful fire. “Who are you, sir?” says the General. “I am Captain ——, of the Royal Waggon Train, attached to Lord Hill, and this house is given me for my quarters.” “I, sir, am General Vandeleur, and am d——d glad to see you in my quarters for five minutes.” The poor Captain very quietly packed up his traps and went—I know not where.

I, my young wife, the Padre, all my greyhounds and dogs, about thirteen, got into a little hole about six feet square, and were glad enough to get out of the rain, for, though my wife had her little tent, that, pitched on exceedingly wet ground, was a horrid shelter for any one. Owing to the kindness of our Provost-Marshal (Mr. Stanway), I got my horses also under a kind of out-office. We marched the next day to the foot of the Guadarama Pass, where our soldiers, when dismissed in bivouac, had a fine hunt after a wild boar, which they killed. The sunshine brightened, and when I returned from a variety of duties I found the young wife as neat as a new pin in her little tent, her habit and all her things which had got wet in yesterday’s rain hung out to dry. So after breakfast I proposed to decorate my person (shave I need not, for as yet that operation was unnecessary), and the portmanteau was opened, the delinquent from which our doubloons had escaped. Some of the shirts were wet from the rain, and in searching for a dry one, out tumbled the three doubloons, which had been shaken into the folds of the shirt by the motion of the mule, and so lost. Oh, such joy and such laughing! We were so rich. We could buy bread and chocolate and sausages and eggs through the interest of the Padre (for we found the holy friar could get things when, however much money was exhibited, it proved no talisman), and our little fortune carried us through the retreat even to Ciudad Rodrigo, where money was paid to us.

This retreat was a very severe one as to weather, and although the enemy did not actually press us, as he did the column from Burgos, we made long marches and were very broad awake, and lost some of our baggage and stores, which the wearied bullocks obliged us to abandon. On reaching Salamanca, my wife, with the foresight of age rather than youth, expended some of the doubloons in buying me two pairs of worsted stockings and a pair of worsted mits, and the same for herself, which I do believe saved her from sickness, for the rain, on the retreat from Salamanca, came in torrents.

CHAPTER X.
CAMPAIGN OF 1812: RETREAT TO THE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS—WINTER OF 1812-13.

The army concentrated again under the dear Duke of Wellington, and took up its old victorious position on the Arapiles [14 Nov.], but not with the same prospects. Soult, an able fellow, had nearly double our force, and so soon as our rear was open the army was in full march on Ciudad Rodrigo. It rained in torrents, and the roads rose above the soldiers’ ankles. Our supplies were nil, and the sufferings of the soldiers were considerable. Many compared this retreat with that of Coruña, at which I then laughed, and do now. The whole distance from Ciudad Rodrigo is only forty-four miles. On one day to Coruña we marched thirty-seven miles, fighting every yard, and the cold was intense; on this retreat it was cold, but no frost in the atmosphere.

In crossing the Huebra [17 Nov.], at San Muños, the enemy pressed our rear-guard very sharply, and we had some very heavy skirmishing. Sir E. Paget, by his own obstinacy in not believing the French Dragoons had intervened upon our line of march, was taken prisoner, and our rear-guard (my Brigade) driven from the ford. They had to take to the river as well as they were able, the soldiers leaping from a steep bank into it.

The sense and strength of my wife’s Spanish horse were this day put to the test, for she had nothing for it but to make him leap into the river from the high bank, which the noble animal did, all fours like a dog. The poor Padre attempted the same, with the result that he and pony floated down the stream, and the pony was drowned, but his large Spanish capa or cloak kept him afloat, and he was dragged out by some of our soldiers. His holiness began now to think I had not exaggerated the hardships of a soldier’s life. When well out of the river, he quietly asked my poor old West for a horse I always had ready to jump on in case my own were killed. West very quietly said, “Never lend master’s other fighting horse, not to nobody.” My wife interceded for the poor Padre, but had the same refusal. Old West says, “We shan’t march far; the river bothered us, it will stop the French. Our Riflemen don’t mean to let those fellows over. Night and the walk will warm you.”

I, seeing the distress my poor wife was likely to be in, had told her particularly to stay with the 52nd, thinking they would move into bivouac, while the Riflemen held the bed of the river where we had crossed, to which alone my attention was drawn. There was a ford, however, lower down the river, to which the 52nd were suddenly ordered. It was impassable, but in the enemy’s attempt to cross, a heavy skirmish ensued, in which poor Captain Dawson was killed and forty or fifty men wounded; my wife in the thick of it, and the friar.

