Chapter VI: Some Famous Soldiers

Harris's "Recollections" abound in what may be called thumb-nail sketches of his comrades and his officers. He had a quick eye for character as well as for incident; and his descriptions are always interesting and often very amusing. Harris was naturally more interested, perhaps, in his comrades than in his officers and his generals. He was closer to them and understood them better. Yet he gives some sharply-drawn pictures of famous British battle-leaders as they were seen by the eyes of the men whom they led. Here, for example, is a picture of General--afterwards Lord--Hill, just before the battle of Roliça. "Farmer" Hill was his sobriquet amongst the men, and he owed that title as much to his homely and kindly spirit as to his red, broad, and farmer-like face. Says Harris:--

"We were pelting along through the streets of a village, the name of
which I do not think I ever knew, so I cannot name it. I was in the
front and had just cleared the village when I recollect observing
General Hill (afterwards Lord Hill) and another officer ride up to
a house, and give their horses to some of the soldiery to hold. Our
bugles at that moment sounded the halt, and I stood leaning upon my
rifle near the door of the mansion which General Hill had entered;
there was a little garden before the house, and I stood by the gate.
Whilst I remained there the officer who had entered with General Hill
came to the door and called to me. 'Rifleman,' said he, 'come here.'
I entered the gate and approached him. 'Go,' he continued, handing
me a dollar, 'and try if you can get some wine! for we are devilish
thirsty here.' Taking the dollar I made my way back to the village.
At a wine-house, where the men were crowding around the door, and
clamouring for drink (for the day was intensely hot), I succeeded,
after some little difficulty, in getting a small pipkin full of wine,
but the crowd was so great that I found as much trouble in paying
for it as in getting it; so I returned back as fast as I was able,
fearing that the general would be impatient, and move off before I
reached him.

"I remember Lord Hill was loosening his sword-belt as I handed him
the wine. 'Drink first, Rifleman,' said he, and I took a good pull
at the pipkin and held it to him again. He looked at it as I did so,
and told me I might drink it all up, for it appeared greasy; so I
swallowed the remainder, and handed him back the dollar which I had
received from the officer. 'Keep the money,' he said, 'my man. Go
back to the village once more and try if you cannot get me another
draught.' Saying this, he handed me a second dollar, and told me
to be quick. I made my way back to the village, got another pipkin
full, and returned as fast as I could. The general was pleased
with my promptness, and drank with great satisfaction, handing the
remainder to the officer who attended him; and I dare say, if he
ever recollected the circumstance afterwards, that was as sweet a
draught, after the toil of the morning march, as he has drunk at many
a nobleman's board in old England since."

Of Beresford, again--who, if he was not a great general, was at least a terrible fighter--Harris gives an amusing sketch:--

"I remember a great many of the leaders and heroes of the wars of my
own time. Alas! they have been cleared off of late pretty handsomely!
A few years more and the world will be without another living
remembrancer of either them or their deeds. The ranks are getting
thin, too, amongst those who, like myself, were the tools with which
the great men of former days won their renown. I don't know a single
living man now who was a comrade during the time I served. Very
nearly fifteen years back, I remember, however, meeting with Robert
Liston, and that meeting brings Marshal Beresford to my mind.

"Robert Liston was a corporal in the second battalion of the
Rifles, when we lay for a few days in the passages of a convent in
Portugal. We were then making for the frontiers of Spain, when we
were swept into that disastrous retreat to Corunna. There was a
punishment parade in the square of this convent. A soldier of the
92nd or 79th was the culprit, and the kilts were formed to witness
the performance. Some of the Rifles were looking from the windows
of the convent at the punishment of the Highlander, when a brickbat
was hurled from one of the casements and fell at the very toe of the
lieutenant-colonel, who was standing in the midst, and in command of
the regiment. The lieutenant-colonel (whose name I never knew) was,
of course, indignant at such an act; he gazed up at the window from
which the brick had been thrown, and caused an inquiry instantly
to be made. It was between the lights when this happened, and it
was impossible to discover who had done it; however, two or three
men of the Rifles were confined on suspicion. A man named Baker
flatly accused Corporal Liston of the act; upon which Liston was
marched a prisoner to Salamanca (a distance, I should think, of some
hundred miles); and often did he complain of his hard fate in being
a Prisoner so long. When we got to Salamanca we halted there for
eight days; and Liston, being tried by general court-martial, was
sentenced to receive eight hundred lashes. The whole brigade turned
out on the occasion, and I remember that the drummers of the 9th
Regiment were the inflicters of the lash. Liston received the whole
sentence without a murmur. He had, indeed, been a good soldier, and
we were all truly sorry for him; in fact, he always declared solemnly
that he had no more to do with the brickbat than Marshal Beresford
who commanded the brigade. Whoever committed the act, in my opinion,
well deserved what Liston got.

