Chapter III (2)

On the 16th they again resumed their place in the trenches. The enemy had now got the range so accurately that their shells literally dropped into the trenches. So murderous and incessant was the fire from the place, that on their relief the next morning a new expedient was devised to escape its effect. The relieving division came up by small parties and the Light Division in like manner retired a few men at a time. But strange is the confidence given by constant exposure to danger: the Riflemen having discovered that by crossing the river close to where they then were, and running the gauntlet of the enemy’s fire for about a mile, instead of going round behind the hill near San Francisco, they would save both time and distance in getting to their cantonments, they did so.

Two breaches having been pronounced practicable on the 18th, the troops were ordered to assemble on the 19th for the assault of the place. The storming party consisted of a hundred men from each Regiment of the Division. The officers of the Regiment who volunteered for this duty were Captain Mitchell[108] of the 2nd Battalion, and Lieutenants William Johnston and Kincaid of the 1st Battalion. The Regiment forded the Agueda as usual, and halted for about an hour near the Convent of La Caridad. Thence they moved forward, and halted again behind the Convent of San Francisco.

The order of attack was as follows:

Four companies of the 1st Battalion, commanded by Major Cameron, who were to line the crest of the glacis and keep down the fire of the place;

Portuguese, carrying hay-bags, which they were to throw into the ditch, and ladders;

The forlorn hope;

The storming party, commanded by Major George Napier, of the 52nd;

The main body of the Division, commanded by Craufurd.

While waiting behind the Convent for the order to advance, Harry Smith came up to the Regiment, and said, ‘Some of you must come and take charge of some ladders;’ George Simmons at once stepped out and offered to go; and, having picked out the number of men required, followed Smith to the Engineer camp and obtained them. When he returned, Craufurd fiercely attacked him; ‘Why did you bring these short ladders here?’ ‘Because I was ordered by the Engineers to do so, General.’ ‘Go back, Sir, and get others; I am astonished at such stupidity.’ Simmons returned and procured others; and on his way back finding a Portuguese Captain wishing to be useful with his company, he handed over the ladders to him with strict injunctions as to how to place them, and rejoined his Battalion.

It is pleasanter to record Craufurd’s last address to his Division, almost his last words, as they stood waiting to attack; words never forgotten by some who heard them.

‘Soldiers,’ he said, in a voice which seemed to be peculiarly impressive, ‘the eyes of your country are upon you. Be steady; be cool; be firm in the assault. The town must be yours this night. Once masters of the wall, let your first duty be to clear the ramparts, and in doing so keep well together.’

At last the signal was given, and the leading Riflemen issued from behind the Convent of San Francisco and turned to the left to ascend the glacis. The night was clear enough to enable the defenders to perceive them; and no sooner had the head of the column appeared, than a furious fire of shot, shell and musketry lit up the ramparts in a sheet of flame, while fire-balls enabled the enemy to direct their aim on the advancing columns. Cameron’s Riflemen extended along the glacis, and opened their fire. The stormers rushed up to the ditch, and without waiting for the hay-bags or ladders carried by the Portuguese, who were nowhere, leaped into the ditch, a descent of ten or twelve feet, and made for the breach. Kincaid, by mistake, turned to a ravelin which he fancied to be a bastion, and finding one angle of it a good deal battered, thought it was the breach, and mounted it; but soon perceiving his error, was about to return, when a shout from the other side of the ditch announced that the breach had been found. He dropped from the ravelin, and on coming to the breach found the head of the storming party just ascending it.

But not the stormers only: the rest of the Regiment were pouring into the ditch. George Simmons finding ladders reared against the _fausse-braye_ (for the Portuguese by this time had found their way to the ditch) mounted it with many others, fancying it to be the breach; but discovering his mistake, slid down the other side and mounted the breach. As he was ascending the ladders, Uniacke of the 1st Battalion accosted him. ‘This is the way.’ ‘Impossible,’ replied Simmons, ‘here are the ladders.’ Uniacke left him, turned to the left, and just as he reached the rampart an expense magazine exploded, and blew him and many others up.[109]

Then was there furious fighting at this breach; but it was soon won. The men, true to Craufurd’s orders, cleared the ramparts, and within an hour the place was in our hands. Then began that furious tumult, and that loosening of all the bands of discipline which mark the sack of a place captured by assault. The town was set on fire, but by the exertions of Barnard, Cameron and others it was extinguished. Barnard and Cameron with some of their officers seized broken gun-barrels, of which many French ones were found, and by force and even blows compelled the men to refrain from brutality and madness. By one o’clock in the morning Barnard had got the Regiment together and formed them on the ramparts, where, kindling fires, they lay down and slept soundly after this din of arms.