As soon as the ford was ascertained impassable, I was sent to bring back the 52nd, when, to my astonishment and alarm, I found my young wife drenched with leaping in the river, as much as from the torrents of rain above. The poor Padre might have been drawn for “the Knight of the Woeful Countenance.” I brought the whole into our wet and miserable bivouac, and gave some Portuguese of my Brigade a dollar for a large fire, when, cold and shivery as she was, she laughed at the Padre. We had nothing to eat that night, as our mules were sent on, and there was this young and delicate creature, in the month of November in the north of Spain, wet as a drowned rat, with nothing to eat, and no cover from the falling deluge. Not a murmur escaped her but once. I had had no sleep for three nights, our rear being in a very ticklish position. In sitting by the fire I had fallen asleep, and fell between the fire and her. She had previously been roasted on one side, a cold mud on the other. This change of temperature awoke her, and for the only time in her life did she cry and say I might have avoided it. She had just woke out of her sleep, and when cold and shivery our feelings are acute. In a moment she exclaimed, “How foolish! you must have been nice and warm, and to know that is enough for me.”

I took the Padre a mule; the rain broke, the little rivulet would soon be fordable, and at daylight the next morning we expected a regular squeeze from the enemy. To amend matters, too, in place of our moving off before daylight and getting a start, we were to follow the 1st Division, and this did not move. General Alten sent repeatedly to poor dear Sir William Stewart (who gave me my commission), to represent the prospect he had of a brush which ought to be avoided, when up rides to Charlie Beckwith, our A.Q.M.G., the Honourable Arthur Upton, saying, “My dear-e Beckwith, you could not inform me where I could get a paysano (a peasant)? The 1st Division can’t move; we have no guide.” “Oh, d——,” says Charlie, “is that it? We will do anything to get you out of our way. Come to Harry Smith. He has a paysano, I know.” I always had three or four poor fellows in charge of a guard, so requisite are guides with light troops. I gave him his paysano, and by this time the sun was an hour high at least. To our delight, in place of a fight retreating, which partakes neither of the pomp nor majesty of war, but of nothing but hard and often inglorious losses, we saw the French army dismissed, all drying their clothes, and as little in a state to attack as we were desirous of their company. We had a clear, cold, but unmolested long march, and fell in with some stores coming. Yesterday the soldier’s life was one of misery, to-day all joy and elasticity!

Just as the rear-guard had moved off the ground, I heard the voice of a soldier familiar to me calling out, “Oh, Mr. Smith!” (The Rifle soldiers ever called me “Mr. Smith.”) “Don’t leave me here.” I rode up. As gallant a Rifleman as ever breathed, by name O’Donnell, lay there with his thigh fractured the day before by a cannon-shot. I was grieved for him. I had no means to assist him but one which I deemed it impossible he could avail himself of—the tumbril of a gun. He said, “Oh, I can ride.” I galloped to Ross, who literally sent back with me a six-pounder, and took the poor fellow on the tumbril, the gunner cheerfully giving him his place. It was grievous to see poor O’Donnell hoisted up with his thigh smashed. We got him there, though, and he said, “I shall do now.” He died in two hours. I shall ever feel grateful to Ross; few men could have done it, but his guns were drawn by noble horses, and he was, and is, a SOLDIER.

Over the bivouac fire this night the Padre became eloquent and sentimental. “When you told me at Madrid what were the hardships and privations of a soldier’s life in retreat, pursued by a vigorous enemy, I considered I had a very correct idea; I now see I had no conception whatever. But what appears to me so extraordinary is that every one acts for himself alone. There you see a poor knocked-up soldier sitting in the mud, unable to move; there come grooms with led horses. No one asks the sick man to ride, no one sympathizes with the other’s feelings—in short, every one appears to struggle against difficulties for himself alone.” I could see the Padre had not forgotten my old man West’s refusal of my second war-horse.

On the day following [19 Nov.], the weather was clear but bitterly cold. We reached the suburbs of Ciudad Rodrigo, happy enough to know that for this campaign the fighting was over. Although some of our troops had a long march before them into Portugal, we Light Division gentlemen were close at home. Many of our stoutest officers were sick, John Bell, Charlie Eeles, etc., and we had many wounded to look after. The Padre and my cheerful, light-hearted wife were cooking in a little house all day long. The Padre was a capital cook, and equally good when the food was prepared. I went out coursing every day, and some of our regiment fellows, notwithstanding the “retreat” and its hardships, went out duck-shooting, up to their middles in water, Jonathan Leach among the rest.

