Chapter VII: The Corunna Campaign, and After

After the occupation of Lisbon, Sir Arthur Wellesley, deeming it improbable that the army would resume operations for some months, went home on leave of absence; and, a little later, Sir John Moore was given command of the British forces in Portugal. In October he received despatches from Government wherein he was informed that it had been decided to send Sir David Baird, with 10,000 men, to Corunna, and Moore was instructed to take the 20,000 British troops from Lisbon, and to form a junction with him forthwith, when, together with the Spanish army, he was to attack the French and drive them out of Spain.

To carry out his orders Moore had a choice of routes; he could transport his force by sea to Corunna, or he could march through Portugal and Spain. The former plan he rejected, as being likely to cause delay; for, with sailing vessels and at such a season of the year, it was impossible to estimate the length of time that the voyage would occupy. He decided, therefore, to adopt the land route, knowing that, if necessary, he could send his ships up the coast to some port, which would then become his base, instead of Lisbon. Accordingly, he desired Baird to march south-east to meet him at a point to be afterwards named, probably either Valladolid or Burgos, but the exact spot depending on the movements of the French.

Nearly three months before this the 51st had been warned for active service, and on the 18th August marched from Chichester to Portsmouth, where the regiment embarked in three transports, to join Sir David Baird's force, then assembling at Falmouth for some undisclosed destination. The regiment, mustering six hundred bayonets, was in fine fettle, and Captain Sam Rice was in command of the light infantry company. But eager as he and his brother officers were to get to business, they were forced to possess their souls in patience, for they were kept on board their transports for upwards of two months, with little or nothing to do, except to discuss the object of the expedition, their knowledge of which was vague in the extreme. As far as the soldiers were concerned, they were jubilant, and from a cause which nowadays may seem trivial. The order had gone forth that their hair was no longer to be "tied," but cut short at the neck! At length the long weeks of waiting came to an end, and on the 8th October Baird's fleet of transports sailed from Falmouth, five days later anchoring off Corunna. But even then further delays occurred, as the Spanish officials objected to the landing of the force, and it was another fortnight before the disembarkation was completed.

To return to Moore. Before the end of October he had set his troops in motion, but his arrangements were much upset by the reports of the state of the roads which he wished to utilise for his march. So bad were they said to be, that he considered it advisable to divide his force and move by two routes; and before long he had reason to be anxious about the safety of his detached columns, for the situation was undergoing a change. At the time of his departure from Lisbon, Moore had every reason to believe that the Spanish troops, aided by the British forces under himself and Baird, would be able to deal a heavy blow to the French invaders, and in this belief he was supported by the knowledge that King Joseph, fearful of the impending attack, had withdrawn from Madrid to the neighbourhood of Vittoria, where he concentrated the French army on the Ebro. But Moore did know that at this very time Napoleon was pouring reinforcements over the Pyrenees in such quantities as to bring the strength of the French in Spain up to some 250,000 men.

Napoleon had determined to secure Spain and Portugal at all costs; and, placing himself at the head of the reinforcements, early in November defeated a Spanish force which attempted to bar his way, and advanced rapidly to Burgos. Thence he pushed a corps to the Carrion river, to protect his right flank from the British, while he moved on Madrid. In the meantime, Moore's main body was marching, viâ Ciudad Rodrigo, on Salamanca; while Hope, with the cavalry, artillery, and ammunition, had been sent by the circuitous route, Badajoz, Talavera, Madrid, Escorial Pass, to rejoin Moore at Salamanca, Valladolid, Burgos, or elsewhere, according to orders to be issued to him later.

On the 15th November Moore reached Salamanca, and learned that the French had already occupied Valladolid. Consequently he decided to wait at Salamanca until Baird and Hope could join him. But the two latter had met with great difficulties in the matter of transport, and had been delayed beyond all expectations, so that on the 26th November the head of Baird's column had got no farther than Astorga, five marches north-west of Salamanca, and Hope was at the Escorial Pass, six marches south-east of Salamanca. On that same day Lefebre's French Corps, of 30,000 men, was approaching Valladolid, barely three marches north-east of Salamanca, while Napoleon himself, marching on Madrid, was at Arauda, some sixty miles as the crow flies due east of Valladolid. Fortunately for the divided British forces, Napoleon was in ignorance of their whereabouts; neither, on the other hand, was Moore aware of the exact situation of the French, until two days later, when both he and Hope were informed of Napoleon's proximity.