And many slept to wake no more. Captain Uniacke, as I have said, was blown up on reaching the rampart; his arm was torn from the socket, and he was fearfully scorched. He was carried to Gallegos, where he died a few hours after, surrounded by the men of his company, by whom he was beloved.’ ‘Though young in years,’ says Costello, who served in his company, ‘he was gallant, daring, and just to all whom he commanded. His affability and personal courage had rendered him the idol of the men of his company.’ Fairfoot, who was Pay-sergeant of his company, was resolved that he should be buried in consecrated ground; but he found an obstacle in the prejudices of the clergy, who considered him a heretic. However, Fairfoot (with pardonable equivocation) assured the priests that his Captain was an Irishman, which to the Spanish priests implied that he was a Catholic. Their scruples gave way; ‘and I chose,’ said Fairfoot afterwards, ‘the finest tree in the church-yard of Gallegos.’ At its foot he was laid; the whole of his company attending, under the command of Thomas Smith, his subaltern. Lieutenants John Cox and Hamilton, of the 1st Battalion, were also severely wounded, 1 Rifleman was killed, 1 sergeant and 15 rank and file wounded; in the 2nd Battalion, Captain Mitchell, and Lieutenants Bedell and M’Gregor were wounded, the two former severely; 8 rank and file were killed, and 22 wounded;[110] and 2 sergeants and 7 rank and file of the 3rd Battalion were wounded.

Besides these losses in the Regiment they had to regret the loss of their leader in so many glorious fields, Major-General Robert Craufurd, who, soon after starting them from the San Francisco Convent with the inspiriting words, ‘Now, lads, for the breach,’ was struck down mortally wounded, and died on the 24th. He was buried with military honours at the foot of the breach his Division had so gallantly carried, borne to the grave by four Sergeant-Majors of his Division, and followed by Lord Wellington, his Staff, and the officers of his Division. Though not of the Regiment, he had led them in so many a glorious field that he seemed to be of them. At Buenos Ayres, in the retreat to Corunna, and now in Portugal and Spain, he had been their Brigadier or divisional General. At first dreaded and disliked for his strict rules of discipline and for his unswerving punishment of all breaches of them, he had come to be beloved by men and officers, who saw to what a pitch of excellence that code and that enforcement of it had brought the Division he commanded, making it the admiration or the envy of the whole army; who recognised that if he was exacting, he always was just; who felt that he cared for their wants or their comfort; and who knew that he always led them bravely, always to conquer.

I am not writing a memoir of General Craufurd; yet two anecdotes connected specially with the Regiment I may here record.

On one occasion he was riding in front of the lines when two Riflemen rushed out of a house, pursued by a Spanish woman calling out _‘Ladrone! ladrone!’_ They had stolen bread. Craufurd with his orderly immediately pursued them, the guard was turned out, and they were made prisoners. The next day they were tried by a brigade Court-Martial, found guilty, and sentenced to a punishment of a hundred-and-fifty lashes. One, a Corporal Miles, was of course to be reduced to the ranks. They were brought out to a wood to be punished. As soon as the Brigade Major had read the proceedings, Craufurd addressed the men on their cruelty to the Spaniards. Then, turning to the Regiment, he upbraided them in no measured terms: ‘You think that because you are Riflemen, and more exposed to the enemy’s fire than other troops, you may rob the inhabitants with impunity; but while I command you, you shall not.’ Then addressing Corporal Miles, he said in a stern voice, ‘Strip, sir.’

When Miles was tied up to a tree to receive his punishment, he turned his head and said: ‘General Craufurd, I hope you will forgive me.’ Craufurd answered: ‘No; your crime is too great.’