My brigade was ordered into our old villages of Alameda, Fuentes d’Oñoro, Guinaldo, and to march viâ San Felices el chico, there to cross the Agueda. The weather was very rainy and cold, but my vivacious little wife was full of animation and happiness, and the Padre usually cooking.

Fuentes d’Oñoro was to be the head-quarters of our Brigade. General Vandeleur took up his quarters in the Curé’s house, around which in the battle had been a sanguinary conflict. I was at the other end of the village for the sake of an excellent stable. It belonged to the father of the beautiful Maria Josefa, who fled from her father’s house with a commissary, was infamously treated by him, returned to her fathers house, and was received by the good old man kindly, although with nearly a broken heart. Songs were sung about her all over Spain, and she was universally condemned, pitied, and pardoned. I put the Padre in this house, told him the tale of woe, and, to his credit, he did everything a Christian clergyman ought, to urge on the parents pardon of the ill-used penitent. Nor did he plead in vain, the poor thing was forgiven by every one but herself. The Padre requested my generous-hearted wife to see her, and this was a consolation to poor Maria Josefa worth a general action to behold.

My billet was some little distance from the stable, and while there my landlord married a second wife. The inhabitants of this part of Spain are very peculiar and primitive in their manners, dress, and customs; they are called Charras. The dress of the women is most costly, and a marriage feast exceeds any feast that I ever saw, or that has been described by Abyssinian Bruce. We had fun and much feasting for three days. One of the ceremonies is that during a dance in which the bride is, of course, the prima donna, her relatives and friends make her presents, which she receives while dancing in the most graceful, though rustic, attitudes. The presents are frequently considerable sums in gold, or gold and silver ornaments of singular workmanship. All relatives and friends give something, or it is regarded as a slight. My wife, who learned to dance the rustic measure on purpose, presented a doubloon in the most elegant and graceful manner, to the delight of her compatriots around, although, being an Estremenha, she was regarded by these primitive, but hospitable and generous, creatures, as half a foreigner. The bride has a knife in her uplifted hand, upon it an apple, and the smaller presents are presented by cutting the apple, and placing in the cut the money or ornament.

In this part of Spain the pigs are fed most delicately; they are driven first into woods of cork trees, which produce beautiful, sweet acorns, then into woods of magnificent chestnut trees, the keeper getting into the trees and flogging down the acorns and chestnuts with an immense long whip. The pigs thus fed yield a meat different from the usual meat of the animal. They are of a beautiful breed, become exceedingly fat, and the season of killing them and making black puddings and sausages for the year’s supply is one of continual feasting. The peasants also cure the meat along each side of the backbone called loma de puerco. This they do in a very peculiar manner with salt, red pepper, and of course a soupçon of garlic in a thick slice; and, notwithstanding the little garlic, when simply boiled, it is the most delicious food, for breakfast particularly, that even a French cook could boast of.

During our stay at Fuentes, many were the rides my wife took on her horse Tiny to our friends in the different villages. At last, however, an order came to our Brigade head-quarters to vacate Fuentes d’Oñoro, as it was required for a part of the head-quarters establishment not far off at Freneda, and we moved to Guinaldo, to our deep regret. The Padre a few days before had taken his departure for his living at Vicalbaro. Two most magnificent mules, and his servant, came for him. We parted with mutual regret, but I am sorry to say he only wrote to us twice afterwards, and once to ask a favour for some individual.

At this time I was sporting mad. The Duke had a capital pack of fox-hounds. James Stewart, my chum, our A.Q.M.G., had an excellent pack of harriers to which I acted as whipper-in. After a very severe run, swimming two rivers, my Andalusian, which produced the doubloons at Alcala, died soon after he got back to his stable. Mr. Commissary Haines, at head-quarters, had a beautiful pack of little beagles. I was too proud to look at them. I had the best greyhounds in the world,—“Moro,” and some of his almost equally celebrated sons.

CHAPTER XI.
CAMPAIGN OF 1813: BATTLE OF VITTORIA.