Hope realised at once that he must risk everything in the attempt to take his artillery and ammunition to Moore at Salamanca; while the latter, after sending orders to Baird to retire on Corunna or Vigo, decided to wait as long as possible for Hope, and then, retracing his steps into Portugal, defend the frontier and cover Lisbon. Fortune favoured Hope, who, making a desperate cross-country march, successfully formed a junction with Moore at Salamanca, whereupon Moore changed his plans. He had heard that the Spaniards intended to defend Madrid to the last, and, in order to assist them in their endeavour, he determined on a bold stroke. He saw that Napoleon's vast army was, like some beast of prey, sprawled out over the provinces of Spain and crawling forward with open jaws within measurable distance of Madrid; he saw the hopelessness of trying conclusions with a beast ten times his own strength, but he knew that if he suddenly dealt a furious blow on the beast's tail the beast would spring round and attempt to rend him. This, then, was Sir John Moore's idea when, at the beginning of December, he made up his mind to strike at Napoleon's line of communications, which stretched back to the Pyrenees. He calculated that Napoleon would immediately turn upon him with all his strength, and the Spanish and Portuguese forces would thus be given time to collect for the defence of their respective capitals. His own subsequent line of action he had also worked out carefully: having dealt his blow, and having succeeded in bringing the bulk of the French army against him, he would draw off his little force to Corunna or Vigo, and at one or the other place embark and sail to Lisbon or Cadiz.

Fresh orders were therefore despatched to Baird, who had meanwhile retired from Astorga, three marches to Villafranca. In these he was instructed to advance towards Valladolid, and on the 11th December Moore moved towards the same place, reaching the river Douro on the 13th. Here a French despatch was intercepted, and from it Moore discovered the true state of affairs. Napoleon had captured Madrid nine days before, had despatched Lefebre towards Lisbon and his other corps in various directions, and now ordered Soult to move his corps from the Carrion river westward into Galicia. It was also evident, from this French despatch, that Napoleon had no knowledge of the movements of the British, and that Soult's corps was without support and of no great strength. So Moore decided to strike at Soult forthwith, and, with this object, arranged with Baird to join forces at Mayorga, instead of at Valladolid, at the same time instructing his ships at Lisbon to proceed up the coast to Vigo, and giving orders for the establishment of supply depôts along the route by which he intended eventually to withdraw to the ships.

Upon receipt of these orders Baird advanced again to Astorga and, on the 20th December, joined Moore at Mayorga. He took with him all available battalions, but some were still in rear, since the Spanish authorities had been unable to provide transport or provisions on the road for any but small bodies of troops moving at intervals of some days. The 51st Regiment, forming part of Leith's Brigade, was still far behind, and did not come into the zone of operations until the eventual retreat was in full swing. Moore, however, now had sufficient men for his purpose, for he knew that Soult's force was in numbers inferior to his own; and the operations at once commenced by a brilliant cavalry action, in which Paget, with 400 British sabres, routed 600 of the French cavalry at Sahagun. Soult was now known to be at Saldanha and Carrion, and Moore decided to halt his force for forty-eight hours in order to allow the rear divisions to close up, and then to attack at dawn on the 24th December. On the night of the 23rd-24th the troops set out on the march which was to bring them at daylight before the bridge of Carrion, but they had not marched far before they received the unwelcome order to retrace their steps and return to their bivouacs at Sahagun. Moore had received information which upset all his calculations; the scheme which he had devised for drawing Napoleon's armies after him had worked only too successfully, for he learned that Napoleon was already in full march upon him, and that within a few hours the situation of the British army might become critical. He determined, therefore, to abandon the attack on Soult and endeavour to carry out his original programme by withdrawing to his ships before Napoleon's masses should fall upon him. That Christmas day was spent by the disappointed army in making the second march of the long and arduous retreat to Corunna.

Napoleon, as was his wont when once his mind was made up, came like a thunderbolt. On the 21st December, at the head of 40,000 men and 150 guns, he left Madrid, and, although he had to negotiate high mountain passes, often blocked with snow, he marched a hundred miles in less than five days, reaching Tordesillas, on the Douro, on the 25th December, and having his advanced cavalry well ahead of him on the way to Benevente. He firmly believed that he and Soult had now ringed-in Moore's force, which he imagined to be still at Sahagun. But Moore, leaving only his cavalry and the two light brigades of infantry at that place, had slipped away in the nick of time and had crossed the Esla by the 26th without serious molestation. On the following day the British cavalry fought long and gallantly and completely checked the pursuit; on the 28th Craufurd's light, or flank, brigade covered the withdrawal of the cavalry over the Esla by the bridge of Castro Gonzalo and then blew up the bridge; and on the 29th the cavalry again covered themselves with glory by defeating a strong body of French horsemen who had succeeded in fording the river.