On this Corporal Miles, in a quiet and most respectful voice and manner, addressed the General: ‘Do you remember, sir, when you and I were taken prisoners, when under the command of General Whitelocke at Buenos Ayres? We were marched prisoners to a sort of pound, surrounded with a wall. There was a well in the centre, from which I drew water in my mess-tin, by means of canteen-straps which I collected from the men who were prisoners like myself. You sat on my knapsack; and I parted my last biscuit with you. You then told me that you would never forget my kindness to you. It is now in your power, sir. You know how short of rations we have been for some time.’

These simple words, and the soldier’s respectful manner, affected not only Craufurd but every man in the square. Meanwhile the Bugle-Major gave the fatal nod, and Miles received a lash. But before a second fell, Craufurd called out: ‘What’s that? who taught that bugler to flog? send him to drill; he cannot flog. Stop, stop, take him down; I remember it well; I remember it well!’ Then he paced up and down the square, evidently much moved. In a dead silence Miles was untied; and at last the General said to him: ‘Why does a brave soldier like you commit these crimes?’ and calling his orderly, he mounted, and rode off without a word more. The other man was pardoned, and Miles had his corporal’s stripes restored in a few days.

On one occasion during Moore’s retreat, Lieutenant Thomas Smith, then a very young officer who had but lately joined, was accompanying ammunition which was in charge of a Quartermaster (Ross). On their arrival at Craufurd’s head-quarters, the wily Quartermaster advised Smith to go and report their arrival to the General. The other demurred; saying that he was not in charge of the ammunition, but only accompanying it. However, the Quartermaster urged him, reminding him that he must be hungry; they had not, in fact, tasted food for twenty-four hours; and that the General would probably ask him to dinner. Thus counselled by his senior and impelled by his hunger, he presented himself at the General’s quarter and saw his Aide-de-Camp, who going upstairs returned with an order to proceed at once a further march of some three leagues. Smith returned to the Quartermaster with this woful order, adding that as he was in charge of it, he might remain with it, for that he should go on and overtake his Battalion. The Quartermaster declared he should do no such thing; and after a sharp argument they both started and joined the Battalion. In the morning as Smith was sitting down to breakfast, an order came from Craufurd, who had come up, that he and the Quartermaster should attend him. On being ushered into the General’s presence they found him warming himself before a comfortable brazier, while breakfast stood on the table. In a voice of great severity he asked which of the two had received his order the night before.

‘I did, sir,’ said Smith, ‘but’--

‘No _but_, sir,’ interrupted Craufurd; ‘consider yourself under arrest; and,’ adding a tremendous oath, ‘I will smash you.’

Poor Smith--for Craufurd would not hear a word more--returned in dismay to his brother officers, whom he found at breakfast; but hungry as he was and pressed by them to be of good heart, food had now no charms for him.

Eventually Beckwith represented to Craufurd that the offender was but a boy just joined; and his pleadings, coupled perhaps with the fact that they were just going to fight, when every available officer would be wanted, induced Craufurd, contrary to his wont, to relax his severity and to release Smith from his arrest.

Long afterwards as Craufurd was standing talking with the officers of the Battalion, round a camp fire, he turned to him.

‘Smith,’ said he, ‘did I not once put you under arrest?’

‘Yes, sir, you did.’

‘And do you know,’ he continued, ‘what became of the ammunition? I found it steadily going towards the French lines, and had but just time to put spurs to my horse and to turn it back. So that through your default I had nearly lost my ammunition.’[112]

On the 20th the Regiment marched back to its cantonments. Nothing could exceed the extraordinary appearance it presented. The men were dressed in every possible variety of costume which they had found in the houses. Some wore French uniforms, some breeches and jack-boots, some cocked hats; many had pieces of salt beef, hams and any provisions they could lay hands on stuck on their swords fixed to their rifles. In fact so strange was their appearance that Lord Wellington, who saw them on their march, asked ‘What regiment that could be.’

One of the Riflemen, a day or two after, playing the game of ‘nine-holes’ with what he fancied to be a cannon-ball brought from the place, was blown to pieces. It proved to be a live shell, which passing over some hot ashes, exploded just as he had it between his legs.