"Marshal Beresford was in command of the brigade at this time; and I
well remember what a fine-looking soldier he was. He was equal to his
business, too, I should say; and he, amongst others of our generals,
often made me think that the French army had nothing to show in the
shape of officers who could at all compare with ours. There was a
noble bearing in our leaders, which they on the French side (as far
as I was capable of observing) had not; and I am convinced that the
English soldier is even better pleased to be commanded by some men
of rank in his own country than by one who has risen from his own
station.

"They are a strange set, the English! and so determined and
unconquerable, that they will have their way if they can. Indeed, it
requires one who has authority in his face, as well as at his back,
to make them respect and obey him.

"I never saw Liston after that punishment whilst in Spain; and I
suppose he remained behind, and got on in the best manner he was able
in the rear; but, about ten years afterwards, as I was passing down
Sloane Street, Chelsea, I observed a watchman calling the hour. It
struck me that I knew his face, and, turning back, I stopped him,
asking if he was not Robert Liston, formerly a corporal in the 95th
Rifles? After answering in the affirmative, the first words he spoke
were, 'Oh, Harris! do you remember what happened to me at Salamanca?'

"'I do well,' I said.

"'I was never guilty,' he continued. 'There is no occasion for me
to deny it now; but I tell you that I was never guilty of the crime
for which I suffered. Baker was a villain, and I believe that he was
himself the culprit.'

"I recollect Marshal Beresford making a speech on the subject of the
buttons of our greatcoats; and, however such a subject may appear
trifling for a general officer to speak on, I can tell you it was a
discourse which our men (some of them) much needed; for they had been
in the habit of tearing off the buttons from their coats, and after
hammering them flat, passing them as English coin, in exchange for
the good wines of Spain. So that, at last, the Spaniards, finding
they got nothing by the exchange but trumpery bits of battered lead,
and the children in that country not being in the habit of playing at
dumps as ours are, they made complaints to the Marshal. Halting the
brigade, therefore, one day, he gave them a speech upon this fraud,
and ended by promising a handsome flogging to the first man he found
thereafter whose greatcoat would not keep buttoned in windy weather."

Of another yet more famous soldier, Napier, we get an interesting glimpse in Harris's pages:--

"I remember meeting with General Napier before the battle of Vimiero.
He was then, I think, a major; and the meeting made so great an
impression on me that I have never forgotten him. I was posted in a
wood the night before the battle, in front of our army, where two
roads crossed each other. The night was gloomy, and I was the very
out-sentry of the British army. As I stood on my post, peering into
the thick wood around me, I was aware of footsteps approaching,
and challenged in a low voice. Receiving no answer, I brought my
rifle to the port, and bade the strangers come forward. They were
Major Napier (then of the 50th Foot, I think), and an officer of the
Rifles. The major advanced close up to me, and looked hard in my face.

"'Be alert here, sentry,' said he, 'for I expect the enemy upon us
to-night, and I know not how soon.'

"I was a young soldier then, and the lonely situation I was in,
together with the impressive manner in which Major Napier delivered
his caution, made a great impression on me, and from that hour I
have never forgotten him. Indeed, I kept careful watch all night,
listening to the slightest breeze amongst the foliage, in expectation
of the sudden approach of the French."