At Guinaldo we soon saw it was requisite to prepare for another campaign, and without any previous warning whatever, we received, about twelve at night, an order to march, which we did at daylight [21 May, 1813], and marched nineteen successive days without one halt.

I commenced this campaign under very unfortunate circumstances as far as my stud was concerned. I had five capital horses, and only two fit for work. Tiny, my wife’s noble little horse, had received a violent injury from the pulling down of the bullock-manger (an immensely heavy timber, with mere holes in it for the ox’s muzzle), when the extreme end and sharp point fell on his off fore-hoof, and he was so lame he could hardly travel to Vittoria. This was an awful loss to my wife. General Vandeleur now and then mounted me, or I should have been badly off indeed. James Stewart gave me a celebrated English hunter called “Old Chap.” He had picked up a nail in his hind foot, and was not fit to ride for months, and an English mare had thrown out a ring-bone. (I must observe that winter quarters to my stud was no holiday.)

The march from Guinaldo to Palencia and thence to Vittoria was exceedingly interesting; the weather delightful; supplies, the mainspring of happiness in a soldier’s life, plentiful; and never was any army (although the Duke had so censured us after the retreat from Burgos) inspired with such confidence in their leader, and such dependence on their own prowess. All was cheerfulness, joy, and anticipation. On reaching Toro [2 June], we found the bridge over the Douro destroyed. The river was full and barely fordable for cavalry and baggage animals. The bridge was partially repaired, some boats collected, and by boats our artillery, baggage, and material crossed, some of the infantry in boats, some scrambling over the bridge. The Douro, a magnificent and deep flowing river, was much up for the time of year. The passage was a most animating spectacle; it would have been a difficulty to an inexperienced army. With us, we were ordered to cross, and it was a matter of fun and excitement. No halt of Divisions, the river was crossed, and the day’s march completed. My wife’s dear Spaniard being lame, she rode a thoroughbred mare, which I gave £140 for, an elegant animal, but it no more had the sagacity of Tiny than a cur has that of a foxhound, and the day before we reached Palencia, upon a greasy bank, the mare slipped up and fell upon my poor wife and broke a small bone in her foot. This was to me an awful accident; heretofore health and happiness facilitated all; now, but for her natural vivacity and devotion, such was the pain, she must have remained at Palencia, and we must have separated. The bare idea aroused all her energy, and she said, “Get me a mule or an ass, and put a Spanish saddle for a lady on it; my feet will rest upon the foot-board, and go I will!” Dozens of officers were in immediate requisition, some trying mules to find a very easy one, others running from shop to shop to get a good easy and well-cushioned saddle. There was no difficulty. The word “stay behind” was the talisman to move pain, and the mule was put in progress next morning with that success determination ever ensures, for “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

The whole of the Duke’s army passed this day through the narrow main street of rather a pretty city, Palencia [7 June]. From a little after daylight, until past six in the evening, there was a continued stream of men—cavalry, artillery, infantry, and baggage, without a moment’s interruption the whole day. To view this torrent of life was a sight which made an indelible impression upon a beholder.

But to my wounded wife. At the end of the march, the Brigade head-quarters went, as usual, into the village near the bivouac. Oh, the ceremony of her dismounting, the quantity of officers’ cloaks spread for her reception; the “Take care! Now I’ll carry the leg,” of the kind-hearted doctor! Talk of Indian attention! Here were a set of fellows ready to lay down their lives even to alleviate momentary pain.

As we approached Burgos, the scene of previous failure, we Light, 3rd, and 4th Divisions expected the reluctant honour of besieging it, and so flushed with hope were we to meet the enemy in an open field and not behind bastions, curtains, embrasures, and defences, we fairly wished Burgos at the devil.

The day we were moving upon it [13 June] (the Duke knew it would not be defended), to our delight, one, two, three, four terrific explosions took place, and well did we know the enemy had blown Burgos to where we wished it. The universal joy was most manifest, for, if we had besieged it, former failure would have excited these crack Divisions to get into it with the determination they had ever previously evinced, but the blowing it up happily got us out of the difficulty to our hearts’ content.[31]

My wife’s foot gradually improved, and in a few days she was on her horse again, and en route in the column; for the soldiers, although generally averse to be interfered with by horses on the line of march, were ever delighted to get her to ride with their Company. Seeing her again on her horse was a great relief to my mind, for, in her peculiar and isolated position, the bare surmise of our separation was horrid, and, if I must have left her behind, the fact of a true Catholic allying herself to a heretic would, among bigoted inhabitants, have secured her anything but tender attention.