The Regiment soon after the fall of Rodrigo moved to Ituera. And while here a military execution took place of some deserters of the Light Division who had been found in the place. They had been tried by a Court-Martial, of which General Sir James Kempt was president, and were shot in the presence of the whole Division. Two of them were Riflemen; one was in the highland company, which was then kept up in the 3rd Battalion, of the name of M’Guinniss, a shoemaker by trade. He had once been a man of good character, but had been led away by another, named Hudson, of Uniacke’s company.

To conclude this painful subject I will add here that a month later when the Regiment was at Castello de Vide another man of the 1st Battalion was shot for desertion. His name was Arnal, and he was, or had been, a Corporal. When Ciudad Rodrigo was taken he in some way escaped and endeavoured to join the French troops at Salamanca; but in crossing the country he fell in with some Spanish soldiers, who made him prisoner and marched him back to the Regiment. He had been a man of good character, and it was hoped that this might have weighed in his favour; but discipline had to be vindicated, and so great a crime as desertion to the enemy could not be condoned. This man met his death with amazing firmness; settling his accounts with the Pay-sergeant of his company, and distributing his balance among his comrades the night before his death. When brought out to execution he refused to have his eyes bound, saying to the Provost Sergeant: ‘There is no occasion; I shall not flinch;’ nor did he.

On February 14 the Regiment marched to Portalegre, on the 15th to Arronches, and on the 17th to Elvas.

On March 17 the Regiment marched out of Elvas, the band playing ‘St. Patrick’s Day,’ to take up their position before Badajos, and after dusk began to break ground. A very heavy rain came on, and the weather continued very broken during the whole time of the siege operations. The ground to be occupied being extensive, and the force employed comparatively small, the men were required to be in the trenches six hours by day, and as many in the night; and this amount of time, with the addition of the marches to and from their camp, and the continued inclemency of the weather, made the period of the siege one of unusual hardship to the men and officers of the Regiment.

On the 19th the enemy made a sortie with about 1,500 infantry and some cavalry at the moment when the relief of the working parties in the trenches was taking place. The weather being, as usual, dull, and a drizzling rain falling, these troops got very close before they were perceived; and their cavalry, being mistaken for Portuguese, made their way through the camp of the Light Division. The men flew to their arms, and the sortie was repulsed; but the enemy succeeded in carrying off intrenching tools from the Engineers’ camp, and in injuring the works of the approaches. In this sortie Lieutenant Freer, of the 1st Battalion, was wounded.

On the 22nd, the enemy having brought some field-guns out of San Cristobal, and placed them in position enfilading the trenches, some Riflemen were ordered out, to get as near the Guadiana as possible, and to fire across the river, and shoot their gunners. This they did so effectually that the guns were soon withdrawn, many of the men working them being killed or wounded.

On the 26th Fort Picurina was attacked and carried a little after dark; and a party of Riflemen, taken from the working party, was ordered to carry the ladders. Lieutenant Stokes, then of the 3rd Battalion, who was in command of this party, was the first man in the fort; and it was owing to these men (with others of the Light Division) that, according to Napier, the capture of the place was effected. They were provided with axes, and broke down the palisades and gates of the fort. It being evident that the enemy, as soon as they knew the place was in our hands, would redouble their fire, the working parties were urged by their officers to work hard to cover themselves. The Riflemen did so; and so effectually, that when at daybreak the enemy opened a furious fire of shell and grape, the men had made such good cover that they were comparatively uninjured.

On April 4 George Simmons with a party was in an advanced sap, and observing that some large guns of the place were doing much injury to our artillery in an advanced battery, he selected some of the best shots and directed them to fire steadily into the embrasures. In half-an-hour he found that the guns were not fired so regularly as before; and soon gabions were brought and stuffed into the embrasures. These were withdrawn when the guns were about to be fired. The Riflemen took note of this, and the moment the gabions were removed fired steadily into the embrasure. Very soon the gabions began to be replaced without the guns having been discharged. They were thus effectually silenced. And from daylight till dark Simmons kept up this practice with ‘forty as prime fellows as ever pulled trigger.’ A French officer, probably a celebrated marksman, half hidden, lying on the grass of the parapet, set up his cocked hat some way in front of him to deceive our people, and to draw their fire. Some soldiers by him handed him loaded muskets to enable him to fire more rapidly. Simmons, leaning over the top of the trench, got a good view of this man; he selected a good shot, and being anxious that he should see the Frenchman, desired him to lay his rifle over his shoulder and steady his aim. The Rifleman fired; and nothing more was seen of the Frenchman, whom, no doubt, he killed or wounded, though the cocked hat remained in position until dark. But Simmons, in his anxiety, had forgotten that the priming of the old Baker rifle was close to his ear, which was much burnt and the whole side of his head singed.