Of Wellington himself--then Sir Arthur Wellesley--we have a brief sketch at Vimiero:--

"I remember seeing the Duke of Wellington during the battle of
Vimiero; and in these days, when so much anxiety is displayed to
catch even a glance of that great man's figure as he gallops along
the streets of London, it seems gratifying to me to recollect seeing
him in his proper element, 'the raging and bloody field,' and I have
frequently taxed my mind to remember each action and look I caught of
him at that time.

"I remember seeing the great Duke take his hat off in the field of
Vimiero, and methinks it is something to have seen that wonderful man
even do so commonplace a thing as lift his hat to another officer in
the battle-field. We were generally enveloped in smoke and fire, and
sometimes unable to distinguish or make remarks upon what was going
on around, whilst we blazed away at our opponents; but occasionally
we found time to make our comments upon the game we were playing. Two
or three fellows near me were observing what was going on just in
the rear, and I heard one man remark, 'Here comes Sir Arthur and his
staff'; upon which I also looked back, and caught sight of him just
meeting two other officers of high rank. They all uncovered as they
met, and I saw the Duke, as I said (then Sir Arthur Wellesley), take
off his hat and bow to the other two. The names of the new-comers,
however they were learnt, whether from some of the men who had before
seen them, or picked up on the instant from an officer, seemed to
be well known, as well as the business they were engaged in talking
of; for it ran along the line from one to the other that Sir Hew
Dalrymple and Sir Harry Burrard were about to take the command,
instead of Sir Arthur Wellesley, a circumstance which, of course,
could only be a random guess amongst these fellows at the moment."

The real hero of Harris's pages, however, is Craufurd, the stern and even rashly heroic leader of the Light Division, who ended his career on the great breach at Badajos. Harris came into close contact with Craufurd, studied him with a curious vividness of insight, and felt for him an admiring loyalty almost too great for words. His account of Craufurd gives us what is very rare in literature--a description of a great commander by one of the privates who trudged in the battalions he commanded. Harris, in the retreat to Vigo, saw Craufurd under conditions which might well tax to the uttermost the resources and temper of a general.

"I do not think I ever admired any man who wore the British
uniform more than I did General Craufurd. I could fill a book with
descriptions of him, for I frequently had my eye upon him in the
hurry of action. It was gratifying to me, too, to think he did not
altogether think ill of me, since he has often addressed me kindly
when, from adverse circumstances, you might have thought that he
had scarcely spirits to cheer up the men under him. The Rifles
liked him, but they also feared him, for he could be terrible when
insubordination showed itself in the ranks. 'You think, because you
are Riflemen, you may do whatever you think proper,' said he one day
to the miserable and savage-looking crew around him in the retreat
to Corunna; 'but I'll teach you the difference before I have done
with you.' I remember one evening during the retreat he detected two
men straying away from the main body; it was in the early stage of
that disastrous flight, and Craufurd knew well that he must do his
utmost to keep the division together. He halted the brigade with a
voice of thunder, ordered a drum-head court-martial on the instant,
and they were sentenced to a hundred apiece. Whilst this hasty trial
was taking place, Craufurd dismounting from his horse stood in the
midst, looking stern and angry as a worried bulldog. He did not like
retreating at all, that man.

"The three men nearest him as he stood, were Jagger, Dan Howans, and
myself. All were worn, dejected, and savage, though nothing to what
we were after a few days more of the retreat. The whole brigade were
in a grumbling and discontented mood, and Craufurd, doubtless, felt
ill-pleased with the aspect of affairs altogether.

"'D--n his eyes!' muttered Howans, 'he had much better try to get us
something to eat and drink than harass us in this way.'

"No sooner had Howans disburdened his conscience of this growl than
Craufurd, who had overheard it, turning sharply round, seized the
rifle out of Jagger's hand, and felled him to the earth with the
butt-end.

"'It was not I who spoke,' said Jagger, getting up and shaking his
head. 'You shouldn't knock me about.'

"'I heard you, sir,' said Craufurd, 'and I will bring you also to a
court-martial.'