Our Division at San Millan, near Vittoria [18 June], intercepted the route of one of the French Columns as it was retiring into their position at Vittoria, and had as brilliant a fight entirely of our own as any one throughout the campaign. Some of the 1st Hussars also had a severe brush. Our Division halted the next day [20th], but the army never did, from the day of breaking up its cantonments until they fought the battle of Vittoria. It was a most wonderful march, the army in great fighting order, and every man in better wind than a trained pugilist.

At the Battle of Vittoria [21 June] my Brigade, in the middle of the action, was sent to support the 7th Division, which was very hotly engaged. I was sent forward to report myself to Lord Dalhousie, who commanded. I found his lordship and his Q.M.G., Drake, an old Rifle comrade, in deep conversation. I reported pretty quick, and asked for orders (the head of my Brigade was just getting under fire). I repeated the question, “What orders, my Lord?” Drake became somewhat animated, and I heard His Lordship say, “Better to take the village,” which the French held with twelve guns (I had counted by their fire), and seemed to be inclined to keep it. I roared out, “Certainly, my Lord,” and off I galloped, both calling to me to come back, but, as none are so deaf as those who won’t hear, I told General Vandeleur we were immediately to take the village. There was no time to lose, and the 52nd Regiment deployed into line as if at Shorncliffe, while our Riflemen were sent out in every direction, five or six deep, keeping up a fire nothing could resist. I galloped to the officer commanding a Battalion in the 7th Division (the 82nd, I think). “Lord Dalhousie desires you closely to follow this Brigade of the Light Division.” “Who are you, sir?” “Never mind that; disobey my Lord’s order at your peril.” My Brigade, the 52nd in line and the swarms of Riflemen, rushed at the village, and although the ground was intersected in its front by gardens and ditches, nothing ever checked us until we reached the rear of the village, where we halted to reform—the twelve guns, tumbrils, horses, etc., standing in our possession. There never was a more impetuous onset—nothing could withstand such a burst of determination. Before we were ready to pursue the enemy—for we Light Division ever reformed and got into order before a second attack, thanks to poor General Bob Craufurd’s most excellent tuition—up came Lord Dalhousie with his Q.M.G., Drake, to old Vandeleur, exclaiming, “Most brilliantly achieved indeed! Where is the officer you sent to me for orders?” “Here I am, my lord.” Old Drake knew well enough. “Upon my word, sir, you receive and carry orders quicker than any officer I ever saw.” “You said, ‘Take the village.’ My lord, there it is,” I said, “guns and all.” He smiled, and old Drake burst into one of his grins, “Well done, Harry.”

We were hotly engaged all the afternoon pursuing the French over very broad ditches. Until we neared Vittoria to our left, there was a plain free from ditches. The confusion of baggage, etc., was indescribable. Our Brigade was moving rapidly on, when such a swarm of French Cavalry rushed out from among the baggage into our skirmishers, opposite a company of the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade, commanded by Lieutenant Tom Cochrane, we thought they must have been swept off. Fortunately for Tom, a little rough ground and a bank enabled him to command his Company to lie down, and such a reception they gave the horsemen, while some of our Company were flying to their support, that the French fled with a severe loss. Our Riflemen were beautiful shots, and as undaunted as bulldogs. We knew so well, too, how to support each other, that scarcely had the French Dragoons shown themselves when Cochrane’s rear was supported, and we had such mutual confidence in this support that we never calculated on disaster, but assumed the boldest front and bearing.

A rather curious circumstance occurred to me after the first heights and the key of the enemy’s central position was carried. I was standing with Ross’s Brigade of guns sharply engaged, when my horse fell as if stone dead. I jumped off, and began to look for the wound. I could see none, and gave the poor animal a kick on the nose. He immediately shook his head, and as instantly jumped on his legs, and I on his back. The artillerymen all said it was the current of air, or, as they call it, the wind, of one of the enemy’s cannon-shot. On the attack on the village previously described, Lieutenant Northey (52nd Regiment) was not knocked off as I was, but he was knocked down by the wind of a shot, and his face as black as if he had been two hours in a pugilistic ring.