On that day Moore's columns, which had been marching by two different routes, re-united at Astorga, and there the soldiers felt convinced that they would be called upon to halt and fight, since they knew that Moore had told the Spanish general that he would make a stand at Astorga, and they saw 10,000 Spaniards come into the place. But Moore had given up all idea of offering battle until he had reached the coast and was within sight of his ships. His men had already suffered from the hard marching in pouring rain and in snow, and along bad roads ankle-deep in mud; provisions were becoming scanty, and the General considered it advisable to push on with all speed to Villafranca and Lugo, where large supply depôts had been formed. On the 30th December he rested his troops at Astorga, and by the 31st both British and Spaniards were clear of the place, which was entered within thirty-six hours by the infantry of Napoleon and Soult, coming from La Baneza, where they had joined hands in the closing hours of 1808.

The new year opened on 25,000 dispirited, and even sullen, British soldiers marching through the snow-laden passes, and unable to understand why they should not turn and fight. Discipline became lax; the men broke the ranks in search of plunder and drink; and the stragglers were only kept on the move by the exertions of the cavalry of the rearguard.

Yet Moore had outwitted Napoleon, who, in sheer disgust at having failed to cut off his adversary, halted two days at Benevente, handed over the pursuit to Soult, and himself returned to Paris--not again to encounter British troops in the field until the eventful day when his fate was sealed at Waterloo. His deputy, however, took up the work with zeal and alacrity, and pressed forward to Astorga as rapidly as possible.

The horrors of the retreat of the British army after leaving Astorga have been so often described that it is needless to refer to them further than to say that, with the exception of some dozen regiments, the troops were completely demoralised and out of hand. Moore's feelings of bitterness can be well understood, for here, almost at the first trial, the discipline which he had assiduously preached throughout his service had completely broken down. But this condition of affairs existed only among the troops of the main body, for the regiments forming the rearguard (which included the three which he had personally trained at Shorncliffe) behaved throughout with conspicuous gallantry and prevented Soult's pursuing force from overwhelming the disorganised army.

Passing through Bembibre and Villafranca, Moore reached Lugo after forced marching from which the men were worn out, and here he decided to halt in order to enable the stragglers to come up, and, if necessary, give battle. This, in a measure, raised the spirits of the army, as the men far preferred the prospects of a fierce fight to those of an immediate continuance of retreat. But, perhaps, the greatest check to the demoralisation which had set in was the fact that, at Lugo, Moore had the satisfaction of finding a most welcome addition to his force in Leith's Brigade of 1800 fresh men, who had not been harassed by the arduous marches of the past week, and with Leith's Brigade, as has been already mentioned, was the 51st Regiment and Captain Sam Rice.

At Lugo, therefore, on the 6th January 1809, Moore took up a strong position, and all ranks, full of hopes of being speedily attacked, fell into their places with evident delight. That same evening the rearguard came into Lugo, and on the following morning Soult appeared. But he felt his way with caution, and soon learned that the force opposed to him was not merely the rearguard, which had always been keeping him back, but Moore's whole army. Making a feint attack on the Guards' Brigade on the right of the position, he moved a division against the left, which was held by Leith's Brigade. The fight soon began in earnest; Soult's guns opened on the advanced piquets of the 76th Regiment, which then fell back on the 51st, when the two regiments began to use their muskets with vigour. At this moment Moore himself was an eye-witness of what was taking place, and realising that Leith's men were greatly outnumbered by their assailants, yet knowing that he could spare no troops to reinforce them, galloped up to the 51st, and, appealing to his old regiment to stand firm, placed himself at their head. The response was immediate and unanimous. With a wild cheer the men emptied their muskets at the enemy, then, without hesitation, charged home, and drove the French before them at the point of the bayonet. The day was saved, and the enemy, with a loss of some three hundred men, drew off.

But this gallant action, which received the well-merited praise of the General, produced a state of affairs such as Moore least desired; for Soult feared to attack the position again until he should receive reinforcements from the rear. Throughout the 8th January the British army remained in its position, expectant and ready, with its officers and soldiers prepared to stake everything on the issue of the hoped-for battle. Yet the day passed without a sign of a French advance, and towards evening Moore's spirits fell, for he guessed that Soult was waiting for reinforcements. At first he thought of turning on his adversary while he was still weak, but he came to the conclusion that the risk was too great; on the other hand, to remain where he was until Soult should consider himself strong enough to renew the attack would be suicidal. Therefore, he saw but one way open to him--viz., to slip away from the position and continue the retreat to the coast; and, his mind made up, he issued his orders for the march. Destroying such stores and horses as would hinder their progress, and leaving their bivouac fires burning in order to deceive the enemy, the disheartened troops evacuated the position in the dead of night. Fortune was against them all through the night; rain fell in torrents, and the inky darkness made it impossible for them to see their way, so that, by dawn, instead of having put fifteen miles between themselves and the enemy, many benighted battalions, after marching all night, found themselves but five miles from their starting-point, and yet thoroughly exhausted. But Soult did not discover that his enemy had gone until late next morning, and even then he appears to have been unwilling to push the pursuit as rapidly as he might have done.