"'I am the man who spoke,' said Howans. 'Ben Jagger never said a
word.'

"'Very well,' returned Craufurd, 'then I'll try you, sir.'

"And, accordingly, when the other affair was disposed of, Howans's
case came on. By the time the three men were tried it was too dark
to inflict the punishment. Howans, however, had got the complement
of three hundred promised to him; so Crauford gave the word to the
brigade to move on. He marched all that night on foot, and when the
morning dawned I remember that, like the rest of us, his hair, beard,
and eyebrows were covered with the frost, as if he had grown white
with age. We were, indeed, all of us in the same condition. Scarcely
had I time to notice the appearance of morning before the general
once more called a halt--we were then on the hills. Ordering a square
to be formed, he spoke to the brigade, as well as I can remember, in
these words, after having ordered the three before-named men of the
95th to be brought into the square:--

"'Although,' said he, 'I should obtain the goodwill neither of the
officers nor the men of the brigade here by so doing, I am resolved
to punish these three men according to the sentence awarded, even
though the French are at our heels. Begin with Daniel Howans.'

"This was indeed no time to be lax in discipline, and the general
knew it. The men, as I said, were some of them becoming careless and
ruffianly in their demeanour, whilst others again I saw with the
tears falling down their cheeks from the agony of their bleeding
feet, and many were ill with dysentery from the effects of the bad
food they had got hold of and devoured on the road. Our knapsacks,
too, were a bitter enemy on this prolonged march. Many a man died, I
am convinced, who would have borne up well to the end of the retreat,
but for the infernal load we carried on our backs. My own knapsack
was my bitterest enemy; I felt it press me to the earth almost at
times, and more than once felt as if I should die under its deadly
embrace. The knapsacks, in my opinion, should have been abandoned at
the very commencement of the retrograde movement, as it would have
been better to have lost them altogether, if, by such loss, we could
have saved the poor fellows who, as it was, died strapped to them on
the road.

"There was some difficulty in finding a place to tie Howans up, as
the light brigade carried no halberts. However, they led him to a
slender ash tree which grew near at hand.

"'Don't trouble yourself about tying me up,' said Howans, folding his
arms, 'I'll take my punishment like a man!'

"He did so without a murmur, receiving the whole three hundred.
His wife, who was present with us, I remember, was a strong, hardy
Irishwoman. When it was over, she stepped up and covered Howans
with his grey greatcoat. The general then gave the word to move on.
I rather think he knew the enemy was too near to punish the other
two delinquents just then; so we proceeded out of the corn-field in
which we had been halted, and toiled away upon the hills once more,
Howans's wife carrying the jacket, knapsack, and pouch, which the
lacerated state of the man's back would not permit him to bear.

"It could not have been, I should think, more than an hour after the
punishment had been inflicted upon Howans, when the general again
gave the word for the brigade to halt, and once more formed them
into a square. We had begun to suppose that he intended to allow the
other two delinquents to escape, under the present difficulties and
hardships of the retreat. He was not, however, one of the forgetful
sort, when the discipline of the army under him made severity
necessary.

"'Bring out the other two men of the 95th,' said he, 'who were tried
last night.'

"The men were brought forth accordingly, and their
lieutenant-colonel, Hamilton Wade, at the same time stepped forth.
He walked up to the general, and lowering his sword, requested that
he would forgive these men, as they were both of them good soldiers,
and had fought in all the battles of Portugal.

"'I order you, sir,' said the general, 'to do your duty. These men
shall be punished.'

"The lieutenant-colonel, therefore, recovering his sword, turned
about, and fell back to the front of the Rifles. One of the men,
upon this (I think it was Armstrong), immediately began to unstrap
his knapsack, and prepare for the lash. Craufurd had turned about
meanwhile, and walked up to one side of the square. Apparently he
suddenly relented a little, and, again turning sharply around,
returned towards the two prisoners. 'Stop,' said he. 'In consequence
of the intercession of your lieutenant-colonel, I will allow you thus
much: you shall draw lots and the winner shall escape; but one of the
two I am determined to make an example of.'