Some of the best shots in the Regiment were selected also to occupy pits which had been dug between our approaches and the crest of the glacis, in order to pick off the gunners. This was most arduous and dangerous work; for not only were the men exposed to a deadly fire in running out to the pits, and in returning when relieved, but sometimes a man was wounded or killed in the pit, and the relieving Rifleman had to pull him or help him out before he could shelter himself, all the time exposed to a murderous fire from the place.

ASSAULT of BADAJOS
6^{TH} APRIL, 1812.

E. Weller, _Litho._
_London, Chatto & Windus._
]

The breaches being reported practicable on the 6th, the assault was ordered to take place on that evening. It is needless, after Napier’s magnificent description of this combat, to do more than specify what part the Regiment took in it. The Light Division, under the command of Barnard, formed at about eight o’clock in close column of companies, left in front, about 300 yards from the ditch. They were detailed to attack the breach in the Santa Maria bastion. Four companies (the left wing) of the 1st Battalion, under Major Cameron, were in front, with orders to extend to the left on reaching the covered way, in order (as at Ciudad Rodrigo) to keep down the fire from the ramparts. Next came six volunteers of that Battalion, under Lieutenant William Johnston, provided with ropes, to endeavour to pull the _chevaux-de-frise_, with which it was known the garrison had defended the breaches, out of their place. Then followed the forlorn hope;[113] and then the storming party, consisting of 100 men from each regiment of the Division. The officers of the Regiment with this party were Captains Crampton of the 1st Battalion; Hart of the 2nd; and Diggle of the 3rd; and Lieutenants Bedell, Manners, Coxen, and M’Gregor, of the 2nd Battalion. The rest of the Division followed. So noiselessly did Cameron’s four companies advance, and so accurately had he reconnoitred the ground, that he reached the place indicated for the head of his column, and extended along the covered way to his left, without being perceived by the garrison. Every man as he got into his place, silently lay down, placing the muzzle of his rifle through the palisades, and at the edge of the ditch. The men could see the heads of the troops lining the rampart; for the night was clear, though a sort of haze rising from the ground and the dark dress of the Riflemen enabled them to get into position unperceived. Yet a French sentry challenged twice; and his ‘_qui vive_’ being unanswered, he fired, and drums were heard, beating to arms. Yet Cameron reserved his fire for about ten minutes, till the forlorn hope coming up, he began while the heads of the troops lining the rampart could still be seen immovable. Then began from the place that murderous and unceasing fire of grape, shell, and musketry which has been compared by more than one of those who saw it, to the central fires of the earth, or even hell itself, vomiting forth their fury. Surtees, who as Quartermaster of the 3rd Battalion and a non-combatant (though he wished to be in the fray and was hardly restrained) witnessed it from the quarries, between the Picurina and the Pardeleras, says that it was so bright and so incessant that he could plainly see the faces of the defenders, though nearly a mile off. Yet Johnston with his volunteers, the forlorn hope and the stormers advanced, slid down the ladders or leaped into the ditch. The rest of the Division followed, tore up the palisades and ran up the glacis. There Captain Charles Gray was shot in the mouth, and many officers and men fell. Yet all pressed on; even the firing party in the covered way, carried away by frenzy, seeing their comrades fall, and their aim baffled by the smoke, leaped into the ditch, and passing, how they could, the drain cut in it and filled with water, in which not a few were drowned, they surged like the wave of a raging sea up the breach. But as the wave is repelled from the rock, so were they checked by the insuperable obstacles; the _chevaux-de-frise_ of sword-blades fixed in beams; the murderous fire from behind the wall of sand-bags; the planks studded with nails and fixed at the upper end; the shells, powder-barrels, grenades and even cart-wheels, which were hurled down upon them. Again and again as one wave fell or melted away under that slaughtering shower, another took its place. O’Hare fell in the breach, shot through the breast with two or three musket balls. His sergeant, Fleming, who had stood by him in many a bloody field, fell at his side. Many officers of the Regiment and many valiant Riflemen lay dead or wounded, or pressed down by those who were so, in that heap which extended from the top of the breach to the counterscarp. At last, after two hours of this murderous work, Lord Wellington gave orders for the Light Division to draw off. Still the intrepid Barnard, who had more than once himself ascended the breach, was unwilling to give way; and it was not till after renewed attempts had been made, and till he saw all hopeless, that he gave the order for his Division to withdraw. Even then in that deafening turmoil the order was imperfectly heard; and many officers were keeping their men from retiring. At last, however, almost all that lived and could move came away, and the remnant of the Regiment was formed a little distance from the place between midnight and one o’clock. Here Surtees found them, having posted off as soon as he knew (for he was near Lord Wellington when Picton’s hurried note was brought to him) that the 3rd Division had stormed, and was in possession of, the Castle. He was scarcely believed; so incredible did it seem to the assailants of these impregnable breaches, that any troops could have entered the place. The men and the officers were lying down, in gloomy sullenness, after their terrible conflict. A staff officer brought word, ‘Lord Wellington desires the Light Division to return immediately and attack the breach.’ The men leaped up, resumed their formation, and advanced as cheerfully and as steadily as if it had been the first attack. Proceeding past, and often over, their fallen comrades, they again mounted the breach; but now the defenders having been called away, the resistance was slight, and they soon established themselves on the ramparts. Then Cameron formed his Regiment there; and told them that when all danger from the enemy was over, he would let them fall out; but that, until then, if a man left the ranks he would have him put to death on the spot. They remained under arms and perfectly steady till between nine and ten next morning; when, as the whole garrison were prisoners and being marched out, he dismissed them, and they joined in that madness of intemperance, rapine and lust, on which it is more agreeable to their historian to draw a veil.