Continuing the retreat in wretched weather, Moore's troops suffered every manner of hardship and privation, but on reaching Betanzos, on the morning of the 10th January, matters began to improve. The columns were still well covered by the rearguard, who kept the French at a distance; the sea was within sight, and the climate and weather improved considerably. Moreover, provisions had been sent forward from Corunna to Betanzos, and the half-starved men received ample food; so that, seeing all their troubles at an end, they made the last march to Corunna, on the 11th, with light hearts. But Moore had no such feelings, for he had received the depressing news that his ships, which he had ordered to come round from Vigo to Corunna, and which he had expected to find in the harbour, had been delayed by stress of weather. Doubtful for how long he would have to wait, and within how short a time Soult would be able to bring overwhelming force against him, the General prepared for the worst, making all arrangements to fight, as well as for the immediate embarkation of his army so soon as the ships should arrive. The bridges outside Corunna were blown up, and all stores, munitions of war, and horses, which he would not be able to remove, Moore caused to be destroyed.

On the 14th January the ships entered the harbour, and the embarkation of the sick and wounded, guns, cavalry horses, and transport animals was proceeded with as quickly as possible. Meanwhile Soult began to press in, and Moore, seeing that he could not expect to embark all his troops without a fight, selected a defensive position some two miles outside Corunna. The four days' rest, with good food, had had a wonderful effect on his men; the stragglers had come in; fresh arms and ammunition had been supplied from the ample stores at Corunna; the sickly men had been sent to the ships; and the General found that he still had 15,000 determined infantry soldiers and nine guns wherewith to withstand Soult's onslaught. All the morning of the 16th the French were seen to be massing in front of the position, but Soult apparently still feared to attack, and Moore, thinking that he would not do so, gave orders for the embarkation to continue. Yet, an hour later, Soult's guns suddenly opened, and his columns dashed forward. Moore, overjoyed at the sight, and sure of victory, saw before him a great and glorious finale to the painful scenes which he had witnessed during the previous weeks, and rode from point to point of the field, giving his orders with calmness, and inspiring confidence in all directions. For some time the battle raged furiously; the French were as eager for the fray as were the British; here and there the latter were forced to give way, but re-forming rapidly, turned again, and recovered the lost ground. At length, the issue of the fight was no longer doubtful; the French were driven back on all sides; the order for a general advance of the victorious British line was given, and was being carried out, when Moore fell mortally wounded, and Baird was also struck. Confusion followed, further orders remained unissued, and when Hope, the next senior, took command, it was too late to continue the struggle. Prudence demanded that he should withdraw the army and embark before the French could recover and return to the attack, and under cover of darkness the whole of the British force, save only the outposts, were withdrawn from the position, and embarked. That night and the following day were spent in getting every one on board, and by the 18th January the last of the troops covering the embarkation quitted Corunna for England, Soult's guns opening on the ships as they put to sea.

Thus ended Moore's last campaign, and those who knew nothing of the General's original plan considered the retreat to have been a disastrous flight, yet Moore's plan succeeded completely. He drew Napoleon and 70,000 men away from the south and saved Lisbon from a French occupation, which was the most that he ever expected to do. The amount of hardship which his troops would have to endure in the withdrawal to the coast, perhaps he had not anticipated; but, had he lived, doubtless he would have claimed that the result was well worth the sacrifice, and if, moreover, the victory over Soult at Corunna had been completed, few would have been found to cavil at his plans and operations.