The fall of my horse had been observed by some of our soldiers as they were skirmishing forward, and a report soon prevailed that I was killed, which, in the course of the afternoon, was communicated to my poor wife, who followed close to the rear on the very field of battle, crossing the plain covered with treasure. Her old groom, West, proposed to carry off some on a led horse. She said, “Oh, West, never mind money. Let us look for your master.” She had followed the 1st Brigade men, the 2nd having been detached, unobserved by her, to aid the 7th Division. After the battle, at dusk, my Brigade was ordered to join the 1st Brigade, with General Alten’s head-quarters. I had lost my voice from the exertion of cheering with our men (not cheering them on, for they required no such example), and as I approached the 1st Brigade, to take up the ground for mine, I heard my wife’s lamentations. I immediately galloped up to her, and spoke to her as well as I could, considering the loss of my voice. “Oh, then, thank God, you are not killed, only badly wounded.” “Thank God,” I growled, “I am neither,” but, in her ecstasy of joy, this was not believed for a long while.

After putting up my Brigade (we required no picquets, the Cavalry were far in our front in pursuit of the flying enemy) we, that is, my General and Staff, repaired to a barn, where we got in our horses and some forage, and lay down among them. It was dark; we had no lights, and sleep after such a day was as refreshing as eating, even if we had any means. At daybreak our luggage had arrived, and we were busy preparing some breakfast. Hardly did the kettle boil when “Fall in!” was the word. Just as we were jumping on our horses, my young wife, her ears being rather quick, said, “I am sure I hear some one moaning, like a wounded man.” We looked round, and I saw there was a loft for hay over our barn. I immediately scrambled up with assistance, for the ladder, like Robinson Crusoe’s, had been hauled up. When I reached the landing-place, such a scene met my eye! Upwards of twenty French officers, all more or less severely wounded, one poor fellow in the agony of death, and a lady, whom I recognized as Spanish, grieving over him. At first the poor fellows funked. I soon assured them of every safety and protection, and put my wife and the poor Spanish lady, her countrywoman, in communication. All we could spare, or, rather, all our breakfast, was given to the wounded, for march we must. The General sent his A.D.C. for a guard; we did all we could at the moment, and the poor fellows were grateful indeed. The Spanish lady had a most beautiful little pug dog, a thoroughbred one, with a very extraordinary collar of bells about its neck. She insisted upon my wife’s accepting the dog as a token of gratitude for our kindness. The little animal was accepted immediately, and named “Vittoria”; we jumped on our horses, and parted for ever, gratified, however, at having had it in our power to render this slight assistance to the poor fellows wounded and in distress. The dog became afterwards a celebrated animal in the Division, universally known and caressed, and the heroine of many a little anecdote, and hereafter at Waterloo must claim half a page to itself. It was the most sensible little brute Nature ever produced, and it and Tiny became most attached friends.

On this day’s march our soldiers could scarcely move—men, in such wind and health as they were—but the fact is they had got some flocks of the enemy’s sheep, and fallen in with a lot of flour; they had eaten till they were gorged like vultures, and every man’s haversack was laden with flour and raw meat, all of which, except a day or two’s supply, the Generals of Brigade were obliged to order to be thrown away. We were soon, however, close on the heels of the enemy, and the first shot revived the power to march. The retreat of the enemy was marked by every excess and atrocity and villages burning in every direction. Oh, my countrymen of England, if you had seen the twentieth part of the horrors of war I have, readily would you pay the war-taxes, and grumble less at the pinching saddle of National Debt! The seat of war is hell upon earth, even when stripped of the atrocities committed in Spain and Portugal, and everywhere else, I believe, except dear old England, by the French Army.

We Light Division had the pleasure, ere we reached Pamplona, to take the enemy’s only remaining gun.[32]

CHAPTER XII.
CAMPAIGN OF 1813: ADVANCE TO VERA.

The night before we reached Pamplona [24 June], the enemy, rather unexpectedly to us, drove in the picquets of my Brigade in a very sharp skirmish, although we were as ever prepared, and the Division got under arms. This convinced us that the whole army, except the garrison at Pamplona, was in full retreat into France. It is a peculiar custom of the French unexpectedly to put back your picquets when they are about to retire; that is, when the ground admits no obstacle of bridge, river, or village, intervening. The object of such forward moves I have never heard satisfactorily given.