Great were the losses of the Regiment. Twenty-three officers and 292 non-commissioned officers and Riflemen fell, killed and wounded in that fatal night.

In the 1st Battalion (eight companies), Major O’Hare and Lieutenant Stokes, 3 sergeants, and 24 rank and file were killed; Captains Crampton, Balvaird, Charles Gray, and M’Dermid, Lieutenants William Johnston, Gardiner, McPherson (who died of his wounds), Forster, and FitzMaurice, 15 sergeants, 3 buglers, and 136 rank and file were wounded. In the 2nd Battalion (two companies), Captain Diggle, 1 sergeant and 20 rank and file were killed; Lieutenants Bedell and Manners, 3 sergeants, and 31 rank and file were wounded. In the 3rd Battalion (five companies), Lieutenants Hovenden, Cary, Allix, and Croudace, and 9 rank and file were killed; and Lieutenants Macdonell (who died of his wounds), Worsley, Duncan Stewart, Farmer, and volunteer Lawson,[114] 2 sergeants, and 45 rank and file were wounded.

Well may Sir William Napier sum up his glowing description of the assault with this stirring appeal: ‘Who shall measure out the glory of ... O’Hare, of the ninety-fifth, who perished on the breach at the head of the stormers, and with him nearly all the volunteers for that desperate service? Who shall describe ... the martial fury of that desperate soldier of the ninety-fifth who, in his resolution to win, thrust himself beneath the chained sword-blades, and there suffered the enemy to dash his head to pieces with the ends of their muskets?’[115]

O’Hare, a gallant soldier, beloved by his men, had a foreboding of his death. As the stormers assembled, he observed, in conversation to Captain Jones of the 52nd, that ‘he thought that night would be his last.’ To George Simmons, with whom he shook hands as the stormers were moving off, his last words were: ‘A Lieutenant-Colonel or cold meat in a few hours.’ He was found the next morning by Simmons on the breach, naked. Cary was found by Surtees next day under one of the ladders, shot through the head. He had, no doubt, been wounded in ascending it, and fallen from it. He also was stripped. He still breathed; and Surtees pressed some of the soldiers about the place to carry him to the camp. They were so drunk that they let him fall; but he was past all feeling, and died soon after he was laid in his tent. Croudace also was brought out alive, but died almost immediately. Of the wounded officers, McPherson died a few days after. He was a man of herculean stature, and great bravery. ‘He had been true to man and true to his God, and he looked his last hour in the face like a soldier and a Christian.’[116]

Macdonell died a few months after he received his wound.