"The square was formed in a stubble-field, and the sergeant-major of
the Rifles, immediately stooping down, plucked up two straws, and the
men coming forward, drew. I cannot be quite certain, but I think it
was Armstrong who drew the longest straw, and won the safety of his
hide; and his fellow-gamester was in quick time tied to a tree, and
the punishment commenced. A hundred was the sentence; but when the
bugler had counted seventy-five, the general granted him a further
indulgence, and ordered him to be taken down and to join his company.
The general calling for his horse, now mounted for the first time for
many hours; for he had not ridden all night, not indeed since the
drum-head court-martial had taken place. Before he put the brigade
in motion again, he gave us another short specimen of his eloquence,
pretty much, I remember, after this style:--

"'I give you all notice,' said he, 'that I will halt the brigade
again the very first moment I perceive any man disobeying my orders,
and try him by court-martial on the spot.' He then gave us the word,
and we resumed our march.

"Many who read this, especially in these peaceful times, may suppose
this was a cruel and unnecessary severity under the dreadful and
harassing circumstances of that retreat; but I, who was there, and
was, besides, a common soldier of the very regiment to which these
men belonged, say it was quite necessary. No man but one formed
of stuff like General Craufurd could have saved the brigade from
perishing altogether; and if he flogged two, he saved hundreds from
death by his management.

"It was perhaps a couple of days after this had taken place that we
came to a river. It was tolerably wide, but not very deep, which was
just as well for us; for, had it been deep as the dark regions, we
must have somehow or other got through. The avenger was behind us,
and Craufurd was along with us, and the two together kept us moving,
whatever was in the road. Accordingly, into the stream went the light
brigade, and Craufurd, as busy as a shepherd with his flock, riding
in and out of the water, to keep his wearied band from being drowned
as they crossed over. Presently he spied an officer who, to save
himself from being wet through, I suppose, and wearing a damp pair
of breeches for the remainder of the day, had mounted on the back of
one of his men. The sight of such a piece of effeminacy was enough
to raise the choler of the general, and in a very short time he was
plunging and splashing through the water after them both.

"'Put him down, sir! put him down! I desire you to put that officer
down instantly!' And the soldier, in an instant, I dare say nothing
loath, dropping his burden like a hot potato into the stream,
continued his progress through. 'Return back, sir,' said Crauford to
the officer, 'and go through the water like the others. I will not
allow my officers to ride upon the men's backs through the rivers;
all must take their share alike here.'

"Wearied as we were, this affair caused all who saw it to shout
almost with laughter, and was never forgotten by those who survived
the retreat.

"General Craufurd was indeed one of the few men who was apparently
created for command during such dreadful scenes as we were familiar
with in this retreat. He seemed an iron man; nothing daunted
him--nothing turned him from his purpose. War was his very element,
and toil and danger seemed to call forth only an increasing
determination to surmount them. I was sometimes amused with his
appearance, and that of the men around us; for, the Rifles being
always at his heels, he seemed to think them his familiars. If he
stopped his horse, and halted to deliver one of his stern reprimands,
you would see half-a-dozen lean, unshaven, shoeless, and savage
Riflemen, standing for the moment leaning upon their weapons, and
scowling up in his face as he scolded; and when he dashed the spurs
into his reeking horse, they would throw up their rifles upon their
shoulders and hobble after him again. He was sometimes to be seen
in the front, then in the rear, and then you would fall in with
him again in the midst, dismounted, and marching on foot, that the
men might see he took an equal share in the toils which they were
enduring. He had a mortal dislike, I remember, to a commissary. Many
a time have I heard him storming at the neglect of those gentry;
when the men were starving for rations, and nothing but excuses
forthcoming.

"Twice I remember he was in command of the light brigade. The second
time he joined them he made, I heard, something like these remarks,
after they had been some little time in Spain:--

"'When I commanded you before,' he said, 'I know full well that you
disliked me, for you thought me severe. This time I am glad to find
there is a change in yourselves.'"