On this evening a stout French gentleman came in to our advanced post, saying he wanted to see the Duke. I took him to General Vandeleur. He dined with us, and a most jawing, facetious fellow he was. At first we regarded him as a spy, which he afterwards told General Vandeleur he was, and in the employ of the Duke. He could not proceed that night, for we did not know in the least where head-quarters were, and the night was excessively dark; so the French gentleman, whom I wished at the devil, was given in charge to me. If he had had any inclination to escape I defied him, for I put some of our old vigilant Riflemen around him, so that not a man could get in or out of the room I had put him in. We afterwards heard my friend was a man of great use to the Duke, and one of King Joseph’s household.

The next day [25 June] we Light Division passed Pamplona, leaving it by a very intricate road to our right, and were cantoned in the village of Offala. It was necessary to keep a look-out towards Pamplona, and my General, Vandeleur, and I, rode to look where to post our picquets. I had a most athletic and active fellow with me as a guide, very talkative, and full of the battle of Vittoria. He asked me what was the name of the General before us. I said, “General Vandeleur.” I heard him muttering it over to himself several times. He then ran up to the General, and entered into conversation. The General soon called me to him, for he could not speak a word [of Spanish]. “What’s the fellow say?” “He is telling all he heard from the Frenchmen who were billeted in his house in the retreat. He is full of anecdote.” He then looked most expressively in Vandeleur’s face, and says, “Yes, they say the English fought well, but had it not been for one General Bandelo, the French would have gained the day.” “How the devil did this fellow know?” says Vandeleur. I never undeceived the General, and he fancies to this day his Brigade’s being sent to assist the 7th Division was the cause of the Frenchmen’s remark. My guide, just like a “cute” Irishman or American, gave me a knowing wink.

This very fellow turned out to be owner of the house my wife and baggage and I got into—the General’s Aide-de-camp, as was often the case, having shown her into one near the General. After I had dressed myself, he came to me and said, “When you dine, I have some capital wine, as much as you and your servants like; but,” he says, “come down and look at my cellar.” The fellow had been so civil, I did not like to refuse him. We descended by a stone staircase, he carrying a light. He had upon his countenance a most sinister expression. I saw something exceedingly excited him: his look became fiend-like. He and I were alone, but such confidence had we Englishmen in a Spaniard, and with the best reason, that I apprehended no personal evil. Still his appearance was very singular. When we got to the cellar-door, he opened it, and held the light so as to show the cellar; when, in a voice of thunder, and with an expression of demoniacal hatred and antipathy, pointing to the floor, he exclaimed, “There lie four of the devils who thought to subjugate Spain! I am a Navarrese. I was born free from all foreign invasion, and this right hand shall plunge this stiletto in my own heart as it did into theirs, ere I and my countrymen are subjugated!” brandishing his weapon like a demon. I see the excited patriot as I write. Horror-struck as I was, the instinct of self-preservation induced me to admire the deed exceedingly, while my very frame quivered and my blood was frozen, to see the noble science of war and the honour and chivalry of arms reduced to the practices of midnight assassins. Upon the expression of my admiration, he cooled, and while he was deliberately drawing wine for my dinner, which, however strange it may be, I drank with the gusto its flavour merited, I examined the four bodies. They were Dragoons—four athletic, healthy-looking fellows. As we ascended, he had perfectly recovered the equilibrium of his vivacity and naturally good humour. I asked him how he, single-handed, had perpetrated this deed on four armed men (for their swords were by their sides). “Oh, easily enough. I pretended to love a Frenchman” (or, in his words, ‘I was an Afrancesado’), “and I proposed, after giving them a good dinner, we should drink to the extermination of the English.” He then looked at me and ground his teeth. “The French rascals, they little guessed what I contemplated. Well, we got into the cellar, and drank away until I made them so drunk, they fell, and my purpose was easily, and as joyfully, effected.” He again brandished his dagger, and said, “Thus die all enemies to Spain.” Their horses were in his stable. When the French Regiment marched off, he gave these to some guerrillas in the neighbourhood. It is not difficult to reconcile with truth the assertion of the historian who puts down the loss of the French army, during the Spanish war, as 400,000 men, for more men fell in this midnight manner than by the broad-day sword, or the pestilence of climate, which in Spain, in the autumn, is excessive.