Some personal anecdotes of the storm may be given. George Simmons, on going into the town, went into a house, the Spanish owner of which told him that the French Quartermaster-General had been billeted there. He showed him the room he had occupied; and there he found on the table a paper on which he had made a sketch of the two breaches, showing the line by which our columns would probably move to attack, and the spot where our ladders might best be planted to avoid the fire from the place and the inundation in the ditch. The owner of the house informed him that the French officers had left it in great alarm, on being informed of our attack. There were also a bottle of wine and some glasses on the table; and, as Theodore Hook somewhere observes, eating and drinking must go on, whatever the vicissitudes of life, George Simmons sate down, ordered some eggs and bacon to be fried, and drank the French officers’ bottle of wine.

Kincaid was acting Adjutant with Cameron’s four companies who lined the glacis. When they were established in the place, he went to post picquets in streets leading to the ramparts. While so engaged, a Rifleman brought him a French officer prisoner, who he said was the Governor. The officer at once said that he was not; but that he had passed himself off as such to ensure the soldier’s protection and better treatment. He added that he was Colonel of a regiment in the garrison; that his officers were all assembled in a house near at hand, to which he would conduct Kincaid, and who would give themselves up as prisoners to anyone who would ensure their safety. Taking a few men with him to guard against surprise, Kincaid accompanied him, and found fifteen or sixteen officers assembled, who professed great astonishment at our being in possession of the town. As in Simmons’ case refreshment was to be thought of; and Kincaid and his prisoners discussed some cold meat, and sundry bottles of wine which their chief placed upon the table. At last Kincaid marched them off; and before parting the French Colonel told him that he had two good horses in the stable, of which he advised him to take possession. This counsel was not lost on Kincaid, who thus became the owner of a black mare, which carried him till the end of the war. As he was making his way to the ramparts, many French soldiers, who were skulking in out-of-the-way corners to escape the fury of the British troops already in the town, joined him. And marching at the head of this party, he was very nearly fired on by a picquet of our men whom Barnard was placing across a street, and who, seeing so many French uniforms together, fancied it was a rallied party of the enemy. Happily the challenge of the picquet, which owing to the noise of his prisoners he had not heard, was repeated and answered; and he handed over his prisoners to be marched with others to Elvas.

Surtees was occupied in a more benevolent work. Directly the place was in our hands, he and Percival, who was in command of the 3rd Battalion, set about finding and removing the wounded of the Regiment. This was an arduous work; for the wounded were numerous, and their claims for assistance incessant. And Percival was lame, from his wound at Sobral, and not well able to move about; yet they were obliged to carry the wounded themselves; for of the soldiers they called on to help them many were drunk; and even those whose help they secured, soon went off to share in the rapine of the town. Many are the heartrending details Surtees relates; and many are the horrors he and all the Riflemen who were present record of the plunder of the town. No doubt the men were furious with the inhabitants, who had here assisted the French, while at Rodrigo they had resisted them; no doubt they were frenzied with the difficulty of the assault, and savage at the wholesale slaughter of their comrades. These envenoming motives, added to the usual and (so to say) admitted license in a town taken by storm, have made the sack of Badajos one of exceptional violence. Yet all that men could do to resist it was done. Barnard, commanding the Division, opposed not only his commands but even his great personal strength to the plunderers. He endeavoured to prevent the men from entering the town; but they rushed past him, and while striving to wrest a musket from a soldier of the 52nd, he fell and was very nearly thrown into the ditch. He then, with others, went into the streets, and strove to check the madness of his men; but in vain.

Cameron, as I have said, got the men of the 1st Battalion together after the assault and kept them formed on the ramparts till between nine and ten; he then thanked them for their conduct throughout. ‘And now, men,’ he added, ‘you may fall out and amuse yourselves; but I expect you all to be in camp at tattoo to-night.’ It was a vain hope; and it was two days before the absentees returned, and discipline was restored.