The part played by the 51st in the battle of Corunna, though small, was not unimportant. The regiment stood in second line to the left rear of Elvina, opposite to which village the fiercest of the fighting took place, and where Moore received his death-wound. Considering its position, its losses were not heavy, only amounting to some five-and-twenty men--mostly wounded. Neither did the regiment suffer to such an extent in casualties during the actual retreat as did most other regiments of Baird's original force; and if, as has been maintained, want of discipline was accountable for heavy losses during the retreat, then the officers of the 51st had good reason to be proud of the discipline of their corps. Their three months' absence from England, however, had lowered their numbers by 107 men, and many gallant officers and soldiers suffered from the effects of the hardships of this campaign to the end of their days. Sam Rice, although he came out of it unscathed, was an invalid for some months afterwards, and was unable to pass the doctors when his regiment was next sent on active service. Yet, for this he must have remained ever thankful, for the expedition in which the 51st took part in the autumn of 1809 was, as will be shown, productive of nothing except death and disease.

On disembarking in England after Corunna, the regiment was assembled at Sandown Barracks, and in April marched into Devonshire, being quartered first at Kingsbridge and then at Berryhead. In May it received the honour of the title of Light Infantry, probably as a reward for its good services in the Corunna campaign, and probably also as a memorial to Sir John Moore, the exponent of everything pertaining to light infantry, and the former commanding officer of the regiment. The 71st was made a light infantry regiment about the same time, but previous to that there had only been four regiments in the British army so designated, and as light infantry they considered themselves superior to all other regiments of the line. As such they wore a distinctive uniform, which was much like that of the old light infantry company; and their special duties on active service were to be always in front of the army, gaining and keeping touch with the enemy, fighting advanced- or rear-guard actions when on the march, and forming a chain of outposts round the army when halted.

The spring and early summer of 1809 were spent by the 51st in recruiting the regiment up to fighting strength, for when, in April, Sir Arthur Wellesley returned to Portugal to continue the war, it was not sufficiently strong to form part of the expedition. By July, however, this difficulty had been overcome, for the stories told of the Corunna campaign had roused the fighting spirit of the country, and vast numbers of militiamen volunteered into the line. But when, in this month, the 51st received a fresh call to arms, it was not for Portugal, but for Holland, an expedition having been fitted out for the purpose of destroying the French fleet and arsenals in the Scheldt. Sam Rice, who had just given up the command of his company on promotion to Major, did not accompany the regiment on this service, but remained in command of the depôt at Berryhead Barracks.

The Walcheren Expedition, as it was called, proved a complete failure. Operations commenced satisfactorily, and Flushing was bombarded and captured in August; but, owing to misunderstanding between the military and naval commanders (the Earl of Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan), the enemy was not pursued with energy, and the troops (some 40,000 in number) were kept idle on the island of Walcheren, until fever decimated their ranks. In September the greater part of the misdirected expedition returned to England, and for several months afterwards the men continued to die from Walcheren fever. The unfortunate circumstances gave rise to the following caustic epigram:--

"Lord Chatham, with his sabre drawn,
Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan;
Sir Richard, longing to be at 'em,
Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham."

So far the regiment's experiences of European warfare had not been pleasant. Within a year it had taken part in two campaigns, in each of which, although it had acquitted itself honourably, it had sustained weighty losses. Unlike many other regiments, the 51st had no second battalion upon which to draw to replace casualties, and consequently it was not fit to proceed on active service in the Peninsula until the end of 1810.

Meanwhile, Sir Arthur Wellesley, in supreme command of the allied armies, had been actively engaged with the enemy from month to month, and had won several hard-fought battles. He successfully frustrated Soult's invasion of Portugal by defeating him on the Douro, in May 1809, and driving him out of Oporto. He gained a signal victory over Marshal Victor at Talavera, in July; and thence retreated for the winter to the banks of the Agueda river, between Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. In 1810 Lord Wellington (as he now was) had for his opponent Marshal Massena, who had been ordered to invade Portugal (while Soult directed his attentions to Badajoz), and who, in June, commenced operations by investing Ciudad Rodrigo, then held by a Spanish garrison. Capturing that fortress in July, Massena advanced on the neighbouring Portuguese fortress of Almeida, which also fell into his hands, Wellington's advanced troops--the Light Division--being forced back behind the Coa river after a desperate combat. In September, however, Wellington encountered his adversary at Busaco, thoroughly defeated him, and then withdrew rapidly to the impregnable lines of Torres Vedras, which, with great foresight, he had caused to be thrown up in front of Lisbon. Massena, ignorant of their existence, and imagining that Wellington was retreating for immediate embarkation, pressed forward for the capture of the Portugese capital, but only to find his way barred by a series of strong fortifications. Behind these defences the British army remained unmolested throughout the winter, while the French, withdrawing to a safe distance, sat down to await the coming of spring. This, then, was the situation in Portugal when the 51st Regiment, quartered at Steyning Barracks, received orders to join Wellington's army in the Peninsula; and by this time Major Sam Rice was ready to be up and doing.