The next day we marched a short distance to a beautiful village, or town, rather,—Villalba, where we halted a day, and expected to remain three or four. It was on a Sunday afternoon, and some of the recollection of the Sunday of our youth was passing across the mind of the lover of his family and his country—the very pew at church, the old peasants in the aisle; the friendly neighbours’ happy faces; the father, mother, brothers, sisters; the joys, in short, of home, for, amidst the eventful scenes of such a life, recollection will bring the past in view, and compare the blessings of peace with the horror, oh! the cruel horror, of war! In the midst of this mental soliloquy, my dear wife exclaims, “Mi Enrique, how thoughtful you look!” I dare not tell her that my thoughts reverted to my home. Hers being a desolate waste, the subject was ever prohibited, for her vivacious mind, and her years of juvenile excitement, could never control an excess of grief if the words, “your home,” ever escaped my lips.

My reverie was soon aroused by the entrance of a soldier, without ceremony—for every one was ever welcome. “Sir, is the order come?” “For what?” I said. “An extra allowance of wine?” “No,” he said, “for an extra allowance of marching. We are to be off directly after these French chaps, as expects to get to France without a kick from the Light Division.” I was aware he alluded to General Clausel’s division that was retiring by the pass over the Pyrenees, called La Haca. It is most singular, but equally true, that our soldiers knew every move in contemplation long before any officer. While we were in conversation, in came the order; away went all thoughts of home, and a momentary regret on quitting so nice a quarter was banished in the excitement of the march.

In twenty minutes our Division was in full march to try and intercept Clausel’s Division. That night we marched most rapidly to Tafalla, next day to Olite, thence brought up our right shoulder towards Sanguessa. This was a night-march of no ordinary character to all, particularly to me and my wife. Her Spanish horse, Tiny, was so far recovered from his lameness that she insisted on riding him. On a night-march we knew the road to be difficult. In crossing the Arragon [30 June], although the bridge was excellent, on this march by some singular accident (it was very dark and raining) an interval occurred in our column—a thing unprecedented, so particular were we, thanks to Craufurd’s instructions—and the majority of the Division, in place of crossing the bridge, passed the turn and went on a league out of the direction. My Brigade was leading. Two Battalions came all right, and I stayed more at the head of the column than was my wont, to watch the guides. So dark and intricate was the road we were moving on, I proposed to the General to form up, and see that our troops were all right. After the two first Battalions formed, I waited a short time in expectation of the next, the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. I hallooed, seeing no column, when a voice a long way off answered. It was that of the most extraordinary character, the eccentric Colonel Wade. I galloped up, and said, “Colonel, form up your Battalion, so soon as you reach the Brigade.” “By Jesus,” he said, “we are soon formed; I and my bugler are alone.” I, naturally somewhat excited, asked, “Where’s the Regiment?” “Upon my soul, and that’s what I would like to ask you.” I then saw some mistake must have happened. I galloped back in the dark to the bridge, saw no column whatever, but heard voices far beyond the bridge. The column, after passing it in the dark, had discovered the error and were coming back. Meanwhile, my wife heard me hallooing and came towards me. I had dismounted, and was leading my horse a little way off the road up the left bank of the Arragon; the rain was falling in torrents, the bank of the river gave way under me, and a flash of lightning at the moment showed me I was falling into the bed of the river about thirty feet below. I had firmly hold of my bridle—the avalanche frightened my noble horse (the celebrated “Old Chap,” the hunter that James Stewart gave me); he flew round and dragged me from inevitable perdition. My wife and old West were close behind at the moment, and she witnessed the whole, equally to her horror and satisfaction. Then such a tale of woe from herself. The uneven ground at night had so lamed her dear little horse, Tiny, that he could not carry her. She got off in the rain and dark, herself still excessively lame from the broken bone in the foot, and literally crawled along, until the rocky road improved, and West again put her upon her faithful Tiny. I could devote neither time nor attention to her. Day was just beginning to break. I directed her to the bivouac, and most energetically sought to collect my Brigade, which, with the daylight, I soon effected. When I got back, I found my wife sitting, holding her umbrella over General Vandeleur (who was suffering dreadfully from rheumatism in the shoulder in which he had been wounded at the storm of Ciudad Rodrigo), recounting to him her night’s adventures and laughing heartily. The weather totally precluded any possibility of our molesting Clausel, and we were ordered to march to Sanguessa, which we did the following day, and Charlie Gore, General Kempt’s A.D.C., gave a ball [1 July], where there was as much happiness as if we were at Almack’s, and some as handsome women, the loves of girls of Sanguessa.