On the day after the assault two officers of the 1st Battalion were talking over the events of the past night at the door of a tent, when two ladies approached from Badajos, and claimed their protection. They were evidently, from their appearance and manner, of the upper class of Spanish society. Both were handsome; and the younger, then about fourteen, very beautiful. The elder, though still young, addressed the Riflemen, and said that she was the wife of an officer in the Spanish service, who was in a distant part of Spain; that the young lady with her was her sister, who, having just completed her education in a convent, had been placed under her charge; that yesterday she had a comfortable house and home; that now it was in the possession of an infuriated and insane soldiery; that they had already suffered violence, as their bleeding ears, from which the ear-rings had been rudely torn, bore witness; and that to escape greater violence and dishonour worse than death, they had fled; and had resolved (however strange the step might seem) to throw themselves upon the honour and the protection of the first English officers they might meet. It need not be told that it was freely given, and chivalrously observed, and that they were conveyed to a place of safety. Nor will it seem strange to add that the acquaintance begun in so romantic a manner ripened into a warmer feeling; and that within two years, the younger of them, Donna Juana Maria de los Dolores de Leon, became the wife of him who had saved her, Harry Smith, then a Captain in the Regiment, and was long known in English society as Lady Smith, the honoured wife of the conqueror of Aliwal.

FOOTNOTES:

[92] ‘Wellington Despatches,’ vii. 356-7.

[93] MS. Record 1st Battalion.

[94] ‘Supplementary Despatches,’ vii. 82.

[95] Letter to Marshal Beresford: ‘Wellington Despatches,’ vii. 372.

[96] MS. Journal.

[97] ‘Leach,’ 204-5.

[98] It is said to be more than 4,000 feet above the level of the sea.

[99] ‘Supplementary Despatches,’ xiii. 609.

[100] ‘Despatches,’ vii. 445. He adds: ‘The 43rd Regiment particularly distinguished themselves; as did part of the 95th Regiment under Major Gilmour.’

[101] I am indebted for the particulars of this anecdote (which I had heard old officers of the Regiment mention) to Mrs. Fitz-Maurice’s ‘Recollections of a Rifleman’s Wife.’

[102] ‘Wellington Despatches,’ vii. 515.

[103] This gallant repulse is mentioned by Lord Wellington: ‘Despatches,’ vii. 532.

[104] ‘Recollections of a Rifleman’s Wife.’

[105] ‘Adventures of a Soldier,’ 82.

[106] Costello, 87.

[107] Costello, 93.

[108] Colonel Samuel Mitchell died June 3, 1833.

[109] Just before the attack he had been twitted by a brother officer (Fitz-Maurice) with having dressed himself in a new pelisse for such a night’s work. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘I shall be the better worth taking.’ ‘Recollections of a Rifleman’s Wife.’

[110] The following nine non-commissioned officers of the 2nd Battalion volunteered for the forlorn hope:

Sergeant Bowley, wounded Sergeant Spencer
” Comerford, ” ” Tuite
” Derby, killed Corporal Larkins, wounded
” Ecke, ” ” Nesbitt, ”
” Fairfoot,[111] wounded

[111] Afterwards Quartermaster.

[112] This anecdote, which I had often heard in the 1st Battalion, was related to me with graphic distinctness by Colonel Smith. As may be imagined, his relation differed somewhat from the story, which, passing through many mouths, I had heard in the Battalion. It was strange to hear it from the lips of one of the actors in it, when the other had slept more than sixty years in the breach at Rodrigo.

[113] The following non-commissioned officers of the 2nd Battalion volunteered for the forlorn hope:

Sergeant Cairns Corporal Coward, wounded
” Fairfoot, wounded ” Derby, killed
” Kennedy, ” ” McCordell, wounded
” Taggart, ” ” Nesbitt.
” Tuite

[114] He was appointed to a second-lieutenancy in the Regiment May 9 following. He left it in 1814, and died at Sligo, March 1874.

[115] Book xvi. chap. v. This incident is also mentioned by Kincaid. It is to be regretted that the name of this heroic Rifleman has not been preserved.

[116] Kincaid, ‘Random Shots,’ p. 288.